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GMs are an endangered species!
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7603187" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I'm going to go with the ever popular, "It depends." Back in the days of the early bronze age, our primitive forefathers believed there was only three reasons to play D&D. But now that we are more advanced, we know that there is not only dozens of reasons to play D&D, there are even some other RPGs out there.</p><p></p><p>The thing about the GM/PC divide is that it really supports some of the traditional reasons to play an RPG well. The drawback is someone has to be the GM, put in a ton of work, not even get to play the game, and then get bad mouthed on the internet for being a jerk because the DM wouldn't let his Gnome Paladin start with his dad's +5 Holy Avenger that he totally would have given to him when he came of age.</p><p></p><p>You can get by without a GM if you've got a group of amateur thespians that are just happy to tell a short story with a limited cast together, play for a couple of hours, then start a new story. It's to playing D&D, Call of Cthulhu, or any other trad game what 'Threes Company' is to 'Game of Thrones' or 'Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog' is to the Marvel Extended Universe. Or you can get by without a GM if you just want to pit yourself against randomized PvE, but then I sometimes wonder whether you wouldn't be better off playing a multiplayer cRPG. Or you can pretend you are getting by without a GM, but instead are just passing the DM hat around and hoping it all works out.</p><p></p><p>My general impression with GM-less games is that to get them to work, everyone involved has to be skilled enough to actually be able to run a game with a GM as the GM, and sort of needs to have a GM's perspective on what is fun.... you know, nigh unto masochistic suffering and a touch of sadism. But, at least you don't have to do 20 hours of prep.</p><p></p><p>I suspect if we were to be totally honest, none of the GM-less games really work. I mean, you can make them work, but if you counted every single weekly session of them worldwide, they'd probably not get out of the double digits. The problem is that not only are they obscure, and not only are they fringe even in the fringe hobby of table top roleplaying, and not only do they require a handful of uber-nerds or wanna be theater geeks, but they just don't sustain themselves for more than a dozen hours of play. So even if you do enjoy them, chances are your play time is about 10:1 in favor of something like D&D, and everyone is asking you to be the DM because they just saw a thing on EOnline about how some celebrity on the backside of his career plays D&D.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7603187, member: 4937"] I'm going to go with the ever popular, "It depends." Back in the days of the early bronze age, our primitive forefathers believed there was only three reasons to play D&D. But now that we are more advanced, we know that there is not only dozens of reasons to play D&D, there are even some other RPGs out there. The thing about the GM/PC divide is that it really supports some of the traditional reasons to play an RPG well. The drawback is someone has to be the GM, put in a ton of work, not even get to play the game, and then get bad mouthed on the internet for being a jerk because the DM wouldn't let his Gnome Paladin start with his dad's +5 Holy Avenger that he totally would have given to him when he came of age. You can get by without a GM if you've got a group of amateur thespians that are just happy to tell a short story with a limited cast together, play for a couple of hours, then start a new story. It's to playing D&D, Call of Cthulhu, or any other trad game what 'Threes Company' is to 'Game of Thrones' or 'Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog' is to the Marvel Extended Universe. Or you can get by without a GM if you just want to pit yourself against randomized PvE, but then I sometimes wonder whether you wouldn't be better off playing a multiplayer cRPG. Or you can pretend you are getting by without a GM, but instead are just passing the DM hat around and hoping it all works out. My general impression with GM-less games is that to get them to work, everyone involved has to be skilled enough to actually be able to run a game with a GM as the GM, and sort of needs to have a GM's perspective on what is fun.... you know, nigh unto masochistic suffering and a touch of sadism. But, at least you don't have to do 20 hours of prep. I suspect if we were to be totally honest, none of the GM-less games really work. I mean, you can make them work, but if you counted every single weekly session of them worldwide, they'd probably not get out of the double digits. The problem is that not only are they obscure, and not only are they fringe even in the fringe hobby of table top roleplaying, and not only do they require a handful of uber-nerds or wanna be theater geeks, but they just don't sustain themselves for more than a dozen hours of play. So even if you do enjoy them, chances are your play time is about 10:1 in favor of something like D&D, and everyone is asking you to be the DM because they just saw a thing on EOnline about how some celebrity on the backside of his career plays D&D. [/QUOTE]
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