I think the GM is the most evocotive form of theory. I also wasn't aware there were people who felt so strongly for the GM position.

My position is this, most leisure games have no referee. You don't need a ref in chess, you don't need one for munchkin, you don't need one for Monopoly (a GM-less strategy RPG if I ever played one!).

I also posit that the GM is the least requested role in RPG's. Most players would rather play than GM. Even those that like and enjoy GMing would rather be playing. So a successful game might be one with only players.

Oh, and tell me again? Communism doesn't work?
China does not agree.

Quote from: KrakaJakOh, and tell me again? Communism doesn't work?
China does not agree.

Yeah but China is fucking terrifying; hardly poster boy for the all conquering political juggernaut of communism!

Yeah, China is terrifying. Since adopting communism it has emerged as a world superpower, a title previously held by only the USA (and North Korea, another communist country, is beginning to follow suit). 2.5 Billion of the near 7 billion people on the planet live in communist countries. I never said it was all conquering, but it is certainly successfull. However, I'm not here for political debate.

I do not agree that a game with no GM couldn't (as other posters have already proved it does) work.

Quote from: KrakaJakYeah, China is terrifying. Since adopting communism it has emerged as a world superpower, a title previously held by only the USA (and North Korea, another communist country, is beginning to follow suit). 2.5 Billion of the near 7 billion people on the planet live in communist countries. I never said it was all conquering, but it is certainly successfull. However, I'm not here for political debate.

I do not agree that a game with no GM couldn't (as other posters have already proved it does) work.

Oh I'm not saying that China aren't successful, indeed it is their very success that makes them terrifying!  But this conversational thread has absolutely nothing to do with your questions so I'll ignore it from now on.

Erm, I answered your questions didn't I?

I need to find a new thread to terrorise!

China is only communist on paper.  In truth the country is still run by much the same beaurocratic regime that has held sway since the time of the Han dynasty...if not earlier.  In fact, a good portion of their rise in status as a world power is the fact that they are adopting capitalist techniques to increase their economy, and without the democratic model feel no need for 'fair business practices' on the world stage.

That out of the way:

GM's are necessary for RPG's. Bear with me here. Polaris is fun, it looks like an rpg to some extent. GM's aren't necessary for "GAMES", thus chess, monopoly, polaris...  If you remove this element, the nature of the game becomes so radically different that it is not an RPG anymore, and demanding the title loudly only attempts to muddy the waters.  If I tell you 'card games' you probably will be thinking poker, blackjack... things like that. If I then pull out a deck of UNO cards, or a World of Warcraft Card Game box,  you'll have to wonder if we are talking the same language. There is a difference between the two. Not a value judgement, not a moral superiority argument. A difference. Polaris is fun, I believe you. It's just a different type of Game. Sorry, RPG"S with GM's got to the name first.  Even videogame RPG's have a GM of sorts. Its the developers/designers/computer it's running on, but it's there. Someone other than the player creates the world and the events in it, the players authority over the game is limited to making choices about what to do. The better run games (and computer RPG's) allow greater player input...


Fallout as 'average' compared to 'ordinary': fallout may have had a fantastic setting, but the characters were hardly extraordinary people in traditional respects. For christs sakes, rats were a decent challenge starting out!  Even at 'high level' play an ordinary punk with an ordinary gun was a challenge if you didn't wear heavy armor. Anyone could kill you. Thus, the characters are 'average' people for a long time.  Construction Dude is ordinary, mundane. Unless construction Dude has something unusual happen in his life, no one will want to play him. Now, if he gets a call saying his younger brother has been killed for failure to pay off his drug debts, and CD goes to New Yawk to find out who did it... then CD is a fun idea to play.

 Inquisitor: Cross between RPG and tabletop wargame with small units of big models. Four inch tall more or less. Character creation was a cross between defining your character with a few random rolls within acceptable ranges for that 'type' of character and roleplaying rules were non-existant except for combat.  Could have been adapted to an RPG with little effort, but combat was a nightmare for non-wargamers.

Social mechanics: A lack does not mean loudest player wins. Fallacious argument unsupported by any evidence. What is provable is that existing social mechanics (and really complete ones at that) tend to remove any attempts to roleplay out interaction by rolling dice and 'forcing' issues.  

To whit: In my RQ game the players have on real option, their influence skill, when doing social stuff. Good rolls make the NPC's better like them, bad rolls do nothing or make matters worse. Naturally, the players want to win influence rolls all the time, but as a GM I force them to actually ask questions to which they want answers. EG Roleplay.  In Exalted, they can make an 'interrogate' action (more or less) and 'force' me to divulge the answers they want based on dice rolls, and they do this regularly. They use the charms and social combat rules to supplant actual efforts on their behalf to talk to people.  Worse, I've seen exalted players actually turn social mechanics on their fellow PC's to force other players to do stuff, something that doesn't happen in games without clearly spelled out social mechanics. in this the Pundit puts it best: Gaming is a social activity,a nd the social stuff has to happen at the table, on in the dice. Combat has to be diced (and ruled) because you can't attack bob with a real sword without fucking up the game for everyone.


Paraphrased for your convience.

Quote from: SpikeIf you remove this element, the nature of the game becomes so radically different that it is not an RPG anymore

Why?

I mean, I understand that you've got a big pile of analogies (card games, and video games, and such.)  But you never actually make an argument for why removing the GM makes it "not an RPG."  You just assert it, baldly.  We're not hard of hearing, y'know ... it's not like we're going to suddenly say "Oh ... you mean that it's not an RPG!  Why didn't you say so in the first place!"

I've played RPGs with no GM, and I do very much the same thing I do in games with a GM.  You play a character, live your role, work the mechanics, create a story and try to beat the bad-guys.

I've yet to hear an argument why I shouldn't just say "If it feels like an RPG and plays like an RPG and sounds like an RPG then it's an RPG."

Quote from: TonyLBWhy?

I mean, I understand that you've got a big pile of analogies (card games, and video games, and such.)  But you never actually make an argument for why removing the GM makes it "not an RPG."  You just assert it, baldly.  We're not hard of hearing, y'know ... it's not like we're going to suddenly say "Oh ... you mean that it's not an RPG!  Why didn't you say so in the first place!"

Don't be obtuse, Tony.  Did I tell you you weren't having fun? Did I say you weren't playing a game? No and No. I said they aren't RPG's.  Just as checkers looks a lot like Chess, it isn't however chess at all.

RPG's have certain defining characteristics that make them RPG's rather than some other sort of games. One of those characteristics is the 'traditional' GM/Player dynamic.  

Let me say that again. The GM/Player Dynamic.  

I didn't say 'GM'. It's a dynamic. You remove one peice of that and you lose it. Now, you build up some new dynamic in your alternative game, but it's radicially different.  As I've pointed out, I consider most Computer RPG's to retain this dynamic with varying degrees of success.

Here is the rub. In the 'traditional' sense (and btw, by bringing in the term traditional to describe the new stuff as different from the old stuff, you acknowledge that the new stuff is in fact different. Obviously our disagreement is 'how far'.) The GM is the distinguished opposition, the sole visionary who spins the world and all that is in it, he is also the arbiter of rules.  Various games and groups run this various ways, from Burning Empires view that the GM is literally the opposition and is as bound by specific rules as the players, to more touchy feely crap where the GM gives the players wide latitude in what they can do (Say, Seventh Sea, where the players can suddenly announce there is a chandelier they can swing from provided they are indoors, or the Unisystem's plot point mechanism).   The players provide characters and introduce a variable into the equation. Their control is finite but unmistakeable.

Now, let us look at a shared narrative GM-less game. No player provides the distinguished opposition. Oh, sure, a player might chose to create a conflict for the party to resolve, but he's also part of teh resolution of the problem he creates.  There is no single vision, there is a shared vision. This is a fundamental change in tone. If you can't grasp it without me drawing pretty pictures and analogies, I'm sorry, but we'll have nothing to say to one another.

'Oh, but it's just a more co-oppertive RPG expirence' or some other crap like that. Yes, and skipping rope is more cooporative than Dodgeball, but oddly I don't see too many boneheads trying to say that skipping rope and dodgeball are 'the same type of game'.  Any idiot with two brain cells to rub together can see the fundamental differences.

Or are you suggesting you only have one braincell? :rolleyes:

Or do you need me to draw it with more gaming related analogies like the difference between five card stud and Magic: teh Gathering? I mean, hey! they both use cards, right?:raise:

Quote from: SpikeNow, let us look at a shared narrative GM-less game. No player provides the distinguished opposition. Oh, sure, a player might chose to create a conflict for the party to resolve, but he's also part of teh resolution of the problem he creates.  There is no single vision, there is a shared vision.

Well, I suppose that's one vision of GM-less play, but it's not the only possibility.

How about a game where the player across the table is always your adversary, and that position (necessarily) rotates as different players are spotlighted in different scenes?  Whatever conflicts he introduces, he is whole-heartedly behind sticking right to you, but then he takes his turn as player and you stick adversity to him.

How about a game where players compete to provide the most passionately engaging adversity (while simultaneously fielding adversity from other players toward themselves)?  Whoever does the best job of getting people to step up and face a challenge gets more power to influence the game.

I've played both of these games, and they sure feel like roleplaying games to me.  Would your hypothetical "No adversity, no challenge, just fluffy bunnies and rainbows" game feel different?  I don't know.  I haven't played that game.

Tony

You are still missing the single cohesive 'vision' of the world angle. Opposition is only one part of the dynamic, and arguably the weakest because Opposition can be created out of anything. You can get opposition out of a 'chose your adventure book', for example.

An RPG GM, even one using a preprinted world, creates a lot of stuff. Good or bad, he makes the world work. Then the players show up and discover it, explore it, muck it up. In good games, this is fun for everyone. In bad games one side takes it personally and refuses to allow for the cooperation. But always that cooperation is across a very real line of control. Players control their characters and actions, GMs control the world and everything else. That is the standard.

Now, I'm not going to claim expertise over these GMless games, but I can tell you this... if there is a GM, even in inanimate one like an inflexible book/computer program, then they aren't really GMless. Otherwise the players have to somehow fill that void amongst themselves... by definition if they want something resembling that dynamic of play. If they aren't even creating that dynamic then what they are doing is more like Improv theatre without an audience. If they are, they still lack that 'exploring someone elses idea', because they have to share that role amongst themselves.

Player X creates these ideas, but player Y can change them when it's his turn, and player Z can use mechanic zeta to claim it was all a dream. No one is running the show and there isn't anything to explore but your ability to bullshit one another for four hours.

Now: If you start talking to me about all these ways you can write the rules to recreate the roll of the GM to eliminate that without actually, you know, having a GM I'd have to ask you this: Why don't you just fucking have a GM then?  Or is this some weird game of chicken where the goal is to get as close as possible to having a GM without actually having one?

Quote from: SpikeYou are still missing the single cohesive 'vision' of the world angle.

Oh, okay.  I don't think that's central to roleplaying.

For instance, suppose I GM Amber, and I have players create their own shadows, with empires and factions and wildlife (as the rules say I should).  Then we play out large parts of the game with me throwing adversity (perhaps outside foes) at them in these worlds they've created.

There's no single cohesive vision there.  We've all contributed, in different ways, mediated by the rules.  But it's still an RPG.

I don't think a Single Cohesive vision, or even a cohesive vision is essential to roleplaying. The fact that I can play a game of Dungeon & Dragons with one group and have the game be different in another group and still be able to call it D&D is proof positive you don't need a single cohesive vision.

Like I posit before, an RPG requires 2 elements in my book, System & Setting. Not a complete setting, the example of what the system is there to create.

Which brngs me up to your computer/console RPG argument.

Those are just system (to the extreme, that only a computer processor can handle it) and setting as well. They're games designed to not need a GM. The designers are the Game Designers, not the GM's from afar. If the system is broken in a computer RPG, there is no outside force to save it.

Tony: The way Amber is set up you have the traditional dynamic I've suggested. That you chose to dilute it by focusing on what the players bring outside their characters (the shadows they create) is your business and essentially irrelevant to what is, or is not 'RPGing' as a whole. This is arguing by exception, and not to dissimilar (though less disgusting) then the 'but what if there was a blind kid' arguements you occasionally run into when discussing city ordinances.

Further, by ditching the dice... the random element, it is possible to argue that Amber is already on it's way out of teh 'RPG' catagory into the as-yet unnamed catagory of 'Games that superficially resemble RPG's but are not'. Luckily, I don't really care that much about dice/no-dice so I don't have to worry about that arguement.


Jak: Within the same game  you do have that cohesive vision. Moving to a new game you trade that one cohesive vision for a new cohesive vision, don't you? Thus the dynamic remains a constant.

As a rebuttal to your CRPG arguement: You are forgetting that even electronic RPG's have an 'adventure' and a 'world' that was designed by someone. The very best are like games run by great GM's, the worst are very much like games run by bad GM's... wander around lost and aimless, or railroaded openly, fighting with no fucking clue what the point is.  Notice I didn't say the best CRPG's are like games run by the 'Best' table top GM's. However, you DO still have that dynamic. The GM may be a developement team, but as the 'system' is actually transparent (being done entirely by the machine behind the scenes) it is in some ways more true that for CRPG's that System DOES NOT matter.... since you don't see it anyway.

Contrary to your statement that it is pure system. People are not still die hard FFVII fans today because it had a great system.

Quote from: SpikeTony: The way Amber is set up you have the traditional dynamic I've suggested. That you chose to dilute it by focusing on what the players bring outside their characters (the shadows they create) is your business and essentially irrelevant to what is, or is not 'RPGing' as a whole. This is arguing by exception

I ... really don't think so.

The vast majority of actual game sessions that I have played or heard of involved a give and take between the many visions at the table.  The GM contributes some material, and the players contribute some material, and it all goes in a great big mixing pot to create a fusion greater than the sum of its parts.

If I'm DMing D&D, and somebody brings me a character backstory about their doddering warlord father, and the cunning but evil older brother who took over their clan and exiled the young hero, I'm going to focus on that.  That's awesome stuff.

Are you seriously arguing that anybody who does that is no longer playing an RPG?

Quote from: TonyLBWell ... how do you explain the people who play GMless games and have a good time?  Are they just deluding themselves somehow?  Are they actually playing GMed games?  Are they actually not enjoying themselves?

Even if there weren't evidence that GMless games can work, you'd be in a pickle trying to prove a negative.  But given that people have plenty of actual play experience of these games producing fun, challenging and dramatic results ... man ... you've really got a hard row to hoe here, with this argument.

What is your evidence then? I've never seen a GMless game work, none of the people I've ever gamed with have. It's just going to end up as a fight over who gets to shout the most and act the smartest. Without a GM and RPG cannot work.

So where is your evidence?

Thanks
Frank

Quote from: FranklinSo where is your evidence?

Well, what kind of evidence would you like?

I'm not going to come to your house and play the game with you, if that's what you're asking.  I think you'll probably have to settle for actual play reports from third parties who have played the games and enjoyed them.  Will that satisfy you?