GM/World as Character

[deadpanbob]

All:

I've done a search on the forums, but my search-kwon-do as they say, is meek.

Can anyone point me to games that have included the idea of the GM or the campaign world itslef as a character in the game - with a full GM/world character sheet?

What I'm looking for are any games where the GM/World are personified, although not nec. in any 'physical' sense within the context of the game, but nonetheless are active characters in the game.

I'm still trudging away on my game design, and I'm working through issues related to using the GM as a character in the game.  

From a loosely deinfed GNS perspective, the game is a mix of Gamism and Narrativism (stading in as shorthand for the usual...), and in fact, I hope it to achieve the dream of Gamism powered Narrativism.  Part of the point of the game is that the players, through the vechilce of their characters compete to overthrow the current status quo as represented by the GM/game world - and I would like that status quo to have a personified character with some kind of game mechanics/stats that allows participation and/or competition at a mechanical level with the player characters.

Cheers,



Jason

[Bob McNamee]

There was a reference to separating out traditional GM roles to players in the quoted section of this thread...

under the Duties section

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5505

Hope this helps,

[deadpanbob]

Bob:

Thanks.  That's a good reference, and one that I'm passingly familiar with.  I haven't seen a fully realized/published version of Storypunk yet.

I can say that the material in that thread isn't quite on point for me, and I'm sure that it's my fault for failing to communicate clearly.

I'm really interested in GMs/Worlds as characters in games that are more competitive - and where the GMs duties aren't shared among the players.

Additionally, I'd be most interested in fully complete games - either freely available as PDF, or for relatively low cost via online download ( <$20 US).

I'm familiar with how Universalis works as well - though I haven't bought the rules, I've played once.  I've also been following Ron Edward's Tunnels & Trolls threads in the Actual Play forum, and thus I'm familiar (to the extent it's described in those threads) with the idea that the Big Bad in the Dungeon is supposed to be some kind of incarnation of the acutal GM - however twisted.

I'm looking for references to games where the GM is a character, whether or not that character ever interacts directly with the PCs or not is immaterial to my purposes - which are purely academic/research oriented.

Does anybody else have any experience with this type of GM personification?  If no-one can think of any games like this, does anyone have any thoughts on whether having the GM compete with the players directly is a good idea, even possible, bearing in mind that the GMs traditional authorial/directorial power will be explictily proscribed in the rules in terms of how/when the GM may act, and at what cost?

Cheers,


Jason

[M. J. Young]

I'm given to understand that Hackmaster has a strictly defined Referee/Player adversarial relationship. Players are permitted to enforce rules against the referee, and penalize him for violations; referees must play within stated limits regarding power levels of encounters and rewards offered.

I've not seen it.

--M. J. Young

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi,

I've never played it, but doesn't Rune meet some of these criteria?

Christopher K

[deadpanbob]

M.J. and Christopher:

Thanks for the references.  I'll check them out.

Anybody have anything elese?

Cheers,


Jason

[Lxndr]

Fastlane sort of pits the GM against the players.  He has no statistics, but he does have a "Bank" in the same way as the players do...

[deadpanbob]

LXNDR:

Thanks - I'll have to check that out - it's in Indie Game Design right now, correct?  IIRC it's the game that sprung from the Roulette wheel mechanics discussion.

Cheers,


Jason

[Jonathan Walton]

Agone is one of the first that I remember doing such a thing.  Don't have it on me right now, but check the RPGnet reviews.

[Lxndr]

Yeah, it's the game that sprung from the roulette wheel.  Basically, the GM has a "bank", just like the players, but he doesn't have attributes (facets) or Life.  NPCs are defined by an "appraisal value" instead, which is meant to encompass all those things.

It's sort of simplistic, but it's along the lines of what you're looking for, I think.

[Andrew Martin]

Can anyone point me to games that have included the idea of the GM or the campaign world itself as a character in the game - with a full GM/world character sheet?

What I'm looking for are any games where the GM/World are personified, although not nec. in any 'physical' sense within the context of the game, but nonetheless are active characters in the game.

My upcoming new game The Deck has the world, divided into locations, characters, tools and so on. But the traditional GM function is distributed amongst the players; and the game is narrativist.

The Deck looks like a mutant hybrid cross between The Pool, Trollbabe, Universalis and Stephanie Morgan, Girl of Adventure!; in that players have a pool (or deck) of cards, interaction is variable number of rounds, players can bid in interactions and 'buy' character power and cards represent characters and the strength of relationships.

[simon_hibbs]

Rune might be worth looking at. In Rune the characetrs are competing with each other as much as with the GM, but some of the ideas in there might be of use. I don't know though, I've never read or playeed it.

Greg Stafford used to talk about how he imagined HeroQuest working many years back. He had the idea of having characetr sheets for elements of the game world such as your clan, the kingdom of sartar, the lunar empire, and so on in a hierarchy. He even showed some very odd looking character sheet concepts with areas for the characters mythic presence, relationships and such. In the final game I suppose you could actualy do this. You'd just need to quantify all the abilities and traits of the Lunar Empire, for example, in HQ terms.


Simon Hibbs

[pete_darby]

temptation to start a new thread in the HQ forum about character sheets for Gloranthan countries: 9W2...

Apart from that, how about Aria: Worlds if you can find a copy (and a fortifying drink to hand while reading it).

[Daniel Solis]

I'm hesitant to mention PUNK since it's still in development but I do intend for either the scene or The Man to have an active - possibly adverserial - role in the game to get across that "The whole world is against us!" vibe across.

You can see the game as it develops here.

There's also WTF? A completely different style of game where there are a bunch of gm's but only one player to reward the best one.

This game is pretty much complete.

[Mike Holmes]

To be clear, you're looking for games in which the GM has a single specific avatar in-game that represents himself, in addition to controlling the world? Such that the character can compete with the PCs via that character? The problem is that, if the GM can control all the NPCs then how are these not projections of himself into the game. To call one specific one a special Avatar seems to have no particular effect at all.

Which is to say that I think that there is no game in which there are different mechanics for such a character. The only one that I can think of that even has a nominally separate character for the GM is Paranioa, where the GM often melds with the Computer in a sort of post-modern way. But, again, that's just a convention, and not even one strictly supported by the text, IIRC.

Mike