I've always been a little bit confused about the position of guild administrator as compare to guildmaster in the triad of guild leadership.

I always assumed that guildmasters dealt mostly with external things, that is, the city and the rest of the world. Specifically by sitting on the council, that kind of guild representation thing, and also dealt, perhaps, with how the guild chooses to represent itself to the world as a whole.

I believed that administrators generally dealt with all internal affairs, that is, novices, internal policies and laws, problem solving, contests, that kind of thing.

However, my experience has been that guildmasters in Lusternia still seem to attempt to take the role that was assigned in other IRE games. That is, leading the guild as a whole and generally directing internal and external workings, while administrators were doing... well... what were they doing? Feeling darn useless in some cases.

I'd be happy to see administrators take the role I feel they are intended to have, so that the triad of leadership is a true triad, each of the three members taking on their own burden of equal weight, rather than the guildmaster over all and one member fighting a lot and the other sort of sitting around and writing random help files.

If my idea is not how the three leadership roles were intended, I'd like to be corrected. Otherwise I'd like to see discussion of what others believe the three roles should be, and of what guilds that I may not have experience with have been doing.

I'm of the opinion that what you said is quite correct. Admin=internal, Gm=external, Champion=killy killy.

The Moondancer GA always has (the current GA and previous GA) managed/delegated (as a GA should do; micromanagement is horrible) internal affairs such as relations, knowledge, growth, etc. Our GM has also always, as far as I can see, been the spokesperson for the Guild and dealt with outsiders, making executive decisions when needed.

Yeah, our GA's both did awesome work. Althana does a pretty good job too, I think.

Perhaps you just haven't seen a forceful Administrator. It certainly is set-up that an Administrator can have quite a bit of weight and pull within the guild. If the Administrator sets his or her mind to something, especially in regards to novice programs and undersecretaries (who are the potential secretaries), the Guildmaster won't be able to do much to change it. Again, it's up to the Administrator whether or not to be a forceful presence within a guild, and a Guildmaster who is used to 'running things' may have some unpleasant surprises if the Administrator proves to be outspoken and strong willed.

That being said, there is no doubt that the Guildmaster holds the most prestigious and prominent of the elected guild offices, and it is certainly understandable if an Administrator defers somewhat to the Guildmaster, if only for the sake of guild unity.

I know a very forceful Administor

Um...are you sure about that first bit? Skyla is the administrator, and she couldn't fire me from my secretarial position, I had to ask Merloch to do it.

The Administrators appoint Undersecretaries, though, and the Guildmaster has to make those into Secretaries. If the Guildmaster wants someone as Secretary, but the Administrator refuses to appoint them to Undersecretary, then they can't become a Secretary.

But both the Admin -and- Gm are supposed to be able to remove secretaries, is how I thought it was supposed to work.

Well, unless it was a temporary bug (to be fair, about 10 different attempts to promote me to undersecretary ended up with a new security member at the time, so something was obviously screwy) they can't...

I personally see the GM sort of like how US presidents were intended in the early history of the states. The articles of the Constitution primarily give him powers of war, diplomacy, treaty making, etc.; things which are outward facing. The first presidents in their inaugural addresses made strong emphasis on the fact that they will manage foreign affairs and govern domestic affairs lightly, primarily defering to the Congress or the state governments. Indeed I think the second president was unelected for governing too heavily domestically. That changed because, especially post Civil War, the American people wanted presidents that focused heavily on domestic governance and so voted for them. That also seems to hold true here: if a GM is heavyhanded internally then it is because the people want to elect a heavyhanded GM. Using the US government as an example, it would be interesting to see what happens if an admin tries to counter a GM, like Congress blocking judicial nominations, overriding presidential vetos, and withholding declarations of war to neuter a president they don't like. Could a disaffected admin launch a successful political attack campaign against a GM for "overstepping his realm of authority", or would the populace always gravitate to having one chief figurehead for all things? Ahh... The dirty game of politics! Time to go read Machiavelli again...

*point me*

Jefferson would be the first president to actually deal heavily with foriegn affairs (French Revelution {one of'em} and the Barbary Pirates.) The next one was Madison, with Madi's war, (1812, or English get thrashed by a force less then 1/8th their size part II.)

No President would really deal with much Foreign Affairs until Jackson and Polk, both with Mexico, then another long pause until McKinley and Spain, then TR went Foriegn Affair Crazy, Taft pulled back a bit, but WWI threw us back in again... then WWII really pulled us back once more, and everyone knows what happened after that...

What this points out is that the President really didn't have an outward looking job, but his job was what his branch is called. Executive. He makes final decisions on how the Nation is run for the most part, of course the Congress can over rule him, but...

Also note, most of the Executive Branch is appointed to deal with Internal Affairs... even back then. (Back then most of it was the Postal Service.)

The President really has a wide overview of powers and responsiblities... just my two cents...

I was using it as an analogy only. I'm actually not too converent with what they actually did, but I was bored last month so decided to read all their innaugural addresses. The early ones I think often said they would be hands-off for most internal stuff, though that doesn't mean they spoke out both sides of their mouth and did the opposite after getting elected. Then when they started subsidizing railroads they spoke openly of their plans for internal control. But anyway...

An aspiring politician may want to look at that or, better yet, John Locke's writings for possible political models. I think John Locke broke up the president into exactly what we have here: an internal guy who also sorted of acted like a judicial in arbitrating internal disputes, and an external guy with foreign affairs. An aspiring admin trying to usurp internal power from a GM through popular support of the people may find very useful rhetoric on why it is a bad thing for a nation (or guild) to have one person deal with both internal disputes and external diplomacy. It's in his 2nd Treatise on government. Message me if you want the exact chapter and I'll look it up for you on-line.

I wonder if by the time daganev is 80 he'll learn how to read and write so I can try some of that stuff.... damn!

I love American politics, but there is no boredom possible that would compulse me to do that.

GO find your theme tune Shiroliscious, it's in a topic floating somewhere, find it through my post history

The Executive Branch of American Government was meant to, y'know, -execute- and carry out the law. But humans always want a person they can peg as their leader.

P.S. Isn't Machiavelli a brilliant man, Roark? Ever looked at his biography?