There have been a couple of refences to the whole, "GM is god" mindset. What are the general views on this type of mentality? Is is accepted and expected? Do you try and avoid such mindset and gaming groups that bye into it? How do you deal with it one way or another. Is it as prevalent as it appears?

The ideal is to avoid pure polling type threads here. Thus I won't tell you anything about my own opinions on the matter :D If you want to continue the thread, find an angle for discussion that results in more than comparing experiences.

The obvious answer to the mentality is to note that it's appropriateness depends on the game and the group. If you play a game where you need a god GM, then you by golly should have one. So, asketh the furry forest creature, which are these games?

Above all others is probably Paranoia, which explicitly assumes a god GM. Then there's a bunch of '80s games (everything from Chaosium, say) that imply both adherence to rules and the GM deciding everything without really taking a stance. Lastly there's the "storytelling" type games of the '90s that are explicitly schitzhophrenic, giving rules and telling you not to use them, talking about mutual storytelling and how the GM is anyways always right, and so on. WW games are a good example, as well as Tri-stat games. I find the latter extremely funny, as they tend to include "freeform is the highest form", "always obey the GM" and "change any rule you wish" in the same book with tens and hundreds of pages of dense rules material. Talk about blindness to meaning.

In this morass it's no wonder that the simplest possible power structure, where the GM decides what goes, tends to be a common one when the game doesn't explicitly give power to others. In some circles it's become the mark of the good roleplayer: in Finland it's the de facto boundary between "real roleplayers" and twerps, whether they're willing to cede all power to the auteur figure. It's considered whining to posit any other source of authority.

Then again, nowadays there are games that again explicitly discuss the issue and limit GM power. Being that you're in Forge, you probably know all about them.

Lots of good discussion on this in the Game Master Is System thread a while back.

Apart from that reference, I do feel I should add that Paranoia, which Eero lists as one of the most explicitly "God-GM" games, is absolutely made to be GMed reactively, letting the players drive the story through their always-humorous attempts to escape their enjoyably doomed fate.

So power and authority do not equate with either authorship or control.

Darksmith wrote: There have been a couple of refences to the whole, "GM is god" mindset. What are the general views on this type of mentality? Is is accepted and expected? Do you try and avoid such mindset and gaming groups that bye into it? How do you deal with it one way or another. Is it as prevalent as it appears?

I'm with Marco. 100%.

Can someone please provide a specific, definite, descriptive explanation of the phenomenon we're supposed to be discussing?

Best,
Ron

As one of the more recent mentioners of said tendency, the 'GM is God' mentality usually consists of some combination of the following:

1. The Rules Say what the GM says they do.
2. The GM has the right to override anything you say or do, under all circumstances.
3. If it doesn't happen with the GM as a witness, it didn't happen.
4. Do not question the GM on why something happened the way it did. The GM has everything under control.
5. The GM has absolute mediatorial control over all discussion, in and out of character, including the right to say 'SHUT UP'.
6. Any rights and priveliges not mentioned above are to be relegated/denied as the GM sees fit.
7. Players posess only one right, to leave the game. And often, if they do so, they are no longer welcome to game with the group in any future games, lest the GM punish those who did stay for fraternizing with an insubordinate player.

I've seen this mindset more than a few times in my gaming career, and frankly, it drives me nuts. I simply cannot play in a game that acts under these suppositions. I can understand how it might work for some groups, and how for some groups it might be necessary. Not for me.

I've acted as final arbiter of the rules as a GM, against the arguments of disgruntled players. It was usually in cases where they argued for the last ounce of advantage, like a whining defense lawyer. (You have to admire how Gamist players press to the edge.) Disputes shouldn't be settled with shouting matches, most would agree; so there is value in this function.

I think GM's as rules arbiters spoil their impression when they make inconsistent rulings or appear to be motivated by petty moods, like spite or arrogance.

Likewise, it's when a GM overrides something without explanation or in a dismissive manner that players become disenfranchised.

Mortaneous' SC clause about a GM witness duty reveals the classic RPG bottleneck of GM attention. The following is an example of a phenomenon I've seen time and time again: the players are marching along; other players are in different locations, performing maintenance functions; the progressive sub-party is attacked; concentrated SIS impact is lavished on the embattled sub-party; other location subs get ants in their pants, trying to get to the site or do something to affect the outcome of the battle; they get drowned out by input from the combat sub or told "you're not there"; combat ends and input is received for follow up functions (healing, collecting spoils, etc); non-combat subs become disgusted and disengage; calls for input go out unheeded; after the disenfranchised leave their darkness, an argument ensues over whether they provided input and how what counts is what the GM heard.

I've got an example for #4: my GM had an NPC bring my nemesis' head in a basket to my apartment door. Talk about pissed off. How could I exact my revenge on a dead man?

Every GM sets the tone as far as how much side-talk he will tolerate. I have sat for some GM's that told everyone to shutup, but we were being brats, and he was seriously stressing. I more tried not to laugh than got upset. And I've interrupted everyone's side conversations and told them it was a drag to compete. And you kind of sympathize with them being bored. And you also kind of get pissed off at their inability to invest in the on-screen players' experience.

I've never seen a GM revoke player priveleges. I have, as a player, stabbed another's character to punish him for checking our party's hit point levels and then fireballing the demon (or whatever), frying us as well. The mage was vastly more powerful than the fighter-thief I was playing, but his player's hands were shaking and the whole group grew quite. "I think I've made my point," I said. "It's your funeral," he said. And we let it go. Talk about your spontaneous Nar moment.

Players resign out of frustration. They're frustrated because they don't have any impact or don't like the direction of Exploration. The GM fails to support the players because they do not intersect his preparation. He is afraid to stamp left-field input because it may compete with his ability to provide play material. If he fails in this, he will appear foolish and ineffective.

I think the way through is to ask for what you want out of what he (the GM) can deliver.

I've always felt that the GM is not a god of the game by any rights. If there was anyone that should be considered the 'god' it should be the design team of the game. They created the rules and world in which the characters must interact. The GM must intereact within this world and use it's 'laws' to tell his story.

At least that is how I see it.

The GM can fudge rolls or change things within the game, but the game is still the framework that he is operating in. I've only seen a GM totally disregard the framework of the system we were playing once and it did not go well.

I guess my real question is: Should the GM be bound by the rules of the system that he is running just like the players or should he be above them? Is there a happy medium?

Darksmith wrote: Is there a happy medium?

For my crew this "GM is God" started from our first games.

The first time a new player starts building a character I explain a few things. Like this is a drama but instead of being on stage you're sitting in front of other players. Also you don't have any lines. Only guild lines as to how you're character should act.

But when it came down to explaining that I as the GM tell the story they seem to get a bit confused. I tell them that I'm like a narrator setting up the scene. But that didn't help to much. "But why do you get to deiced if it's raining or not?" Well I say because I'm the creator of the story. I set the mood and control all the other people in the game that aren't PC (aka NPC). Think of it as a god in that I control your environment and I can even control your actions. "Ahhh ok I understand now".

An added rule that we use is that the GM is the ref in that he/she has final say in all discussions. What makes a good GM is their ability to listen to the needs or suggestions of the players and then find a good compromise that doesn't harm the story. But also to remind players why we are all sitting around a table. To play a game not create a rule system.

Some people seem to disagree in letting the GM have the final say. Saying it's unfair. Well to that I say the GM has to have the final say. There needs to be some type of control. You can't let the players keep changing the rules as they see fit. You can't let them take to much control over the environment. The less debate in a game session the smother it runs.

If a player doesn't want to let the GM take full control of their environment then what does that say about the player?

If the GM doesn't listen to the players needs then that GM will find him or herself without players.

But when it comes down to a yelling match about what is right. The GM has the final say. It's his or her game session. Therefore it's the GM's rules that we use. GM is God.

--
OT: How's that for my first post. smiles. This board has been a very valuable resource for my gaming needs.

It seems to me in most games, the GM tends to be "first among equals", like the king among the barons. There are very few games (Scarlet Wake and Universalis come to mind) where there isn't a privileged participant.

Even then, I suspect, there's probably one guy who "knows the rules really well" and acts as informal leader.

The degree of hierarchy in the game, the elevation of the GM ("umpire" vs. "absolute god") has more to do with OOC intrapersonal factors than to rules.

Hi Jeremy and welcome to the Forge!

I think your post is interesting, as it touches upon two different meanings of the expression "GM is god":

Jeremy wrote: But when it came down to explaining that I as the GM tell the story they seem to get a bit confused. I tell them that I'm like a narrator setting up the scene. But that didn't help to much. "But why do you get to deiced if it's raining or not?" Well I say because I'm the creator of the story. I set the mood and control all the other people in the game that aren't PC (aka NPC). Think of it as a god[.]

[...]

An added rule that we use is that the GM is the ref in that he/she has final say in all discussions.

Some people seem to disagree in letting the GM have the final say. Saying it's unfair. Well to that I say the GM has to have the final say. There needs to be some type of control. You can't let the players keep changing the rules as they see fit. You can't let them take to much control over the environment.

In what general set of theory of religion are we approaching the dimension of god from?

If he was wise and patient, being one with the river, or some other nonsense like that, then obviously there is nothing to fear.

However, if they were a power flaunting wrathful type that could be bad.

In a small tangent, it seems to me that most "the GM is god and has no responsiblity to go with his great power" ideals come from a similar "it's us versus the DM" mentalities that early gamers have.

Most people with such mentalities (us vs. GM) are, shall I put it lightly and say, BAD roleplayers. They usually do not understand the non-GM elements of the game that make the universe meaningful (such as style, or player participation, or that it "role"-playing and not "roll"-playing).

I would also say that if the GM were really god, computer-based RPGs wouldn't function as well as they do.

In summation, I would say anyone who believes the GM is god should think that Tom Hanks thinks Steven Spielberg is god, the GM is there to compel and challenge you, not send you to heaven or hell, contrive a list of commandments, or judge you based on their own set of moralities.

Halzebier wrote: I suggest you take a look at the games _Universalis_ (which is GM-less and has players create rules on the fly) and _InSpectres_ (which gives a great deal of control to the players), both of which have been discussed extensively at the Forge.

I personally find them fascinating and think that they show how things can be done very differently.

eralston wrote: They usually do not understand the non-GM elements of the game that make the universe meaningful (such as style, or player participation, or that it "role"-playing and not "roll"-playing).

eralston wrote: I would also say that if the GM were really god, computer-based RPGs wouldn't function as well as they do.

In summation, I would say anyone who believes the GM is god should think that Tom Hanks thinks Steven Spielberg is god, the GM is there to compel and challenge you, not send you to heaven or hell, contrive a list of commandments, or judge you based on their own set of moralities.

Ron Edwards wrote: I'm with Marco. 100%.

Can someone please provide a specific, definite, descriptive explanation of the phenomenon we're supposed to be discussing?

I'd asked for a definition and Mortaneus gave a pretty good one (a concrete one). I was going to analyze them point by point but it all came down to the last one: I think ultimately the most a player can do in a game is leave (I mean, the player can deck the GM and cow him into doing what the player wants but I'm going to stick with best-practices functional behavior here).

The idea that a GM can ostracize you for fraternizing with the enemy seems pretty ... well ... high school to me. It doesn't sound like adult behavior and if that's the reigning mentality then I think that's got some severe problems.

But I do believe in (under traditional gaming and for me specifically) having a very empowered facilitator (i.e. a very powerful GM). This is because I think it very much facilitates immersion (Actor Stance) which is something I value.

So having the GM "act all powerfully over the rules and the game world" is fine by me so long as that power is used in a way that directly serves me.

-Marco

So... GM is god... as long as it's beneficial to all involved?

So it's more of a Social contract that gives the GM the control he has in a game enviroment. The GM's 'powers' are directly tied to what the players will put up with?

I've always seen the GM as more of an abitrator or judge. The system gives us the 'physics' of our world. The GM gives us the situations or story that we, as players, drive or interact with. The decisions in game lay with the players, for good or ill, with the consiquences enforced by the GM.

Now that I think about it it seems that we're creating a hiearchy with in the SIS between the judge and players.

Darksmith wrote: So... GM is god... as long as it's beneficial to all involved?

Mortaneus wrote: As one of the more recent mentioners of said tendency, the 'GM is God' mentality usually consists of some combination of the following:

1. The Rules Say what the GM says they do.
2. The GM has the right to override anything you say or do, under all circumstances.
3. If it doesn't happen with the GM as a witness, it didn't happen.
4. Do not question the GM on why something happened the way it did. The GM has everything under control.
5. The GM has absolute mediatorial control over all discussion, in and out of character, including the right to say 'SHUT UP'.
6. Any rights and priveliges not mentioned above are to be relegated/denied as the GM sees fit.
7. Players posess only one right, to leave the game. And often, if they do so, they are no longer welcome to game with the group in any future games, lest the GM punish those who did stay for fraternizing with an insubordinate player.

I've seen this mindset more than a few times in my gaming career, and frankly, it drives me nuts. I simply cannot play in a game that acts under these suppositions. I can understand how it might work for some groups, and how for some groups it might be necessary. Not for me.

Hmmm... provocative. Was that all an expression of personal taste, or a topic you want to raise for discussion?

I've been chewin' a lot on this kind of problem of late, myself. Here's what I've observed, with opinions thrown in to make it sound like I know what I'm talking about.

- If you're playing GURPS, Cyberpunk, Call of Cthulhu, or something like that, it's pretty much assumed that the GM has absolute power and responsibility. The odds say that PCs should be more powerful in the world, but also more often dead, than they really are. This is because everyone wants a good story. The GM, in games like this, want the players to see all the cool plot sHe's worked out, and they can't do that if they're out of the plot (because, for instance, they're dead, or they follow a red herring lead). Similarly, the PCs want to circumvent as much plot as possible because it's dangerous, so they do everything in their power to avoid the bad guys and, when they get to the villain at the end, they burn his corpse, sanctify the ashes, then send him into the sun, then blow up the sun, because they don't want that guy coming back. It's therefore the GM's job to make sure that the bad guys actually do find the heroes while they're sneaking around, and then find the loophole through which the villain can return in a future episode.

- If you're playing Prime Time Adventures, though, you want the villains to find you and you want the bad guy to come back in a future episode because they're good for your character, which is the closest thing to character advancement in the game. Similarly, with Dogs in the Vineyard, battle wounds, lost loves, and moustache-twisting arch-villains all add to your efficacy, so the player's on the same side as the GM (though the player characters are necessarily opposed to the GM-played antagonists).

In the first example, the GM is God in the sense that He makes everything happen despite the actions of the heroes. Sorta like a Babylonian god.

In the second example, the GM is there to drive your conflicts and make life hard for the characters (read: fun for the players) so that they can grow and change, more like, say, a Greek god. Like a Greek hero wants glory, and so charges into battle on the beach without reading the number on the mailbox, your character charges into conflict with the player knowing that it will serve to enrich the character's interest, even if the character thinks this is a dumb idea, and it's gonna get us all killed.

My take is that the GM is the facilitator for the story. You can call that "god" if you want, but if I'm GM, I'll have to respectfully ask you to call me by name, instead. "God, would you pass the Cheet-Os" doesn't work for me.

Marco wrote: I'd asked for a definition and Mortaneus gave a pretty good one (a concrete one). I was going to analyze them point by point but it all came down to the last one: I think ultimately the most a player can do in a game is leave.

Noon wrote:

Marco wrote: I was going to analyze them point by point but it all came down to the last one: I think ultimately the most a player can do in a game is leave.

Not really. They can make the GM leave to some or a full extent. If you don't grant any credibility to someones input, their input isn't there...they may as well not be there themselves. "Well then, rocks fall and everybody dies!" "Yeah, yeah, whatever...so who's gunna GM next?"

Darksmith wrote: There have been a couple of refences to the whole, "GM is god" mindset. What are the general views on this type of mentality? Is is accepted and expected? Do you try and avoid such mindset and gaming groups that bye into it? How do you deal with it one way or another. Is it as prevalent as it appears?

THE VETO

One way to deal with a lot of the negative ramifications of the "GM is God" paradigm is to institute the idea of player veto. If any player disagrees with anything the GM does in the game, they could instantly call for a vote of the players to "veto" the action. This can be, but is not limited, to rule interpretation. If a majority of the other players agree, the GM would then have to renarrate or readjudicate the action according to the will of the player who called for the veto.

EXAMPLES

-- "I know the rules are kind of unclear... but my familiar should have gotten my Dex bonus to the saving throw... I call for a veto!"

-- "It makes no sense that the Princess who sent us on the quest was actually the polymorphed Lich Necromancer who we have been fighting the whole time. I call for a veto!"

-- "There is no way that a first level party should have to encounter an Elder Red Dragon! I call for a veto!"

MY EXPERIENCE

This was a house rule in a D&D campaign I played in. The veto was never invoked so it is hard to say if it worked or didn't. But it certainly might be the answer for campaigns mired in the negative consequences of the "GM is God" mindset. If anything, I find it a bit more agreeable to my sense of fair play than the the "Rule Zeroes" (GM may overrule anything in the rules) and "Golden Rules" (The GM is Golden, he rules) of many games.

I don't think this type of rule is necessarily appropriate to games that already reflect collaborative tendencies (what is called narrativism around here as well collaborative storytelling games). But rather it is a good set of check and balances to systems that are based on the notion that the GM is God. Instead, the revised system could be stated as "The GM is God except when he isn't." (I think this rule would work best in White Wolf style games, but that is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree).

Has anyone else had experience with veto systems? Did they sufficiently address the problems caused by the GM is God mentality? What were its downfalls?

The Veto sounds very much like a Safeword, in that it is most effective indirectly. You don't want to use it, you want to encourage certain behavior (in this case the GM being respectful of the player's concerns for fairness and consistency) through the threat of using it.

Walt Freitag had a great discussion of this dynamic in this post, embedded within the Safewords in Gaming thread.

John Kim wrote: In principle, it should be possible for someone to take over GMing. However, my experience is that in practice this almost never happens. i.e. It is pretty much a given that a GM "owns" a campaign. So a player can leave and the campaign continues, but the campaign can't continue if the GM leaves.

There have been two alternatives to this. One is troupe style play, such as suggested by Ars Magica or Theatrix. Each session has a GM, but the GM task rotates among members of the group from session to session....On the other hand, there are true GMless games like Soap, where the GM tasks are always spread among the players. However, my limited impression is that GMless games tend to be short-term (i.e. no long campaigns).

John Kim wrote:
It's an interesting point. In principle, it should be possible for someone to take over GMing. However, my experience is that in practice this almost never happens. i.e. It is pretty much a given that a GM "owns" a campaign. So a player can leave and the campaign continues, but the campaign can't continue if the GM leaves.

Hmm, this thread is really wandering, but to get back to Darksmith's question:

So... GM is god... as long as it's beneficial to all involved?

So it's more of a Social contract that gives the GM the control he has in a game enviroment. The GM's 'powers' are directly tied to what the players will put up with?

I've always seen the GM as more of an abitrator or judge. The system gives us the 'physics' of our world. The GM gives us the situations or story that we, as players, drive or interact with. The decisions in game lay with the players, for good or ill, with the consiquences enforced by the GM.

Now that I think about it it seems that we're creating a hiearchy with in the SIS between the judge and players.

Mark Johnson wrote: One way to deal with a lot of the negative ramifications of the "GM is God" paradigm is to institute the idea of player veto.

Halzebier wrote: As far as I am concerned, a player always has a veto -- it's an inalienable right and not something which can be instituted or taken away.

But then, that's just the problem: many players and GMs fail to realize this.

John Kim wrote:

Noon wrote:

Marco wrote: I was going to analyze them point by point but it all came down to the last one: I think ultimately the most a player can do in a game is leave.

Not really. They can make the GM leave to some or a full extent. If you don't grant any credibility to someones input, their input isn't there...they may as well not be there themselves. "Well then, rocks fall and everybody dies!" "Yeah, yeah, whatever...so who's gunna GM next?"

It's an interesting point. In principle, it should be possible for someone to take over GMing. However, my experience is that in practice this almost never happens. i.e. It is pretty much a given that a GM "owns" a campaign. So a player can leave and the campaign continues, but the campaign can't continue if the GM leaves.

On Vetos:

Veto as it was originally worded is essentially always used. I noted an argument I had with a player about the truth of the statement "Your character falls down a pit, take 4 damage." In this case (even though I view GM as god), I was certainly called on my actions, and a veto was brought against me. I argued with the character (and everyone else didn't say anything during this period), but I was not willing to run a game with a player who would not stop objecting to what I felt was a valid action. After it became apparant that this was just NOT going to settle I booted the player on the spot. Now, I didn't face any reprecussions from the group for asserting my authority in this situation (although the game still ended shortly due to depression problems of one of the other players).

If it were a wee bit different situation, say I just blew up his character. "You walk in the room and a red dragon is napping... However you step on it's tail and it snaps you up in one quick bite." I would have been called on, and a veto brought against me. The group would support him this time though, instead of me. If I kicked him out of the game for refusing to die, I likely would have lost a lot of face with my players. I don't even know how they would react, because it would be so uncharacteristic of a thing for me to do.

I think that the term isn't really 'veto', it's more 'object'. A veto refers to blocking something, not moving to block it. A president can veto a bill, at which point it doesn't happen. A lawyer can object at which point the objection might be overruled or sustained.

On Continuation after depature of a GM:

Campaigns will rarely continue after a GM leaves (even in the example of multiverser, it's really the same character hoping from campaign to campaign). Gaming groups can and will continue as they were very often though. The group I kicked out (and thus ended the campaign) still contiued to play D&D. I don't think I played with them after that, but I can't really remember.

On Rotating GMship:

D&D groups I know commonly rotate GMs. Frank designs a dungeon, than Bill, than Lucy, and then Frank makes another one. A lot of comedy is also generally included in rotating GMship games. I personally find the idea compleately counter intuitive because it destroys the capacity for plot secrets and continuous (non-partitioned) plot at the same time.

John Uckele wrote: a veto was brought against me. I argued with the character

John Kim wrote: I would say a player's ability to "veto" depends on the Social Contract. If the group feels that it is wrong, say, to argue with the GM on a ruling -- then players can't argue with the GM on a ruling. That is, a player physically can argue, but it will be discouraged and rejected by the group.

TonyLB wrote:

John Uckele wrote: a veto was brought against me. I argued with the character

I think that's the difference between what you're talking about and a veto. With a real veto, the GM would not have the right to argue. Player vetoes, that's final.

"Veto" is not the same word as "Vote".

A veto says that if one player, any one player, is sufficiently unhappy with a GM decision to resort to using the veto then that decision is wrong.

TonyLB wrote: "Veto" is not the same word as "Vote".

A veto says that if one player, any one player, is sufficiently unhappy with a GM decision to resort to using the veto then that decision is wrong.

I've had a few run-ins with the "GM is God" mentality. I think "GM is final arbiter" is different from "GM is God" however. This thread seems to be confusing the positions.

Frequently, when I GM, I serve as the final arbiter/referee/umpire. Basically the guy who tells Timmy, "yeah, dude, you got shot" when Timmy hops up off the playground saying Johnny didn't shoot him. Of course, Timmy then invariably declares that he had enough time to get off a spell before he hit the ground dead...

I digress...

But I think this is a very different position than "GM is God". It's okay to debate/argue with a referee. It might not help one's case, but I've changed rulings based on a solid and rational discussion with players. I've never considered myself "God" though, even in game terms. Seems pretty conflated to me...

I think the heart of the difference to these two points is that you can't argue with God. God can be arbitrary. God can be wrong. God can do anything it wants and all you can do is sing His praises. There's no "instant replay" on God. That's the difference, IMO.

It's worth noting that when I've encountered this mindset (which is more often than I would have preferred), I've found it generally to be a result of GMs who were woefully insecure in any number (or all) of the areas of their life. Some were insecure about their social skills. Insecure about their Creative Agenda. Insecure about their creative abilities. Their knowledge of the rules. Their sexuality. Their house. Their pets. The list goes on.

For the terminally insecure, I think "GM is God" is a wonderfully easy sofa to fall upon. It keeps them from having to "work" (in any real, meaningful social sense) when they come out with a bad ruling, heavy-handed plot generation tactics or a really dumb plot twist (and we've all seen them). For some GMs, this is a degree of acceptance/sociability that they don't, or feel they aren't, going to get from any other outlet. Then again, I've played with some GMs who were just on a flat out control trip. Their whole schtick was controlling the players and their actions. It was like S&M without the cool latex outfits (or the sex in most instances). IMO, those GMs were the worst because they took themselves seriously as Gods in the Temple of Play.

Which leaves the players to take any number of limited (often passive) responses (remember you can't argue with God), all of which I have seen manifest: manipulate the GM's insecurities to get a better deal out of the game (and yes egos do purr when you stroke them), clam up and go through the motions (honestly this can be more perverse than the last course of action) or hang up the dicebag and hope for something better down the road (which is sadly something I've had to do way too often in the past).

One of the things I think I like best about all this Forge business is that we're finally starting to move into the direction of changing how these games are played. Think of the pressures on your average GM. They have to know the rules better than anyone. They have to make an awe-inspiring plot that the players will find engaging and refreshing. They have to be the referee and, no matter what anyone says, no one except a suck-up likes the referee (at least in any sport I've ever played/watched). So on top of always playing the "banker" (to use monopoly-speak) they have to be an umpire, a writer, and an ad-hoc character actor all while meeting the leeching creative needs of a group of people they hardly know in any real sense of the term.

Top that off with the insecure, controlling personalities that tend to gravitate towards what they see as a position of "power" over others, the creative "Driver's Seat" if you will, and there's no question, in my mind, why many GMs are just accidents waiting to happen.

Fortunately, games are starting to stop worrying about "realism" (snicker, snicker), stop worrying about dice mechanics and kewl powers and starting to concern themselves with how these roles get divvied up at the table. I'm all for taking some of the duties off of a GM and see Narr games like Sorcerer and its deriviatives as putting some of the onus of responsibility back on the players (who now must ante-up as active participants rather than Doritos munching random dice machines).

Perhaps if we stop expecting miracles from these GMs, they'll stop trying to act like "gods"? Perhaps if we make these games more collaborative we'll see less of this as well? And, more than that, perhaps if we stop allowing ourselves to use a referee's position as a backdoor to control over another living being and, instead, work on the psychological issues in our lives that would lead us to find something of that nature so attractive in the first place, we'll see less of these "Gods Behind the Screen" and get down to having a seriously good time.

Unless we're talking about the Shirley MacLaine thing, in which case we all get to be little godlets... (I'd like to see how that would work out.

It would probably wind up being something like Universalis...
;)

Scott

That was a big post. Actually, I see what you're saying. I think we now get into annoying degrees of meaning though...

When I say "GM is god", I mean the GM can control whatever they want in the game. I know that a good GM/Player relationship rarely if ever creates conflicts over how the game is being run (I think part of the reason I kicked a player out for refusing to take damage I assigned was the idea of refusing to take damage the GM truly and fairly assigned had never even occurred to me before that point).

Now, to say that "GM is god" is synonymous with unquestionability, I'm not sure if that's reasonable. I can shout "Father, why have you forsaken me?" if life kicks me in the nuts... Doesn't mean God is going to drop me some good fortune, but I am questioning.

I think the thing we have to watch out for is placing value judgments on words that don't warrant them. The statement "GM is god" among them. It can be (and probably often is) a very negative thing to have this attitude, but sometimes it just means that by the social contract the GM has final and complete authority to the point where questions (while accepted) are not expected.

John Uckele wrote: Actually, I see what you're saying. I think we now get into annoying degrees of meaning though...

John Uckele wrote: When I say "GM is god", I mean the GM can control whatever they want in the game. I know that a good GM/Player relationship rarely if ever creates conflicts over how the game is being run (I think part of the reason I kicked a player out for refusing to take damage I assigned was the idea of refusing to take damage the GM truly and fairly assigned had never even occurred to me before that point).

John Uckele wrote: Now, to say that "GM is god" is synonymous with unquestionability, I'm not sure if that's reasonable. I can shout "Father, why have you forsaken me?" if life kicks me in the nuts... Doesn't mean God is going to drop me some good fortune, but I am questioning.

John Uckele wrote: I think the thing we have to watch out for is placing value judgments on words that don't warrant them. The statement "GM is god" among them. It can be (and probably often is) a very negative thing to have this attitude, but sometimes it just means that by the social contract the GM has final and complete authority to the point where questions (while accepted) are not expected.

Scripty wrote: Yet I've seen GMs get backrubs, free food, game books, movie tickets, rides to nearly anywhere, even free concerts predominately because they were GMs (jokes were even made about earning free XP for these "sacrifices". i don't have the GM's notes so i can't honestly say whether or not XP was given.). So, maybe another question to ask is: where does the role of GM stop at referee and begin at God?

Scripty wrote: So I guess we should ask ourselves: Do we really want a top down heirarchy that puts us in our place? Or do we want an across-the-table relationship with our GM? Do we want to be dependent upon the GM to act benevolently, fairly, and without malice or prejudice even though, arguably, he portrays the opposing team in our contest? Or do we want rules to hold a GM accountable for the choices he makes? And what does that say about us, as people?

Darksmith wrote: There have been a couple of refences to the whole, "GM is god" mindset. What are the general views on this type of mentality?

Halzebier wrote: I think that favors, gifts, free rides etc. for the GM are given freely and not as 'sacrifices' or dues. IME, they're usually meant as praise ("You've drawn up the entire map in painstaking detail, now we'll treat you to a pizza"; "That adventure rocked. And BTW, we bought and painted a cool mini for you").

Vaxalon wrote: I think if you look out at the world, the answer is, "Ordinary folks want to be led, extraordinary folks want to lead." To borrow a statistical formula from Sturgeon's Law, 95% of the gamers out there are entirely happy with the DM-is-god outlook, and would be uncomfortable in a game where it wasn't part of the social contract.

Tomas HVM wrote: When chance is central in how conflicts are resolved within the game, the GM/player is made into a mediator or translator of chance. I believe this buries the notion of "GM is God".

Scripty wrote: It was just a cynical ploy to garner favor from another human being.

If the GM feels it's dramatically appropriate, he or she can alter any die roll or ignore any rule.

TonyLB wrote: If backrubs and favors-for-XP between consenting adults are exchanges where both people value what they get more than what they give then how is that anything but good?

TonyLB wrote: That's one minor facet of the larger fact that there are no rules to govern and constrain the behavior of most GMs. This is a problem for the GMs more often than for the players.

Hi Scott,

a lot of thoughts there. I'll stick to one point, relating to what I wrote:

GMs fugding their rolls. Yes, it happens. In some games or with some GMs it happens all the time. A friend of mine told me a funny story the other day, about him and his game group giving the Gm a new die in a session. They new he was fudging, and having given him a D3 without his knowledge, the whole session was trqansformed into a bizarre show of how much he fudged. He did it all the time. At the end of the session he discovered the ruse, and exclaimed: "This f... die has no sixes"! They all laughed and he reddened.

I maintain that IF you are to have a God in roleplaying games, it must be the die. The GM is but a mediator of heavenly messages. Like any other priest he may corrupt the message, and that is alright with me, as long as the "priest" in question makes it to improve the lot of his herd (not to enrich himself or, in this instance; to make his NPCs the winners). I believe that the welfare of humans should be first and foremost in our mind, not the welfare of some remote God, or his church.

The same is true for games: let the gamers and their drama be your first priority, and let the system play second violin. A GM fudging rolls to keep the drama alive is following a sound principle in my view; using his free will to be a true mediator for the game.

So you may conclude that the game is God, but then this whole "God"-idea becomes so far fetched it's not worth discussing.

I sincerely believe we need to lay it aside for more nuanced notions about what the GM is, and is not.

By the way: GM is God!

Tomas HVM wrote: I maintain that IF you are to have a God in roleplaying games, it must be the die. The GM is but a mediator of heavenly messages.

Amber Godless roleplaying :-)

Scripty wrote: Interesting. So outright bribery is on the table?

TonyLB wrote: Anything that players do is part of Social Contract.

TonyLB wrote: So yes, if they're bribing each other and most people seem fine with that then it's part of your Social Contract.

TonyLB wrote: Honestly, I find it a refreshing break from most GM-is-God behavior I've seen. The guy is outright saying "I'm human, I'm arbitrary, I don't attribute myself any special judgment or wisdom... I'm just the guy at whom the buck stops. Gimme a backrub!" That's ever so much nicer than "I am all-wise and all-knowing! My decisions are made with superhuman judgment!"

Tomas HVM wrote: Amber Godless roleplaying :-)

TonyLB wrote: On "Amber Godless Roleplaying" (heh), I think that Tomas's statement about the GM as arbiter of the rules, borrowing upon their agreed-upon authority, translates perfectly well to non-Fortune mechanics. The general principle is that the rules can provide a mediating layer between players who want different things: They can both try to achieve what they want, and the rules "tell" who succeeds. That mediating layer does not need to be vested in an individual.

Oh come on folks. I'm not even focussed on the backrub. I just thought "Gimme a backrub!" was a funny phrase. And I was talking, explicitly, about consensual acts. You say it was non-consensual, I'll believe you, in which case I find it repellant. Enough so that, frankly, I wish you hadn't shared the image quite so graphically.

But now I'm all curious about a statement by Tomas: Are you serious in saying that any time a player is ticked off Social Contract has been violated?

I don't see how that can be the case. If you think bribery's reprehensible, and Joe thinks it's standard operating procedure, and you've never talked about it then what you have (IMHO) is not a violation of Social Contract. It is simply a lack of communication. Am I missing your point?

TonyLB wrote: Are you serious in saying that any time a player is ticked off Social Contract has been violated?

Has it been established yet that the person who is called GM by the rest of the group has whatever powers they give to him? There seems to be a line of thought through this thread along the lines of 'If your GM, you get this and this. You just get it because your GM'. I think it's a bit of a learning hiccup. For example, a policeman doesn't get to arrest you because he's a policeman and they just get to do that. He arrests you because you are accept the structure he's from and grant him the power to do that (and follow up by not resisting).

There really seems a reflex that if someone is GM, then they get powers over you even though you conciously didn't give them. Or that by consenting to calling them GM, your also consenting to their being able to do things you didn't know might happen but can't withdraw your consent over.

Scripty: That was an abuse of trust. Just had to just validate you on it, the guy was a wanna be nazi.

Sorry to share so graphically, but it honestly seemed I wouldn't get my point across without being explicit. This was, without a doubt, one of the most disturbing abuses of GM "authority" that I've witnessed. It was difficult for me to accept that it was just a GM picking fun at his own power over others. I was there. This wasn't the case.

Had I not been a part of this game, I likely would share Marco's view of GM power (i.e. as long as it doesn't screw me over too hard and too often, I really wouldn't care)

Noon wrote: There really seems a reflex that if someone is GM, then they get powers over you even though you conciously didn't give them. Or that by consenting to calling them GM, your also consenting to their being able to do things you didn't know might happen but can't withdraw your consent over.

Noon wrote: Scripty: That was an abuse of trust. Just had to just validate you on it, the guy was a wanna be nazi.

Tomas HVM wrote: The socalled "social contract" is an agreement on what to do and how to do it. When someone shouts out about injustice or malpractise the social contract is broken.

Okay... That backrub deal is a seriously disturbing story. That being said, I think this leaves us with a statement that GMs usually have considerable power in-game. Is this a bad thing then? Sometimes.

My players (at least those who are present for more than 1-2 games), enjoy playing in my games (at least, I presume so given that they bug me to run more). At the same time, I expect and wield absolute GM God-Power. I can and do skip rolls, or fudge rolls on occasion (the prelude adventure I ran a few days ago for a new game was a diceless game because I needed very explicit things to happen and had little room for compensation in certain places).

I have also heard about abuses to GM God-Power. I guess backrubs among them. I don't think this is a problem so much with GM God-Power as it is with 1) players who take abuse, 2) GMs who give abuse. If you remove the GM God-Power you now increase your precense of 1) players who give abuse, and 2) GMs who take abuse. You'll still have abuse of some kind in the group (like the poor GM who now gets any attempt he has at running a story mauled). At the same time, by toning down the power of the GM, you remove fudging to save characters.

So given that perspective, I think "GM is God" is alright. I think that bad GMs can and do exist, and social contracts are rarely if ever written out before hand. GMs get at much power as their players let them. If the GM is strong arm enough (apparently you need to get pretty bad sometimes), they loose the game (like no one plays in a game they run anymore).

I have to say I'm boggled by some of the arguements on this thread.

First, let's clear the air of something that seems to be causing confusion. The term social contract is a term that defines all aspects of the interaction of the players socailly. It's not written down. (I don't think it could be.) It's the slow accumulation of understanding of behaviors between the players defined through circumstance and behavior -- whether explicitley stated or not.

Second, the contract is probably never finished. When there's a disagreement about behavior, it's most likely because the situation has never come up before. As Simon stated, the contract thus far will probably help resolve the new issue. If someone keeps breaking the contract the contract will need to be re-written to accept the behavior, the person will be encouraged to finally stop the behavior, or the person (or other people who can't stand it) will leave.

Third, I suspect that to some degree, "GM as God" is an acceptable social contract for those who like it (or, in my view, can't imagine anything better.) In Scripty's group, the backrub was part ofthe social contract. The freakish incident isn't freakish because the "GM was God." It's freakish because the players all accepted it. That was the contract. They stayed because they bought that contract.

Fourth, and this is where the boggling really twists my head -- some people still, after all these years -- seems to be working off of some zero-sum premise of "It's either the GM or the Players in charge, or all hell breaks loose." John suggests that either the GM's "story" gets tramped or the GM needs to be God.

How is it possible that the idea that "abuse" is just always hovering in the corner, that the people we choose to play with are the Creatures from the Id ready to go roughshod over each other if the GM doesn't step in and whip them into shape still exist?

Excuse me? In 2004? At the Forge? No. No no no no no no.

Look, if people want to set up a tussle between the GM and the players for control of the fun -- fine, go ahead. That's the social contract the group's choosing and that's their business. But it isn't a given. There are too many actual play posts on these boards, too many games in print (paper or PDF) these days that break this paradigm. It's not that this style see-saw play between the GM and the Players doesn't exist. It's that its just not the only game in town anymore.

If there's one truly valuable function the Forge serves right now it's exploding the assumptions about how RPGs "work", what they "are" and how they get played "right." This has nothing to do with the new way being better than the traditional way. It has everything to do with the new way being a whole new option. And certainly being better for some people frustrated by the limited options that get bandied about about the "right" way to play RPGs.

The group playing an RPG can easily make the GM one player among players, with a different function, but it isn't a power battle. (See -- oh, lots of threads covering Sorcerer, Primetime Adventures, Mountain Witch, Questing Beast, Dogs in the Vineyard, lots of Heroquest and Riddle of Steel threads, and more I'm forgetting._

Fifth, some might (and have earlier in the thread) jump in and say, "Don't put such a negative spin on the GM as God."

Here's my reply:

Look. Play the way you want. I don't find that kind of play fun. I think it leads, at its most extreme, to the backrub story. But I get icked out even when it's all happening in-game. When I know I'm just jumping through GM hoops to keep the GM's "story" going (ie; play continues), when I know I'm not allowed to pursue what interests me as a player but subordinate all my interests, desires, passion and creative impulses to the desires of the GM, I just don't want to play.

If there are players that want to play that way, fine. But to assume that this is the price to be payed to keep the game going, that this the way games have to be, that this is the gold standard of good players giveing away their juice is -- in my view -- just another way of standing up and rubbing the GM's back to get the game moving again.

Play with the zero-sum power struggle between the GM and Players if you wish. But for gosh sake's, people, stop phrasing it like its a given. It's not a matter of the Players run rampant of the GM keeps things moving. It's not a matter of chaos or the GM as Writer/Cheater of Rolls/Authoritarian Whip Without Recourse.

That's the whole point of discussing the issue of Social Contract. It turns out there are a bazillion ways to negotiate great play among the Players. And most of them have nothing to do with the Players bowing down before the GM's mysteriously granted authority to make all these decisions about creativity, rules (I'm counting fudging as rule-breaking here), and behavior about what and what cannot be said at the table.

It's strange, I tell you, strange, that people can still think this is normal. But that's just me. What's objectively strange is that people assume this is the way RPGs are.

Christopher

How is it possible that the idea that "abuse" is just always hovering in the corner, that the people we choose to play with are the Creatures from the Id ready to go roughshod over each other if the GM doesn't step in and whip them into shape still exist?

Christopher Kubasik wrote: Fifth, some might (and have earlier in the thread) jump in and say, "Don't put such a negative spin on the GM as God."

Here's my reply:

Look. Play the way you want. I don't find that kind of play fun. I think it leads, at its most extreme, to the backrub story. But I get icked out even when it's all happening in-game. When I know I'm just jumping through GM hoops to keep the GM's "story" going (ie; play continues), when I know I'm not allowed to pursue what interests me as a player but subordinate all my interests, desires, passion and creative impulses to the desires of the GM, I just don't want to play.

Noon wrote: In other words; instead of getting the players to be more responsible for themselves (ie, adopt discussed SC outside of the book rules), they are still left to essentially be irresponsible but with someone to stand over them with a wipping stick. This is like treating an alcoholic not by teaching him to look after himself, but by just grabbing the bottle off him whenever you notice it.

Hi John,

I never said all GM authority is bad.

I said, "The GM is God" is bad. For me. I'm the one who finds it icky. Because of the fun I want to have. And I'm not saying the people who don't find "GM is God" is icky are fools. There are plenty of behaviors that I might get no pleasure from that I know others do. I tried to be as clear about this as possible in my last post. I'm sorry I failed.

By the way, a game like Sorcerer clearly does not have traditional distrubution of GM-power. Kickers alone shift the GM distribution of power to what is, for some people, an unprecendented degree. (That's Kickers as defined in the rules. Not the "Kickers are just plot hooks that get the players into the GM's story" rigamoral some people twisting themselves up into.) I specifially did not mention Universalis because it had nothing to do with what I was talking about in my last post.

Finally, I never said "all GM authority is bad." The GM has a specific role -- even in all the games I mentioned -- that invovles authority. In your examples of the JB/Harn/LotR games you seem to be suggesting I think a GM doesn't have creative input. This is absurd, and I would never suggest such a thing. Frankly, it is this very binary ways of seeing RPG options that I railed against in my last post.

I'm glad your players enjoyed your game. Really. I clearly stated the issue is not whether or not such play exists. Nor whether it is by definition bad for all. (It clearly isn't.) I stated as clearly as I could why I think it's bad for me and why. We can spin around forever about whether or not I'm allowed my taste and opinion, but I don't think that's going to get us anywhere. I've learned I'm going to piss people off my stating my preferences. I accept that.

Instead, my concern is whether or not people can broaden the definition of what can work. A Sorcerer GM shares authority with other players in a way that apparently is off the radar for a lot of people. He doesn't give all his power away. He doesn't vanish from the creative input. He has a lot of authority. But it's very different than most people are used to -- as far as I can tell, from posts about RPG techniques I've read around the internet.

Christopher

Er, there are an awful lot of social groups which use the concept of an officer/leader in order to keep things under control or reign in abuse. For example, the Forge uses an empowered moderator model to control abuse. This is basic division of labor. It's perfectly workable and often more efficient for some group members to have different responsibilities and powers than others.

Noon wrote: It's reminding someone to self police, which isn't the same as policing them. Now, Ron can just ban someone or such. But that involves a whole different level of interaction, escalating to a different type of exchange entirely.

Hi Scott,

Good points about the game text.

I'd like to (as usual) broaden the God issue beyond concerns of actual violence and creepy sexual powergames and discuss creative power issues as well.

Game Texts often say to the GM: "You are the author of the story." Or, "You need to be colorful with the descriptions." Or, "Do whatever you have to do to make the story work."

And players are told -- in text, and very often by tradition -- "You are responsible for playing your character." "Add voices! They're fun!" "You're job is to make a character who has a reason to be on the mission [as defined by the GM]."

Again, there's nothing objectively wrong with any of this.

But notice how all issues of authority are assumed and distributed between players and the GM. The Player has power and creative input over the acarage of his character sheet -- the GM's got everything else. I think this is where the GM as God comes in. It isn't just a metaphore for policing the game. There is is this sense that the players are players charcters adrift in a universe not of their making, controlled by a force beyond their comprehension. (Hence, fudged die rolls and the whatnot.) Most game texts set up the relationship between Player's PC in the midst of the GM's World/Story. To make sure you "stay in character," don't think "out of charcter," don't tap "out of character knowledge" are all ways of avoiding having the knowledge of the gods.

And, again, I say, great, if that's what you want. But certainly successful games are being run where the players are allowed to use OCC knowledge to collude with the GM to make a more dramatic scene, where the players add their own color and descriptions to inform and enhance the game for everyone at the table, where the rules of the game are constructed so one need not depend on the GM to make sure the game doesn't derail into no-fun with a lousy die roll, and everyone finds the story as the dice fall and they move forward with tale with the specific authority granted by the game, creative agenda and social contract.

It's the assumptions of these texts that the the players are like fallen mortals cut off from the understanding of the Creator's intentions that I often have found so stullifying in the past.

Ultimately, my point is, then, that in terms of creative authority, some groups make the GM God. But others don't. . And the examples all over this site suggest there's no reason to think a game won't work well if he or she isn't.

Christopher

Scripty wrote: On one hand, it seems we're telling players "you can't do this/you can't do that" and we're telling GMs "You're God. If you have any questions, buy another one of our books..."

If we have a section telling the players, "Don't be a dipsh*t", how come we don't have a section telling the GMs, "Don't be an a**hole"?

As a GM, you'll find it all too easy to get caught up in your story, the great story you've got planned out, and to make sure you tell that story -- no matter how many improbable plot twists you have to throw in or player actions you have to ignore to make sure that your story takes place. But the player characters are the focus of your story, and therefore they and their players are the most important elements in your story. You should slant the story to suit them, not the other way around. Learning how to do this, and do it well, is one of the hardest things about good GMing.
...
Second, learn to adapt your stories to the players' cool and interesting ideas. Many a GM rejects ideas that the players come up with in the middle of a story, simply because the players' idea is different from what he has in mind. It doesn't matter if the players' solution to the mystery or combat situation is as good as, or better than, his own; he's determined to follow through with his story, and damn the consequences. This is wrong. Remember, your story focuses on the players and their characters. If they come up with an idea which is as good as (or better than) what you had planned or thought they would do, and you can adapt the story to conform to their ideas without ruining other parts of it or making major changes to the campaign world, do it. The players will gain a great sense of accomplishment and heap praise upon you for your excellent GMing -- and you didn't have to do a thing but listen to them and react accordingly.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: The Player has power and creative input over the acarage of his character sheet -- the GM's got everything else.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: It's the assumptions of these texts that the the players are like fallen mortals cut off from the understanding of the Creator's intentions that I often have found so stullifying in the past.

John Kim wrote: Um, we do. Or, at least, such sections seem pretty common from my reading of games. For example, here's the advice from the gamemastering chapter of the HERO System Rulebook (page 343):

...

Sorry, lost the answer I was giving to "Scripty" when trying to edit the d... thing.

Scripty wrote: I also agree that there are a lot of groups out there playing in this style and having a heck of a good time (primarily off the good sense/ethics/personality of the guy in the Big Chair). But I also see this heirarchical model as inherently limiting. Results will vary with it wildly from group-to-group. I wonder if that's really necessary or if something really qualifies as a "game" if such is the case.
...
In RPGs, what I'm hearing, is that the rules really aren't all that important. What's important is the Big Chair, or rather the person in it. If we accept the heirarchical model of roleplaying as the One Way, then I question whether the act of playing an RPG is a game at all.

Scripty wrote:

John Kim wrote: Um, we do. Or, at least, such sections seem pretty common from my reading of games. For example, here's the advice from the gamemastering chapter of the HERO System Rulebook (page 343):

Thanks for that snippet, John. I've never played or run Hero, so I hadn't read that before. I think it's a good thing that something like that popped up in a rulebook. I wish I could see more of it honestly. Do you think it goes far enough? Or do you think mechanics such as Buffy's "when you mess over a player give them a Drama Point" (essentially one step further) would be more effective?

Christopher Kubasik wrote: The Player has power and creative input over the acarage of his character sheet -- the GM's got everything else. I think this is where the GM as God comes in. It isn't just a metaphore for policing the game. There is is this sense that the players are players charcters adrift in a universe not of their making, controlled by a force beyond their comprehension. (Hence, fudged die rolls and the whatnot.) Most game texts set up the relationship between Player's PC in the midst of the GM's World/Story. To make sure you "stay in character," don't think "out of charcter," don't tap "out of character knowledge" are all ways of avoiding having the knowledge of the gods.

And, again, I say, great, if that's what you want. But certainly successful games are being run where the players are allowed to use OOC knowledge to collude with the GM to make a more dramatic scene,...

Scripty,
You argue that your enjoyment of an RPG is dependent on the players present, especially the GM, and that this is different from other games. I would argue that's a difference of degree. Any game that has a strong skill component is going to show a big dependence on the players. You might play Go in Birmingham and be bored out of your skull and you might play Go in Seatle and be driven to the most beautiful game you ever played.

Any game that has a strong social component is going to depend on the players even more. This is why Western movies like to show fights breaking out over games of Poker.

A role playing game has both a strong skill and a strong social component and is thus at the ragged upper edge of player dependence, but that's `merely' an extreme version of a phenomenon that affects every game out there.

So, yes, I do think we need GM certification, and we have it already. It's the old advice that you should game because you are friends, not be friends because you game.

SR
--

A bit of tangent, but:

GM Heavy-handedness strikes me as good when you are playing a relatively closed ended one-shot or short campaign with a definite story arc. I believe this relates to Participationist play. Some games make this almost a core style of play. Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia come to mind.

The key thing that seems to seperate this from unhappy things (Railroading, Illusionist play), is when the GM is upfront about these issues, and the character players agree to it. In these cases, there is something of a social contract issue involved on the players' part as well, in that they have agreed to follow the story through and trust that unexplained events and fudged rolls somehow relate to the event at hand. Theoretically, the GM should also be offering insight into appropriate character types and so forth as well, prior to the start of the scenario/short campaign.

GM heavy-handedness seems to be the bane of more open type settings. In situations such as setting up an open ended world ( fantasy type settings come to mind, but so does Lakefront City from Gangbusters), GMs really(IMO) needs to set back and riff off player ideas, only throwing in potential plot hooks when player ideas seems to slack off. Fudged die-rolls strike me as being really out of place in this sort of campaign environment. Similarly, the GM introducing a BigBad type plot hook here is certainly acceptable, but players ignoring it out or defeating it unexpectedly should not be that big of a deal.

The times I've seen a problem are when there seems to be a confusion over which general type of play people are looking for.

Closed ended stuff seems to go to hell in a handbasket if the players are unaware that the GM is looking for that, or haven't agreed to it. It's my experience that such things are absolutely miserable to be the GM for at those times. OTOH, players that thought they were coming up with quirky, personalized characters that could do whatever they wanted chafe like hell under overbearing storyline.

I guess what I am saying is that the whole gaming group really needs to be aware of which general mindset people are in prior to starting off. Both can be really fun. Both require some commitment and agreement by everyone involved.

As a GM, I don't think it is wrong to ask your potential players if they are willing to be in a Participationist style scenario. I have found that it is miserable to try to sneak in a linear scenario on players that don't want it.

K-Bob
PS- As always, this post is composed solely of my opinion, not set-in-stone facts.

John Kim wrote: While I agree that RPG experience depends on the players, I'm not sure how much this has to do with the hierarchical model. In my experience, playing a GMless game like Soap or Baron Munchausen will also vary wildly depending the people whom you are playing it with. A good group can be great fun, but a group of people who you don't like or have differences with can make it dull or worse. Personally, this is true for me even in the hierarchical model where the GM has heightened authority. Playing with a good GM doesn't make up for having jerks or dullards as fellow players.

John Kim wrote: Out of curiousity, what is your play experience?

John Kim wrote: To me, advice like that quote isn't uncommon, though it is better than average. At the time when it first came out, HERO/Champions was revolutionary in terms of the player power which it granted, in particular player-mandated opposition using relationship disadvantages (Hunted and DNPC), plus the high degree of player-designed and player-controlled powers. However, there are a lot of games since the early 80s which imitated these features, although not always effectively.

John Kim wrote: Many early games, like early D&D, were highly player-directed. For example, a D&D DM using a typical published module had extremely little power over the story, and was something of a glorified accountant. However, the story possibilities of the keyed-location format are very limited. GM-as-plot-director comes more from later games, starting around the mid-80s, and it strongly influenced AD&D2 as well as the Storyteller games and others.

Rob Carriere wrote: Scripty,
You argue that your enjoyment of an RPG is dependent on the players present, especially the GM, and that this is different from other games. I would argue that's a difference of degree. Any game that has a strong skill component is going to show a big dependence on the players. You might play Go in Birmingham and be bored out of your skull and you might play Go in Seatle and be driven to the most beautiful game you ever played.

Rob Carriere wrote: So, yes, I do think we need GM certification, and we have it already. It's the old advice that you should game because you are friends, not be friends because you game.

komradebob wrote: The key thing that seems to seperate this from unhappy things (Railroading, Illusionist play), is when the GM is upfront about these issues, and the character players agree to it.

Sorry for so many posts. You guys are raising some really good points that I think deserve a response. Thanks again.

Scott

Scripty wrote: *snip*
I understand division-of-labor/need-for-mediator in RPGs. The question I'm looking at is: do we really need a mediator with this kind of explicit authority? When a game designer says a "GM is God" or "All rules apply to players, no rules apply to GM" do you think he/she turning off an entire subset of individuals who aren't interested in subjugating their creative interests to the whims of another? (Paranoia given an obvious exclusion to this, of course.) Isn't this opening the table up to some serious abuse (as I pointed towards in an earlier post)? If players are going by what they see in the book, and what they see is "The GM is God!", then could that be a factor when the GM says he wants them to insert a foreign object in their rectum and they go ahead and do it? (Note: I've never witnessed that. Praise Thed...)

Further, what doors are we closing by setting up such an authoritarian play experience. For example, I know my wife won't play RPGs because she sees them as (a) unwinnable and (b) rigged.

She simply doesn't want anyone telling her what her character is doing/feeling (that's her "playing piece" as it were) and certainly won't stand for another person getting their jollies off of psychodramatic abuse at her expense (which very nearly occurred in one of the few, very few times she tried to roleplay). It's my hunch that she's not alone.

Do you agree that placing absolute authority in the hands of one participant may be pushing people away from the experience? And, even more, what kind of individuals are attracted to this kind of experience, both as GM and players?

Given that what we are (technically) doing in RPGs is fiddling around in the bowels of each other's subconscious, don't you think that games should take some responsibility for things like GM abuse?

They already take responsibility for stupid players. Ron even does so in Sorcerer where he explicitly points out that people who take the game too seriously or too far are whackos (paraphrase mine). Why don't games take a similar responsibility for stupid GMs?

Ah, politics, the high octane of any social endeavour.

There are sound reasons for centralised authority in many, many collective activities. The 'GM is god' trope has a number of nuances all of which appear in other forms of human interaction. Like Chris's Lehrichs analysis of RPG as ritual activity, IMO we should also realise the RPG is also a political activity.

Or rather, RPG is not an overtly political activity but does employ political techniques to achieve its goals. Centralisation of executive authority is one such technique. In a sense, RPG is a microcosm of a political community.

This issue raises a couple of related questions that IMO are best tackled individually:
Are there benefits to this centralisation?
Are there dangers to this centralisation?

I do not think it is correct to see the GM's ggodlike authority as covering for gaps in the social contract; this authority is specifically granted to the GM through the social contract just as it is in broader society. There is only one major distinction between this and most developed political communicities because under most circumstances the GM has no power to actually enforce their rulings in the face of determined opposition, unlike formal states with armed power at their disposal. The GM-ship and its powers exist purely at the discretion of the players as a group, and consent can be withdrawn more or less at any time.

Thye benefits of centralisation should be well eniough understood: the clarity of a single vision, the economies of scale gained by directing multiple efforts toward a singular end, and the maintenance of what in modern military parlance is a "concept of operations" - what we are here to do, why we need to do it, and how we plan to do it. As we have often discussed, the Shared Imaginary Space is often tentative, differentially murky, and contains elements that are often not in the sight of everyone at the table. IMO the fundamental role the GM-ship was called into being to fulfill is the reliable coherency of the SIS. And this function is not inherently different to that filled by the authority given to a team leader, foreman, manager, captain, pilot officer etecetera.

We know have a much more advanced IMO view of the SIS, the distribution of credibility (identical to consent, above) et al. Nonetheless I think this explains the initial developement of the GM's role in the specific context of RPG. Unfortunately, like rather too much political dialogue, our interest has a tendency to focus on the moral or ethical implications of power and leadership rather than the functional and methodological. The fact that 95% of people over the last few thousand years have chosen to be lead, or have been forcefully subjugated to leaders, does not undermine the effectiveness of having a single node for central decision-making. Effectiveness is not a moral question.

But with all that said there are of course good reasons for be suspicious of a command authority model for an social endeavour. For one thing the power we endow such a person with can often be 'leveraged' into other social spheres into which their remit should not extend. A person with a single and private concept of operations can bend and twist the public presentation of that concept to their own ends, and habitual submission to an authority figure may condition the 'subjects' to obedience even when they should resist. Habitual deference is indeed dangerous and can be exploited.

Secondly, the command authorities clear vision may well be mistaken. This is the nuance that democracy introduces to the heirarchical model of decision making, the recognition that even with a central coordinating node errors can be made and that the system is best served by differing, even contradictory, inputs. Clearly, a command authority with a bad strategy and enjoying habitual deference may make disastrous decisions that affect everyone.

A GMship can be dangerous in exactly the way that other political positions can be: they replace the informal relationships between people with a formal, structural relationships. And the methods for dealing with these problems are much the same as in other spheres; thus, we might allow a GM or other authority to rule now, but to be held to account for their decision post facto. Or, in the distributed authority architecture, to obviate much of the power usually given to the position. And these are not moral issues either, but practical concerns arising from gaming out the power relationships.

None of these issues can be resolved by coming to a decision, an opinion or position, on the role of the GMship, or on the moral or ethical implications of central versus distributed authority. These issues are not confined to RPG in any sense, but certainly the singular author mode of artistic production has not hitherto had to deal with these issues and has no language for them, as far as I'm aware. The only meaningful action to take is to look at what you want to achieve and formulate a distribution of power that seems likely to achieve them.

Scripty wrote: I've generally met people through RPGs who then either remain friends or don't. Is this approach wrong?

Despite agreeing that it is good advice, I'm not sure I'd ever get to play RPGs if I took that statement to heart.

There is an interesting side point about GM authority and Social contract that I don't see being brought up, since most of this has focused on abusive GMs.

Some Thoughts relating to the discussion:

Social Contract as related to rpgs goes into group dynamics beyond game rules related issues, and includes other behaviors and interactions that affect the gaming session.

GMing is a set of duties, which are often bound together, and are taken up/assumed by one player. This need not always be the case, but when a significant number of them are assigned to a single player, we tend to call that person a GM (or some equivalent term).

The GM is also a player in the game session.


Now, all of those are things that visiting the Forge has caused me to think a bit more about than in the past, particularly the first and third points.

I guess one of my questions becomes, What part of Social Contract do character players fufill?

I hate to sound petty, but as the person most commonly the GM over the years, I seem to recall spending alot of time and money filling that part of the social contract. In addition to tabletime arbitration, GMs generally:

Do most of the rulebook and related goods purchasing.When they are not the purchaser, especially in the case of supplements, they are still expected to know the material with adecent pasing familiarity.
Do most of the Rulebook reading.
Buy or create setting materials.
Often host the session.
Act as social secretaries insuring character players appear regularly.
Come up with story related reasons that pcs aren't there temporarily when the player fails to materialize (on time or at all).
Attempt to deal with the sometimes competing goals of providing an adventure that makes storyline sense, but that also involves the pc's and their players' urge to "do whatever they want".
Jump between roles as various NPCs, trying to make each distinct, often on the fly.

My point here is not to condone abusive GMs. I do think, however, that the part of non-GM players as it relates to the trade-off implied by the term Social Contract should be examined.

k-bob

My point here is not to condone abusive GMs. I do think, however, that the part of non-GM players as it relates to the trade-off implied by the term Social Contract should be examined.

I'd prefer to say it's being challenged, perhaps initiating a debate and resolution procedure that may be an established part of the social contract. It all depends how the 'contract' is constructed.

Simon Hibbs

jdrakeh wrote: THOSE PEOPLE WHO DECRY THE SOCIAL CONTRACT AS A TOOL DESIGNED TO STEAL ULTIMATE POWER FROM A SINGLE INDIVIUDAL OR GROUP OF INDIVUDUALS HAVE SOME SERIOUS CONTROL ISSUES.

Scripty wrote: Do you have any suggestions for setting up a workable Social Contract in an explicit manner? Have you ever done so? If so, what worked for you? What didn't?

John Kim wrote: Just a note here -- this seems like it should be split off into a separate thread if you're going to discuss it.

Err.. Moved to the split thread.