Getting the Players Involved

[zaal]

I've made a pretty good dent into Scattershot, which seems to go out of it's way to tell the reader that player contributions during the game are at least as important GM contributions, and I've heard about Donjon, which let's players decide what's behind that door (amongst other things).  

In most games I've played, the GM does the work of providing the adversaries, describing the action, and so forth.  I would say that in these games players are relatively passive - not necessarily because they want to be, but more from the perhaps adversarial GM-Player relationship.  

So lately, upon coming to the Forge, I've been perceiving a sentiment that suggests that players should have a more active, equal role in contributing to the game.  I think it's an interesting idea, so, if there are any other similar ideas out there, would anyone care to share?  Or, at least, point me to another reference  :)  .

Jon

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Zaal,

The absolute best beginning game with this sort of player involvement, in my opinion, is InSpectres. It's $10, but $10 well spent. I recommend checking it out, playing it, and then discussing the subject further.

[Mike Holmes]

I think its a very viable option. Perhaps better than the traditional split in some ways, but not as good in others. The biggest advantage, it seems to me, and the reason that I think these sorts of games are becoming more popular quickly, is because they reduce the GM's workload. As the gaming populace ages, this is becoming more and more important. For example, I've got a two year old kid (he just diassembled the couch), which seriously puts a dent in my free time. As such a game that does a lot of the work, or in which the players do a lot of the work is appealing to me.

Plug Alert.

Which may be a contibuting factor to how Universalis came to be (see our Forum on the indie page here at The Forge). We went so far as to chuck the GM and all game prep alltogether. This certainly has some serious advantages.

That said, I still feel the value of the old split as well. I still try to play that way a lot, too. Universalis just means that I can play whenever I want, and haven't done any prep.

That said, I ran InSpectres at the Forge booth at GenCon this year using Ron's scenario prep. The plot was enumerated thus:

"A motel manager calls and says that his pool has filled with some purple goo. His kid ate some and hasn't been himself since then."

That's it. As such you can see that prep for InSpecters is ridiculously easy. One can pretty much play from no prep at all. I remember Jared coming up with an idea for play at a Con. He said, "Wait.." put his head back thoughtfully, and then seven long seconds later said, "OK, I've got it."

Dunjon requires a bit more effort, but not a lot, really (though heed the power level suggestions carefully!). Especially if you compare it to most other games.

The other main advantage in co-opting the players into the creative process is that they are all automatically engaged by doing so. There are some other reasons, as well, but those are the biggest two, I think.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi zaal,

Here's a neat way to look at it: the GM is one of the players. So when talking about contributing to "what happens" during play, we start with the idea that everyone, somehow, contributes.

A lot of people seem to misunderstand this when I talk about it. They seem to read it as necessarily diminishing the GM's role, or perhaps as removing a GM entirely. None of this is the case.

What I'm saying is that a GM-player split characteristic of, oh ... Mage, or perhaps Legend of the Five Rings, or Agone ... is merely one of many, many ways to divide up contributory and buck-stops-here standards for functional play.

I'll also claim that across the range of even the most familiar RPGs (never mind all of us freakozoids 'round here), this GM-player division is tremendously various, and not well served by the simplistic terms "player" and "GM."

Starting with my point, then, I hope it's easy to see that no one specific GM/player division or relationship or definition is advocated or preferred at the Forge. What's largely agreed upon, rather, is that, per game, a coherent explanation of these roles is necessary.

Best,
Ron

[Victor Gijsbers]

The biggest advantage, it seems to me, and the reason that I think these sorts of games are becoming more popular quickly, is because they reduce the GM's workload. As the gaming populace ages, this is becoming more and more important. For example, I've got a two year old kid (he just diassembled the couch), which seriously puts a dent in my free time. As such a game that does a lot of the work, or in which the players do a lot of the work is appealing to me.

I agree that reduction of the GM's workload is important, but I'm not quite sure this has to tie in with the amount of 'free time' you have. There are two kinds of workload: workload outside the gaming session, and workload within the gaming session. You seem to say that the most important advantage of 'player contributions' is that it reduces the amount of work the GM has to do in preparation, outside the game.

For me, on the other hand, one of the most important advantages is that it reduces the amount of work I've got to do while playing. As a GM, improvising is my great strength - I never do much work in advance since that doesn't work for me. But while playing, I've got to do a thousand things at the same time, and a system that ensures players to do some of those things makes it all so much easier for me. As a GM, you have to keep things interesting all of the time - so whenever a player contributes something interesting, he reduces your workload, allowing you to focus more on other aspects of GMing. (Such as creating an atmosphere, keeping the pace, etcetera.)

Of course, I'm not claiming the advantage you describe doesn't exist - I'm merely drawing attention to another one. However, I think the biggest advantage doesn't have anything to do with workload. The biggest advantage, in my opinion, is that it allows the players more creative freedom, and it allows the GM to be surprised.

[Ted E. Childers]

I remember reading something about Atlas Games RUNE having a feature where players create encounters and a GM incorporates them into the big story.  If i'm not mistaken, I think it was also somewhat of a competitive RPG (which is a cool concept IMHO).

Anyone who has read the book mind filling us in?

[talysman]

I remember reading something about Atlas Games RUNE having a feature where players create encounters and a GM incorporates them into the big story.  If i'm not mistaken, I think it was also somewhat of a competitive RPG (which is a cool concept IMHO).

Anyone who has read the book mind filling us in?

I loved the idea of Rune, bought the book, and now can't find anyone to play it.

I'd say that, in most cases, Rune has no GM in the conventional sense, although there is an option to do exactly as you describe. the default case is this: every player has a character and must also take turns running an encounter. players do not have to design their own encounters, but they are penalized if they skip their turn to run.

running an encounter in Rune means you know what traps and other surprises are present. Rune does not require any kind of story; everyone's a viking, everyone goes on a dungeon crawl, whoever does the best job (playing and running) gets more of a reward than the others. that's it for story.

the reason Rune works is because it's a dungeon crawl. each encounter is basically 1-3 small rooms of a dungeon. there's no assumption that any of the encounters are connected to each other. if one player is designated as GM, all that means is that the GM has 3-4 encounters that tie together; other encounters occur as interludes between the main parts of the story and don't need to be tied into the story at all.

now, the problem with Rune -- the reason that I can't find anyone to play it -- is that many people don't want to GM, even in the very limited way described in Rune. also, because encounter design is point-based, it's not something that you can just say "let's wing it". each player needs to read through and understand the encounter design rules and will need the book as reference when designing their own encounters.

I think this is an important point. we're talking about how the traditional GM/player split is not necessary, but I think on some level, it is. there seems to be a psychological need for many people to let someone else do more of the work. it's not even laziness; these same people put a lot of work into their characters, because their characters are important to them, but designing an adventure as a whole seems less important.

sure, if you play in a group where everyone takes turns GMing a traditional campaign, the idea of Rune or similar shared-duty games seems fine and can work. but my guess is that there's more player resistance to that idea than many game designers suspect.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Aaarrrghhh ... folks, the issue of "who does the work" is a complete red herring. You're assuming a whole boatload of responsibilities and tasks and roles with the single term "GM," and the range of existing RPGs doesn't support that.

What ... is a GM? It's a term for a given person who, during play, has responsibilities that are different from those of the others, relative to one or more of the following issues:

- managing/presenting adversity
- scene framing
- back-story creation
- conflict creation
- outcome determinant
- arbitrator of disagreement
- IIEE manager

... and a few more.

My point is that these issues are not definitional for the term "GM." They all have to occur during play, or play doesn't happen. In the recent texts of many role-playing games, they all get folded into one person's responsibility, but this is just one way to do it. Many, many other ways are possible, some of which date back to the late 1970s.

Some more concepts deserve attention.

1) "GM-full" is one way of saying that the listed responsibilities are shared among everyone at the table, often by shifting them around. Universalis, Soap, and several other Forge-ish games are deliberately and formally GM-full; play such as described by Vincent, Meguey, and Emily Care is informally GM-full.

2) "Changing GM" rules have been around for a long time, to Prince Valiant (1989) if not before. In this case, most or several of the listed responsibilities are invested in one person, but who that person is can change, usually in a fairly defined and scenario-specific way. Rune seems to include a quicker-paced version of the same concept.

3) The concept of "GM-less" is bogus. There is and cannot be any such thing, because it would mean that the above list of responsibilities is abandoned - in which case play would cease.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I think that John's point is that some players like the traditional balance as they just don't want to perform some or all of the enumerated duties. As long as we preface the idea of the workload with "traditional", I think we can use that as a gross term. To be sure, if you want to look at it more specifically, one should break it down. But for ease of statement, I think that "Traditional GM Role" works just fine as a placeholder.

But if we want to be very specific here, the thing that keeps some players from wanting to play Rune, seems to be a lack of desire to present/mangage adversity.

That may be because there is considerable number cruching involved (as is certainly the case in Rune). But just as likely, I think that some people just prefer the role of they that respond to the adversity presented. This makes sense from a number of perspectives. It goes to the idea that it's not fun to provide both the "question" and "answer" in RPGs (the "Chalk Outlines" flaw). Rune handles this by rotating, but even then it may be too much. Note that this is exaclty why we made the complication rules in Universalis the way we did. If a single player controls both the questioning and answering elements, there is no complication.

Anyhow, particular solutions to this problem will be more or less successful depending upon their implementation. But some solution does seem to be important to implement.

Mike

P.S. Victor, good point. Distributing keeps all players more involved, and makes the duties of each less onerous and, therefore, more likley to actually be fun. Nothing worse than when the need to be creative becomes a negative stressor as opposed to a positive one.