Be converted. Rejoice in GMless adulation.

Seriously, with decent mechanics none of the problems you mention will occur, even in a GMless game. A facilitaor is useful, but has no more power than anyone else.

+++
JoE
+++

Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

There has been a big trend towards GM-free gaming, and I agree with Joe that, given the right circumstances, the right rules and especially the right players, it can work and work very well. However the atmosphere of such a game is very, very different from a traditional style of RPG. I find they generally end up more eclectic (too many people trying to direct the plot) and more open to anachronism as a result, not to mention that they either feel confrontational (with all the players competing to make their version of the story) or unchallenging because everyone is working together and the players are too much in control of their world.

Now, I'm not knocking the concept of GM Free. As I said, it can work and it can work very well indeed. However I also think very, very strongly that A) not everyone will enjoy this style of play, B) this style of play isn't suitable for every kind of RPG, and C) it is not necessary to include GM-free options (or indeed any funky / artsy game mechanic) in order to be an Indie game.

Ash

I can totally dig where you're coming from. You like GMing (I know I do) and know how a good GM pulls/nudges the game along and keeps things moving. But trust me, I've played games without any GM and they've worked great and I've loved every minute. I've also played games where there was a GM which licked balls, but you have to take the rough with the smooth: most of the games I've played with GMs have been great too.

It's fair enough if you don't like playing without a GM. I don't like mushrooms.

I take it my agent provocateur post wasn't entirely recieved as such? ;p

So, you've played GMless games that were great (don't believe it for a secnd - ha ha). Why were they good, how did they work, and in which way were some of the issues I've suggested above avoided?

Its been suggested above that you need the right players for the job. From a game design point of view, how would one go about constructing a game which you know needs a certain type of player? What milage is there in producing a product for a small segment of an already niche market (i.e. RPGs)?

I'll highlight it this time in case it was lost in my overall blather in the first post... Discuss! ;)

Okee dokie mate, hera we go!

Right, so you can't run a game unless there's one person making all the final rules decisions. Bollocks you can't. In an ideal world, rules need no interpretation because they are clearly written and cover every eventuality. Yeah, right, we all know that's not true. Well actually for Contenders (for example) it is true: there's simply no gray areas and no such refereeing role needed because the rule are pretty straightforward.

Thus far: Rich 1, Gaz 0!

The problem here is that you're all being close about what you want things to be and getting kinda, I dunno if defensive is the right word, but you get the idea. For example, if we're playing some GMless supers game and I introduce a character called SuperDude. Andrew then says SuperDude can fly. I didn't think he could when I introduced him, but Andrew's just said he can. If I get all possessive about the character things will go badly. I'll start with "no he can't fly, you're ruining the game!" or some nonsense. Instead I need to introduce that character and then let him go: he's not my property, he belongs to everyone and when they touch him they can do what they want with him. Oooh, matron!

Pervy notions aside, that means I come up with an idea ("there's a guy called SuperDude") Andrew develops it ("He can fly") and then Dave adds more details ("He also shoot lasers from his eyes!") and Claire might add something too ("He got his powers when his lab exploded and he got covered in special chemicals!").

For GMless play to work, you need to relax into that stuff and let it run it's own course.

So, Rich 2, Gaz 0!

GMless play usually seems to work best with 3 or 4 people. It'll be an arse with a dozen. Then again, so will most GMed games, but I'll let you have that one.

Rich 2, Gaz 1

I've really never had this problem with any GMless games. I mean, really what tends to happen is that play develops and the story grows out of what every comes up with at the table. I guess if you went tinto the game with preconceived ideas of what would happen ("There's going to be a rooftop showdown at the end", "A High speed chase on the backs of dragons in act 2!", Grontar turns out to be Juiet's long lost daughter!") then you're going to be disappointed because the game didn't turn out like you expected. If you're like me and you totally love it when games don't turn out like you expected, then it's great when they don't!

I think a lot of people have too firm ideas about what they want a game to turn out like at the start of things. In extreme cases this ends up with railroading, GMPCs who force the players into certain situations and illusionism. If you run a game without any of these notions anyway, you end up somewhere you never thought you would. Which is a hell of a lot of fun, if that's your bag.

People inclined to Block all the time will kill the game. They either learn not to Block or they don't play. It's like the guy who wants to play a ninja or gun-toting psycho will kill a Call of Cthulu game.

It's not to everyone's tastes, and that's cool. But it totally works at what it's designed for. Which is creating stories at the table, not simulating the game world (which is what most games try to do) or challenging the players (like a tough dungeon bash).

Final score:

Rich 3: Gaz 1

GMless games are therefore 3 times better than ones with a GM ;^P

... ergo a game either needs one GM or 3+, one or two is w@nk?

What I'm getting from your description is that not only should these sort of games be run in a GMless fashion, but also Playerless? No-one should get hung up on "their" character, it actually "belongs" to the group and can be manoeuvered by them?

If I'm interpretting your despcriptions correctly it sounds more like group storytelling than an RPG. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying.

Given this scope, are GMless small-press productions of this type more like pick-up-and-play parlour games? Kind of what Kill Doctor Lucky and other Cheapass products are to "real" boardgames? [/verbal handgrenade]

G to the A to the Z

Also, I've got a Dave and Andrew (x2) in my group, but no Clare. Is this where I'm going wrong?

It's more true that the GM-like duties and player-like duties in "traditional" games are moved about. Those duties still take place, but who has responsibility and when is often distributed or changes.

Sometimes. But not always. Depends on the game. Depends on your definition of story too. Don't get hung up on particular examples, as somebody will come along and mention a new game that counters it. It's easier to talk about specific games rather than hypotheticals, as there really is very little commonality.

With this kind of stuff it's often best to get back to first principles. What does a roleplaying game need to work?

Some people who participate
Some agreement on who gets to say what happens and when in the fictional world

GM-less games tend to have really tight methods of agreeing when something becomes "true" in the fiction. But that's not to say they have to be short, or parlour style.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

This is a point which comes up a lot. Some people see roleplaying as telling stories as a group. Just read the intro to any White Wolf game circa 1993.

There is/was a serious attempt to come up with different names for the different activities which people engage in and call RPGs.

I once sat and listened to a guy rant quite passionately about the fact that D&D isn't a roleplaying game, it's a tactical wargame and the sooner people stop calling it a roleplaying game the better, because that's not what it is and why oh why can't people just see that. This guy was a hardcore Call of Cthulu player and GM. To him, what he does is roleplaying and what the kids at the same con were doing while they had their D&D character sheets in front of them wasn't: it was killing monsters and taking their stuff by counting hit points, working out Attacks of Opportunity and rolling dice.

I should point out that White Wolf games didn't actually need any players since you were just sitting through the Storyteller's own story. It was about as co-operative as a Stalinist purge.

ROFL

I've been subjected to several of these at Cons. Pete normally stares open-mouthed for a bit before leaning over and saying "Gaz, when do we get a go?"

I probably need to see some real life examples. Conception may be an opportunity.

I may know of whom you speak. Labelling might be a Bad Thing. I think the Indie/SMall Press movement might open themselves up to this more though, by the distinctions they make themselves and attempt to forge an identity. But I digress.

So where does the challenge come from in GMless games then? How do you make conflict happen and whom or what do you rail against? In a traditional game someone has a Plot and Baddies. Whether these are written down or made up as they go along is a different matter, but I have the illusion of Something Going On and am engaged to interact with it and change it and beat it up if necessary.

Where does this dynamic come from amongst a group of four friends with even power and the consensus? Or is this too game-specific to generalise on?

(I actually quite enjoyed playing Vampire and Mage back in the day. Although we mainly just killed things and took their metaphysical stuff.)

Not really that different in Gm-less. The antagonism might come from the player to your left or the way the rules are structured. It'll just vary.

Lots of these games come with shortcuts to building situation and challenge without the need of prep, so anybody at the table can do it.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Boy this is turning into an "everybody rant" thread! I think at this point it's worth saying that GM-led and GM-free are just two different styles, neither inherently better, neither inherently worse, they just suit different types of people. Arguing the toss between them is like saying "My hammer is better than your screwdriver!" These devices, like any game rules system, are tools to be used in the manufacture of happy. If you can't make your happy with the tools you have, then try something else. Find what works for you, don't go on trying to hammer screws into glass.

Ash

Can I suggest you turn your sarcasm detection up slightly. It appears to be faulty.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Because it's a great game and very structured.

Play moves around the table. Players take it in turns to "set scenes". This is usually done like it in in any book or screenplay, only verbally. There are discreet scene types (Training, Work, Etc...) and what the character does is determined by the Scene type.

So lets say, for example, we're playing and I want my character to earn some money. It's my turn to set the scene, so I describe what my character's doing. I narrate a scene where he's bodyguarding some yuppie who's got it into his head that he needs bodyguarding because he's taking loads of coke and is utterly paranoid. Where does that come from? I just made it up, it's not pre-planned. Or maybe I make up that there's this guy who wants bodyguarding and you play the part of him in the scene, and it's you who gets to decide that he's a paranoid yuppies cokehead. Whatever, that idea just comes out and gets dragged into the story and thus is true.

Contenders dictates that a Work Scene has a conflict, and it determines whether my character gains Hope or Pain. That's not negotiable: the rules dictate that this is the case and so that's how it works. Regardless of how the scene is roleplayed, there WILL be a conflict and therefore a chance that the player will fail to earn money and will instead earn Pain. So you roleplay the scene like that: you decide that the yuppie asks my character to beat up a guy who owes him money and we have a conflict.

We use the rules to determine the outcome of the scene in terms of win or lose, do I gain Cash or Pain. But they also determine who gets to describe the end of that scene. So whoever gets the highest card gets to narrate the outcome of the scene, effectively taking on the GM's mantle for a minute or so. They have to obey the outcome of the conflict resolution mechanics though. If I win the conflict and will gain Cash but no Pain they can narrate my character betting beaten up, but getting paid and feeling ok about himself because he did the right thing.

Does that make "how it actually works" any clearer? It can seem really weird if you're used to traditional RPGs with the distribution of authority that that entails. It can seem a bit like be saying "I have a car with no wheels!" and you saying "How does that work? Surely a car needs wheels?" and I say "It has rotor blades and it flies above the ground!" and you say "But how do you stop at traffic lights?" because you have no idea how that can possibly work and we haven't invented the word Helicopter yet.

It's worth pointing out that if you approach a GMless game with the same mindset as you might approach a more trad game you'll utterly fail to have fun.

If you're going for "I am my character, I see the game world through my character's eyes", it's clearly going to fall flat. You won't/can't get that, because you're going to have to step out of that character stance a lot to do other stuff.

(I might be wrong here, but I've never seen a game which could do character stance without a GM to play the part of the rest of the world. But then, I've never seen a cock ring even though I'm told they exist...)

The stance is more like the author of the story. If everyone wants to take that stance, if that's what they're all aiming for, it works really, really well. You'll have to dip into your character and then become the story's author. You're writing what your character does, not living it, if that makes sense without sounding like complete pretentious wank?

Conventional wisdom tells us (repeatedly) that anything designed by committee is likely to suck, and the same happens often (I've seen it) in games without a clear narrative controller.

However having someone to direct the narrative doesn't mean that you can only have one GM and some players, with a clear and long term division of resources. I think a lot of games released recently (and discussed) here have approached that by giving clear responsibility for the narrative direction *in each scene* to a single person.

So games rotate responsibility for challenge setting, or antagonist control, or threats, with clearly delineated scenes and roles. Its not free participation, but a compromise between free-for-all and monolithic GM that clearly works well.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

Clearly you can play with or without a GM. They have differing rewards and differing challenges. Some people will prefer one over the other. I actually like to have a monolithic GM, both as a player and as a GM. It's all subjective.

Sorry, I don't *do* sarcasm on the internet. There's no tone of voice or body language to indicate the nature of the words, making it very difficult to tell one from another.

Ash

I'm gonna assume that you, ignore the rest of this post if you're not.

The reason there's no sarcasm-indicators is that the post isn't sarcastic. It's meant to be read on the level it's written.

I think you'll find that Ash's post is a response to this one.

Charitable reading and holding ideas lightly is a good idea on here.

Much as I don't want to come over as some kind of self appointed moderator of this forum, I'm going to say:

Let's keep this thread on topic. This is a discussion about GMless games and what the experience is like playing one. THAT IS ALL. Collective-Endeavour.com is not a place to discuss internet sarcasm, it's a place to discuss games, game design and game publishing.

Gaz's original post was, shall we say, more spicy than I for one would ideally like. But a my charitable reading of it was accurate, in the same way that Gaz's charitable reading of me saying he was full of shit was accurate. We're all friends, we've all had beer together and we all know where we stand.

Now, lets talk about the sodding games.

{EDIT because of crosspost: As Gregor says, it's charitable reading and holding ideas lightly that make a place like this work. Please bear that in mind and we'll all have a great time here.}

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So I'm guessing for a GMless game to work (which seems to be more everyone gets a turn as a mini-GM in rotating fashion) you need players capable of making interesting decisions.

I'm not just looking at this from a "What I like" point of view you see, but also, "How's this product going to sell", specifically, to people who haven't had any prior discussion and are reading what to do from a book.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't. Similarly, among the masses, there are GM's and Players to use broad strokes. Some folk just don't want the responsibility, or aren't sharp enough or whatever, but don’t want to or can’t GM (even mini-GM). Clearly "Players" aren't the right people to be trying GMless games then?

We tried a GMless playtest with our group and I think the biggest problem was one of the people involved didn’t get it and contradicted everything that anyone else said, or tried to manipulate the world so that it wasn’t quite what we’d already established. Or just said nothing.

My conclusion therefore, is that for GMless (mini-GM) games, you need strong players, who know how to express themselves. Someone looking for a plot thread to follow, machinations of an established baddie, or a list of encounters to defeat one after the other might be disappointed or bemused.

To go full circle then, are GMless games limiting the market available to you as a publisher?

The whole GM/Player split is a creation of the hobby. Yeah, there are lots of people who tend to be players. But for some that's 20+ years of habit and ingrained response. Go and watch a set of newbies at a University games club and watch how they get trained not to contribute in certain ways by their first GM. It's fascinating to watch.

Some of the best participants I've had in GM-less stuff have been people who had previously always been follow-along players. They needed a runup, but once they grasped the difference it's like a switch clicking, they got it. But yeah, you need to work at it and do some unlearning. And it might not be the right kind of gaming for some folks.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Thanks for clearing that up. With it being straight after mine and not quoting anything it seemed to be aimed at me. I apologise for any confusion or offence.

Interesting points, Gaz, which I will attempt, hamfistedly I'm sure, to answer.

I kinda made that mistake myself, once. You're right and also wrong: There is a divide between two types of gamers, but it's not as clear cut as GM or Not GM. Think of them as Active and Reactive. Active players will tend to contribute story ideas to the game, Reactive ones will tend to react to what the GM throws at them.

Reactives really want the GM to tell them what to do. They'll then usually be quite happy to figure out how to do it themselves. If the GM makes it clear to them that their characters need to get into a castle, they're just as likely as anyone else to come up with an awesome and original plan. But they tend to create characters with pretty Reactive motivations: Defend my village, Protect my sister, Avoid getting caught up in politics. These are fine motivations as long as (a) the GM makes a concious point to actually hit them, (b) the GM knows about them in the first place and (c) the player actually wants them hit.

Active players, on the other hand, will tend to create characters with Active motivations: Destroy Brutenheim, because it is a threat. Kill Kuriko to avenge her family's betrayal. Usurp the position of the local Baron. These characters will drive the game's plot with no other input. The guy is always plotting his next move. In a traditional game, even if the GM has sod all idea of what to do next in the game, these characters will drive things.

(It's worth noting that a player who is Reactive in one game might be quite active in another game or even in a later session of the same one. But a lot of players tend towards one type or another)

Most groups are a mix of the two. This works great in a trad GMed game, because you have (for example) two characters setting goals for the party and two character following their lead. Luther the Paladin wants to destroy the Antipope and Tamara the Thief wants to steal the Gem Of Ages belonging to the local Baron: the rest of the party are happy to help them out for the GP and XP they'll accumulate along the way. Works a treat.

In a GMless game, you tend to find that the Active players will set up goals which are at odds with the Reactives. This sometimes just happens, and some systems (the better ones) simply demand it. Shab-Al-Hiri Roach forces this by making each player love the character to their left and loathe the one to their right. This front loads things: if the guy to my left is Reactive he'll have to react to me wanting to pal up with his character. If it's the guy to my right being Reactive, he'll have to react to me hating him.

Extreme Reactives want to avoid having any character motivations threatened. They'll Block like crazy and will just want to keep their character safe. Safe characters = Boring story. These are few, but they are (like I said) pretty toxic to the way these games need to run. There are fewer of them than you think though.

A lot of people get more Active the more it's encouraged. GMless games tend to reward it by being more fun and giving players more spotlight for being more Active.

Every decision a designer makes limits the market for a game.

Yes and in fact it's dissected at length, here. The player in question was blocking in an attempt to protect his ideal of character. But this isn't a problem unique to GMless games - after all, we've all seen the same sort of behaviour in games with GMs. The difference is that the responsibility for handling this lies (superficially, at least) with different people in each. In reality, of course, the responsibility lies with the players, whether there's a GM or not.

In the interests of keeping an open mind and all Gaz, next time we have a spare week I shall run either Polaris or Contenders, both of which handle being GMless in a different way. If you're willing of course!

Heh.

Couple of points.
You don't need to get rid of character ownership if you don't want. The rules can just limit what kind of narration is allowed. (see Capes' Comics Code).

Having a GMless game with all the players in an in-character stance is gonna be tricky, but doable. I've messed with the idea of just having really powerful characters (witches or politicians or something), so, like, in-character decisions can have sweeping plot effects, and can manipulate secondary characters, etc.

So yeah, the GMs job (amongst other things) is to funnel and filter people's input into a cohesive and credible whole, set scenes, drive play towards interesting conflicts and so on.

I believe rules alone can indeed do the same. Obviously, people's narration will still be the meat of the game, but the mechanics can provide all of the skeleton. Scene setting and player-input-management are fairly easy. But I think mechanics that inherently drive play towards meaningful conflict is alot harder. Capes does it through competition for resources, where to 'win' the game you need to get people involved in conflicts they are (literally) invested in. Its a lot of work though.

Or you can diversify who has which GM power (rotating scene setting, the player sat opposite me drives play towards conflict, etc). This is what folk usually call GMless.