Forked Thread: Why the World Exists [GM-less Gaming]

[Ariosto]

A GM-less worldbuilding/storytelling game is fine. It's just not what I would call a role-playing game. I don't think it would be helpful to confuse the issue by claiming that there's no difference when the difference is the point. Unless your PCs are extremely unusual, limited information is part of their human (or whatever) condition. Even in a comicbook superhero game, limited ability to shape the world is intrinsic to the role.

 

[jim pinto]

The beauty of free advice is that anyone can use these ideas, ignore them, or go off on tangents about syntax.



That said, I'd be curious to know what you define roleplaying game. I have this conversation with people a lot. And come to find out, a lot of people have been engaging in simulations and not really roleplaying.

I'm not trying to get into a lexicon war, but the advice I've posted today certainly fits into the spectrum of rpg, it just may seem very foreign to people who've grown comfortable with the way they do things.

ASIDE: A lot of people tend to shrug their shoulders at gaming advice. Which I find sort of funny. The number one response is always, my group doesn't have those problems. "Well then. I guess they don't exist anywhere at all, then."

It's fine for someone to choose to ignore gaming advice, but it's short-sighted to assume that it's not useful to someone. Posting that it's not useful to you is the same as not posting at all.

What I was hoping for was theoretical discussion on the pros and cons of this system, not on the merits of whether or not I write a convincing introduction.

 

[SabreCat]

A GM-less worldbuilding/storytelling game is fine. It's just not what I would call a role-playing game. ... Unless your PCs are extremely unusual, limited information is part of their human (or whatever) condition.

In many GM-less worldbuilding/storytelling games, you still play roles of characters who have limited information and limited world-changing power. The player has substantial abilities to define or change the setting with the consensus of the group, but the character only has those powers and knowledge appropriate to their part in the story.

It does mean you have to shift gears more often (and you always already do to some extent, whether it's when rolling dice or getting up to go to the bathroom) between metagame headspace and character-perspective headspace. Many players prefer to stay in the character's perspective as much as possible, and those players might find setting collaboration intrusive. But folks who are cool with flipping back and forth can totally dig a GM-less game and still play roles to the hilt.

I think it'd be tricky to pull off a 100% GM-less D&D4, but, say, Polaris? Blazing Rose? GM-less, check, strong character identification/perspective, check.

 

[Crothian]

Pro: It hopefully gets everyone at the table more inviolved in the game. It can show off the different strengths creatively of the people at the table. ?It does not depend on one person having a good night for everyone to have fun. If I'm having an off night creativity the rest of the guys can equally pick up the slack.

Con: It's a lot harder to do this and takes more comitment and trust of the other people at the table. It can be tougher to deal with problems that arise from this as there is no one person in charge.

I like the idea but it is something I would only try with certain gamers. I've played games that are like this and more then not they do not work as well simply because of lack of ability or understanding of the players involved. I've never played in a good con game that has tried to do this.

 

[pawsplay]

One of the jobs of the GM is to surprise the players. To be fair, but also, maybe sometimes, to be unfair. To challenge. To amuse and inspire. It is simply not possible to surprise yourself.

I am all for delegation and for taking player suggestions, but the job of a GM is to fulfill certain things that cannot be supplied by the players. The GM provides a world. If the entire game world is distributed amongst the players, there is basically no world. Instead, you have statements from the players about what they wish. Stating, "The inn is full of seedy characters," is no longer a weave in the game's reality, but a move, a narration, a suggestion.

You can certainly have a group of players who all narrate for each other and provide surprise. But I would not describe that as having no GM or simply unpacking the GM's duties. It's basically the same as having multiple GMs. And it only works if the GMs are all basically competent. Further, you end up in a situation where a game has no PCs, only NPCs.

The purpose of an RPG is not merely story-weaving. The interactional element is important, too. A PC is an avatar of a personal intention by the player. The PC is not the player, but they reflect their will and provide a character in the game who will be their viewpoint, their locus of interest, their being because of a reason.

Without a GM, the game ceases to be about the PCs and becomes about the players.

 

[SabreCat]

pawsplay, I just have to say you should try one of the GM-less games on the market sometime. The things you say are at odds (interaction vs. narration, "about the PCs" vs. "about the players") don't stand as opposed to one another as you might think, in play.

 

[Lanefan]

In another example, one of the PCs decides to do something so stupid and inane (set off a fireball in a tavern, for instance), that the obvious ramifications of this action can be felt two houses over, where people don't even know what D&D is. The campaign has now run aground, but for very different reasons. Three of the characters are found culpable in the act, sentenced to death, and replaced with new PCs. The other characters now have to either figure out how they know these new PCs and/or ignore the obvious logic flaw of just having a new wizard in the party and/or leave it to the GM to explain away.

Hardly seems fair, right?

A vocal minority might say, well the GM gets more fun out of the game, so he should do most of the work. To you, I say, "you're wrong."

Another minority might say, that sounds like my group. And to you, I say, "you're a jerk."

Compliment duly noted; for I'm in that "minority", and I suspect it's bigger than you think.

Another segment of the populace might say, "yeah, we've got those guys at our game table, too."

The list goes on.

Now. Imagine we decide we want to solve this problem. Because, wasting 30+ hours on a game to have someone ruin it, is a problem. If you're a PC that doesn't think this sucks, please do not post. If you're a GM who feels my pain, continue reading.

I'm a GM who doesn't think this sucks, so I guess I fail on both counts.

That said...

One of the jobs of the GM is to surprise the players. To be fair, but also, maybe sometimes, to be unfair. To challenge. To amuse and inspire. It is simply not possible to surprise yourself.

Pawsplay absolutely nails it here. The deal-breaker for me, before any other considerations even get looked at, would be the near-complete loss of both fluff and crunch mystery in the game world. How can you not know anything about the ruling family of the Empire of Evilness when you just got done helping design it? And how can the mechanics of a monster surprise you when you had a hand in its creation?

Your original founding assumption, that there is a problem that needs to be solved, is arguably baseless. Any half-decent DM is going to know, during all phases of world design, that the PCs might blow it all up in the first half-dozen sessions...and if they do, so what? All you as DM are left with is a group of players without a world to play in, and a whole raft of unused ideas to plow right back into your next world - which most likely will bear a striking resemblance to your last one, and thus be dirt-easy to design.

Lan-"standing up for the DMs' union"-efan

 

[jim pinto]

Pawsplay, good post. You've addressed your own concerns and walked the tightrope between the two absolutes. Well-thought out and written.

But please read the post above about some of the options on the market for shared story-telling experiences. There's plenty of room for both. Check out Vincent Baker's In a Wicked Age as the ideal model for how to do both.

ASIDE: Why is a GM only capable of surprises? Why can't the players surprise one another? Why do RPGs have to be played the same way for 30 years? Why are the only viable options for scenario design, the same tired six different plot formats that we've all been playing since Keep on the Borderlands?

My tone isn't snarky. I'm being sincere in asking you to examine those points. Because they speak directly to why most people balk at the notion of a GM-less game environment.

Your original founding assumption, that there is a problem that needs to be solved, is arguably baseless. Any half-decent DM is going to know, during all phases of world design, that the PCs might blow it all up in the first half-dozen sessions...and if they do, so what? All you as DM are left with is a group of players without a world to play in, and a whole raft of unused ideas to plow right back into your next world - which most likely will bear a striking resemblance to your last one, and thus be dirt-easy to design.

Lan-"standing up for the DMs' union"-efan

Lanefan. I think your post is exactly the sort of thinking that permeates what I call antiquated GMing. It's how you play and that's fine. If you don't like the advice of trying something new, by all means, you can ignore everything in this post.

But, I'm talking about playing your game differently.

Something the GM-Union obviously wouldn't stand for, nor would the PCs who are filled with glee as they drive their wrecking ball play style through the well-thought out game world designed by your GM.

Your somewhat "cynical" final paragraph strikes me as the exact thing I pegged as unappreciated. The GM is not the PC's personal maid, left to clean up the detritus of their shoddy and disrespectful play style. This trope survives as bad jokes and puns in dozens of online comics. And because the tone is always passive-aggressive, the reader-gamer who is being singled out in the joke laughs at it, thinking his antics are being lauded, when in actuality, there are people that wish he'd knock it the &#$! off.

We read awesome fiction by PirateCat on Enworld and wonder… why can't our games be that good… and then we realize… wait… his players don't treat him like a doormat and are vested in the success of a truly epic journey… instead of a hackneyed punchline.

This post isn't for the people who crap in their own game worlds and call it pudding.

This post is for the people who have (other) people crapping in their game world and want it to stop.

 

[jim pinto]

It's basically the same as having multiple GMs.

And here's the only flaw I see in your post.

Because it's not BASICALLY the same as having multiple GMs. It's a table filled with GMs, all vested in the game world, all dedicated to make the play experience good for EVERYONE, not just their own personal glory of finding the magical broom of Iuz.

[PAUSE]

I run a 12-hour marathon game at my local con. It's a complicated revenge story that requires about maybe six die rolls altogether. Less, if the PCs don't get hung up on certain things. More, if they get in a fight. But, we'll call the average six.

In this story, each player is given a 20-page handout (to take home as a present for playing) that details the world they just went through. They also get a six-page character sheet that details each fully rendered character, none of which is some poorly scripted stereotype ripped from the previously poorly scripted stereotype.

In fact, each character has a valuable reason for being in that game, determined to wreck some vengeance on the villain.

Good players that get invested, walk away stunned at the depth and width of the drama in this story. [And even thought it's a one-shot convention game where dying in a blaze of glory in the soup du jour, the players sit down for this marathon game and never once complain about the length of complexity.]

I'm not a greenhorn GM. I know it's a good adventure. I know what makes it good. Even though it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn, I'm trying to make a point.

The mark of a good GM is many, many things. But a key ingredient is making the PCs feel invested.

If you want to add, SURPRISES to the list of job duties that a GM must undertake to run a game, I will add another task… INVESTMENT. I'm more than willing to expand the logic of my theory and treat like some living compendium of advice and opinion about GM-less gaming.

But, I don't agree that sharing the responsibility is "basically" the same as having a single GM.

 

[Crothian]

This post is for the people who have (other) people crapping in their game world and want it to stop.

I'm with you until this. Even in a GMless game people can still crap on the game world, I at least I have not seen a game that prevents problem players (players that crap on anything I term as problem players) from being problems.

I would also not call the older style antiquated. It might be old (though I'm getting close to the age where I'm uncomfortable calling something only 40 years old old ) but it still works and it works very well. It might not work for everyone, but nothing ever does.