RE: New Geleians have landed!

[Steve Ames <steve@ns1.cioe.com>]

> This does, however, bring to front a very important issue.  That is the issue of
> GM integrity.  Whether it happened or not, many non-Centralia players felt
> that there was a lot of 'back-scratching' involved amongst the moderators who
> also played in the Centralia campaign.  Heck, for that matter, I've heard that
> the same fears arose during the original Sylvan Isles campaign, but at least
> in that campaign, the instance of a person moderating that also had a character
> in the setting was almost singularly unique.  In Centralia, practically all of the
> moderators had characters in the setting and thus the public opinion was formed
> that there must be something fishy going on.  

Actually I think you have it kind of backward. Just about every Centralia
player also moderated the setting. We encouraged this. There is a lack of
good GM-ing material and we encouraged anyone with a little talent to
practice it. All of the players were the experienced players that are
necessary to bring a GM along.

I must be pretty immuned to rumors overall. I never heard any back
scratching rumors about the sylvan isles _OR_ Centralia. I heard talk
of elitism and power mongering about both settings :) In fact just
before the Sylvan Isles dissolved there was a pretty positive light
about the setting.. it was were powerful adventurers went went Karfelon
got to small for them.

Centralia has yet to develop as positive a reputation... however
Centralia is still going. One of the reasons for the lack of good
opinion is the constant bad mouthing by people completely out of
the know. You, Lyle, being one of the biggest contributors of snickers
and rumor. Lets hear it for GM integrity. Impune on GM (or whole group
in this case) and don't you weaken us all? Grow up.

I've been the campaign coordinator for Centralia since Jody and I put 
it together.  Admittedly I've been 'in absentia' for quite a while...
We had a bunch of people who believed in the project: Jody Barr, John
Hunningford, Jeff TP, myself, Joe Gregorovich, Sean McLane, Greg Mowczko,
etc... a lot of very creative ideas were introduced into the setting
and most still remain (albeit altered by time and circumstance).

If there is back scratching I am unaware of it. Most GMs throw in 
hardships, not boons. The Centralia group of players have been hunted
down like rats, stripped of properties and titles, kicked off the
island, mind raped, geased, etc... all in the name of fun.

As much fun as I make of the magic item database it has come in handy
once or twice. There was the rumor that Centralia players were magic
heavy. The magic item database quickly pointed out that only one
centralia adventurer was in the top 10. Interesting. The average
Karfelon (at the time) adventurer had more items than any Centralia
player. Why? Karfelon has more GMs and every one of 'em trying to outdo
the other in quantity and power. The 'golden boy' had 25+ items... and
he was most definately from Karfelon.

Empirical evidence is meaningless. Everytime a Centralia player heard
this rumor we had to laugh at how hard a Centralia GM makes us work
for an item and how few we have.

This has been a really, really long rant and I'd like to end it by
saying, if you believe there is a problem, bring it to me. Rumors
do no one any good.

						-Steve