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

[Korgoth]

Korgath. I respect this point of view. And I actually like gaming this way once in a while. Part of my contention about the "experience and discovery" model is that too often PCs take advantage of a GMs hard work and instead of making his job more enjoyable, they pull the fireball trick for no reason other than to do it.

Even if you only play the cooperative model ONCE, players can become more invested in what it is that drives the to game. I know there's no cure for "bad players" and/or "bad GMs" (defined by whatever lexicon you like), but I think experimentation is what made D&D even "happen" as a concept. To assume there's only one way to do it… well… that's like the people who love taking advantage of the technological exploits of Edison, but could care less how he did it.

And I don't want to be that guy, either.

Here's a question for you, Korgath... Would you ever try this style of play? Even for just a couple sessions?

First, I'll illustrate what I'm talking about. I run Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) and right now the players are exploring the megadungeon beneath the city of Jakalla. On level 2, there happens to be a temple ("The Fortress of Inexorable Ruin") of the chaotic god of fire.

That temple was put there as a location, just like many other locations. Now as it happens, the group contains a priest of this fire god and an enthusiastic initiate of this god as well. That was just player choice when the charactes were made. So instead of looting this temple (and this party are avid looters), they ended up getting jobs there! This was not my intention... I had not intention. I set up the world and they interact with it.

Likewise, on level 2 there is a particular wizard's tomb reputed to contain a text of great power. The text is associated with a powerful and secretive god that some in the party fear. So while they had the opportunity to take a job to retrieve this text (and, incidentally, probably get cheated out of its full monetary value) they decided not to do so. The tomb is in a part of level 2 they have not explored, although there is a deep pit on level 1 that they have seen (but have not explored) that not only leads to the tomb, it bypasses its demonic guardian! Perhaps they will never go there... perhaps another party will end up going there some time.

Which is to say... the game (at this stage, at least) is about the Jakalla Underworld. That underworld exists virtually and it is there for players (these players or any others) to interact with. It has a sense of reality to them... it is not just made up as we go along. There is in fact a "there" there, even if the world is just a made up fantasy on graph and notebook paper, i.e. it is virtual.

Now, on GM-less games... I have tried something which was close: My Life With Master. That game does technically have a GM, but it is very much based on players narrating individual scenes. I found it a most pointless, boring and dreary experience. I have no interest in everbody just sitting there spinning a yarn. I don't care about the yarn, I don't care about Frizzit Von Durden's tortured pathos, and I don't want to hear a soliloquy.

If you give me a room split by a dark, yawning crevasse then I'll decide if I want to explore it. If I do, tell me what's down there. Nothing? No bottom? Bats? Tsathoggua? A river? But don't just make it up as you go along. To me it's only a game if the content of the world is at least provisionally laid down beforehand... that's what makes my decision to ignore, avoid or delve the crevasse meaningful.

 

[jim pinto]

First, I'll illustrate what I'm talking about. I run Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) and right now the players are exploring the megadungeon beneath the city of Jakalla. On level 2, there happens to be a temple ("The Fortress of Inexorable Ruin") of the chaotic god of fire.

Fantastic world. There's a reason it's still around.

Now. Onto your post. I'm reading a lot of opinion and feeling about what you like. Which is important, of course. You'd never watch a TV show about people who polish chrome bumpers.

Assuming you like the show, would you watch Battlestar Gallactica if it were told out of order? if it had 100 characters? If there was no obvious leader? No moral compass? People died often? If a character did something really stupid and it was never explained why? If someone all of a sudden decided he liked the psylons, when there was no mention of it before?

Modern shows like Deadwood, Sopranos, and BG do something that 80s and 90s television never would have. They tell stories in their own sandboxes, toying with the audience and never feeling the need to rush to resolutions. Some "symptoms" can linger for several episodes, without pause. Deadwood, especially, keeps you guessing what is coming next… making you ache for resolution.

As you can imagine, it's my favorite TV show of all time.

Life with Master is a good indie game, but it's not great. Dogs in the Vineyard and Burning Wheel are more my speed. They involve levels of detail and many GMless facets (although neither is GMless) that make me feel much more invested than a typical RPG would. Life with Master is more board game than RPG, anyway.

By the way, you would hate George's Children (written by me and beautifully illustrated by Jon Hodgson).

But, if you're not interested in pathos or internal conflict or any of a hundred "darker" tropes, then yes... the GMless model is not for you and the act of discovery is more your speed.

If we ever sat down and chatted at a con, I'd probably argue with your about definition of roleplaying as well… but that's not for another time.



Thanks again for the post.

 

[Ariosto]

SabreCat:

(First). Your apparent argument is that cheating is okay as long as the cheater does not get caught. Wherefore play games in the first place?

If I don't want to play a game, then I have no need for the (supposed) rules, the number crunching, the dice rolls. Wheel out that apparatus, and you're claiming that we're going to play a game. No, I do not like getting played for a rube!

(Second). It's a matter of degree. I am happy as a clam not to deal with any game-mechanical information. It's not that I can't pretend "not to know" world/plot-line information -- it's that I usually don't want to do that in an RPG any more than practically necessary. When I want to deal with things beyond my character's knowledge or control, I want to limit them to matters defining the role or at least qualitatively within its purview (even if the quantified data is unrealistically precise).

In a story-telling game, by contrast, dealing with matters removed from a role is the point of the exercise. That's why the "GM-less" approach is so well suited to it!

Again, we're treating two different kinds of experience. Why one should want to deny that they are different is beyond me.

 

[SabreCat]

(First). Your apparent argument is that cheating is okay as long as the cheater does not get caught. Wherefore play games in the first place?

I was more trying to figure out what counted as cheating for you. You and Korgoth fervently answered that--there has to be verifiable stuff behind the GM's screen, or else the GM is cheating.

I'm a little bemused that small pieces of improv are OK but doing it across-the-board is not (and I've talked to folks of similar preferences to yours who would instead be impressed at a GM who could maintain a world entirely off-the-cuff), but I at least get the perspective better now, so thanks.

(Second). It's a matter of degree. ... Again, we're treating two different kinds of experience. Why one should want to deny that they are different is beyond me.

Your first sentence there is what I've been driving at. I don't deny that the experiences differ. But I see them as different in degree or style, two points in the line or cloud of stuff called "roleplaying," whereas you see them as different in kind or type, one being roleplaying and the other not being roleplaying at all.

Add that to my mention earlier of the disenfranchising feel of having what I identify as being part of my favorite hobby, "roleplaying," be denied as roleplaying, and perhaps you can see some of where I'm coming from?

 

[Ariosto]

If improvisation were in itself such a rare ability as to be impressive, then it might not make so much sense to make it a prerequisite for all participants (as in a GM-less game).

What might be impressive is accomplishing the "maintain a world" goal without any notes. It depends on how rich in relevant particulars the world is. A dungeon has a lot of details simply in the map. Making it up entirely off-the-cuff is not maintaining, even in a GM-less game. Suddenly relocating Seattle to Australia usually doesn't make the cut.

The choice of going in one direction or another is not a real choice (and certainly cannot be an informed one) if it makes no difference because the GM makes up the consequences after the fact.

Many details are of such little importance, so unlikely even to come up in the game, that they can be lumped in the necessary category of not worth predetermining. Does this goblin prefer ham or mutton? Exactly how many nails are part of that piece of furniture's construction? What is the name of each one of the 165,253 inhabitants of Zanzibar?

Probabilities are handy. Is there an interesting encounter on the way back to town from the dungeon? If so, then with what? A key point is that the probabilities are set before rolling the dice.

A lot of things in life are matters of degree: the difference between night and day, for instance. I was taking pains in that paragraph to avoid absolutes. I'm interested in dealing with actual experiences, not mere semantic quibbles.

Words can have different meanings to different people. I explicitly stated from the first that I was referring to the kind of RPG I like. That doesn't keep you from calling any darned thing you please an RPG, but you can have some idea of whether you're raising misleading expectations. Labeling Madonna simultaneously as "cool jazz" and "rock 'n' roll" is not going to convince me that her work is jazz or rock.

There is no shortage of opportunities to get worked up over such things. It's probably a waste of energy when the whole foundation of one's emotional attachment to a term comes from the old-timers' definition. That's a one-way street: they don't have to accept your definition to keep their own. It's untenable to claim that Gary Gygax's game was not D&D, or that it was not an RPG. So, making "validation" of your new usage dependent on everyone else agreeing is an attempt at linguistic imperialism that can only weaken your position.

Anyway, we're talking about games -- not the Nicene Creed!

 

[jim pinto]

If improvisation were in itself such a rare ability as to be impressive, then it might not make so much sense to make it a prerequisite for all participants (as in a GM-less game).

What might be impressive is accomplishing the "maintain a world" goal without any notes. It depends on how rich in relevant particulars the world is. A dungeon has a lot of details simply in the map. Making it up entirely off-the-cuff is not maintaining, even in a GM-less game. Suddenly relocating Seattle to Australia usually doesn't make the cut.

For the record, I am that GM that can maintain an entire world and 30 NPCs in my head for the duration of a campaign. My notes usually add up to a few scraps of paper that I never refer to in game. Don't believe me? Game with me and see if I break eye contact with the group.

The choice of going in one direction or another is not a real choice (and certainly cannot be an informed one) if it makes no difference because the GM makes up the consequences after the fact.

Second. Choosing left or right isn't really a choice. It's an inane decision at best. If this sort of minutia is important to a player, than no GM style is going to help you. Unless there was a rumor that said something about LEFT or RIGHT, it's the same thing as calling heads or tails. Who cares if the GM uses a nickel or a quarter to flip?

Choosing to kill or not to kill the orc prisoners is a choice. Choosing to ignore the babbling wizard because he was mean to your animal companion is a choice. Deciding to make something important to you and/or your character is a choice. Deciding if your character likes vanilla, not really relevant to how the GM scripts the world.

RPGs fail to encourage these kinds of decisions, because they lead to moral dilemmas. And it's hard to sell a game book on gray morality in a hobby filled with players who all want to be paladins.

The importance of the decision you make is as important as the thought the GM puts into it. If you decide to buy the BROWN gloves from the leatherworker (instead of the RUSSET), the GM probably shouldn't worry too much about the thickness of the padding in the palm.

 

[Ariosto]

Choosing left or right isn't really a choice. It's an inane decision at best.

It depends upon the consequences of the choice (and even in literally spatial terms, choice of direction is seldom but binary; even if so initially, decisions can keep branching). Traditional D&D is not about relying on rumors! That's the point: a real choice involves significant consequences and a reason to choose non-randomly.

 

[FireLance]

It depends upon the consequences of the choice (and even in literally spatial terms, choice of direction is seldom but binary; even if so initially, decisions can keep branching). Traditional D&D is not about relying on rumors! That's the point: a real choice involves significant consequences and a reason to choose non-randomly.

Agreed, but unless the DM has ensured that clues or other information about the possible consquences of choosing right or left are made available to the PCs, I'd say it isn't a meaningful choice. In the absence of any information that might sway the PCs' decision one way or the other, the players might as well be flipping a coin.

 

[Ariosto]

RPGs fail to encourage these kinds of decisions, because they lead to moral dilemmas.

That looks at first like a universal statement, thus including your own RPGs. I suspect that's not what you intended.

The whole paragraph comes off as sophomoric bashing of people on the basis of stereotypes and personal preferences. What on Earth has that to do with GM-less gaming?

Choosing to kill or not to kill the orc prisoners is a choice. Choosing to ignore the babbling wizard because he was mean to your animal companion is a choice. Deciding to make something important to you and/or your character is a choice.

Are those really what you consider examples of moral dilemmas -- or even of choices that don't arise in RPGs? What has this to do with GM-less gaming?

In the absence of any information that might sway the PCs' decision one way or the other, the players might as well be flipping a coin.

That is my point. That's why canny D&Ders take steps to acquire information. How are they to acquire what does not exist? If it is to be made up ad hoc and post hoc, then that is a problem. It is a problem with GMs who "fudge", and at least at first glance a situation a GM-less game is not well suited to address to the satisfaction of those who prefer more traditional challenges. It can be done to a degree if it becomes a multi-GM game, players taking turns in the position. (Secret, secret; I've got a secret -- I'm the GM now, so I'll give you clues!)

 

[SabreCat]

There is no shortage of opportunities to get worked up over such things. It's probably a waste of energy when the whole foundation of one's emotional attachment to a term comes from the old-timers' definition. That's a one-way street: they don't have to accept your definition to keep their own. It's untenable to claim that Gary Gygax's game was not D&D, or that it was not an RPG. So, making "validation" of your new usage dependent on everyone else agreeing is an attempt at linguistic imperialism that can only weaken your position.

Fair enough. You've made a strong point: the story games can't appropriate the terminology of the old school if the old school doesn't choose to give it up. (Only quibble being that I'm not sure I see what the "linguistic imperialism" snipe adds to the discussion.)

So, my final post in the thread, one final question. You've won the philosophical debate, and the emotional stuff is tangential at best, so let me take it back to the practical. Assuming I'm clear and up-front that I'm talking about a "story game" or a "GMless RPG," and this is about your opinion as one who holds the definition of RPG that you do (not e.g. a matter of admin/mod policy): are Blazing Rose, Grey Ranks, and Polaris on-topic for the General RPG forums, or not?