GMless play seems to only work where everyone is a GM?

[Justin Marx]

I have a tentative idea, which combines some of my thoughts that have emerged from other threads.

I have noticed that playing styles which advocate a large degree of narrative freedom on the behalf of the players (as in, the GM is only a player amongst many others) seem to work when the players themselves have experience GMing.

The traditional role of the GM setting the story, setting, whatever, etc. seems to only work when the players are used to a passive role in the game experience. I speak from experience - as a GM I have a fairly tightly controlled agenda when developing a session, but when I incorporate players who also GM that I allow a lot more malleability into my design.

In the gaming community, in my personal experience, there seems to be a large number of players compared to the number of GMs. The GM seems to be the sort of person who almost  always demands narrative satisfaction (I am not talking GNS here, I mean, they are the people who want primarily for the story to go their way beyond that of the characters themselves). I'm not sure exactly where I am going with this, it may be a redundant observation, but I suppose I am saying that the persistence of GM power in traditional games seems to be related to the fact that many of the players do not feel comfortable in establishing narratives of their own.

Which raises another important problem, methinks. Which is that the sharing-of-power methods rightly espoused here in this forum seem to work only when the player is a GM themself. The thousands of countless players who only wish to react seem to overbalance (in my personal, and limited, experience) those who wish to collaborate in narrative creation. In many gaming circles, those with the desire to construct their own narratives seem to become the GMs themselves. It is when GMs collaborate that they start analysing the method of shared narrative power and come up with ingenious methods for the distribution of this power.

I guess I am wondering if the experiences of the people here at the Forge is similar. I came here because I am a GM and rarely a player I suppose. As a way to kick start this discussion, are there many player-only people on this forum, and what are their views of shared narrative responsibility? I hope I am completely wrong. Please prove that.

If this is a redundant post, please shuffle it to the place where it belongs (the trash pile). I suppose my concern is for the large number of mass gamers who are players and who do not think in this way and who therefore do not understand the point of GMless or GM-weak play. I personally wish I had a player group that would encourage this sort of play (as I am usually disappointed in most of the GMs I play with) so that as a player I could realistically construct the imaginative goals that I had in mind.

It makes me concerned that the ideas that we are discussing only work when given to GMs, not to players. Is there a division betwen gamers who are prepared to accept narrative responsibility?

[TonyLB]

Can I rephrase, and see whether we're on the same page?

"GM" is a role.  GM-tasks are a set of things that need to be done by someone in the game, and which are often concentrated in the hands of the GM:  Pacing, scene framing, creation and maintenance of adversity, judging narrative outcomes outside the rules system, etc.

If the GM-tasks are handled equally or ad hoc by any player in the game then you can either say "We're all GMs" or "There's no GM," and in terms of the role you'd be absolutely correct either way.

And you're adding, further, that you feel that GM-tasks require some training (likely) and that therefore in our current hobby-culture, people who can get together and share those tasks (and have them work) likely can do so because they each have individual practice in doing those tasks within the GM-role of a more traditional game with concentrated power.

Am I close here?  There was a lot packed into that post.

If I'm close, I can say with some certainty from my experience that people can pick up the GM-tasks with little or no sole-GM experience, if the rule system makes the tasks sufficiently obvious and rewards them.

[Vaxalon]

It has been my experience that some GM tasks are easy for anyone to pick up, and others are not so easy.

I haven't seen any game that handles pacing.  Every "gmless" game I've played with "non-gm's" I've had to jump in and facilitate on that level in order to keep the pace going.

[Justin Marx]

I suppose that I was talking strictly about narrative control, as when a player is not a GM then their perspective in gameplay (often, but not always, I speak of the unwashed masses that most people play with every day) then their narrative desires are limited to the desires of themselves or the character, depeding on player agenda. The desire to build setting or story seems secondary to their personal desires.

There was a lot packed into that post, however I am hoping that people could tease out the crux of the issue as well. And that's the trick as you said Tony - where the system itself provides the opportunity to do so fairly. Yes, GMing requires a different set of skills (how terribly roleplayerish that sounds), training or no, than simply playing. Most seem to take the GM position as an assumption and do not meter out narrative responsibility to others. Perhaps I am having an epiphany (and a drunken one to boot) in that I am belatedly realising that the artificial nature of the GM (the role, which before I would not distinguish from the person) is perhaps redundant.

The trick is, how many people pick up and play that method? I suppose my experience, in a more conventional gaming 'GM is God' environment (which I personally do try to destress - coming up with all that material while adjudicated rules can be a right pain in the ass) is that it is not immediately obvious to most gamers. How did this mode of playing become dominant? (I know the answer historically, perhaps I am asking psychologically). The reason behind passivity in narrative construction interests me intensely, I hope there are others who are equally interested.

My original post was a germ of an idea, perhaps profound, more likely personal. If another says that most people can pick up GM-tasks with little experience then I will believe it, yet I have rarely encountered anything but passivity in play. I know of many players who prefer to do nothing apart from playing (creative geniuses of players, who I thought would make extremely good GMs but who refused to take up the mantle). What fundamentally makes the role of the GM seperate from the players, to the point that creative people would not accept that role?

[Vaxalon]

There are a lot of reasons that GMing (even as part of a group) is intimidating.  The primary one is probably the responsibility.  If things don't go well, then most players consider it the GM's fault.

[TonyLB]

It's very instructive to introduce somebody to roleplaying, while you, yourself, think seriously about these concepts.  I've introduced a few people (the way I prefer to do it) and seen people introduced (in ways I wouldn't, myself, recommend) a few times since I started being a conscious observer.  Here's what I've seen, for what it's worth:

• The player's first question, always is "What can I do?"  It's what they want and need to know, to start having fun.
• I've observerd two popular answers to that question:  Mine: "What do you think should happen next in the story?" and Not-Mine: "What would your character do next?"
• People respond with equal fervor to either of those questions, but they respond (of course) in very different ways.
• When the player does something, there is instant reinforcement (positive or negative) around the table.  No matter how subtle that is (even the ever-so-slight tightening of the muscles around the eyes that indicates a GM who doesn't even consciously realize that he disapproves of what the player did) the player always picks up on this, instantly, and their next action shows the result of that learning process.

And then that same little cycle of "What do I do?" "Here are your choices," "Oh you chose that, cool/stupid!" repeats over and over and over again.  The player picks up information on so many levels that it's very much like they're reading the minds of the experienced players gaming with them.  Which is why (I think) people assume that there is a right or necessary way to play RPGs... because obviously the knowledge and structure they're showing wasn't something you taught them (consciously, at least!) and so it must be something inborn that they are "discovering" through their exposure to RPGs.

Now what I've seen is that, contrary to what one might thnk, new players will respond with equal creativity to either traditional ("Figure out what my character would do") responsibilities or GM-task ("Do what I want for the story") responsibilities.  Often, they'll assume that they can and should be doing both, until negative feedback informs them otherwise.  But after just a few experiences of trying something and being shot down, they will figure out the game that's actually being played around the table (which often has only a passing similarity to the game people claim they're playing) and they will play that game, as if it were the only way that the game possibly could be played.

So, all that's to say... when I read this:

I suppose that I was talking strictly about narrative control, as when a player is not a GM then their perspective in gameplay (often, but not always, I speak of the unwashed masses that most people play with every day) then their narrative desires are limited to the desires of themselves or the character, depeding on player agenda. The desire to build setting or story seems secondary to their personal desires.

... I think to myself "Well, sure, because you taught them to do that."  Which isn't any sort of accusation:  If it's what you believe on any level, you can't help teaching it, even if you're trying to consciously avoid doing so.  They pick up the tells that you don't even know you're conveying.

[Andrew Norris]

Going along with what Tony's saying above:

In my group, the people who had never played a roleplaying game before had a much easier time picking up these "GM role" tasks than those who had played for years.

There's a lot of reasons that could be true, but the one that stuck out in my head is that the newcomers were approaching it as not being a big deal. I agree with that, myself -- fundamentally these tasks (description, scene framing, identifying interesting conflicts) are something you do if you've ever told someone a story about how your day went.

Meanwhile, the experienced players were thinking about it in terms of putting on the GM hat, with all the anxieties and responsibilities involved. They're thinking of these tasks as "the stuff our GM does," stuff they've intentionally avoided doing in past play. They have some associations of these things being skills the GM has worked long and hard at developing well enough to entertain the entire group.

What's really interesting is that the experienced players have absorbed the shift in responsibility as "Well, that's how Andrew's games work." They're involved in a long-running D&D campaign as GM and player, respectively, and what we do at our game has had no effect on what's going on in that game. That, to me, strongly supports Tony's view that people learn these things through tells -- if those guys had an inherent preference for a certain style of play, I can't see how they'd be enjoying both games simultaneously in such different ways.

[komradebob]

Justin:

Although some of this has been discussed, I think that the concept of GM-Task sharing is one of the more interesting things discussed on the Forge and is one of the topics that keeps me coming back to this site, so let's have at it, eh?

On the historical development of the GM position:

I actually think that this is worthy of discussion ( actually re-discussion...). I would say that the position of GM (with all related tasks) is the result of accumulation through tradition. I would also say that the concept of the GM actually acts as a barrier to folks with no prior rpg experience in many cases. While players with rpg experience seem thrown off by GM-less/Participant Equal designs ( Universalis comes to mind), these designs seem to be more accessible to non-rpgers. Note, I'm thinking of folks without experience with mainstream roleplaying game design, not people with an absolute lack of roleplaying experience ( who must actually be very rare, and were undoubtedly very boring as children ;)  ).

I think that the case for GM-less play is being made as we speak by the vast number of folks engaged in freeform online gaming. I haven't engaged in it myself, so all of my info is second ( or third-, or fourth) hand. Presumably, any number of these folks have either skipped or rejected traditional Tabletop rpg designs. My impression is that they haven't rejected just mechanics for task resolution or number descriptors, but also the concept of the position of GM ( or at least a large number of GM tasks in one person).

A possibly related observation is that source material is very important to these folks. I'll stay away from GNS discussion here, and let more informed theorists take a shot at that issue if they wish.

Some observations about a couple GM Tasks:
The Canon Cannon:
GMs are often participants that are expected to be most informed about setting/mood/etc, and often are expected to police those things during a game. My early experience was with D&D, which was very light on this. My later experience was with the White Wolf WoD setting, which was markedly heavy on this. Character players were allowed to operate with less info that GMs, and in some ways were encouraged to be uninformed about the setting outside of their Clan/tribe/whatever. This lead to the GM often either being the person who had read the most supplemental material( hard to to suss out the cause->effect relation on that), or, it sometimes lead to character players who were more informed than the GM on very narrow aspects of the setting. In the latter case, these character players often did attempt to use that info creatively and did (IME) in some sense act as mini-GMs by bringing that info into the game.

Related thought on supplement design:
With the exception of supplements specifically meant to be goal oriented ( a mystery, a dungeoncrawl), is it really necessary for so much hidden/secret knowledge for GM eyes only?

Ok, I'm starting to babble. Let me know what you think,
Best regards,
Robert

[Justin Marx]

OK, there's a hellava lot of good stuff there, bear with me as I tease it out, and make all sort of pathetic 'oooh'ing sounds. I like what I hear, and as this is the only place I have seen this level of analysis done before on roleplaying, it's all new to me.

Tony - the difference in question is immediately obvious when stated, not so simple in my own experiences to percieve however. What was occuring was that I was trying to encourage people to make their own stories yet within a framework where they were negotiated their story ideas through mine, who as the GM, had final say. The choice of what developments occured was pretty arbitrary, 'cause it was decided by me, although the primary players I worked with had a similar vision to my own and there was a lot less conflict. Which, now that I think about it, makes me more concerned that I was a creative control Nazi, which is disconcerting but beside the point.

As far as the tells being reinforced, I get that entirely, although I must admit I didn't train many people on this, most people came into my games with significant play experience elsewhere (I don't like breaking in virgins anyway, a lot of mess and fuss and usually unsatisfying to both parties....). Of course I taught them how to behave in my own game, but it was relatively similar to what they had experienced in their own games, hence why there wasn't much conflict over the roles.

Vaxalon - very true. In games of shared narration a lot of people get stage fright, because they don't want their ideas to look stupid either, especially when you have some creative geniuses and some less creative people in the same group. I guess, and this is I think critical, in the traditional method you can have a lot of people who are only in for the ride, they are just going along with it, especially casual gamers (my girlfriend being a very good example), and who's reasons for playing are probably not primarily orientated towards roleplaying in itself (as in, other social reasons). Hence why I think the traditional method has had a lot of success sometimes - casual gamers can get into it without too much emotional or imaginative energy, enlarging the player pool (perhaps diluting it would be the better word). I don't see participation in narrative-mediated games as good for passive gamers - then again, as Robert suggested, perhaps this playing style would encourage more people into the hobby as it is more engaging.

And for that matter might reduce the stigma too. Instead of a bunch of 14 year old pimply kids boasting about the size of their THAC0s, you would have a community of people who enjoy shaping stories mutually. Speculative, but perhaps I am very interested in the way that new gaming methods, as well as sharpening our understanding of the hobby, could also hopefully enrich it by enlarging its appeal to others. So another quick question to throw in - do these sorts of narrative-mediated games (I have played very few sessions, as you may have gathered) appeal to non-gamers especially, over the more traditional type of games? (Wait a second... Robert and Andrew just answered that question.... then again, I love hearing anecdotal evidence so if anyone else can back that up I am more than interested).

Robert and Andrew - Tradition, the inertia of history, certainly seems to be at play here. I have been thinking that it is on PBEM that the change is occuring - although waaaay too much PBEM has been narrated through GM fiat (and without dice mechanics to mediate that often) which is why I have avoided it. Does anyone know if there are many Forge GM-weak games being played PBEM, and which ones work best in that medium? To be honest, as I am far far far from home and won't be back with my fellow gamers for another 6 months, I'd love to track down a good game and GM on this. May as well take the first step myself.

Regardless, even in shared narration, unless there are very specific rules to cover it, the role of the GM, not as narrative creator, but as narrative aribtrator, still seems pretty damn important. Being a GM is not only about narrative control, which is what I am realising now. It is about mediating the social interests of the people around the table, pacing (especially pacing), basically, trying to prevent dysfunction at the table. No game is perfect, and certainly no GM is perfect. But a freeform narrative parley breaks down when strong personalities clash or overpower weaker ones. The key difference, in my mind, between an individual in a shared narrative situation (a player) and a GM in a shared narrative situation is that the GM should be constructing his narratives for the sole purpose of encouraging everyone elses (while the 'players' are shaping them for themselves). This does not mean that the GM needs to even put in any narrative input at all, he/she merely makes sure that narrative power is shared evenly. This can be done, I think, through many of the skills that the traditional GMing role has built for itself.

I don't have a lot of experience at this mode of gameplay, so perhaps this idea is either redundant, not useful, or has been done a thousand times. I am just trying to define a GM as something other than a narrative control beast.

As for the supplement design, I personally have never understood the need for setting supplements at all. In an attempt at a shameless plug for my own game (available in 5 years at all leading bookstores for only $9.99!) I was working on a bare bones approach to setting, that established the limits of the setting and gave a whole lot of colour, then allowed GMs and players to construct the events and stories themselves. I despise metaplots. Why play someone else's story? And more pertinent to this post - why play the GMs story either?

Hidden knowledge for the GM though..... Perhaps that is more important for Gamist play. I am certainly no expert on GNS either. However, I see your point, secret knowledge merely gives the GM more authority to introduce narrative points, usually to the players detriment, because he can legitimately introduce material into play that the players have not taken into consideration. I mean, he can put in this ultra-x badguy, a character unthinkable from the player's point of view because it's so damn powerful, because in the books it allows him to do so. That is an example of abuse, I admit, but most people who religiously collect setting supplements seem to me (perhaps I'm a snob) as the sort of people who would do that - namely, they are powergamers who collected more rulebooks for more rules and stats and setting material to exploit. Otherwise, why would you bother?

Not the most clear response, but basically I am agreeing with you guys about the arbitrary nature of the GM, and how this mode of play has been constructed unconsciously from the slow accretion of the GM role in traditional games. The subtle difference in question of 'what do you want in the story' makes a huge difference in that the player is given responsibility for the story as a whole, instead of merely his own character. And, as I have read elsewhere, explicitly asks a question to the players that otherwise the GM would have to figure out via guesswork. As it applies in relationships - she who asks recieves, she who silently expects will be disappointed. I think I'm getting the hang of this idea, big thanks go to all you fellas for your input.

Justin