Consensus vs. Individual Spheres of Influence

[timfire]

I apologize in advance, as my thoughts on this aren't very organized, but I've been thinking about it alot lately.

I've been thinking about games that are developed by some group process - be it consensus or some sort of bidding process, and games that grant players individual spheres of influence or control. I'm curious in comparing and contrasting how these methods work in play.

By 'develop' I mean introduce, modify, or control certain elements of the SIS.
By 'elements of the SIS' I mean any aspect of the environment, setting, plot, npc, etc. (Basically, anything other than PC's and PC actions).

Games that are developed by group processes - I guess Universalis is probably the obvious example. Everything in the game is developed and introduced by the players, and any player can use and modify an element introduced by another player. I suspect this type of thing is probably commonly done informally OOC.

My game the Mountain Witch grants players individual spheres of influence via character's Fates. Players may introduce any element relevent to their characters Fate. No other player can veto or modify these elements, but neither can that player veto or modify another player's Fate-related elements. I get the impression that Sorcerer's Kickers act this way to a certain degree. To my knowledge (which is still pretty limited), this type of thing is alot less common.

I'm also curious how these two methods affect the feeling of ownership and authorship over setting, story, situation, etc.

Thanks!

[Shreyas Sampat]

I'm not sure what leads you to the conclusion that "individual spheres of influence" are so uncommon. In, to take a completely random example, Exalted as I play it, or most games that do not explicitly include group ownership, each player has a very specific sphere which is sacrosanct to him, which others can only interact with along very specific avenues - the character.

[timfire]

I'm not sure what leads you to the conclusion that "individual spheres of influence" are so uncommon. In, to take a completely random example, Exalted as I play it, or most games that do not explicitly include group ownership, each player has a very specific sphere which is sacrosanct to him, which others can only interact with along very specific avenues - the character.

First, maybe my limited experience has lead to false assumptions. I'm fine with being wrong on that point. This is an example of "I've never played that way," so I assume it's not that common.

Second, I probably should have stated it more clearly in my first post, but I recognize that PC's act as a 'individual spheres of control.' I sorta view that as a given. Maybe it's relevent to discuss PC's, but I was hoping to discuss how these two methods work in play with things other than PC's.

For example. Let's say a player wants his PC to be part of a thieving guild, and he has a specific vision for the guild. Should he be the only one that can dictate facts about the guild? Or can others players add facts about the guild?

In my experience, players will often create stuff like that for their PC's, but over time, other players (most notably the GM) will add their own ideas on top of the original player's vision. Here's an example from actual play: I was playing a one-shot, and as part of chargen, I stated that my PC owned a debt to a certain loan-shark. Later in the session, the GM grabbed the idea and threw the loan-shark into the adventure. I was fine with that, I actually thought it worked out well. But when he did that, I no longer felt the loan-shark was 'my thing.'