Games without PCs

[BigRedRod]

Being a big boardgame fan it has always seemed slightly strange to me that all RPGs are designed with the intent that every player controls a single character. Occasionally you get a game which allows character rotation, but the basic structure is identical.

Now, it could be that "Each player controls a character" is a basic element essential to any given RPG. After all, how does one roleplay anything else?

Over the years I've considered other types of games and I'm led to one real conclusion. Every player is an organisation, perhaps they nominally play the leader of the organisation, but I can't imagine anybody really enjoying roleplaying lengthy discussions concerning how to run the organisation rather than just getting on and running it.

The "Players control an organisation" angle certainly seems to come back to boardgames, but in places boardgames and RPGs can overlap and just be pretty much the same thing but with a different presentation. Skirmish/War rules exist for certain RPG systems to allow larger scale conflicts to be resolved. These would appear to exist in the strange land between boardgames and RPGs, along with wargames.

From this, it would almost seem that RPGs, boardgames and wargames all exist on a spectrum of scale. On one side we have each player controlling a single character, firmly RPG territory, zoom a little out so that each player controls only a half dozen characters and we seem to be in an area well covered by war games (Mordheim and Necromunda spring to mind). Another step gives each player control over not just one grouping of characters but a collection of such groups (here we're at the more traditional wargame stuff, like ASL and Warhammer). Further still and we see players controlling entire empires (this is an area reserved for boardgames, although boardgames are highly variable).

Now, last summer I started playing a game of Twilight Imperium on another message board. This was an interesting experience for a few reasons, one was that it worked surprisingly well given that we had a dedicated player taking the role of Boardgame (i.e. he handled all of the random card drawing elements to keep things fair and stop anybody cheating in a game where secrecy is essential), and also we roleplayed.

The roleplaying was unexpected by me. Largely as we were playing a boardgame, a game with a specified goal and yet the players all took on personalities roughly dictated by their race and merrily roleplayed away on top of the game. This led to exciting metagameness on top of the actual game being played. The waters had become muddy as we took a boardgame and twisted it towards being a roleplaying experience.

One of the key differences between a boardgame and an RPG is the existence of limits. Boardgames have strictly defined rules which you shouldn't venture outside of for fear of your fellow players setting light to you. RPGs don't.

Right, so with all that said we can start approaching my so-called point. Why is nobody running a game where the players play anything other than characters? What is stopping us? Why don't rules exist? Is the idea of leading a civilisation to power without the constraints that come attached to boardgames unappealing?

And this then leads me on to an idea I had way back when in the Game Ideas thread (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1910). The Guild was a game in which the players were in control of an adventurer's guild in the typical generic D&D world. Nominally, the players would indeed, each have a character although they would have influence outside what these characters would by directly being able to lead and direct other characters to victory. The game would still have a plot, it would just arrive via a different method to the standard.

Short Version
-How come every RPG consists of a player controlling a single character?
-Surely there's potential in the idea of letting the players control more abstracted entities still with room for roleplaying (Empires for example).

[Gralhruk]

The one thing that springs to mind is connection. Especially in PbP, it is important to connect with your character on some level in order to write in at least a mildly convincing fashion. I think most of us don't have a problem doing this because we can all identify with being a person. It is slightly harder to identify with being a group of people and simulating that group dynamic in your mind. When you move to a larger scale, I think you really start to lose that connection quite quickly.

What is required for me to be able to write convincingly about an organization? Knowledge of that organization and the regular activities, trials, and tribulations thereing. How many of us really know that much about medieval organizations?

Board games mitigate this by giving you rules to follow, therby removing the need to imbue things with a life of your own.

At least, that's what jumps to my mind.

[itches]

Roleplaying organisations, such as Nations (http://www.cybernations.net)?

[BigRedRod]

You make some good points Gral, points which I should've pointed out myself if I'd thought a bit more. I think roleplaying a group leads to stereotyping that group, the best example is alien races (it would seem the game of Twilight Imperium was the perfect example) given that alien races are always defined by a couple of characteristics over anything else. This makes them easy to represent as a whole.

To me, this question brings to mind the frequent sentiment that PBPs aren't too dissimilar from novels. Novels are filled with characters and is it really roleplaying if there are no people?

If we take a hypothetical example: Let's say there is a game where the players are each in charge of a nation (Yes, itches, a bit like Cybernations). Now there is an exciting book of rules which details exactly what these nations can do to themselves and one another. At this stage we're just playing a really complicated boardgame (Which doesn't have a physical board). We need the players to play these nations as if they had an identity, i.e. there are factors aside from simple number crunching which dictate their actions.

One solution would be to just let the players be characters and for these characters to be the immortal rulers of their nations. This seems to pull away from the goal though and just accept defeat on the issue of playing something other than a single entity.

I'd go on, but I'm having exciting stomach pains. While I go and look for something to sort this out, I'll ponder further.

[Xaden]

This is a truly intriguing thread and intersting to boot. The play as an organization thing is a fairly different concept, but something that seems along the same lines as playing a single character. I see no reason why one couldn't make up stats for an organization within some sort of rule-set much like you have for your typical RPGs though. A stat for the size of the organization, how well it implements its initiatives, what sort of resources it has, the level of corruption within the organization, etc. etc. etc. It would be your job as the player to then breathe life into this organization; if it has a lot of curruption, why? Is there one "fat-cat" skimming off the top? Is there a handful of people stealing resources somehow? Is there a saboteur within the organization?

Then things could possibly be broken down a little further, by maybe giving stats to various partf of the organization, maybe a financial branch, an "activity crew", a legislative branch of sorts, a communications branch. Which parts would be most important to you? Which would be least? It would be along the lines deciding if strength is more important than intelligence for your character or your character concept.

These organizations don't even have to be as bureaucratic as I'm presenting them, you could be in control of a military organization, or you could play something along the lines of "sim city" (the video game) where you're in control of an organization that determines the policies and zoning rules and where you expand your civilization. I guess the idea here that the rules have to take over a certain amount of autonomy from you the player to represent the random chaotic meanderings of an organization (much like there's a certain amount of autonomy from your character in RPGs in the form of dice roles to see if your character can accomplish something, how quickly they do it and if they even succeed (or even partially succeed) in whatever given task they have). You'd determine the rules, motivations and ethical behaviors of your organization and lead it on from there.

Or, then again, maybe I'm missing the point entirely.:nervous:

[zachol]

Well... you could have a game where each player controls a 'leader-demigod' in charge of a small group of lesser things.

For example, you have a planet, with the standard natural resources, and X number of colonizers have come. For whatever reason, they are against each other.
In comparison to the natives of the planet, each are incredibly powerful, but their goal is to control the resources of the planet, so they generally need to enlist the help of the natives.
There would have to be various reasons why they don't go after each other, but off hand, as there are more than two of them, any two going against each other would open themselves to the third, and so on.

There would be two layers - the semi-statistical layer of the natives, which live and die, and the layer of the 'leaders,' who have a lifetime far longer than the natives.

This could be shifted to a fantasy genre, or whatever - the point is each character would control 1 'main,' and (indirectly) a small nation/area.

Kind of like Ars Magica, with the Magus/Companion/Grog thing.


Also, mentioning Ars Magica, there is sort of a 'roleplay the organization' thing there as well.

[LeadPal]

I've never considered doing away with PCs entirely, because you just lose too much depth, the meat and drink of roleplaying. Giving significant depth and realism to a single character is alright, but it would be harder to do with a small group and impossible with a large one.

With D&D's Leadership feat, there's some potential for playing groups and organizations, with one character as a leader. However, without a couple of key figures at the centre of the game, I have a hard time imagining it to not be anything less than emotionally dead. Even when I "roleplay" straight-up Warhammer (yes, I'm rich), the focus is on individuals within the armies, not on the armies themselves.

[zachol]

...my earlier post looks silly.


Regardless, I agree with LeadPal - it would be mostly a good idea to have some sort of 'PC' that is leading the organization/nation/whatever, even if the player controls the organization more, and the 'PC' isn't really stat'd out.

[Uranium - 235]

Strictly speaking, an RPG where you control several characters would be a metagaming nightmare. Also, players would be more inclined to min/max their characters as well. In, say, Shadowrun, half the challenge is that your rag-tag team of three / four might not be all that well-prepared to perform certain tasks. Whereas if I ran a team of, with two characters each, six / eight, I'd have at LEAST someone ready to handle any situation.

Doesn't sound fun to me.

EDIT: I have a feeling I read your post wrong...

EDIT 2: Well, I wasn't far off, but I still made a valid point: Controlling 'groups' or more means you HAVE to lose certain elements. You mentioned Warhammer. Granted my experiences with Warhammer is as deep as playing Dawn of War, but if each player controlled a Space Marine squad, for example, it'd be least problematic to have 'customization' limited to just the weapons the marines are using, maybe a couple other things as well. But having entire character sheets for each marine? Would lead to problems more then anything. Also, nobody would want to make that damn many characters...

[Wired*Nun]

I think there are some fundamental elements which make roleplaying into roleplaying, and a wargame (or boardgame) a game. I'll call all such traditional games "wargames" for the purpose of this post.

"Roleplaying of a group" thing was tried in the old play-by-mail formats, with limited success. There are also computer games and boardgames where one starts out as a character who gathers up armies and resources to use toward a goal. Wargames easily simulate groups.

Roleplaying is by definition playing a role. It is hard to identify (as someone said earlier) with something or someone too different from oneself. If you really want to roleplay, you either have to act as one character or switch among single characters. We humans have no experience existing in the plural. Wargames easily deal with multiple "characters" by simplifying them into playing pieces. You can't immerse yourself in a playing piece very easily, especially if you have many.

Roleplaying is also by definition bounded by much more flexible guidelines. The ultimate roleplaying is "life" which has an ever-changing set of limits we sometimes call "rules," but which usually are just consequences. Roleplaying simulates life and simulates the consequences, but theoretically, you can do anything in a roleplaying game. Wargames do have rules, and victory conditions, which are supposed to be clear and conducive to competition of some sort.

Roleplaying games are not inherently competitive by nature. Those people who play them that way are using a subset of roleplaying possibilities, and often try to justify this power gaming by reference to "the rules." Any GM or group which allows this is probably not playing an RPG any more; they have crossed the line to wargaming. Sometimes this is fuzzy, but it usually becomes obvious by and by. Wargames, however, are inherently competetive, even ones which are more of a race to victory (Settlers of Catan for example). Someone wins.

Roleplaying nearly always needs a moderator, to arbitrate the emotionally-charged and unbouded decisions, applying the game guidelines and good judgment. Wargames need no moderator- the moderator is supposed to be the common rules, assisted now ofttimes by a computer and software.

It's very hard to blend the two, especially as some elements are very either-or. For example, you either have a moderator, or you don't. The most successful blends IMO have been wargames that allow your "pieces" to represent one character or pseudocharacter, allowing for a certain amount of identification e.g., Talisman or Cosmic Encounter on the tabletop, or MMORPGs. Still, a MMORPG still is not a true RPG, because you can't do anything outside the limitation of the program, which should be congruent with the rules. That takes a human moderator, someone with a sense of where the rules need to be discarded, bent or broken in favor of the story.

Ultimately, any real RPG has to be contained in the mind. A computer (or two or more) could play a wargame. Only a person can play an RPG.

[nightinverse]

Only a person can play an RPG.

I concurr, and I am not a member of the cult.

[itches]

I've given this more thoughts and I'm convinced that it's both possible and enjoyable. I'm going to start with a PC centric view and work my way out, this may be a case of devil logic but we'll see.

First step away from having a single character each is 2 characters each. Not like a main character and a servant /vassal/ apprentice, having two characters that are equally important and both 'main characters' of the story. If we're controlling, playing and writing for a single character it's barely a stretch at all to have someone be in charge of two of them, after all many people play in more then 1 game. For instance in your stereotype DnD party you have two players who each control two of the main characters (thief and mage).

Over a slower format like a PbP this system might actually be better then your traditional single character system. The main draw back to a pbp game is the time it takes to get through what I like to call 'pointless roleplaying conversations. These are conversations which aren't there to advance the plot in anyway, but are simply you having fun roleplaying your character interacting with someone else. Over a pbp it can become tedious due to the very long lag between replies, but if two of the characters you're controlling are talking to each other, you don't need to wait around for someone on the other side of the world to wake up, read it and then post.

Now that we've established that we can take it one step further, to a single player controlling a 4 player adventuring party. They key to making this work is to actually roleplay it instead of just running on the mechanics. You're going to loose some of the individual focus (the party walks through the door) but that's to be expected and isn't necessarily a bad thing, you're still able to have fun with the individuals within the group interacting with each other, interacting as individuals with other people, or even as a party with other people. Think what would happen with a normal party when they have an interview with the king and use it as your guideline here, those of you who have tried writing a story with several main characters will know what I mean.

What I really like about this idea is the possibilities that come from each player controlling their own separate party. It opens up a whole new field of ways for them to interact.

After that we expand the idea to a larger but still small group. Say 7/10/12 people. At this point it's going to be troublesome to keep DnD style character sheets for each character, so we'd have to find an alternative way to work the mechanics but I'm confident that there is a system for it out there somewhere. And yes we do loose some of the individual focus of the characters, but they can still be rich, fulfilling, equal and interesting characters. You could have the old leader, the best swordsman in the land, the clown, the young samurai who wants to be the leader's disciple. Hmm this is starting to sound familiar.

As a counterpart to loosing some of the focus on individuals we're focusing more on the group as a whole. What the group feels about a situation, what it decides to do, how it decides (with just touch of colouring from each individual). Sure when interacting with other player's groups you might use the Leader most of all, but that's no different to using one ability of a single character in a situation. That single ability doesn't define the entire character. With a couple of players each controlling these groups we're well beyond the 'single character' level.

So for the next step let's drop having each of the characters as individual. Say for each of the important people you have two or three backup characters who are of less importance. Cooks, drivers, porters, meatsheilds, red shirts, whores. They're less fleshed out as a result of their supporting role and this where you definitely start treating people as a whole instead of by themselves.

This approach takes each player control up to 30 odd people, which is a decently sized mercenary group, trading concern, performance group, sporting team. The list goes on.

I can keep on going like this but I think I've proved the point sufficiently. In larger organisations you treat the people like you would traits and abilities of a character. Some of the people are more important, some are so unimportant that they're invisible as everything except a total population statistic, but it's not you roleplaying a single character who controls other characters.

Yeah this way of roleplaying is different to when you only have a single person, but it's not impossible or less enjoyable. Take something like Warhammer 40k, or in particular Space Marine chapters. They different ones have different 'personalities', the ones that GW put out and the many player created ones which vary in how good they are just the same as PC's will in the hands of differently skilled roleplayers.

The basic level of the squad in this, which maybe one or two members of the squad slightly more important then the grunts who are the basic archetype, as well as the squad as a whole having a general 'feel' to it. You have the more important squads, the squads with more important members in it and the army as whole. It's possible and frankly I always though it would be fun.

To roleplay a nation/kingdom/empire you'd need to change things a little. Have the handful of important characters like king, general, spymaster but you're not running things from their perspectives, they're mainly used as reoccurring tools to roleplay the nation without being the nation itself. Here's an example.

BigRedRod's pirate nation roleplays the fact that they are running out of rum, as represented by a interior memo between two managers at a large rum factory, a couple of guys in a pub bitching about the rising price and someone planning to stock up on rum and make a fortune. As a side note it's mentioned that relations remain tense but peaceful with the ancient enemy of itches' ninja nation.

The ninja nation has a random news report detailing that they have record rum crops, a budget report indicating increased reliance on intelligence operatives over conventional military to protect the nation and a highschool history lesson about the last pirate-ninja war.

The pirates assistant to emperor remarks in passing that the ninja apparently have a lot of rum this year, and if only there was a way to get some of it. A communiqué is sent to the ninja nation asking about the possibility of a trade agreement. Extremists within the pirate nation protest over the prospect of closer relations with their old foe.

The ninja nation replies with a message that they'd be willing to open trade talks and encourages the pirates to send a trade delegate. Two intelligence annalists are chatting in a sauna about how they suspect that the trade offer is a trap or probe for information and they'll have to be extra careful. A newspaper writer is stopped from reporting about the trade talks, considered too sensitive especially after the protects in pirate nation.

The Pirates send their pirate out to meet the ninja from ninja nation. There is some talking back and forth, trying to work out the detailed between the two but remains inconclusive thus far.

A grunt counter-intelligence pirate discovers that the ninja are aggressively trying to spy on the pirates and reports it. News report that the trade delegation was unexpectedly and without explanation withdraw. The government makes an official announcement that they are received intelligence that the ninja are probing their defences and as of the past aggression from them they have no choice but to go to war with a pre-emptive strike.

A ninja cabinet of military chiefs react with fear and surprise to the unexpected attack and try to formulate a defence, while someone present makes a link between them not getting the rum from trade so going to war to get it. Large number of newspaper clips proclaiming pirate attack in order to steal their rum.

Pirate newspaper article detailing how the war is going. The same newspaper article after being censored and what it actually looked like when published. A regular soldier as he rushes into battle.

A ninja farmer who is now homeless fleeing before the invading pirate nation, wondering if his family is even still alive.

And so on like that.

I think I win this simply because I wrote more then anyone is willing the read. Go me!

[Gralhruk]

Eh, I don't buy it. Roleplaying a group of four people speaking to one another is not as easy (or interesting) as roleplaying one person speaking to three other individuals controlled by three different people.

[itches]

A group of 4 people talking to each other and 3 other groups of 4 people? It's not the same and you will loose some of the depth in individuals but it gives way more options for interaction.

I know people will have preferences as to which one they like more, the same way they do with systems and settings, and most will prefer a single character due to where they came from and all the experience they have doing that. But it needs to be acknowledged that you're an old man and it's a well known fact that old people don't like new ideas. ;)

[Gralhruk]

Only because nothing is really new, it's just some smartass kid trying to be a rebel.

[LeeCHeSSS]

Hell, I get confused when I have to play a cohort along with my main character!

I usually make sure that they have one aspect that sets them apart drastically (like a barbarian with no real brains vs a smart/wise cleric cohort).

[itches]

That's why as you get more people under your control you tend to become vaguer as to the details. If it helps try not to think of them as two separate individuals so much as a group which happens to have two people.