Try Something New – Become The Game Master
April 16, 2015 by dracs
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” After all, your game couldn’t really happen without this mighty story teller setting the scene, shaping the plot and stopping your games from devolving into pointless anarchy”
There are rpgs which either don’t require a GM, or don’t require the GM to do the plot or make rulings. In some circles the idea of the trad GM is regarded as something which gets in the way of telling a good story.
True, although once you do away with the GM and start to go rules light, you really aren’t playing a roleplaying game (with emphasis on the game) any more. Instead it is more like collaborative story telling. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just.. different.
As you say, the emphasis there is on “game”, though even then, GM-less games does not necessarily mean rules-lite. Roleplaying is a much broader church than you give it credit for, and encompasses more than just the 80s way of gaming.
I think the emphasis on game here relies on the idea of “antagonistic play” where it is the GM vs the Players, which is very dated.
It’s.. traditional, maybe but I wouldn’t say it’s dated, it’s just one way to play. This isn’t directed at you or redbed but when it comes to roleplaying there is some serious snobbery afoot, even worse than I’ve encountered in the wargaming world. I’ve played just about everything that can fall under the privisio of roleplaying, from the Us vs the GM D&D meatgrinder sessions, a Birthright campaign with a dozen no players and no GM to a sprawling and absolutely epic X-Men forum based game with ~35 players and 3 GMs that ran for the better part of six… Read more »
redbed.. doh. Not sure how my autocorrect came up with that. I need to stop posting on my phone.
also I’m not sure why I wrote priviso. Umbrella, I guess, is a better word.
The snobbery goes both ways. Narrative, story games, and their players and creators, are often treated as being a danger to the hobby, because OSR and DnD are the only true ways of gaming.
My friend Joe J. Prince (Prince of Darkness Games) has written some fine GM-less RPGs. Most notably Contenders (boxing) and Eternal Contenders (Fantasy Gladiators) are more of a game than any GM’d RPG I’ve played, as you can actually “win” or “lose” at the end and all players are on an equal footing.
A very good point. A prime example and great fun, is Fiasco. Can’t recommend it enough.
For people looking to take a dive into running World of Darkness games, we covered this a while ago.
http://podcast.darker-days.org/?s=chronicle+design
I DMed a few years ago with, rogue trader from FF, it was a lot of fun for everybody, but I wasn’t entirely happy with my ‘performance’.
Now I’m preparing for 5th edition, got a lot stuff from rpgdrivetrue and Kickstarter. I’m going to take the jump and I hope everybody has a great time!
It’s been a long time. Started with Runequest, Star Frontiers and Traveller – loved every minute. Call of Cthulhu was when we really got ‘serious’. Making faded manuscripts, old books for props and we even buried someone alive so they could be re-born! The things you do when you are young. I’m with siygess – remove the GM/DM and you remove ‘the game’. You can’t fly your starship without a Universe! The best prop of the GM is the right players to perform for you. No dicks, firms! That shoud be printed in the rules somewhere. If you haven’t watched… Read more »
p.s., just to say Mage brought me back to rpg’s. It had the best ‘magic’ system ever.
A group of friends and i have just started playing 5th ed D&D and i have taken on the DM role and really enjoy it. I really wasnt sure about being the DM but now i’m not sure i’d want to relinquish the role.
I usually end up as the GM but love getting to be a player, and I really treasure a good GM. My advice to GMs starting off is try to be flexible. Work out the story you want to tell. Break it down into acts, with each act roughly timed to your usual play session. Break the story of each act down to the essential plot points that need to be hit. Give the players a starting point and let them find their own way trough the story. Don’t be afraid to adapt your story to the players and their… Read more »
Paranoia, now that takes me back 🙂 I used to play AD&D and other role-playing games in my teens. University and work took over, some of us moved to different parts of the country and most of us stopped. Recently we got the old group back together and tried using Roll20 to run a few games online. It’s working pretty well. However, it’s only having a DM prepared to put in the hours creating our adventures that’s making it work. I DM-ed before but I’m so short of time these days I’d have to run preset adventures. Can anyone recommend… Read more »
Google Hangouts has some dice rolling apps. And then using the Hangouts API is Roll20