Games Without Traditional GMs

[The Hive Custodian]

In the traditional RPG, one GM runs a game for a number of players, who each control a character. Some alternatives and variations on this theme have already been discussed: multiple GMs and games without PCs. Here I want to consider another alternative: games without GMs in the traditional sense.

Why have a GM?
Now there are some very good reasons why the player-GM model has been so successful. The GM is essentially a central authority who makes the final decisions. While the GM has an obligation to provide an enjoyable game for the players, in the end absolute power lies with the GM.

Some advantages of this model:

World-building is more coherent, since there is only the GM putting together the different parts of the world.
Decisions are fairly quick and never deadlocked, as the final decision rests with the GM alone.
A GM provides a (ideally) safe repository for the players to keep secrets with. In other words, the GM can keep a secret (thus establishing that the secret is actually valid rather than something the player made up on the spot when it is revealed) without revealing it to the other players.
It's the standard model, and everyone knows it.


Of course, we wouldn't be having this discussion if I didn't think there were some disadvantages to this model:

A disproportionate amount of work is placed on the GM's shoulders. Each player must only manage a single character--the GM must manage every NPC, build the world, and come up with the overall plot.
By the same token, a disproportionate amount of power is vested in the GM. The players may feel they do not have enough control over the direction of the story.


Granted, a skilled GM can enhance these advantages and mitigate these disadvantages.

If not a GM, what then?
However, I still think it's worth looking for a way to run a game without a traditional GM role; in other words, a game in which the players collectively make decisions without any central authority, by consensus or some other system. But how to try to hold on to some of the advantages?

World-Building: While world-building is important, this one may be less of an issue because the bulk of world-building occurs before the game starts, where there is time to resolve disputes and work closely with one another. Furthermore, it is likely that fewer people will be interested in world-building than influencing game decisions.

Secrets: To be frank, I've never been a huge fan of secrets in RPGs. The payoff of a secret is at the moment of revelation, and I would argue that the payoff is often not that great, especially considering that many games here don't stay alive long enough for any revelations to happen. However, it is unavoidable as far as I can tell that secrets will be a casualty of moving so far away from the standard model. For one, this will certainly make serious PvP action unfeasible.

Decision-Making: This one, in my view, is the most pressing question. We want something that is both fast and fair, while spreading the power out as evenly as possible.

The obvious concept is this: when a decision is to be made, everyone puts in their opinion of what should happen and tries to come to an agreement. But there is an equally obvious problem: the whole group isn't going to agree all of the time. Now you could sweat it out and discuss things until you get unanimous agreement. However, I'm not sure this will work for all groups.

Perhaps another possiblity lies between the extremes of the all-powerful GM and not having a GM at all. While arguments can drag on for a long time without one person agreeing with another, it seems that people are more able to recognize when deadlock has been reached. As such, one person could be designated as a tiebreaker, who would make decisions in the case of a deadlock. The tiebreaker doesn't necessarily have to be the person who did the bulk of the world-building; they just have to be someone everyone trusts. If abuse is feared, the tiebreaker's opinion could be discounted except in the case of deadlocks.

Alternately, some sort of voting system could be implemented for the case of deadlocks.

Has anybody tried any of these or other schemes apart from the GM-player model? Do you think these would work at all? Any other suggestions?

[BigRedRod]

Eidolon would be the most obvious example of a successful game without a GM.

Personally though, I feel you've missed, or just glossed over (it could be included in the secrets advantage), the major advantage to having a DM. A key part of most forms of entertainment is the plot, with one man at the helm he can present the players with something interesting. something which has them scratching their heads and asking questions. With no DM asking these questions is futile, nobody knows, it is just a case of developing answers as the need arises. The lack of an overarching structure is a real deal-breaker for me.

I'm not saying that I want to be railroaded. Nothing is worse if the players aren't presented with options (I hope that the players in my games don't feel railroaded I do my best to allow them to wander freely between events driven by their personal character motivations rather than a preordained path). A good plot should be involving but with room for the players to remove sections of it at their own discretion (a bit like extracting an artifact encased in stone with a little toffee hammer).

Also, we have a fair number of traditional games where the world-building is at least partially put in the hands of the players (I know Black Plague has one and I play in treehouse's excellent Inceptum). I think most DMs tend to appreciate it when a player takes the reigns and does a little work. It involves the players much more closely in the world. A real problem with homebrews is that only the DM has a feel for the world although the relative merits of pre-written and homebrew settings is getting off-topic.

[itches]

Ah yes Eidolon (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=141), Orp's longest running game.

Decision-Making: This one an important, the foremost way that it happens is by democracy and mass consensus. But decisions are rarely made quickly and firmly by committee, so what is needed is a leader. In my experience in normal games, one character - and my extension player - usually takes up the role of leader pushing the game along, coming up with plans and other things like this. In Eidolon we needed to make someone a Moderator, so we gave the position to our leader (Gralrulk) who found that it was now his responsibility to keep the game from getting clogged. If a decision needed to be made he'd make sure it was brought up, is a consensus couldn't be reached he'd break the dead lock.

It's a fairly organic system, for the vast majority of time our First Amongst Equals is simply one of the rest of us, doing the same work and just being another of the players. Before we officially picked a leader, we were already deferring to Gral's decisions when we needed someone to take the lead and resolve difficult situations.

In my opinion having a leader really is important as a true communist system of running the game doesn't work, but the leader is only a backup system. He is just another of the players and shouldn't really have more an effect on the game then anyone else.

World-Building: I personally find the world building set up we've got quite nice. We don't go into great effort with the world, we just cover what the characters are currently dealing and grow more vague the further out you go until there is only a basic concept of the world at large. As more detail needs to be filled in, someone comes up with it.

Secrets: Secrets can still sometimes work. You simply tell the other players that you're doing something with your character and ask them not to interfere while you reveal it. Or you team up with another play for a little plot arc and ask the others not to interfere with what's happening. The most secrets however, tend to deal with the characters past history.

Plot: This really does tie into the secrets thing, and is the major difference between a GM-Free and GM game. Working the plots out by committee means that everyone knows what is going to happen and you're following along with the pre-planned script. You don't go into details with the plan and the plot does at times take unexpected twists, but it's a far cry from blundering around in the dark that normally takes place in a game.

There are some occasions where you as a player don't know what is going to happen in a plot, but in those cases the particular sub-plot usually doesn't involve your character.

I quite like the way the game is run, even thought I acknowledge that a lot of it's present state was the result of dumb luck instead of good planning. The keys to making it work are just maturity and cooperation. Make the effort to get along with everyone else, to work as a team, tell the other players what you want to do if it's going to effect them/the overall plot and don't muck around with their characters or any plot they have running if they don't want you too.

[The Hive Custodian]

Personally though, I feel you've missed, or just glossed over (it could be included in the secrets advantage), the major advantage to having a DM. A key part of most forms of entertainment is the plot, with one man at the helm he can present the players with something interesting. something which has them scratching their heads and asking questions. With no DM asking these questions is futile, nobody knows, it is just a case of developing answers as the need arises. The lack of an overarching structure is a real deal-breaker for me.

I can't believe I overlooked that. In any case, are you saying that without a GM that often the players collectively fail to come up with a plot? Or that plots made by committee are often not coherent? Or both?

[Doomsmile]

Well, I, myself, have had huge problems coming up with actions when there isn't a plot presented. For instance, I played an IRL game of Hunter last year. A huge problem I ran into was that, without any plot revealed, I had no idea what to have my character do. I ended up asking questions like "how am I for groceries?" because there wasn't anything that I really felt was worth role-playing to do- it was just a day in the life of a character with a pretty much normal life.

[The Hive Custodian]

If you were given the authority to come up with a plot (or at least plot elements), would you have done so?

[Doomsmile]

Well... not in that setting, since I'm rea-a-a-aly not into World of Darkness. If I don't have a really good handle on the setting, I'm usually very hesitant to try to create a plot in it.

[BigRedRod]

I can't believe I overlooked that. In any case, are you saying that without a GM that often the players collectively fail to come up with a plot? Or that plots made by committee are often not coherent? Or both?
Oh Eidolon proves that there can be a plot in a gamer where it is controlled by a group rather than an individual. A bad group may lead to an incoherent plot (I think the chances of somebody getting the wrong idea and going off on a tangent which doesn't really make sense are fairly high).

The difference is much like the difference between watching a film you've not seen before and watching a film you've made yourself. Both activities are about watching a film but you do it in two entirely different ways and for different reasons. In the first I'm watching a plot unfold and I don't know what is coming next. In the second I’m largely looking to see what works and what doesn't.

It's a very similar situation with playing in a DMed game and playing in a freeform. In the former I know there is a plot (or hope there is), if a group of weird spaceships appear off my port bow, I know that the DM is fully aware who these people are, they act with motivations I don't yet understand, but if I decided to find out I can. If the game was a freefrom and somebody had had a group of weird spaceships appear then I'd know that the idea likely started and ended with that idea. There is no mystery to be solved. I'm not saying that coming up with the motivations for the group wouldn't be rewarding, I'm just saying I would find a great deal less interesting than it being pre-written.

A player can't have mysteries if he is also serving as the DM, he either knows everything or there is nothing to know. And I really like a sense of discovery when I play a game.

[nightinverse]

It simply requires an exceptional body of players, as far as I have observed. You need a game made up of people who have few if any creative limitations, people who could simply be GMs in their own rights, and you need them to cooperate with each other. If you have that, you have a group which can function well without a GM or leader and still weave a plot - Eidolon, as noted above, is the only example I have ever seen of this. However, that is not to say it cannot occur again, I myself have been crafting a potential list of players who could put one together, though I don't think we will ever have the chance due to external forces.

As for BRR's point on players maintaining World Crafting powers, you need only look as far as your own experience to find a very vital example - I integrated a race, nation and culture you created into my Fated Meetings game not too far in the distant past.

EDIT
To build off of BRR's further reply, freeform generally thrives off of basic short-term goals and spontaneous acts while plotted games have long-term elements and plans. While freeform is great for raw interaction, it lacks the forethought necessary to create a continuous and coherent plot - not to say it isn't enjoyable, but it requires too much work for the same result to emulate a story which has been meticulously planned by a single or even communal mind. I've encountered this a number of times in my own experience, and have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of mystery, creative motive and the crucial discovery.

[The Hive Custodian]

A player can't have mysteries if he is also serving as the DM, he either knows everything or there is nothing to know. And I really like a sense of discovery when I play a game.
Ah, I see what you're saying now, and why you said it was related to the secrets issue earlier. At this point, I suppose it's a matter of taste.

[LuneMoonshadow]

In my opinion, Freeform Roleplaying is a completely different animal from DM'd games. They are played out for totally different reasons...

Games with a DM are made for players to explore a world. They are in their truest form a game.

Freeform games are more like artistic expression. Players engage in freeform to tell stories and show their creativity. They aren't truly meant as a game.