[Down Spiral] Is a GM necessary?

[joepub]

So, I'm currently working on a game called Down Spiral.
For those of you who haven't read the thread on Down Spiral, a quick backgrounder:

Down Spiral is a game which pits players against each other in the dog-eat-dog world of organized crime.
It's a game where the protagonist is a tragic hero - someone who has everything going for themselves in the criminal world, then who loses it all. Because of the other players around the table.

My major question is whether or not the game will need a GM (called arbitrator currently), or be completely player-GMed, or have some kind of formula written into the rules so that no one has to fully take on GM responsibility....
However it'd work best.


Anyways, some of the mechanics of the game:

-One or more of the players are Protagonists. For the purpose of simplicity, let's assume a single protagonist for right now.
-The protagonist starts with a Control Pool. This is a set of 5 dice, all facing up as 6's.s

-Players all get a limited amount of in-game dice. These dice are spent to attempt or contest actions. The amount you succeed by in an action is the amount of dice you gain from that action (as well as having the action succeed).
-You also gain dice for playing out your character with Flavour. These are basically style points -rewards for good roleplay.

-The point of the game is to Break the protagonist. This is done by altering the dice in his Control Pool so that 2/3s or more aren't 6's.
-Whenever an action succeeds that goes against the protagonist, or the protagonist fails an action... this is called sabotage. The culprit takes a die in the Control Pool and re-rolls it (hoping for a non-six).
-Whenver the reverse happens (protag comes out on top), he/she may choose to have a Saving Grace roll... which mechanically is the same as a sabotage roll, but the protagonist would pick up a non-six and pray that they rolled a 6.

-Twists are game-altering storyline twists. Once a twist succeeds, the player who caused it has two choices:
Take a die they have for in-game use, and add it to the control pool facing any side up they want.
Take a die from the Control Pool and it to to their in-game dice.

Anyways, that's a brief rules summary.



Gameplay: I want aggressive gameplay that really pits people against each other. Cooperative will not be in a Down Spiral player's vocabulary. The game is about stealing control, stealing power, stealing dice, and stealing the spotlight. And it's set in a world of thieving and stealing.

I want to inspire venomousity.


So, my question: Altough mechanically the game might play best GM-less, does the gameplay I'm going for make this a dangerous choice?
How should I go about GM/Arbitration rights? (Keeping in mind that most of the GM's role is opening a story up, and acknowledging when something is a Sabotage, Saving Grace, Twist or Flavour)

[TonyLB]

Well, who's going to judge the Sabotage, Saving Grace, etc., etc. if there is no GM?  And, particularly, is there any incentive to award those if you hate the guts of the character in question?  Because it sounds like everyone's gonna hate all the characters pretty quickly.  You don't want the game's economy to grind to a screeching halt when that happens.

[joepub]

Exactly my thoughts...
The GM really doesn't do anything put Set Scene, and arbitrate rules.

Therefore, being the GM would seem rather boring to some. I'm not sure...



What I was thinking to who would judge - every player that's not involved in a scene (or if they are all involved, whoever's not involved in an action) could collectively decide.
Would there be a level of fairness in this mutual decision making?


And, is there any way to have the GMing responsibility be shared, but be outlined in a very black-and-white way in the rules... so that all the players do is apply the "GM formula"? (Sorry for having such a hard time articulating at the moment.)

I don't see how the above suggestion would work - because part of the rewards are quirks and innovations - but I just wanted to throw the idea out there.

[TonyLB]

What I was thinking to who would judge - every player that's not involved in a scene (or if they are all involved, whoever's not involved in an action) could collectively decide.
Would there be a level of fairness in this mutual decision making?

Well, it looks (to me) like it would discourage people from becoming involved in a scene ... because being involved in a scene would reduce their power to influence the game.  That would be ... odd, but maybe cool.

[joepub]

Hadn't really thought of it that way before.

I assumed people would want to be in scenes, because it'd give them a chance to earn more dice (aka, get the upper footing).

But then this would also add the possibility that they might want to sit out on scenes in order to play Jury Duty.




Now, how would I ensure fairness if I took this approach to solving GMing?

[TonyLB]

Now, how would I ensure fairness if I took this approach to solving GMing?

Well, do you want it to be fair?  Does "fair" serve your design goals?

[Callan S.]

I get a bit of a sick feeling when I hear it's all about competition - but someone else judges your "Good roleplay". It's the gamist in me that realises the GM is contaminated by the social feedback of others, thus he's as biased as the other players (and really he should be, he's one of our friends come to play, not some distant authority figure beyond all human connection). Either you get rid of the biased person, or give up on competition. Competition gets the boot, of course. And when there's no GM, this issue can be seen even more clearly.

-You also gain dice for playing out your character with Flavour. These are basically style points -rewards for good roleplay.

However with stuff like this, to marry SIS to mechanics, someone needs to judge it. I can't think of much to avoid that, which means getting rid of competition.

One thing I could think of is something like in poker and reading the other persons body language. Here, the first player would have some cards or something and then give their SIS submission/good roleplaying. The second player tries to read the roleplaying, to see if the first player has the right cards to back up the action. If the second player thinks he has, he folds - which rewards the first player.

But I think it'd reward 'poker face' in the first player, rather than roleplaying flair. You'd need something extra to draw out the player so he makes an SIS submission with the flair he wants. Because something in the game makes that more likely to psyche the other player into folding. Like some sort of Pavlovs dog feedback thing perhaps - the player gives his SIS submission a few times, actually knowing he'll take a small loss each time. But that opens up the other person to thinking that move will lose.

HMMM, TROS had something like that, where the author said if you attack one armoured location on an opponent with a less than optimal amount of dice, they get used to assigning a certain number of dice. Then when you go for a soft spot at optimal level, they faulter and still assign the same dice. I've played very little of TROS though, and haven't seen it happen.

Anyway, enough rambling!

[joepub]

So sorry, SIS?

I didn't want Flavour to have a real mechanic attached to it. I just wanted it to be a way to award dice without beating down on someone...
The basic idea was that once a character had shoved the other aside, it'd take the well-deserved opportunity to bask in the spotlight.

Now, how would I ensure fairness if I took this approach to solving GMing?


Well, do you want it to be fair?  Does "fair" serve your design goals?

I don't mean fair in the ethical/moral sense. I mean fair in the mechanical sense.
And in that way it does meet my design goals.

I want the GMing system - whatever it is - be there to keep the system in check.
The players are supposed to sabotage each other - but the game mechanics aren't. I want the system to keep the sabotage in check, and to award two things in as objective a way as possible:
a.) Interesting characterization
b.) Contesting others

Therefore, I want a FAIR GM system to provide the structure for the characters to act UNFAIRLY in without destroying the system altogether.

[Danny_K]

OK, a couple of thoughts. 

First, do saving graces, sabotage, and twists have to be mechanically distinct from each other7?  It they're mechanically identical but different in terms of who's doing them, then that eliminates a major GM responsibility right there.  Also, right now the Twist players have 6 times more power to control the pace of the game than anybody else, which makes the Twist the most powerful move in the game.  Is that what you want7?

Second, how are you going to limit what people narrate?  A GM makes a handy source of limits. Without a GM, you might need a detailed set of guidelines (you can narrate everything BUT the protagonist getting killed or maimed, for example).  Or you could use a strong system of negotiations-and-vetos like Polaris does, where so that Player A can narrate Player B's character getting castrated with rusty tin snips, and Player B has a robust mechanically defined way to change that to something that alllows play to go forward. 

Third, how about using a variation of the PTA fanmail system?  So any player can give any other player a bonus die.  To incentivize this, perhaps the player giving the bonus gets a chance of earning a bonus die for himself. 

[joepub]

Third, how about using a variation of the PTA fanmail system?  So any player can give any other player a bonus die.  To incentivize this, perhaps the player giving the bonus gets a chance of earning a bonus die for himself. 

Very nice idea.


Basically, I playtested yesterday with a couple friends, and have decided GMless probably won't be the answer.