Anything Admin PCs Can Do...

..."I can do better!"

I've heard one or another variety of this argument innumerable times during my seven years of running MUSHes - and better than a decade of playing on them.

What it comes down to is usually this: Player A looks at a spot inhabited by an admin-played PC, such as a top government official, military commander in chief or such, and opines that the admin-played character - due to inactivity, lack of visibility, lack of charisma, lack of shiny pants - should be replaced by a normal player, such as, say, Player A, who would do a super-fantastic job of running the organization, getting its members active, keeping the group visible, building charisma and, if possible, wearing shiny pants.

Sometimes I've been fool enough to agree, particularly if it's one of my own admin-played characters, and I let Player A take over. Here's the way it works out, in my experience:

- Player A does a bang-up job for a few weeks, runs events, keeps people active, and then becomes as active and visible as the admin-played PC. Ultimately, Player A, overwhelmed by the pressure of being relied upon for frequent activity, either takes a leave of absence or quits the game entirely.

- Player A does a great job as long as everything seems to be plugging along nicely for them as they build their power base and nothing happens to threaten it. But the moment something does, usually because of their own actions, they freak out, quit, take a leave of absence, complain about admin conspiracies and embark on a campaign of truth.

- Player A doesn't even get the organization off the ground before they're discouraged by slow returns on recruitment efforts. They fade out and vanish.

- Very, very, very rarely: The player proves to be so dynamic, so involved in theme and plot development, that they end up turning into a staffer themselves - and thus their own character becomes an admin-played PC. This, as I said, is incredibly rare.

Bottom line: Even if a character I happen to play isn't as active as some people might like, at least if *I* quit the game entirely, the whole place would shut down and no one would really be left in the lurch to be let down and I wouldn't have to clean up after the messy departure of a PC in charge.

So, my general philosophy on top-tier management of broad organizations, such as governments and militaries is to command them with admin-played PCs who act as the voice of the organization, hand down edicts and such, while *players* carry out those orders while interacting with other players.

On TOS TrekMUSE, back in the days when I was just a player, I never saw the Starfleet Fleet Admiral. Well, that's not true. I saw him on special occasions. But my character was commander on a starship, answerable to the fleet brass but supervising about six or seven other players. I didn't sit around waiting for the Fleet Admiral to tell me what to do. We went on patrols, ran plots, had all kinds of adventures. I didn't bug people to put me in charge of Starfleet because I was active and motivational. I was happy as hell to just have the good reputation for storytelling and RP-generation that put other groups to shame.

That's how I think players can establish themselves best as leaders on games like this. Even a shadowy cutpurse with a den of thieves could make themselves the hit sensation of our games. So, worry less about getting a cushy spot occupied by an admin PC and focus more on how to make yourself stand out without a poofy title.