...on which functional roleplaying is based.

I don't actually believe that as a universal principle governing all RPGs. But there's been so much talk on the internet against this kind of view of the DM (or GM for you folks who play those new games like Boot Hill, Traveller, or Top Secret) in the last few years that I'd like to look at it for the other side.

So my question for the thread is: what kind of games, what kinds of play are helped by having the DM serve as the ultimate social authority governing play?

I have one thought about this to start. It seems to me that giving the DM broad authority to make shit up and say how things are going to go makes RPGs more portable to different groups than is sometimes the case. That is, if you have a group of friends playing together reliably, it's easier to disperse authority throughout the group and spread out the traditional DM duties. But if you want to just go to the game club or the school lunchroom and bust out with the quick situation, it's in a way easier if the person who's setting all that up is also the central authority over what's going on.

...just out of curiosity, are you sure you didn't want this in the Theory section?

And in any case, the GM is the absolute authority in all RPGs, period.  The kind of play this "model" best serves is called good and effective play.


RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit...just out of curiosity, are you sure you didn't want this in the Theory section?

And in any case, the GM is the absolute authority in all RPGs, period.  The kind of play this "model" best serves is called good and effective play.


RPGPundit

Oh really?  Is that like good and effective government?

Anyway I'm guessing places where there is a lack of concensus building for whatever reason. Time. Willingness. Desire. For example, and just an example, if the players all want to be entertained by someone telling a story and not really want to actively engage or the GM wants to tell his story then it seems like the way to do.

I try to avoid theory discussions where possible.

Feel free to elaborate on your views, though, Pundit - you seem to believe the doctrine. I'd like to know what functions this serves for you. I mentioned one it has served for me; another that people often mention is some kind of 'content purity' authority, keeping a single creative vision of the shared fantasy world intact. I actually think that groups on the same page can do this just as well (I've had the experience of doing it successfully in small groups at least), but there is something to be said for not just letting any jackass contribute to the shared setting, and the authoritarian DM is the simplest solution to the problem.

I've found shared authorial control tends to lead to rather wacky anything goes settings, often rather lowest common denominator ones.

A single vision gets around that, rather effectively.

You see it on the rpg.net design a setting threads, sooner or later someone always introduces zombies.  Me, I think zombies are best used in zombie games and not so much as a general spice.

The authority of the DM is the foundation of some kinds of social contract on which functional roleplaying can be based.

A group needs some sort of social course-correcting mechanism to keep small wobbles from turning into big screaming train-wrecks.  It starts with (say) a thief stealing a ring from the treasure-box before anyone else sees it, and as long as the social issues of that get handled in that early stage, everybody's happy and everything's copacetic.  It's only when small things turn step by step into big problems that people get steamed.

If your social contract gives all the players but one the absolute right to ignore those wobbles (if that's what they choose) then you have, de facto, made that one player (a.k.a. "the GM") responsible for all the course-corrections.  If he doesn't do it, there's no guarantee that anybody else will.  In a functional group, with great responsibility comes great power:  he's got to have the authority to do that job, for the good of everyone.

If your social contract doesn't imply that any of the players have the right to ignore those wobbles then there are plenty of other ways to distribute the responsibility for keeping the group happy and functional.  Some of those ways work just fine without requiring absolute authority be vested in the GM.

I've started realising that even amongst "pure-strain" RPGs (eg. no Story Games / Forge games), there's still a lot of difference between earlier games (eg. OD&D) and more recent ones (eg. D&D 2e+).  How much "authority" the GM needs to tell their story is one of those differences.

I don't know, Tony. I don't mind the situations where characters turn on each other and players get bruised egos and hurt feelings, in all gaming contexts. I do agree with you that there are cases where putting the social and imaginative-content authority in one player works out and cases where it doesn't. But what I'm more interested in in this thread are cases where it actually helps the game to have a 'God' GM, and more particularly how it helps.

Stuart, what you're pointing to I think is the 'sandbox' GM (the impartial referee) vs. the 'auteur' GM (the dude who dictates the story), the former the default model of most seventies RPGs, the latter the default model of D&D2 and White Wolf stuff. FWIW many of the games at the Forge which have a GM are more like the traditional 'sandbox' model, except that instead of a focus on giving players control of tactical and strategic elements for achieving some kind of goal (exploration, treasure, overcoming foes, whatever), they focus on how you react to morally and emotionally fraught situations, without necessarily dictating an outcome. This style of 'story GMing', which has little to do with White Wolf/2e style play, didn't come into being with the Forge - some of my groups were running 'narrativist' games in this style by the early eighties - but I have found the discussions of this style of play there very useful in honing my own craft at various points.

But for the love of Orcus let's not talk about that too much - let's focus on the good things that an Almighty Dungeon Master can contribute to a gaming table!

Oh, you're talking exclusively about narrative authority?  Not social authority within the gaming group (like "No ... Teddy, you gotta calm down here.  Let's all take a break, get some drinks, and then we'll talk this out")?  Gotcha.

God-GMs are great in games with a sense of story-inevitability.  When people describe the classic argument for fudging the die rolls ... "Look, it just had to happen that way, and everyone knew it!" ... they're describing a game in which a God-GM is a terrific asset.  She makes the consensus of the table clear, and turns the uncertainty of group opinion into the rock-solid foundation of What Has Happened.  That helps everyone to move forward into the next scene with more certainty and more agreement.

Quote from: TonyLBOh, you're talking exclusively about narrative authority?  Not social authority within the gaming group (like "No ... Teddy, you gotta calm down here.  Let's all take a break, get some drinks, and then we'll talk this out")?  Gotcha.

God-GMs are great in games with a sense of story-inevitability.  When people describe the classic argument for fudging the die rolls ... "Look, it just had to happen that way, and everyone knew it!" ... they're describing a game in which a God-GM is a terrific asset.  She makes the consensus of the table clear, and turns the uncertainty of group opinion into the rock-solid foundation of What Has Happened.  That helps everyone to move forward into the next scene with more certainty and more agreement.

They're also good for games aiming at allowing the players to experience a game world or to explore a game world, as they create an external source of fact to experience or explore.

I'm talking about both.

Also, narrative authority is a subset of authority over the imaginative content, and doesn't correspond with it. Let's say I'm running a game with an assassination attempt. Does the assassination happen? Are some characters friends with the assassins, others with the target, others with both? What will they do about their relationships? I can leave all this open as a matter of play, just as I leave it open whether they talk to the troll or fight him or sneak around him, and still preserve essential authority over the imaginative content of my game in other respects. (You're in this kind of setting, magic works the way I say it does, here are my house rules, etc.)

Now, the kind of game you're talking about, with the auteur GM, I guess some people like that and it's on topic for this thread. I personally hate it, but if you like it, it is one thing that a central DM authority can help provide.

Social authority in RPGs, it occurs to me, is a weird thing.

"This interpretation of the rules stands" - if the DM gets to say this, that's one kind of social authority.

"You're in the game, you're out" - that's a bigger kind of authority, but still connected to the game.

"Everyone pays for my pizza or I don't run" - that's stepping into real-world privileges, though frankly I think in traditional games, giving the DM some gravy for entertaining people isn't necessarily a bad thing. However,

"If you let me fuck your wife and drink up your liquour cabinet, I'll level you up and give you a sword +2" seems like it's an abuse no matter how "Godlike" you like your GMs, and in more than one way.

Quote from: BalbinusYou see it on the rpg.net design a setting threads, sooner or later someone always introduces zombies.  Me, I think zombies are best used in zombie games and not so much as a general spice.

Cue Balbinus First Law of Setting Design : Any setting into which a gonzo element is introduced will inevitably grow to include more and more gonzo elements of a more and more extreme nature.

Social contract stems primarily from the group's standing relationship and unspoken agreements surrounding play. The role of the GM and his place in the social contract stems from the rules of the particular game at play. Some games give the GM free range (Ye Olde Grandfather Clause), and some don't. The agreement that you'll obey those rules stems from the first part of the social contract. The agreement on power dynamics within the game stems from the game mechanics themselves.

-L

I disagree.

I say that use of different aspects of the game system is dependent upon the nature of the social contract.  For example, if you're playing in a game where people play fast and loose with the rules, bitching about the GM failing to apply falling damage correctly would be a breach of the social contract regardless of what the game's rules say.

Gaming is first and foremost a social activity therefore the rules that govern it are the same as those that govern all social interactions.  Any theory that fails to begin with this as its starting position is fetishism.