Ah, I see what you mean. The disparity issue. I joked a bit about this with atpollard in his PbP Traveller game. My character was the least potent in a few ways. However, due to some fun events and persistence, my character is now a political player and has some clout. He's gone from bodyguard to world rescuer in the last year of real time. In game it's just been a few weeks.
So your character is now important because of your in-game choices and actions as a player instead of features you selected in chargen? Congratulations!
Isn't role-ing more fun than roll-ing?
I may have to look for those books you mentioned. I'm trying to figure out how to play a noble. Pointers would be useful.
ACKS stand for Adventurer, Conqueror, King System. It's published by Autarch. The quickest way I can describe it is "Pocket Empires Deluxe for D&D". You start off as a fighter, magic user, cleric, etc. and work your way up leading increasing numbers of followers and controlling increasing amounts of land until you "build" your kingdom.
On the difference between reward based and consequence based, can you expand a little? I understand the words but I thought a reward would be a consequence. So maybe I don't understand quite so much.
Read Dr. Pulsipher's original post here. His blog gives you plenty of links to follow the discussion elsewhere.