I do hope I'm doing this thread thing right.

I'd like to see a LARP where the GM gets weeded out.
When I first heard about LARP I got excited about the possibility of little or no GM intervention, but that has never been the case. Here's what I'd like to see:

- A quick-start LARP, something you can run right out of the box (or with very little prep.)
- A LARP that remains true to the avatar-oriented style of play (each player has a single primary character to develop and nurture)
- The GM's duties divvied up among players

Here's some theories on how to do it:
With a team-oriented approach, you could split players into artificial viewpoint groups - teams.
Beforehand, a player or council of players could provide the backing (backstory, background characters, back-whatever) for the game... at least in the general sense.
(preferrably this would mostly be handled by boxed materials.)
Players would receive their team assignments and make characters within their groups.
Team assignments would give you an idea what you did in the group, as well as your GM Powers, such as...

- the guy who finds the clues and shows them to the others
- the guy who decides how badly you're hurt and how long it takes to heal
- the guy who hands out special equipment and props
- the guy who handles NPC interaction
- the guy who resolves innergroup conflicts
- the guy who deals with intergroup conflicts

You'd probably want to have built in failsafes - like, the guy who finds clues can't interpret them himself (he'd probably know THE BIG MYSTERY or whatever's tying together the backstory.)
The guy who hands out special equipment can't make any for herself to use

Help?

For some ideas on the subject, check out the Collective Larp pages.

In general, the problem with the line of thought you are proceeding with here is that it's often very hard to combine the highly mechanistic approach you are describing (desiring?) and the lack of a central arbitrative authority. For example, having NPC characters /at all/ in a game without a GM is very problematic - without someone with the right to balance and guide their actions in accordance to the other game elements (and vice versa) they transform from NPCs into "normal" characters who are just more two-dimensional.

-Jiituomas

I certainly agree that the approach is problematic. But the mechanistic approach provides a couple of advantages that I'd like to see fleshed out.

LARPing, more than standard tabletop gaming, closely resembles a sport - it's very active, there's a lot of movement, etc. and applying the dynamics of sporting events to a LARP might be a worthwhile endeavor.

The problem, as you say, lies with the artistic aspect (which I see butchered as often as I see it elevated. Heh heh. Sorry. People get snotty about "melodrama" but they can't carry off a simple intercharacter dialogue without resorting to trite syllogisms or plot-blocking withdrawals. So art is in the eye of the beholder, eh?)

On the other hand, simple rules tend to empower players and, if delivered in an entertaining or energizing fashion, facilitate play. Mechanisms can be simple.

Thinking of it this way, I figure a good LARP should have about eight or nine things you have to remember about your character - eight moves you have in your toolbag that have their own built-in limits and advantages. It would seem elegant to combine these aspects with the necessary duties of a GM.

Of course, the team approach may not facilitate this approach, but it's all I've been able to sort out so far.

Arpie,

Welcome to the Forge!

I'd like to begin by asking: why do you want a GM-less LARP? I think the answer to that will shape the techniques you use to achieve the goal.

You're hinting at some of your goals here, as you talk about playing "right out of the box" and "empower[ing] players". But neither of these ideas are innately at odds with having a GM.

At the same time you also value "Avatar" play, which as I understand it is completely at odds with the idea of taking responsibility for anything but your character.

Judging by Forge game designs, GMs are rather useful for achieving lots of different play goals. At the same time, some designs do really unique things without GMs. So what goals do you have that fit better with the latter group than the former?

Arpie wrote:
Here's what I'd like to see:

- A quick-start LARP, something you can run right out of the box (or with very little prep.)
- A LARP that remains true to the avatar-oriented style of play (each player has a single primary character to develop and nurture)
- The GM's duties divvied up among players

Arpie wrote:
Here's some theories on how to do it:
With a team-oriented approach, you could split players into artificial viewpoint groups - teams.
Beforehand, a player or council of players could provide the backing (backstory, background characters, back-whatever) for the game... at least in the general sense.
(preferrably this would mostly be handled by boxed materials.)
Players would receive their team assignments and make characters within their groups.
Team assignments would give you an idea what you did in the group, as well as your GM Powers, such as...

- the guy who finds the clues and shows them to the others
- the guy who decides how badly you're hurt and how long it takes to heal
- the guy who hands out special equipment and props
- the guy who handles NPC interaction
- the guy who resolves innergroup conflicts
- the guy who deals with intergroup conflicts

You'd probably want to have built in failsafes - like, the guy who finds clues can't interpret them himself (he'd probably know THE BIG MYSTERY or whatever's tying together the backstory.)  The guy who hands out special equipment can't make any for herself to use

Thanks for starting this thread, Arpie.

It sounds as though you're halfway to designing a GM-less LARP system. I'd like to see the finished game: it sounds good and it's often easier to discuss finished games.

On that subject, I wrote a GM-less LARP system recently for the Ronnies. It's called Dirty Fucking Freaks and once, you get past the sexual content, it's a LARP that runs without a GM. It's a flawed game, but it does cope with some of the same problems you're trying to cope with. I'd be interested to know what you think, especially if it's critical.

On your game...I like the idea of dividing up the GM duties. I think Adam's right that you should explain why you want a GM-less game, not because a GM-less game is a bad idea, but because it'll give a better idea of what you're trying to achieve.

There's two bits I'd like to question. The first is the backstory...

Arpie wrote:
Beforehand, a player or council of players could provide the backing (backstory, background characters, back-whatever) for the game... at least in the general sense. (preferrably this would mostly be handled by boxed materials.)

With a team-oriented approach, you could split players into artificial viewpoint groups - teams.
Players would receive their team assignments and make characters within their groups.
Team assignments would give you an idea what you did in the group, as well as your GM Powers, such as...

- the guy who finds the clues and shows them to the others
- the guy who decides how badly you're hurt and how long it takes to heal
- the guy who hands out special equipment and props
- the guy who handles NPC interaction
- the guy who resolves innergroup conflicts
- the guy who deals with intergroup conflicts

Arpie wrote: I'd like to see a LARP where the GM gets weeded out.
When I first heard about LARP I got excited about the possibility of little or no GM intervention, but that has never been the case. Here's what I'd like to see:

- A quick-start LARP, something you can run right out of the box (or with very little prep.)
- A LARP that remains true to the avatar-oriented style of play (each player has a single primary character to develop and nurture)
- The GM's duties divvied up among players

Wow! Thanks for all the responses. I should probably quote a few of you folks, but I've only got about fifteen minutes tonight so I'll do that later. Here's what I think the main question you want answered boils down to - I hope frame it correctly.

WHY I WANT A GM-LESS LARP
Firstly, I feel that the great potential of a LARP environment is to redirect the focus of the entertainment to the individual participants, rather than creating a reinforcement system for the GM.
Currently, the GM gets enormous amounts of focus as:
The Author of the Backstory
The Weaver/Inventor of All the Lead Characters
The Referee
The Voice of the NPCs (aka The Fifth Business - I forget who suggested that term)
The Prop Master
The Mentor/Goader
The Healer and Arbiter of Woe (a subset of Referee duties)
The Center of Attention
and, in many LARPs, the Most Temporally Powerful Character in the Game World

It would seem that a roleplaying game presents a wonderful political opportunity, and a sporting event-like chance to spread out and express your character physically in real time and space.
(What you say is what your character says. What you do is what your character does.)

But, in my experience, the game must and will form over and over again into a knot of otherwise determined individuals clustering around the holder and purveyor of all momentum - the GM.

Also, In the early days of LARPs, (I've tried some of the more popular LARPs off and on for years, including the Camarilla, NERO, several con-run games, Cthulhu Live and a few disastrous home bews of my own.) I dreamed of getting around the awkward-feeling clue-dispersement systems and the inevitable arguments over detective skills by throwing a few well-labelled or colorful "prop clues" around, letting the players find them and then watching the chaos/tale/excitement unfold.

I no longer expect anyone to find any clues not hung directly in front of their noses (because, hey, are YOU Sherlock Holmes? I know I'm not.) But I still feel said about the way LARPs kind of look like collapsing spiral galaxies or ribbons of GM-Groupies. (Yes, yes: every storyteller or narrator or guide or GM assistant lessens this, but the bottleneck still occurs because people are people. They look to authority when they find it and seek the greatest power during conflict - precisely because we aren't stupid.)

Oh, and, when I speak of empowering players I mean:
- Providing the most average, nay even the lowest common denominator, of player with some trick or mechanic that gives enough confidence to make decisions regarding their own character's abilities and limitations (Your character can do what you think your character can do)
- Releasing players from the need to seek approval on most, if not all, character decisions (In fact, discouraging players to seek GMs in all but the most severe circumstances, should GMs be needed at all - I'd kind of like to encourage GMs or arbitrators to be patently corrupt and unfair and, most importantly, let all the players know that's what they can expect from the get go)
- Allowing players some method of defining their own consequences, while of course allowing for the fact that people will get away with whatever they can get away with
- Encouraging players to settle disputes between themselves in some mechanistic manner, while also allowing for creative or out-of-the-box solutions (Er... your character does what you think your character can do, but that also applies to all the other players.) :::Teaching Game Theory, or at least touching on it's most important component (when you compromise, nobody loses everything. When you don't compromise, everyone loses something.)

Okay, that's it for now. I gotta check out that freaks game before I go to bed.

Graham wrote:
It sounds as though you're halfway to designing a GM-less LARP system. I'd like to see the finished game: it sounds good and it's often easier to discuss finished games.

On that subject, I wrote a GM-less LARP system recently for the Ronnies. It's called Dirty Fucking Freaks and once, you get past the sexual content, it's a LARP that runs without a GM.

Graham wrote:

I have a real problem with backstory in LARPs. My problem is this: an interesting backstory hardly ever leads to a good in-game story. I've seen lots of LARPs where the characters had hugely wonderful backstories but very little to do in the actual game.

Equally, I've seen lots of problems with LARPs that have a Big Mystery. Often, the Big Mystery seems to be:

a. exposed in the first half-hour of play
b. never exposed at all
c. not cared about

...and each of those leads to different problems.

Graham wrote:

I think the team-oriented approach is very interesting. It's an extension of the "faction" approach that lots of people use when designing one-shot LARPs.

How do the teams connect with the GM roles? For example, the guy who deals with NPCs, is he part of your team, or part of another team? Or either?

And I think that John raised some excellent points, especially about the conflict resolution.

Graham

Sorry to post three times in a row, but I'm in a hurry and forgot to mention:

Collective LARPS: GREAT Idea. Nordics take the prize again.
I'd like to see the concept more expanded and formalized, however.
Formalization sometimes overcomes trepidation and assigning duties may overcome the listed problem of both freeloaders and ego friction.

Arpie (is that your real name? Mine's Adam) --

That's quite the litany of shortcomings you find with LARPs as they are today! I sympathize. I've had many similar experiences with White Wolf's Mind's Eye Theater games over the last nine years.

I'm impressed by the range of your experience as well: NERO, MET and Cthulu Live are above as widely spaced on the LARP spectrum as they can be, and yet you identify problems common to them all.

From your explanation, I infer that it is the "traditional" GM to which you object -- the bundling of all that authority and credibility into one person, with all the complications it entails. A LARP with a "non-traditional" GM, one whose powers are much more narrowly defined or limited, might also be something to consider. You don't need to split up all the GM tasks evenly among all the players: you just need to split up the tasks that you think really matter.

The good news is that tabletop games struggle with the exact same issues, and you can learn about games here that address the issue in varying ways. If you learn about and play these games, you could easily pick up ideas and techniques that apply to LARP. I believe the two touchpoint games for truly GM-free designs are Universalis and Capes (and I feel like I'm forgetting one more). Then also there are games like Prime Time Adventures that define the role of GM in such a way that he can't run roughshod over everyone else's fun: instead, all his abilities and responsibilities are defined to facilitate that fun.

But moving back to LARP land for a moment, let me address a few specific thoughts:

Clue-Dispersement Systems. You rightly criticize the GM practice of dropping "clues" for a "mystery" to "solve." Again, the same problem exists in tabletop play. One solution to this problem is perhaps too simple to see: Stop running mysteries! Call a moratorium on any plot that requires detective work. You said it yourself that the strength of LARP is the wonderful political opportunity, so why even have a mystery? Instead, create a situation where all the information is already on the table, all the characters are working at cross-purposes, and let them loose.

In tabletop play, the oft-mentioned game Dogs in the Vineyard does this -- your characters show up in a town, all the NPCs immediately dump their problems in your laps with no information held back, and each NPC expects you to fix everything to his or her satisfaction.

Making Players into GMs. In college I was part of a friend's homebrewed Deadlands LARP that was quite enjoyable and successful for its three-month run. My friend designed the LARP to be mission-oriented, party-oriented and episodic. Postings about the strange things going on outside of town hung in the saloon, and you'd get a group together to go investigate them and kick Weird West ass. (Yes, it was D&D in cowboy boots. But way fun.) Each posting had the name of the GM you'd go to who'd run the mission. The idea was that anyone could be a GM -- you'd just run the mission idea past the head GM before the game, and if someone took it and you ran it, you got rewarded with Fate Chips (experience points) for your PC.

Shameless Plug! I'm working on a LARP system design called Ends and Means that addresses several of the issues you point out as problems. In particular, I limit the GM's power to win conflicts. The power to win conflicts is predicated on the number of Plot Points you're carrying, and the GM's supply of Plot Points is small and limited. So you end up where the GM can introduce situations ("You're put on the FBI's Most Wanted list!") but unless the GM also has Plot Points to back it up, the player can spin the situation on its head ("My expert defense team acquits me of every charge!").

I also use negotiated conflicts (in which players negotiate the possible outcomes of a conflict before deciding with mechanics), so that players can do what they think they can do and they can set their own consequences. They can barter with Plot Points to sway those negotiations.

I provide a section describing the narrative powers afforded to all players, so that GMs don't have to deal with minutae like "hey, I go to the store, can I buy some milk?" Of course they can buy milk -- they don't need GM approval to narrate that. I'm providing guidelines on what they can narrate into the story without GM blessings.

And last, I make the players pay in Plot Points to secure blocks of the GM's time. That should (I hope) control the issue of bored players clustering around the GM in hopes of getting her attention and asking for something interesting to happen to their character. Playtesting will tell how that theory works out in practice.

Arpie wrote:
Formalization sometimes overcomes trepidation and assigning duties may overcome the listed problem of both freeloaders and ego friction.

Luminescence link corrected here. Cursed typoes.

Well, certainly, being rather poor in resources (and not living in Europe), I have never had any experience with the LARPs of the Finns, or any of the other fabled scandinavian LARPing experiences (although I have read of some of the fascinating innovations in that region, of course.)

I was glad for the luminescence and Hamlet information. Thank you for that. Something that strikes me, however, is the theatrical nature of such experiences. After a discussion with friends last night, I found that, while they enjoyed theatre, they distrusted what they considered a "high brow" approach to the gaming medium. Now, I think that the theatrical elements are indeed neccessary, but perhaps they can be disguised in some way for the culture-weary?

For instance, the concept of the "out" which also goes under a variety of different names, remains a useful tool in any roleplaying situation. It's used for improvisational encounters, giving players a way of ending a scene which may become awkward or too long. The simplest form of this technique is to always have something else you're about when entering a dialogue with any character, particularly if you enter the dialogue as a passive or semi-passive member (in oher words, if someone's asking you questions or trying to convince you of something.) You could be just about to go somewhere, working on a machine, waiting for a phone call, anything that would give you a cue to leave.

The LARPs I encounter often have a similiar mechanic in "free escapes" and other such devices, things which let people leave if too harried. But dropping a flat "free escape" comment can become very unattractive.

Attemting to use the simple "out" terminology didn't work for many of the groups I encountered because they either became overly-enamoured with the theatrical format (and kind of gave themselves a big head) or distrusted it as (rightly) rather elitist or some sort of luftsmench fol-de-rol.

Unfortunately, I think fol-de-rol was exactly what was needed, only in a non-intimidating form. Creating an atmosphere of commeraderie neccessary to a game often requires disguising more complex or "high concept" tools in plain language - language that makes people comfortable. (Which I admit I'm not exactly using right now.)

So, when the idea of the "out" is combined with the idea of the "free escape" and couched in more mechanical-sounding terminology, it becomes more appealing. Calling it a "time out phrase" or a "side task" really seemed to appeal to most groups, especially when practical benefits were tied into the dynamics. (For instance, you could pick a "Side Task" before each act of a certain game I attended. You were assumed to be working on the side task "in the background" and could leave to check on its progress at any time, as long as you informed anyone trying to converse with you or put you in a truly uncomfortable situation that that was what you were doing, and they had to let you go. You could never use the same Side Task as an excuse to leave play twice in a row, hoever.)

Okay, anyway, the point there was that I think one of the things you might do with this divvying up the tasks business is to create a more comfortable and accessible way for diverse players to understand and accept their responsibilities (even their priviledges) as part of the game's meta-decision process.

In addition, if you can use the natural self-interest of the players to support cooperative dynamics in a live action situation, you would have a powerful tool. The problem, like many sociological issues, is one of manipulation and our resentment of any form of oppression as humans (which is a trait I adore in our species. Honestly.) I guess you could call it manufacturing consent by means of ad hominem or ad populum uh... game mechanics?

And before I go, I'd like to say that I certainly like Capes and Universalis, but they depend on a separation from avatars in a very uncomfortable way from what I'm shooting for, here.
I think, perhaps, if only one "class" of character/holder of GM duty had he NPC wrangling option, then you might see less objection. That way, the Identitiy of that player (as that character type) would actually involve taking on different NPC or background character roles.

That person could excuse their metagame behavior by means of, say, being a radio-control operator or a translator - becoming the voice of the NPCs within the group. Now, if I used the factional group structure I'm beginning to envision here, the problem would be one of authority - if two groups have, let's call them conflicting "Voices" - then which one would be the accurate reading? That's where actual conflict resolution mechanics become vital - and must be simple (probably, alas, numeric)

If wonder if it could be as simple as "strength in numbers" - the more members of your team that are with you, the more authority you have to back up the statements/game input created by your particular team, uh, dutyists? niches?

Man, I still don't have terms for this stuff!

Wait, how about "edges?" That sounds kind of appealing, right?
Like, uh, my "edge" is the voice of the NPCs and jake's "edge" is prop engineer and oh, heck, I still need some clearer terms.

Whoops. Here's a corrected link: http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/Dirty_Freaks.php.

And I'll catch up on the rest of the discussion later.

I'll throw and example of another variety of Nordic LARP, heavily prepared beforehand but in actual play, essentially GMless (except for the GM's being information brokers and playing NPC's): <a href=http://merten.kapsi.fi/rpg/?p=64">Isle of Saints.

I do wonder if perhaps the answer you're looking for is to reduce the amount of out-of-character influences on the game. From what you said above, the GM's ability to overshadow the players is a big problem.

With what you're describing I think that you'll be replacing the shadow cast by one person, which can at least be ignored, and instead making everyone cast shadows over each other's play.

It sounds like the player would have to do a lot of out-of-character thinking to make it work.

Walking, talking, and a few simple mechanics can make for an excellent game, and if the game is focused on the ability of the players to generate interaction and intrigue, the GM is relegated to arbritrating rules queries - they become a facilitator, not a leader.

I just read Graham's game, Dirty F**king Freaks, by Graham Walmsley and there's two thing I have to say about it.

1st. It moved me. I have seen many fine examples of slim-lined LARP rules, often by lurking near the Forge, but never one quite so delightfully obscene. (See below for more coherent commentary.)

2nd. I, too, spent some time in San Francisco and I, too, played a Game which may well have inspired this one. (For instance, do you remember a guy with a jigsaw puzzle that seemed really important to the plot but which just spelled out something frustrating and inane when you put it together? Did you want to kill that guy? Thus, I may have been one of your fighting c*nts. Also, if it was the same Game, then my skanky girlfriend at the time described it thusly: Before the game, all the guys were talking about the girls and all the girls were talking about drugs.)

*Ahem*

MORE COHERENT COMMENTARY

Graham's game certainly does do several things I want to see done in a LARP.
The idea of drawing a crowd for a fight and forcing the crowd to judge is elegant and nasty.

Perhaps I am still reeling from the heady intoxication of Graham's ugly little game, but it cuts right to the point and convinces me that a little nastiness may provide something vital.

Also, the very, very simple rules are exactly what I think a LARP should use. Why? Because players always have a lot to think about.

Okay, Thats just structure notes. Delivering rules in one and two-sentence paragraphs seems absolutely intuitive and I know it works, but I also know how hard it is.

I'd like to take that idea and make it just a bit more complex.
Thank you for the inspiration, Graham!

I'm going to try and boil down my theories into a few coherent sentences for tomorrow.

Okay, here's an attempt at a more coherent version of the GMless LARP scenario:

So far, I've suggested that the duties of the GM in a LARP be removed. Although some rather good reasons have been put forward supporting GMs in a LARP environment, it does not deter me from my original desire. I would like to see a system which specifically supports a GMless LARP.

I think that splitting up the duties of the GM will make it possible to run a successful GMless LARP.
If this happens, formal limits will certainly be neccessary for each individual "edge" (I really like that term.)
Two cases have been put forward which make me think this may be a tenable position:

The Cooperative LARPs of the Finns and Graham's wonderful (I'm not kidding. It's streamlined, engaging and even elegant) Dirty F-in' Freaks game.

Fom these two sources, and some thinking I've been doing on my own (and have already posted here) I'd like to propose a few terms/GM roles to make it easier to discuss this (should anyone still be interested.)

Backer - The guy who writes the backstory for the LARP. Note that this does not have to include PCs or subplots - only the guy who hangs the general setting, the most recent conflict or events of interest, and the NPCs. (These factors: What Went Before/Recent Events, the Backdrop For Tonight's Events, Important NPCs and the NPC list could easily be created cooperatively or just come out of a box, many RPGs provide such listings.)

NPC Wrangler - The guy who actually decides what NPCs are doing during the game. It is the priveledge of the NPC Wrangler to introduce new NPCs, call back old NPCs and to speak for those NPCs.

Toybox - The guy who approves new props and hands out important ones (mostly MacGuffins.)
Perhaps the Toybox could have some sort of seal of approval (like a Notary Public, only for props.)

Healer - It occurs to me with this guy that saying you have a skill in Healing might also give you the right to adjudicate injuries/recovery/diseases and disease management in general.  From the point of view of immersion, the Healer/Doctor type character could turn generic wounds into practical consequences (Letting the player say, in character and with due authority: "Well, I've done what I can for that leison, but you won't be able to use your arm for the rest of the night" for example.)

Beedle - The court of last resort guy. The judge you go to when you need to settle rules disputes.
This might be handled by popular vote or general agreement (as suggested in Graham's game) or, I was theorizing, obviously corrupt officials (ones who openly accept bribes and act upon their biases.) That would serve as an entertaining deterent for we more hidebound players, perhaps?

Extractor - The guy who gets people out of bad situations - lets them take time outs, etc. Perhaps this is best left to the province of individual players (Graham's LARP does a wonderful thing where it outright forbids removing other players from the game. Delay - yes. Maim - yes. Remove by force, death, binding or other means - no. Very neccessary because normally a GM would have to do it.)

Bloodhound - Someone who knows any secrets or mysteries (perhaps other players who wanted a stake in important events would have to confide in this person) and can hand out clues. An obvious limitation here would be that the Bloodhound can only hand out hints - never direct answers, but can provide them at will? ("Say guys, look what I found!" or "I'm sherriff Dunbar, do any of your recognize this bloody satchel?" kind of thing.)

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I hope this counts as RPG theory, it's rather specific, but I think it might fit.

It all sounds good.

Honestly, though, it sounds as though you're past discussing theory and you're designing the game. If I were you, I'd design it - even if it's just a quick 24 hour game - and discuss it in Indie Game Design. I think you'd get more coherent feedback on the whole game than on the fragments we're discussing here.

By the way, Adam's game "Ends and Means" is worth investigating as well. (It's been discussed in past threads, so do a search for "Ends and Means").

It has a very clever way of getting players to "buy" GM time with Focus Tokens, which are a limited resource. So, although it's not strictly speaking a GM-less LARP, there's sort of an implicit suggestion that the players should be able to entertain themselves without a GM if they have to.

Graham

(1. This is my first post, so be gentle.
2. I blame my inability to write English on the fact that I was born in a wrong country.)

First I'd like to ask about the motivations of making a GM-less game (I know it has been done, but I'm not sure if the writer meant the same thing). (1) Is the purpose to have a larp with minimum preparation time? (2) Or minimum GM influence on the actual play time?

If the point is (1), then we're closing a gap between larp and improvisational theatre - or more accurately, portraying the relation between theatre and improvisational theatre. Improvisers can start a scene from scratch, and I think that competent players in a larp could also. (Although I just found out how hard it really is. I tried participating in impro-theatre myself.)

My point is, that if this is the goal, then you use techniques from impro-theatre and with some minimal social contracts (You can't change the genre during play... etc.) you could start a larp with no preparation. I don't know how well this would work, but that is partly why I am trying the impro-theatre thing anyway. Maybe pre-made characters would help, but that would require some preparation.

And, if the point is (2), then I think you could approach it differently: removing GM-influence and removing the GM are two different things. Like my fellow Finn pointed out earlier, there are games played here that can work with minimal - or none - GM intervention. Players won't be queuing to the GM, if the GM doesn't make the decisions. Our game of Vampire: the Masquerade was written with 5 GM's, but most of the time during the game, we just played. None of the players had to came to me for consultation, because the players had all the strings in their hands. I think this was due two few fundamental differences between the Larp-scenes in here and US:

- Our game(s) (I can't say this is universal in Finland, but I think it is more common.) focus more on the social and drama aspects than the "plots". There will be no-one investigating around, lookin for clues, because there will be none. If there are plothooks to be found, they are held by the players - and more accurately, they will mostly be something the character knows, not owns. Focusing on the social plots, we erase the need for propping clues.

- We play more "hands on". With only bare minimum mechanics, most scenes (even fighting!) are acted out, not played "by the rules". That why Freaks wouldn't probably be a good idea here. This gives the players the change to dictate the outcome of the action. We also encourage "giving in" (for lack of a better term), especially during fight scenes. This gives out more drama, and if we enforce (social) rules of not killing character unless absolutely necessary, won't offend players being beaten up.

I lost my point somewhere on the way, but I think that background information will help in understanding what I'm saying:

By writing the background material thoroughly the GM can then be just one of the players and let the players tell the story. For that you need good rules for conflict solving, or just good players. We're blessed with the latter, and I think we'll try running a game with no mechanics soon.

Jonne Arjoranta

Jonne and Graham, thanks for your responses.

Gaham: I was really hoping I could get someone else heated up on the GM-less idea, but I'll put up a crappy web page by this weekend and see what I can do. The problem with designing something is that I really didn't have any kind of... I guess you call it a theme (in this forum) to explore. I have no premise for a game in particular in mind and I really don't want to do something like urban fantasy or horror. I'll look around and see if I can get a setting idea (I really don't want to make a generic system right now either. That's why I'm fiddling around in theory rather than design.)
(I'll look into that Ways and Means thing, too. I think I've seen that one before.)

Jonne: Great english. I've got a degree in journalism and I've worked on a couple English Language papers (weeklies) and I still spell things wrong. I don't always spell check and I ought to, so you're one up on me there. (It's not as if I even speak a word of your ... I assume... first language!)

Well, I think what I've seen of the Finlandish approach is great.

As for my motivations:
I'm trying for both 1 and 2. I'd like to reduce the prep time AND the GM influence.
Which may be impossible, but, if push comes to shove, GM influence is what I'd like to edit out.

My biggest problem is that, should I end up actually designing this GM LARP, the only people who might play it (so that I might also take part) would not be very cooperative. At all. So I'd have to be pretty strongly "gamist" - with "narrativist" tricks hidden in the rules.

And I certainly do plan to use tricks from Improvisational Theatre (I'll have to check out "STOP MAKING SENSE" from the library again.)

Well, I'll post here when I've finished the project (I'm no 24 hour designer) and started a thread in Indie Design.

I'll save you some search work in the interest of self-promotion:

[Ends and Means] Debut
[Ends and Means] Werewolves in L.A.
[Ends and Means] Memorial Day Playtest
[Ends and Means] King Lothian's Court

(I apologize that I have only a design thread and some playtest threads to point to; although I have an 80-page draft, I'm holding back on posting it until I get more playtesting under its belt.)

Don't worry about a setting! I also had no setting in mind when I started writing Ends and Means last spring. Instead I focused on the kind of play experience I wanted to create. I began with a list of design goals, much like you have your list. I knew that some settings would complement my system and some would not, so I ended up drafting a chapter about how to design those complementary settings yourself.

Don't be afraid to make your "Narrativist tricks" the centerpiece of cool in your game. Don't write a game that other people might want to play. Write a game that you want to play, and then your enthusiasm will help draw the players you need.

I look forward to seeing what techniques from Improvisational Theatre you will incorporate. That's a realm of which I have no knowledge.

I think you should check out "Impro for storytellers" by Keith Johnstone. There are several techniques there that can be used in role-playing, especially larp.

And I think that WhiteRat has a important point there: write a game you want to, not one you have to. When the game is finished, it is all about marketing to get the right people there. I've actually thought about "casting" for players, so we could decide which character would be suited for which player. That is too difficult in real life, so I'm thinking about alternative techniques for character selection.