My ignorance of this topic is abundantly obvious but I felt compelled to ask about something.

Why is the GM given the authority to determine secretary and security position? The GM represents the guild to its city or commune but I don't see the relevance to the daily activities that are maintained and monitored by the GA, who are only able to appoint undersecretaries. Like the GC who can only appoint protectors but aren't given the ability to appoint security when they are the ones who deal with the protection and security of the guild.

Have I completely missed the idea of all of this?

It is to prevent a concentration of power.

Security is more of a commune security job than guild security. They get access to summoning commune guards and using discretionary powers.

The other reason is pretty much to force the different guild leaders to communicate and make deals with each other since it takes two of them agreeing get somebody appointed. And at any time one of two can pull somebody out of the position.

Security comes from protector, which only GC can appoint.

Secretary comes from undersec, which only GA can appoint.

As Kira said, it's to prevent concentration of power and foster a democratic exchange between the three leaders.

What is this democratic word? I know no such word. Stop making up words!
I'm bored.

It is similar to the reason why guilds cannot enact laws saying that only certain people can run for GM/GA/GC, like Secretaries. It balances out power and prevents one leader from locking out the others.

Go do some guild work. >_>

Except of course that the GM can refuse to promote Undersecretaries and Protectors, which get no privs that are terribly useful, which locks out a lot of the power of the Champion and Administrator.

Being able to promote to secretary/security, on the other hand, is completely worthless if the respective other part of the guild leadership doesn't appoint people first. Thus, balance.

When someone abuses their power or blocks others from using theirs, you contest them!

Hehe, that usually would make sense yeah. Or recruit someone from another guild to win so you have a candidate.

Or you cut a deal with them! If you promote Bob to secretary, I'll put Joe in as undersecretary.

That depends a little on the guild and, indeed, on the respective strengths of character of the incumbents. I have seen plenty of guildmasters who exert total control over their guilds internally and externally, with the GA in the position of number one lackey. But all guilds tend towards a balance of power between the three positions because, as you observe, office-appointment privileges are split.

Not really. The GM always represents the guild to their city or commune, that's coded into the game. It's how much power the GA lets them have that determines the rest, really, since GMs actually get relatively few guild privs comparably.

Serenwilders always find this difficult to believe, because you have a strong tradition of distinctive GA/GM roles and hierarchical parity.

But, speaking as a simultaneous member of lots of guilds, the hard-coding makes very little difference in the right circumstances: if the GA regards the GM as being in charge, then it really makes no odds because whether the GM can type the command or not if he can tell the GA to do it and it happens.

The hard-coding is only relevant when the GA wants to exert his authority, because it enables him to do so; but if there is a culture of GA dormatting or just a very dominant GM, then it's not an issue - the determinative factors are then guild culture and psychology.

That's just an expansion of what I said, really. The quote was "The GM represents the guild to the city/commune" and I was refuting the implication that this is not always true. What varies the extent to the which the GA allows itself to be overrun by the GM. I haven't seen any examples of the GA representing the guild on the org council, except perhaps in cases where the GM is inactive.

Ah. Yes. We are definitely on the same hymn sheet then. I have significantly impaired reading comprehension today.

It's the weather, it's been sunny, sunlight is a strange thing here.

It brings up a question I've had, though. Why do people want to push all the power into GM? Is it just a power grab? Is it (still) a leftover from Achaea and other games? In my experience, it's too much hassle sometimes with the powers split, let alone if you consolidate. I've avoided even running for a GA because of the burnout. Who uses a GM heavy system, and why?

The guardian guilds (besides the Institute, which for whatever reason pushes all the work onto the GA) typically want to have one person playing Pope and have them make all the important choices while making the GA be basically "head of novices" and the champ be an argument over who gets the cham pet. The mage guilds have a similar deal going on, where one person is Archmage, and the other two are just sorta blah. It doesn't help that Adom/Scuchi were archmagi, or that you need the Archmage's OK to go ahead with Xion. In my experience, the leaders of the warriors guilds are all basically interchangable and usually run the guild like a tribual and function as a disciplinary tribunal when someone gets into trouble.