All:

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,



Jason

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

under the Duties section

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

Hope this helps,

Bob:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,


Jason

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

I've not seen it.

--M. J. Young

Hi,

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

Christopher K

M.J. and Christopher:

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

Anybody have anything elese?

Cheers,


Jason

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

LXNDR:

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

Cheers,


Jason

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Simon Hibbs

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

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

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

You can see the game as it develops here.

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

This game is pretty much complete.

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

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

Mike

Mike, I think he's looking for a system where the GM's "character" (the rest of the world) is objectively statted out. Instead of an avatar within the world that represent himself, just some game where the world itself has statistics which impugn upon the characters in various ways.

Thinking about it, t seems that the Master in My Life With Master fits the bill, more or less, what with Fear and Reason helping to define the majority of the minion's actions. The "World" in MLwM is personified in the Master, then, and the Master has a character sheet.

This is why I suggested Fastlane - the GM doesn't have a character sheet per se, but does have a Bank of his own, which can limit his involvement in conflicts.

Mike:

Yeah, that's a concern.

Here's what I'm shooting for - the GM has a 'character', or an 'avatar', that doesn't actually come into play except in the sense that a puppet master or mastermind villian does.

This avatar is in fact, in the context of the game, 'behind everything'. This GMasCharacter is a conciet within the game that actualizes the GM's traditional power into a game rules built avatar that eventually the PC's can compete with directly for dominance.

My intent is to have a couple of 'switches' in the rules, which when set to the highest Step On Up levels, will make the game essentially about a competition to topple the GM - and the final showdown in that competition is an actual face to face confrontation with the GMasCharacter.

Bear in mind that the GMs traditional suite of powers and responsibilities aren't totally in play here - and to the extent that the GM in my game has them at all, he/she has to pay to exercise those powers.

I hadn't thought of the Paranoia example - but that melding of GM and Computer is pretty close to the feel I'm going for - but unlike Paranoia, the player characters will hopefully actually have a chance to challenge the ultimate power in the universe - and win.

I'll have to dig out my copy of that game and read it again. Thanks.

Cheers,


Jason

Lxndr:

You almost got it right - perhaps its a blend of what you suggest for MLwM and what Mike suggests - I'm not sure. See my post above - we cross posted.

I should probably pony up the cash to put MLwM on my RPG shelf - I was thinking about it anyway.

EDITED to ADD: And yes, the concept of the Bank that appears in Fastlane is similar to how the GM in my game will have to pay for his/her exercising of the traditional GM powers. I got this originally from the game called Pace developed here on the Forge in the last year - not sure if Pace got it from someplace else tho...

Cheers,


Jason

Hi Jason,

You referenced our discussion of the explicit text in Tunnels & Trolls which outlines how a good dungeon is literally managed and maintained by an in-game character who is supposed to be an alter-ego, or at least some kind of specific GM-player-character (so to speak), of the Game Master. For reference in this thread, the link is [Tunnels & Trolls] Second level characters.

Seems to me to fit your criteria exactly right.

Best,
Ron

Jason, MLwM is exactly what you describe. The GM plays the Master, and the world as a projection of his aura of fear. The players can't assault the Master until certain conditions are met. Then special mechanics just for that fight come into play. Of course, there's no real "Step on Up", it's all locked in in tactical terms. But that's just a matter of changing the exact rules in that phase.

This is definitely your resource, IMO.

Mike