Does setting up the GM as both an arbitrator of the rules and explicitly as an opponent create a comflict of interest?

I did a search but didn't find anything that specifically addressed my question.

Thanks.

Taken alone, the roles of arbitrator and opponent do conflict. However, I think the key to good GMing is understanding that they shouldn't be taken alone. GMs should put having fun as a top priority, with arbitration and opposition supporting the fun.

Think of it like a teacher/student dynamic. A teacher's job is to help students learn the information - the teacher wants you to pass the course. A teacher's job is also to grade papers and such, with the potential outcome that they may need to flunk you. Most people don't see this as a conflict in interest because both aspects are subservient to an overall goal (learning).

I'm sure you've had examples of teachers who took this dynamic to one extreme or the other. I knew one (in a senior level college course nonetheless!) who refused to give a lower grade than a C for anything, no matter how bad, late or inappropriate to the assignment. In another class, I almost passed out when my calculus midterm came back with 54%... until I realized that the average was only 42% and I was practically setting the curve (a curve that this teacher adopted partway through the course because the department wouldn't let him fail everyone). The Monty Haul and Killer DM stereotypes fit these two almost perfectly, and the students responded to the teachers the same way the players will respond to GMs who play like that.

However, I'm sure you had teachers who realized that if they're going to teach you effectively, then they must challenge you just enough to find your limits and then help you to exceed them. You may not have liked these teachers quite so much at the time, but I'd bet they're your favorites as you look back on them. I think I learned more about essay writing from one 11th grade English teacher than in the rest of my time in school (college included). She was simultaneously the most and least liked teacher in the school because she'd push so hard. My own reputation for GMing reflects that - I still have people who call me an evil GM even as they ask if we can go to four sessions a month instead of two.

When it comes to GMs, I think the key lies in realizing that the primary goal is to facilitate an enjoyable game. Players want to be challenged, not lavished with undeserved rewards or struck down with unavoidable death. So the roles of opposition and arbitration are not roles unto themselves, but facets of the overall role (having fun). They only conflict when you forget about the having fun put.

The motivation topic went off onto a tangent which addressed this idea somewhat.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9631

In my personal opinion, there is always this danger. However, even when the game master
is working cooperatively with both players and player-characters, there is still some
danger. Game masters have been known to develop favorite players and/or favorite
player-characters without even realizing that they are doing so. Game masters are still
only human, so it's possible for a player or a player-character to push the GM's emotional
buttons accidentally.

I think that this is less a matter of the function of the game master in a particular RPG
and more a function of the individual game master in a particular social group playing
an RPG. A game master who is playing as an opponent to the player-characters but who
is genuinely cooperating with the players will try very hard to be fair, giving himself or
herself no unfair advantages. Not an easy thing to do, but it has been done many times.
A game master who is playing as both an opponent to the player-characters and as an
opponent to the players will soon be tagged as a "killer DM".

Copious mechanics might make it easier to avoid unfairness in games in which the
game master is encouraged to work against the player-characters as much as he or she
is able, with The Game Book as the final arbiter rather than the game master much of the
time, but there are still too many situations which authors of rules book can not anticipate.
Some people might argue that rules-lite games actually make it easier to avoid unfairness
because the game master has so much overt authority that all eyes are upon him or her,
with no labyrinthine rules to hide behind. Since I do not enjoy gaming in which the
game master is overtly hostile to or competitive against the player-characters, even when
all the players expect the game master to oppose their player-characters, I have no idea
whether or not rules-lite games actually have that effect.

I wonder if there are players who genuinely enjoy playing under game masters who are
overtly playing under conflict of interest? I have some vague memories of a friend who
enjoyed gaming under a game master who bragged he was out to hurt both players and
player-characters, saw it as a sort of macho thing to survive the game without acknowledging
any feelings hurt by the game master's hostility to both players and their characters, but
I've never met anyone else who enjoyed that kind of gaming.

Doctor Xero

I agree with what you are saying regarding most GMs balancing the conflict of interest (and the teacher metaphor struck me as particularly apt--could teaching be a form of illusionism?).

However, given that this is The Forge, I can't help thinking "system does matter", and any system that sets up that conflict of interest is bound to fail frequently, GMs being flawed and human. Are there examples of games that take the 'master' out of GM, and make him more of a special-case opposing player? What about games where the GM is truly just an arbitrator, and can't frame the game in such a way to screw/favor players?

A post I started awhile ago talks about this, doing the old 'take the opponent hat off the GM and put it on a player'. But its a bit more interesting than that.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8811

The first game that comes to mind is Primetime Adventures. The GM ("Producer") in that game has no adversarial role whatsoever. There's very little "master" either. Being the Producer is very much like being just another player.

The Questing Beast, Dust Devils, My Life with Master, and Trollbabe also do away with a lot of the "master" elements of Game Master.

Noon, I've occasionally had scenarios in which players played villains/monsters/what-have-you
opponents, and they always worked quite well. Because my gaming groups have been more
cooperation-oriented, no one likes to play only opponents, so the opponent was usually played
in addition to playing a valued comrade.

I ~always~ made certain first that this was all right with the players.

Often, a player would play the personal nemesis NPC for another player's PC. In those cases,
I always made certain that the nemesis NPC was played by a player trusted by and friends
with the target PC's player. Usually, I had best friends play each other's nemeses, because
as best friends they could play intensely without any risk of hurting each other's feelings
or wrecking fair play. I also made it very clear to players that a SEVERE penalty would result
if any player misused the privilege of playing a nemesis. I recall one game when two players
were quarrelling and one player used his character to cause considerable problems for the
other player's character even after numerous warnings. I penalized him 15 experience
points in a game system in which the average experience points for a full day's gaming
was 3 experience points.

However, most of the time it worked, and it worked well!

Doctor Xero

Loki wrote: Are there examples of games that take the 'master' out of GM, and make him more of a special-case opposing player? What about games where the GM is truly just an arbitrator, and can't frame the game in such a way to screw/favor players?

Noon, that was an interesting thread, thanks for the link.

Rune does seem to have an interesting strategy in dealing with this. From what I gather Rune deals with the GM-as-opponent issue by completely removing the arbitrator role. From the reviews I read, it seemed that GM's can only design encounters off of the power level of the PC's. Challenges are given a rating, and the GM has little authority to modulate that challenge level. What's also interesting with Rune, is that while the GM receive points for PC failure, GM's receive a penalty when a PC dies. I guess this encourages a "challenging but not impossible" mentality.

I bought this up because I'm trying to develop a game with a strong competetive player-vs-dungeon(GM?) aspect. I realize that the goal is "fun," and "fun" for the players is defeating the dungeon. But what about the GM, shouldn't their be a place for the "fun" of defeating the players?

If part of the "fun" for the GM is defeating the players, is the only solution breaking the role of arbitrator away from the GM, whether it's by adding a 2nd GM or by limiting the his power?

I think everyone has the right idea. Systems that do a good job of this "partition" off the GM's responsibilities. That is, he acts as referee on one level, and as a competitor on the other. Yes, there's a potential conflict of interest, but then, the same thing can be said of pickup basketball and calling your own fouls as I'm fond of pointing out. The social contract causes the competition to be honest. This is made more easy by verification of the results. For example, if the GM isrequired to have a written record (as in Rune), then the players can check to see if he's cheating. That is, the GM's authority is partitioned off such that ajudicaiton responsiblities do not apply to that part of the competition.

Thus level playingfields can be created and maintained, even while the GM still retains some arbitrary rights to adjudicate other things. Many designs simply rely purely on the honesty of the GM - and this works in most cases. But there's no reason why not to have a better system in place that makes everyone more comfortable with the competition as it exists.

Mike

Mike, you make some excellent points and summaries. As I've alluded above, I think that much of the time social contract is sufficient in creating an enjoyable game. It's just that it's not a part of the game, any more than, for instance, faking injury is part of the game of soccer. It happens, and it's part of the social contract for that game (at the professional level in Europe anyway), but it's not part of the rules.

I like the pick-up game of basketball analogy. It's true, the social contract of the game is that you are fair in calling fouls. However even that game has a built-in way of encouraging this: if I call questionable fouls, you can too. So in that sense, the rules encourage fairness.

When a basketball game has a referee to call fouls, and the reffavors one team over the other, there is no in-game recourse to the team getting screwed.

I gotta check out Rune at lunch today.

Personally, in the groups I've been in, RPGs which minimize or eliminate game masters ruin one of our
interests in gaming together.

As players, we see one (of many) pleasures in RPGs as the opportunity to romp through the imagination
and dreamscape of the person we've chosen as game master.

There's an element of "tell me a story" and "show me your dreams" in a lot of our games (not all, of course,
and certainly not most World of Darkness games! <g> On the other hand, one of the best horror games we
played was based off the game master's worst nightmares as a child . . . )

We have no interest in romping through the unliving imagination and stilled dreamscape of a gaming book.

When I've tried to use certain group-as-game-master freeware RPGs, I always have to alter them to
reinstall the game master or they fail our group's interests. (Sorry, Zak!)

I've found a number of groups work this way. I think constructing an RPG with no game master can be
a good idea, and I think constructing an RPG in which game master is out to get the players might work
for some gaming groups, but let's not discount the gaming groups who enjoy adventuring in the
personal fantastica of someone they personally know and game with.

Doctor Xero

Doctor Xero wrote: Personally, in the groups I've been in, RPGs which minimize or eliminate game masters ruin one of our
interests in gaming together.

As players, we see one (of many) pleasures in RPGs as the opportunity to romp through the imagination
and dreamscape of the person we've chosen as game master.

Doctor Xero wrote: let's not discount the gaming groups who enjoy adventuring in the
personal fantastica of someone they personally know and game with.

talysman nevertheless wrote: that's why I think good GMless designs require player creativity.
you're still romping through someone's imagination -- the imagination
of whoever is adding details to the gameworld at the moment.

no one's making any accusations against you, Doctor Xero, so please don't get defense or angry. I did not say that everyone should play GMless, or that playing with a GM isn't fun, or that I myself would never play with a GM. you mentioned that the GMless encounters you had lacked something: the ability to explore someone else's imaginary world. I suggested that this could be added to a good GMless design.

that's not a criticism of you. if anything, it's a criticism of the state of GMless game design. that's what the Forge is for: to look critically at the state of game design and game play, to spot problems, to share solutions. it's not a forum for me to criticize how you play, so I don't.

Playing without a specific gm, or with multiple could make the conflict of interest question event stickier. Suddenly everyone has a conflict of interest. Partitioning and being able to step out of identification with the role would be even more important. As would collaboration, or use of very clear mechanical systems to determine who gets to do what when and why.

and a bit OT:

Doctor Xero wrote: When I've tried to use certain group-as-game-master freeware RPGs, I always have to alter them to
reinstall the game master or they fail our group's interests. (Sorry, Zak!)

jdagna wrote: I'm sure you had teachers who realized that if they're going to teach you effectively, then they
must challenge you just enough to find your limits and then help you to exceed them.

Loki wrote: I can't help thinking "system does matter", and any system that sets up that conflict of interest is bound
to fail frequently, GMs being flawed and human.

talysman wrote: you mentioned that the GMless encounters you had lacked something: the ability to explore someone
else's imaginary world.

talysman wrote: no one's making any accusations against you, Doctor Xero, so please don't get defense or angry.

Emily Care wrote: I'd be interested to hear what happened. Maybe in another thread on actual play or rpg theory?

Xero, if you'll pardon my bluntness, that post is so dripping with assumptions that I cannot help but ask whether you are aware of them.

In your second paragraph you imply that consistency of character and theme require consistency of creatorship. Do you assume that this is true? Is it impossible for consistency to be achieved by multiple creators, or did your group discard it because they decided that there were efforts involved that they did not choose to input? (Examples of such efforts might be: using game mechanics to assist consistency, making sure everyone is aware what is motivating thematic and characterization decisions, etc.)

You go on to conflate exploration with combat and puzzles. I believe that speaks for itself.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: In your second paragraph you imply that consistency of character and theme require consistency of creatorship. Do you assume that this is true? Is it impossible for consistency to be achieved by multiple creators, or did your group discard it because they decided that there were efforts involved that they did not choose to input? (Examples of such efforts might be: using game mechanics to assist consistency, making sure everyone is aware what is motivating thematic and characterization decisions, etc.)

I wrote this a while back on my feelings about the GM's role. Since it applies here, I'm posting it.

I've found my standard way of explaining to non-gamers what roleplaying games are and I think it helps describe my thoughts on what the relationship between the GM and the players is. "Roleplaying games are a form of cooperative storytelling where people gather together to tell interesting stories. Some players take the roles of certain characters and other players, called gamemasters, take on the job of giving the story structure. The gamemaster gives the player a basic plot, a setting and other characters to interact with. Together, they tell the story."

The GM is a host, an adversary and an enabler. It is the GM's duty to complete the story. The PCs will come with a certain amount of characters, plotlines and theme. They will come to the game with all their stuff in tow, but even with all of the characters and story they bring, the world is far from complete. They may have parents and siblings, friends and enemies but they probably won't come to the game with the friendly shopkeeper who sells love potions down the street or the loyal lackey of their chief adversary who always seems to be a thorn in their side. No, they will bring only a certain amount of the world with them. The rest is up to the GM.

As a host, the GM sets the scene and introduces the players (and characters) to the world that the GM has created. The very presence of the PCs immediately begins to change the world and like a gracious host the GM should accept the fact that these PCs are going to make themselves comfortable and move things around a little. The GM and his or her world should be ready to adapt to these changes rather than fight them and force the PCs to conform to his or her vision. The story is not just about the world. It is about these characters as well and for them to fit into the world, the world must give a little. The GM may help the player design a character that fits in to the "big plot" they have in mind for the game but once the player character has that character, it's all their's. Even when playing a pregenerated character (a character the GM supplies to the player) the GM must be ready to let that player "create" their own version of the character and for that version of your character to somehow change the world.

As an adversary, the GM creates and plays the antagonists of the story. The GM must make them interesting and complete characters. Ideally, the GM gets in to their head a little and understands how they think. Then the GM can have these non-player characters act as real characters making decisions that are consistent and as intelligent as the antagonist would make. The antagonists want to win and they usually want to win as bad as the player's characters do. To that end they must work against the characters, resisting them and generally making their live's difficult.

As the enabler, the GM ensures that the players are able to be succesful. The players should be able to overcome all (or almost all) challenges and come out the victorious heroes (or anti-heroes). The GM also should enable the players and characters to have some influence on the story. Give them tools and abilities to change the face of the world or at least the oucome of the story. Give them oppurtunities to explore the depths of the character and become the fully realized person that great fictional characters are; not just two dimensional plot-devices but characters with hopes, fear, etc.

The GM is as much a player as the players who play the protaganists, the "player characters." The GM just has a much broader part and set of reponsibilities but these responsibilities are much a game as the game the others play. The GM must stretch his or her imagination and throw themselves into the imaginary world. Together with the players, it becomes a story. Together, with the players, the GM should feel free to have fun and remember that, in the end, it's a game. Everyone is playing to have fun. It just becomes a larger part of the GM's duty to make sure that fun happens. Encourage the players to throw themselves into their character's and let loose those creative energies. That, if you want my humble opinion, is the whole point of gaming. I have heard people try to make roleplaying into more than that and it can be. If we walk away knowing something more about the human condition or finding some deep insight in to our own personalities, its a nice bonus. The true magic of gaming comes in the creative flow between players and GM and the willingness to "just create."

Nuadha wrote: Some players take the roles of certain characters and other players, called gamemasters, take on the job of giving the story structure. The gamemaster gives the player a basic plot, a setting and other characters to interact with. Together, they tell the story.

[Edited to note crossposted with Loki]

Nuadha, in case no one has said it before, welcome to the Forge! I think you might want to do some reading in the articles section if you haven’t been yet, because I think you’re post is predicated on a lot of assumptions that may not be true for all styles of play. Furthermore, a lot of discussion and even game application there is out there that has broken up the issue of what the GM does/is versus what the Player does/is, which your post mostly seems to address. John (Feng) mentions some games fairly early in this thread that break up the set of “GM” jobs in different ways, and I think it’s worth remembering that traditionally assigned GM responsibilities can be distributed in a variety of ways. They don’t have to be, but they can be.

Or, ok, in this case, maybe they should be, or could be. Or rather, that’s the question: Should they be broken up differently? Timfire isn’t asking what the role of the GM is. He’s got a very focused question here: Given that he wants to “develop a game with a strong competitive player-vs-dungeon(GM?) aspect,” what is the role of the GM? Is it feasible to put the GM into the role of both arbitrator and opponent, or is that a conflict of interest.

Now, some games have explicitly dealt with this from the early days of the hobby. The traditional idea that a dungeon should be designed before the game (here’s where the GM gets to be the opponent), but it should not be altered if the players are clever enough to break it in play and the GM should always be “fair” (here’s the arbitrator). That was one approach. Mike has also addressed the social contract issue really well. (Why haven’t I heard that analogy before? It’s a good one.)

And of course, coming back to the issue of breaking apart the roles among different people instead of just at different times, there’s a range of possibilities here. “GM-less” versus “traditional GM” isn’t a simple dichotomy with no middle range.

Actually, I’m interested in what Gareth is arguing. That the GM and the players, perhaps, can’t all be really playing gamist without it looking more and more like a board game or strategy game. Or entirely like one. I’m not sure I’m convinced of that, but I’m open to convincing. I think that it should be possible to get everyone, GM and players, involved in the challenge and the competition. But maybe it hasn’t been supported as well in system terms as it could be. Who is the "rules arbitrator" in a board game? The rule book, first and foremost. But that doesn't always work (although in really well designed games, it does). But when there is a genuine ambiguity, I think that it goes back to social contract. The person with the strongest social power, or maybe a random "high/low" roll, maybe a vote in some cases. If it's not in the rules, board and strategy games tend not to even address the issue of arbitration.

I do think (regarding whether the GM and players can all be playing competitively) that there's a much greater range to victory and defeat than just “stopping the opponent cold.” Why does victory have to mean the annihilation of your opponent? Why couldn’t other victory conditions be established? Rune uses a scoring system that makes it explicitly not about fully destroying the PCs (you’d better not—you’re one of them). It’s still very dependent on the set-up versus play distinction, though, to the extent that the set-up phase is fairly involved and is so for all the players. We’ve played it a couple times in my group but only as Player versus player scoring because I was the only person really committed to set-up enough to be the GM. I wasn’t able to “play” the game in the same way. It was still fun, and I suppose providing challenge was part of that.

But I wonder if there isn’t another way. Actually, I’m also trying to work on a design that includes explicit player versus GM competition. I’m most intrigued by the possibilities of a “give ‘em enough rope” approach. That is, if the rule system can be set up as a fairly concentrated core that is applied consistently to all situations, and the players are allowed to choose their own level of risk… the GM is in the situation of providing lots of opportunities for them to take risks for appropriate rewards. And to encourage it, perhaps through NPCs, descriptions, etc. But if the GM and the players have identical system resources for a single session, the GM can’t cheat and doesn’t need to arbitrate (yes, the game has to be well designed). The GM then can just focus on tempting the players to overextend their own resources and push it too far. The consequences of the players “losing” do not necessarily have to be lethal or game ending, however (maybe session ending, but who knows).

My group has tended to focus our Step On Up on risk taking. Here’s an actual play thread that discusses some of that.

Rich

Shreyas Sampat wrote: In your second paragraph you imply that consistency of character and theme require consistency
of creatorship. Do you assume that this is true?

contracycle wrote: It seems to me the whole problem dissapears if Gamism is seen and discussed as challenge-based rather
than competition-based.

Nuadha wrote: The GM is a host, an adversary and an enabler.

Loki wrote: Do you ever feel that the dual roles of the traditional GM (arbitrator and opponent) are a conflict of interest?

Xero, I think the enabler/host role can be taken too far as well. I think that's what's called Illusionism (though the jargon on the forge is tough for me to keep up with or understand still).

As an example from actual play, a friend and I were players in a game of V:tM. While the GM was in the bathroom, we were discussing what to do about a challenge and were both stumped. Then we realized that if we did nothing, the GM would present us with either an NPC with a hint (usually by cell phone), or a fight that we could beat. Realizing that it made little difference whether we investigated the plot or prepared for conflicts--because the plot would always come to us and conflicts were tailored to be beaten--meant that suddenly the game became more like an amusement ride, and less like a game. Still a hell of a lot of fun, but different.

Ever experienced what I'm talking about?

Loki wrote: Xero, I think the enabler/host role can be taken too far as well. I think that's what's called Illusionism (though the jargon on the forge is tough for me to keep up with or understand still).

As an example from actual play, a friend and I were players in a game of V:tM. While the GM was in the bathroom, we were discussing what to do about a challenge and were both stumped. Then we realized that if we did nothing, the GM would present us with either an NPC with a hint (usually by cell phone), or a fight that we could beat. Realizing that it made little difference whether we investigated the plot or prepared for conflicts--because the plot would always come to us and conflicts were tailored to be beaten--meant that suddenly the game became more like an amusement ride, and less like a game. Still a hell of a lot of fun, but different.

Ever experienced what I'm talking about?

This topic's a bit of a pickle. I've learned that it's more important to decide "what we're going to agree to" than it is to determine "what's the right way of doing things," though I do indulge investigations of the latter in private, for my own satisfaction. A rules text is a good reference point for this debate. I like to confront conflicting views that are disrupting play or causing negative undercurrents. Arguing the merits of your position can be as fun as playing the game.

To me, the role of arbitrator is the more divisive of the two, and is more suitable for player distribution. Some players set themselves up as technical references (guilty). As with any other enterprise, agency can be good or bad. Pro: they can bullet point the issue and lower handling time. Con: they may color advisement with bias.

As for being an opponent, using a second GM as a Monster Runner ends up being a clerical post (IME). Were the role to hold play impact value, the antagonist principals would have to be given their turn to make Exploration (IMO). As for dysfunctional trends, I would first decry overly polite opposition. Christ, I'm not made of glass! is what I want to shout sometimes. I find it hard to forgive boring opposition.

contracycle wrote: I think it is much more reasonable and for me effective to have a single character controlled by a single creative mind. tHe qauntity of data I would need to reproduce qualitatively similar decisions to another player is, I feel, prohibitive.

contracycle wrote: . . . either Gamist GM's do not exist, or Gamist GM'sd do not address their CA during the play of the game, both of which conclusions I reject. It seems to me the whole problem dissapears if Gamism is seen and discussed as challenge-based rather than competition-based.

bcook1971 wrote: As for dysfunctional trends, I would first decry overly polite opposition. Christ, I'm not made of glass! is what I want to shout sometimes. I find it hard to forgive boring opposition.

Consider this :

As a host (for the campaign setting), it's best to have one person as the game master if the other gamers want to focus on exploring a single individual's specific vision. The gaming group may prefer multiple visions, such as having alternating game masters each with his/her own city, or having each player as the authority for a specific culture with the game master as the final word only when conflicts occur.

As an adversary, it's best to have one person as the game master for crucial or nexus NPCs if the other gamers want an over-arcing storyline (that they must discover, such as a mystery or hidden history) so that said NPCs contribute to this storyline. If the opponent is a random monster or not a crucial or nexus NPC, and if the gamers all understand the over-arcing mood and theme of the campaign, there is no reason that various gamers could not play these other NPCs. Gamers might also prefer hidden storylines they construct as they go along rather than ones they discover, in which case there would be no such thing as a nexus NPC for a specific singular storyline.

As an enabler, it's best to have one person as the game master if there is a concern in the gaming group that it's too difficult or too inconvenient (or too disruptive to the pleasures of gaming) for more than one person to have to maintain the objectivity necessary to adjudicate fairly yet mercifully the rules questions and adversary NCP-PC conflicts (or even PC-PC conflicts!).

If the above is true, then it becomes critical in any written game book to make it clear what might be the roles and responsibilities of the game master (or of cooperative players in a GMless game system) and how he or she or they might best delegate said roles and responsibilities within the mechanics and themes of that specific gaming system.

Doctor Xero