God/god of the game.

[Storn]

Over in Nar Hard Knock Life thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10469

This was said:

'the DM is God' thing

That being in the context of 80's game text... not as a confirmation.  Inf fact, that statemenet was being made in the context of Egos of Gaming Pioneers such as Gygax.

And while i think many strides have been made to give more power to the Players... I want to rel-examine that statement.

I think "the DM is god".  

Lowercase important... implies not all seeing, all powerful... just damn powerful and seeing.   Hey, I'm all up for giving as much power to the players as possible.  But it still the DM who CREATES everything except PCs and a occasional NPC that players might create on the fly.  

It is not a matter of ego.  IT is a matter of creation.  Even when using published stuff, it is the DM/GM who says "this stays, this goes".  The DM/GM is allowed to bring in new plots, new cities, new characters... and more to the point, expected to.

Gamists need a god, for the just the sake of deciding system.  But really for presenting those challenges and obstacles not thought of.  There is a reason why "fog of war" is such a popular phrase in Computer Gaming.

Simulationists need a god, for someone to present what is.

Narrativists need a god to create connections between plots and stories and premises and themes.  Okay, that might be a stretch, because players can do that for themselves...but a god doesn't hurt keeping too many subplots from tangling... at times, decisions have to be made.


I don't think that "GM is god" is a bad statement.  Not when it is tied into being creative.  AFter all, having a little bit of an ego is a healthy thing too! <g>

[Ian Charvill]

"I'm the DM, I have absolute power"

which, as close as I can remember it is a quote from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, and so shortly before I got my first roleplaying game).

It's an old idea, and one I don't have a lot of respect for.

I've seen games where players have created NPCs, sub-plots, plots, props, scenery.  I've seen this done covertly through GM force and overtly through player powers.

Games like Nobilis, Inspectres, Prince Valiant, Torg, Feng Shui, Ars Magica, Donjon and GURPS (which means undoubtedly Hero as well, I guess) present a wide variety of techniques across a variety of play styles which alter the GM as small-g god paradigm considerably.

[Sean]

And then there are GM-less RPGs like Universalis. And games where the narrative is driven as much or more by the player than by the GM, like Trollbabe and Sorcerer (kickers!)...

[Jack Spencer Jr]

"I'm the DM, I have absolute power"

...snip...

It's an old idea, and one I don't have a lot of respect for...

Ditto, I would say. THe GM as god, small or big G tends to tip the balance of power issue pretty hard. For more on that, I think there's a couple threads in RPG Theory and several threads in Actual Play about problem groups.

This is, if the GM believes that are indeed a god, the temptation may be too great to cease as much control or credibility as possible and make the players extraneous.

[Storn]

*sigh* the last three post missed my point completely.

Instantly, there were comments of "absolute power'...when I just stated to the contrary.. Powerful yes... all powerful.. no.  Don't know how I can be more clear than that.

The term in the other thread made "Gm is God" as a very negative thing.  In the context of huge, overblown egos... it is.  But I'm asking y'all not to throw the baby out with the bath water.  So I'm trying to point out some positives as GM as Creative Force in the campaign.  And by default, the tremendous responisbility that brings.

If I lord over my players every session I'm going to quickly find that I don't have any players.

Being a god is not about power over players or player characters...although I believe that you have a tremendous amount of power over player characters, just by what situations you throw at them.  And those GMs who abuse this don't have happy players.  AND as GNS, happy players is pretty much the bag...

Being a god as GM means you are the primary creator.  And unless you have a Gm-less game/ campaign... how can the GM NOT be the primary creator.

As a GM, I get to decide  what plot elements that I want to introduce, NPCs, customs.  Does the world have magic or not.  What rules to use.  What sources to draw upon for inspiration.  99.999999% of my campaign's population is under my auspices.   Nations fall and rise on my say so... that ain't a god of creation?  It is heck of a lot of responsibility.

[Blankshield]

I think those replies are pretty straight up kickbacks to your comment:

I think "the DM is god".

Lowercase important... implies not all seeing, all powerful... just damn powerful and seeing. Hey, I'm all up for giving as much power to the players as possible. But it still the DM who CREATES everything except PCs and a occasional NPC that players might create on the fly.

"The DM is god" is not necessarily a bad thing - lots and lots of folks play that way (myself inclusive), across the GNS spectrum, and it works just fine.  But it ain't the only way to play.

The DM can be god, but doesn't have to be.  Ian provided a whole list of examples that show the GM is just another player at the table.

James

[coxcomb]

I agree that a GM in any system where there is one has alot of responsibility to bear.

The reason calling the GM a god (or God) makes my neck twitch is that it sets up a situation where the GM feels encouraged to take ownership of things that aren't theirs to take.

As a GM, I get to decide what plot elements that I want to introduce, NPCs, customs. Does the world have magic or not. What rules to use. What sources to draw upon for inspiration. 99.999999% of my campaign's population is under my auspices. Nations fall and rise on my say so... that ain't a god of creation? It is heck of a lot of responsibility.

Actually, even when using a "traditional" system, I have seen this go all wrong. When the GM makes it his duty (and his alone) to decide on plot elements, setting, color, and so forth, players can feel alienated. If that's how your social contract works, it ain't for me to say it's wrong, but it is far from the only angle.

My take: All the players are gods, the GM just has a bigger weight to bear.

[Sean]

Since it was my comment, I'll just add this:

Barker, Gygax, and Hargrave are all men whose work I respect greatly, and in the case of the first two I've had positive personal interactions with them. They're not always 'nice men', and they all have big egos - like a lot of creative people do.  I didn't mean to imply that either 'GM as God' or a big ego are always negative things when I wrote that. Just that, in this case, three men with big egos all defended a doctrine early in the history of gaming in an influential way - which meant, consequently, that that doctrine could not be regarded simply as a mid-eighties 'patch' to Simulationist frustration with Gamism, as some posters seemed to me to be suggesting. The post was historical, not negatively judgmental, and I'm sorry if it came off that way.

I do think that 'GM is God' often leads to problems even in games which are designed for certain types of play, and often leads people to think System Doesn't Matter, and often leads to prima donna-ism and stultified game groups, and often creates faulty assumptions (that there needs to be a GM-figure, or that that figure needs to have absolute power) about gaming in general that probably even those who like that kind of gaming ought to realize are relatives rather than absolutes where role-playing is concerned.

But if consenting adults are playing this kind of game in the privacy of their own homes, and nobody's getting hurt, I've got nothing against it. The experience of playing in this kind of game is probably good for some people and bad for others, depending on their individual psychology and experience.

[Valamir]

Barker, Gygax, and Hargrave are all men whose work I respect greatly, and in the case of the first two I've had positive personal interactions with them. They're not always 'nice men', and they all have big egos - like a lot of creative people do. I didn't mean to imply that either 'GM as God' or a big ego are always negative things when I wrote that. Just that, in this case, three men with big egos all defended a doctrine early in the history of gaming in an influential way - which meant, consequently, that that doctrine could not be regarded simply as a mid-eighties 'patch' to Simulationist frustration with Gamism, as some posters seemed to me to be suggesting. The post was historical, not negatively judgmental, and I'm sorry if it came off that way.

I don't disagree at all that the sentiment was there.  After all, as I indicated, the clash between Sim and Game goes all the way back to wargaming culture.

But until the mid-eighties, I think this was still very much a "play style" thing.  I don't recall seeing this being ensconced in stone as part of the very rules of the game before then (at least not to the "matter of course" degree that it was after).

I will admit to the possibility of selective memory...don't have all those introductory chapters memorized after all.  But the way I remember it, the early text was much more vague about the power divide, much more characterized the GM as referee or arbiter, and much less about drawing attention to the GM's level of authority over the players.

[Gordon C. Landis]

I'm going to quote a section from Storn's inital post below just for contrast with another angle on this issue - but let me say, I don't think there's anything WRONG with what Storn is saying here, and if I'm allowed to infer a bit about what he "really" means, I think I often enjoy play that looks a lot like it.  But . . . well, that's after the quote:

Lowercase important... implies not all seeing, all powerful... just damn powerful and seeing. Hey, I'm all up for giving as much power to the players as possible. But it still the DM who CREATES everything except PCs and a occasional NPC that players might create on the fly.

It is not a matter of ego. IT is a matter of creation. Even when using published stuff, it is the DM/GM who says "this stays, this goes". The DM/GM is allowed to bring in new plots, new cities, new characters... and more to the point, expected to.

Here's the contrast: the GM, while playing a vitally important role in RPG play, should never take center-stage in that play.  Her power is severly limited - nothing she does or brings to the table can be allowed to stand unless the players agree it is a good idea.  The game is about the PCs in action, and while the GM is a key force in ensuring that there is something for them to be in action about, her "creation" has meaning ONLY to the degree it facillitates the players' ability enagage with their PCs and with the game in general.

Which is not to say that she has no power - as a practical matter, many games are well-served by having someone who is the go-to authority, the source of final judgement who can put discussion and debate aside to keep things moving along.  But when a GM creates some new game element or situation (as, indeed, she is expected to do), it is only because such a creation serves a purpose for the players.

So . . . replying directly to Storn: the things which are implicitly (or explicitly) emphasized in your post (even beyond the bit I quoted) don't actually strike me as particularly IMPORTANT parts of what it means to be the GM, even if they are often true - true of both good GMing and bad, in some cases.

To the degree to which being "god" implies being beyond responsibility to others, I'd say it's bad.  To the degree that it's about "creating," I'd say that could be good or bad, depending.  And I'd say a large degree of that good or bad depends upon seeing "god" as being a servant to others, not an authority over them.

Since, while it is certainly POSSIBLE to see "god" in this way, I rarely see anyone actually doing so - I'm pretty much agin' the whole "GM is god" approach.  Even though I find many of the bare facts contained in the initial post to be true, in many games I've enjoyed.

Gordon

[Storn]

Here's the contrast: the GM, while playing a vitally important role in RPG play, should never take center-stage in that play. Her power is severly limited - nothing she does or brings to the table can be allowed to stand unless the players agree it is a good idea.

This is a very good point.  Although, Total Party Kill is probably not every player's dream and I've only done it once.  But even though they were not happy with the event... I was not blamed for the event (luckily, I started rolling dice out in front of everyone when things started to get realy dramatic)... so yes, it was with their approval.

And the mileage we've gotten out of that event has been phenominal... it changed my entire campaign, for the better, even while I, as the GM, miss those characters tremendously.

But the words' "center stage in that play" really wring true to me, I'm a "type of"  set designer, the director, the script writer...but I am NOT the actors on the stage... I provide bit part actors for the Players to work and bounce off of...but the story is not about them...even if they are tremendously powerful in the play.

Yeah, I totally get the feeling here that using the word "god" gives everyone pause.  It was meant to.  But I feel that "god" means having domain over distinct and finite spheres of influence.. not like God at all!  And as GM's sphere of influence is the set, the 'basic' script and how it is presented as work in progress.

Thanks Gordon for saying what I was trying to say much better.  There is a real reason I sling paint for a living, not words.

[M. J. Young]

Some time back there was an effort on some thread to deconstruct the role of the game referee/GM/DM/Storyteller/what-have-you to its many individual powers. I don't remember enough of it to do a search, but here are some of the things that are generally bound up in the job.

[*]The power to decide which rules apply to the current situation.[*]The power to decide the outcome of the current situation based on the rules which apply (not the same thing--as evidenced by our legal system, in which judges explain the law, but juries decide whether the suspect has in fact violated it).[*]The power to create the elements of the world.[*]The power to reveal the elements of the world into the shared imaginary space.[*]The power to define adjunct characters.[*]The power to control adjunct characters.[*]The power to determine the flow of time within the game world.[*]The power to reward desired play.[/list:u]I'm sure there were more things on that previous list.

The point then, as now, is that we should understand how these distinct powers interact, and how they can be redistributed. There have been a number of theoretical efforts to split these up, but even informally it often happens. In my original gaming group, it was quite common for the players to take control of non-player party members, as these were part of the team and were expected to act as such within reason. I have been in D&D groups where someone else was the referee, but always deferred to me on rules questions, because he saw me as the "expert" on what the books actually said--he still had control of how those rules applied in play, but the power to identify the rules that were involved had been ceded to one of the players. There have been a number of approaches to rewards that involve players recognizing each others' best moments and giving points or prizes based on who did "best" in whatever terms were desirable.

I mostly play games with a strong central authority in the referee; at the same time, I use that authority very loosely, trying to follow the players rather than push them. I might be god in my games, but I rarely exercise my power. More importantly, I'm quite cognizant of the fact that referee power is a package which changes from game to game--we think it's the same thing in every game, but it's always a bit different, as different pieces of it are distributed to the others at the table.

--M. J. Young

[Jasper]

Ah!  I've been trying to remember what thread I had seen that list appear in, and also searched unsuccesfully.  Though I'm glad to see some of it reproduced here,  if anyone remembers the original, I'd apprediate a PM pointing me to it (or a post, since it seems to be of generla usefulness here).

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Thanks, M.J. As I was reading these posts, I was thinking, "Didn't I handle all that with the concept of 'GMing-tasks' as opposed to 'the GM'?"

The current summary of my thinking about that, in rather sketchy form, may be found in a section of the Narrativism essay.

Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jasper,

I've been trying to remember what thread I had seen that list appear in...

I don't remember seeing that thread. But my thoughts on the topic can be inferred somewhat from what I wrote on the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=61194&highlight=#61194">What is the next great evolution in RPG design? thread:

"What I'm interested in seeing are more nuanced and sophisticated power redistributions that still provide for the collaborative creation of story that characterizes Narrativism. Dust Devils, I think, is brilliant in how it treats a character's success in conflict as a distinctly separate output of resolution from who gets to narrate the outcome. But I think there's still an incredible amount of room to explore here. I envision games that grant and rescind power over the introduction of such things as new NPCs, locations, relationships, historical details, animosities, and power structures, to name just a few, and mechanics that maybe even allow players to seek, cultivate, and work to protect the various powers that suit their personal taste."[/list:u]Paul