I agree. The problem is though, as already mentioned by others, long term retention. We have seen the problems caused by agreements that Vates apparently made with people but, as I knew nothing about them, can do nothing about them. It would be easy to get someone keen and eager to help out for a while. It's not so easy to ensure they will stay around and not just end up frustrating people by leaving things half done.
As has been noted by several people, most of this discussion is just going nowhere. As much as I would like to believe that debating most of the points with you further might ultimately lead to some reflections which might improve gameplay in the future, I just don't, not on this particular issue. So I am not going to make a detailed reply to most of your post; again, not out of angry frustration, but basically because I don't think it'll be productive
However, this comment can be productively dissected.
It begs the question: why do we even
want long-term GMs? We don't need to have the same human player be ruler for 5 years IRL, why have the same GM?
Why not have, say, 4 or 5 GMs. They take shifts. 2 or 3 play at a time, for a few months. Then, they have to "return to the underworld" to rejuvenate themselves or something. Like, Dwilight's air is toxic or something. I dunno. Some kind of RPed hand-waving.
Thus, you could have less monolithic GMing, more diverse RPing, less burden on GMs, and solve the problem of inconsistent GMing.
What? Solve inconsistent GMing by introducing divisiveness among GMs? How?
Simple:
1. Don't let the GMs know each others' main accounts. So, for example, if Chénier and I are GMs, don't have it so that, if we send an OOC message, it says "Lyman Stone." Sure, we might figure it out... but maybe not.
2. When people realize that the GMs ARE IN FACT DIVIDED, it will alter the entire strategic framework for the parts of Dwilight affected by the Zuma. That is, the problem with inconsistent GMing is
that GMs are generally expected to be consistent. But what if we change the expectation? A plausible way to change that expectation while simultaneously fixing several other root problems with the Zuma would be to have a rotating pool of GMs with overlapping "terms" so they can kind of see what's going on with each other. The RP potential would also be awesome. "Ah, yes, it's the Era of Haktoo now... (3 months later)... ah, behold, fire from the volcano, the Era of Vates is beginning..." And, knowing that each Daimon has fairly consistent personalities, but that they might plausibly be played against each other, would help to add some of the dynamism the Zuma currently lack.
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