Most of the people I know never want to GM. There seems to be an informal sort of etiquette, about it, even where someone who is sort of “Due” to GM is coerced in to running a game by having no one else agree to run them. It’s actually kind of depressing…
So, in my player-free(because I am a sucker) days I often wonder whether there is a way that the traditional style of RPG(Pencils, Character Sheets, Dice, Rulebooks) to which I have become accustomed can be adapted to work without a GM. I came up with a couple of solutions,which were:
This worked OK if the game met 2 of these 4 criteria- it was simple with it’s types of encounters, had less than 4 players, was at low level, or used primarily shambling undead. It made a magnificent Savage Worlds zombie game, but the preparation process definitely requires an imagination, and probably requires an advanced course in statistics. The text of this is going to be made available once I figure out how to generate the map effectively as the game goes along. The Zombie game is 6 pages of typewritten tables detailing the- Contents of each possible area, The likelihood of finding a set of resources, likelihood of behaviors for each monster type and for randomly generating NPC’s and their behaviors, the rules for randomly generating buildings and their degree of repair, randomly determining dead-ends, and a system for tracking the in-game time using the adventure, and modifiers to each table based on the player’s actions. Pros: Requires absolutely no GM, quick and easy to play, TOTALLY REUSABLE Cons: Limited Circumstances where the system is practical, Entirely too complicated to set up, Outliers occur and break the action, Final product is disproportionately small compared to work involved Points: Almost all Roll-Playing, for good or ill. Also, probably will drive those who attempt to create it insane.
The primary role, for all participants, is still the player character, but the secondary roles are Adjudicator, Storyteller, and GMPC. When the participant is acting as the adjudicator, he is responsible for determining the difficulty of an action when it is provided by the storyteller, and for concealing that difficulty from the Storyteller and Players. The Storyteller is responsible for coming up with the action of the story. When the participant is the storyteller, he also controls all NPC actions and temporarily relinquishes control of his Player character to another participant. The Player who’s secondary role is the GMPC is responsible for playing the storyteller’s character when he is moving the action of the story along and controlling the NPC’s. These roles are rotated several times during the game when the Storyteller dictates thus. Pros: I don’t know. I haven’t tried it yet, but it is a cool hypothesis. I think the “pro” here is that it requires no real alteration of the pre-existing game system, but rather compartmentalizes the role of the GM. Cons: None forseen by me. Points: The Participants would have to agree on a general story concept before beginning the game. Certainly would require experienced, comfortable, and cooperative players. People who like eachother and want to role-play will probably find this fun. Kind of an homage to Lord Byron’s party game, who’s name I cannot remember, but supposedly was the game in which Mary Wollstonecraft came up with the beginning of Frankenstein. If anyone can remember what it is called, it would save me a trip to see the world’s worst poetry professor… Please?
Anyway. I thought they were good enough ideas to show folks. If you try them, please let me know what you think!
Related Post: Players Build the Dungeon, Sandbox Dungeon Master’s Tool Kit
A fire crab is a large crustacean native to Fiji in the South Pacific. They have a jeweled, shell and can shoot flames from it’s hindquarters if threatened. In spite of this, it’s hard and beautiful shell have rendered it so profitable to collecgt that it has been listed as a protected species, and although a wizard can keep a fire crab as a pet or for research, but one must obtain a special license. Attributes
5 Health
Abilities
(+1)Pinch(Strength Based, Roll greater than 8 to succeed) The fire crab pinches you doing one damage in the yield system only.)
(+3)Explode(Strength Based, Roll greater than 9 to succeed) The fire crab’s hindquarters explode, dealing 2 damage and burning those behind it.
Chapter Two: Characters Whether we be old and bald Or young with scabby knees, Our heads could do with filling With some interesting stuff, For now they’re bare and full of air, Dead flies and bits of fluff, In the Hogwarts RPG, the most versatile and fun to play characters are students. Almost all the characters you will play will be students and the game is oriented toward playing students. The reason for this is that growing up in a world of such amazing power offers far more choices for good or ill than participating as a professor, or auror, or ministry employee, or Stan Shunpike of the Knight Bus. As students, you are offered several choices and will be affected by several events outside your control(Tradition and the adult world, to name a few) in the creation of your character. Still you have many options to use when creating your character. Step Zero: Conceptualize. Each character in the Harry Potter universe has a consistent moral compass, however skewed (Such as the cases of Professor Snape, Draco Malfoy, and Even Lord Voldemort). Each character has fears, desires, anxieties, joys, and even hobbies. Fred and George Weasly valued laughter and family above school and authority, for example, and consistently chose according to this. Remember that you are taking on an important role at Hogwarts. The most important role, as a matter of fact, for if there were no students, the teachers would be elsewhere, finding other kinds of jobs or guiding other students at other schools. It is therefore important that you know your character has his own thoughts and feelings. Some suggestions I might make to get you started are: Is your character Muggle Born or Wizard Born? Which house did his or her parents belong to? Did he or she agree with his or her parents choices? Does he or she have any favorite pastimes or hobbies? Does he or she have any relatively unusual talents? Who are his or her friends? What is his or her physical appearance like? Does he or she like animals, or have any pets? What are his or her aspirations or goals? Be careful how you create your character’s personality, as well. It will affect what opportunities are available to him or her, what house he or she belongs to, et cetera. This is a very important step, don’t skip it!
I would really love to be a narrativist, but I can’t. That’s not to say I’m not good at participating in stories, it’s just that, like most nerds, I’m really, really bad at being anyone but myself. I’d like to say “Screw the dice” like the gaming philosophers, but I can’t, because in the end, I’m actually a pretty terrible role player(As long as I’m not giving a psychotic twentysomething trivia nut control over the fundamental nature of the in game universe, a.k.a. playing myself as a mage). Clinically terrible, as a matter of fact, my self monitoring(the ability to adapt one’s own behavior to suit a social situation) scores are abysmal. Don’t get me wrong, I got a lot better at it after I started as a GM and had to role play multiple NPC’s, but it was slow in coming. The reason that I like mechanics so much, and the reason that I emphasize them here, is because within those frameworks, people like me can overcome their limitations and play as beings they normally couldn’t. That’s why the mechanics exist outside of combat, in my opinion.
For instance, I had a friend who really enjoyed playing human rangers. He was a good role player, liked to participate in the story, but natural lore was not his area of expertise, nor had he ever been hunting, and he hadn’t had so much as a pet hamster. It was just something he aspired to in his perception of high fantasy. He was intellectually gifted, but rangers generally utilize dexterity, wisdom, and charisma(all of which he was lacking) for their class ability’s so intelligence usually sat at about 12, so he found himself needing to scale back his intelligence to fit with his character in some cases. All in all, as a matter of fact, the character he played was as far as could be reasonably from who he was in real life, and without some kind of descriptive mechanic to substitute for what he could role-play for what his character could do. He knew what his character’ moral goals were, and he knew how to express his character’s opinions, he just wasn’t that character enough to role-play in some cases, like handling animals or speaking with NPC’s. Is this a good thing? Of course not. The game would be much more fun if we could all take on the exact personality of our characters, but most of us are either good or bad at it to a greater or lesser degree and almost all of the time it can be accommodated. Is this a bad way to run a game? Only if it gets in the way and prevents everyone from having fun.
What I like to do, as a GM who struggled past my bad RP issues and as a follower of the behavioral school of psychology, is reward my players for good role play related to their social skills, by giving them the oppourtunity to describe what they mean AND what they say, what they are doing while they are saying it, et cetera. If a sorcerer is juggling fireballs while he is making an intimidate check, that’s a bonus in my book. If a paladin describes to me how he is calming his frightened horse, that’s another bonus. If a player tempts a guard by carrying his money in plain sight or a impresses a blacksmith by wearing a beautiful sword, thats a bonus(although lesser). It’s all to encorage the players to role play better.
My two cents. Laters, all.
