Post originally by JRM at 2004-06-19 09:14:37
Converted from Phorums BB System

As for GMs losing creative authority of their world. From the little I've seen of TRoS, it gives the GM as much authority as most systems - The Seneschal Is Always Right, as the rulebook says. To me, the issue is more that there are types of adventure that player-centric rules are a hindrance to, such as investigative / mystery plots, where the GM has to "play their cards close to their chests", so to speak. In my view, being a world-centric GM is about mapping out the local terrain, how the communities work, the goals of important characters and how they hope to achieve them, plus whatever interesting situations they'd like the players to run into. But you have to adapt these to the players' actions, otherwise you might as well be railroading them. I admit I often "plot out" how I'd like the game to run, but only in general terms. The key to my most successful games has been ad-libbing from well worked out characters / situations. I have run a few heavily plot-driven games in my time, and sometimes lack vitality. They can be alright if they're "roller-coaster rides" where the players are caught up in the momentum, but if it slows down and they realize they've got no real influence on the plot, then they often lose interest.

One reason SAs and world-centric games might not mix is that they could enhance that "the game universe revolves around the PCs" feeling that sometimes crops up, where nothing seems to be happen in the rest of the gameworld. That's not too much of a problem if there are enough incidental events to indicate "life goes on" apart from the PCs.

SA-like mechanisms could work in some sorts of world-centric games. I once toyed with the idea of getting some people together on a "campaign building" game where each person would "play" either a small nation / tribe or leaders of a nation or large organisation, like an invading army. The idea was more regular RPG sessions would run in parallel to this background, so rather than having the GM (in this case, me) saying "Lord muck-a-muck is offering 3,000 in gold to do this" or whatever, the players would decide "the tribal council will send its greatest braves to three pines valley to fight these strangers from across the sea" (where the strangers actions would be suggested one of the players). I didn't go as far as fleshing out any rules for this, since none of the gamers I knew seemed to be particularly interested in it. At the time I was thinking of doing it something like the Birthright rules - although this was about a year before they actually came out - but that approach seemed too cumbersome. Universalis looks like it could be a good way to do something like this, based on the rpg.net review. I suppose that would make it more a story-building session than a RPG. One problem with this approach was that if you have "movers and shakers" as well as the traditional "heroic adventurers" in the same campaign, you may have conflict of interests - like a nation giving all its spare gold to a "favourite subject" who happens to be a PC, and the like. I also sort about having the gamers divided into two groups, each playing the actions of rival countries, but when they play regular adventures their characters are working for the other side.

Anyway, getting back to the point. I suggest SAs can be of use in a world-centric game when the SA users are "movers & shakers" in the world. For example, you could have a guildmaster with SAs "break the Vakmir's monopoly on blue steel" or the like.