[quote=Pachamac]is whether or not they're a decent, communicative person who can react to disagreements and constructive critcism well.[/quote]

^- This is the most important skill set any player can possess. You can easily teach the basics of writing, such as word control and variance or grammatical rules... And, at the end of the day, whether a character is a typical knight in shining armour or something altogether atypical, what matters is their [b]attitude[/b]. If they can take criticism on the chin, consider it without sacrificing what it is they enjoy most, work with their fellow players in collaborative plots and posts, talk to the GM about future character developments or to inquire about the plot and/or world... -That- is the best kind of player there is. There are sadly not too many of them, but alas, those are the ones you start, plan out, and finish RP's with. Everyone else is usually just along for the ride... If you're lucky. :hehe

Also...

[b]@Gwazi Magnum:[/b] The reason having a GM is "accepted culture" is because people naturally tend to congregate in groups, and typically, follow someone who has authority of some kind, through charisma or strength or intellect or other such qualities. Whether someone takes power as a dictator or a democratically elected candidate is irrelevant to that fact. [i]If you think otherwise, you ignore the real world, and its various societies and subcultures[/i]. Because last I looked, there's not one successful anarchist society on the planet. Plenty of dictatorships and democracies, though, which both have chains of command that distribute power out to what are essentially "lesser leaders" at "lesser levels" that micromanage the details while the "greater leaders" macro-manage the rest.

Also because if two players get into a fight, it's a lot easier to resolve with one person in power just saying "yeah okay that's enough of that, A, please change X, B, please do Y, both of you, please agree to Z so this won't happen again" and then committing the ritualistic execution move if either fail to do as told.