#147: GM-driven vs Player-driven

I think matrices and graphs might be getting over-represented on this newsletter.

I. Dear Reader,

I talk about playstyles a lot. Or at least, I talk about playstyles a lot more than the average. I’m always saying “trad”, “storygame”, “OSR”, etc - they’re completely imperfect labels, for sure. But for me, I prefer that imperfection to ignoring the diversity of approaches that people take to roleplaying games. To me, there’s no generic “GM advice” - all GM advice has a style of play associated with it. It would be good to for folks to know which!

For me, everytime I write or say things that sound like advice, I’m usually talking to myself. I’m articulating something I’ve figured out and by making it explicit, I’m sort of formally adding it to my toolkit. This means that my advice is best suited for folks who play like me. So part of my job is to articulate my playstyle. I wish I could just say “storygame” but I think that is an obscured word. The best explanation I can come up with right now is, “playing where the fun comes from dramatic characters and improvised narrative”. (We can totally workshop that but it’s what I’ve got right now.)

So I also like it when other folks talk explicitly about their playstyle. Like in this recent article, the blog RiseUpComus had an interesting matrix that described four playstyles. It has “blorbiness” and “quantum” on one axis and “railroad” and “sandbox” on the other axis. I liked the idea but I’m a bit wary of those words - “quantum” and “railroad” can have a negative connotation. I tried to be careful about this with my Axes of Game Design posts.

So with that in mind, I would frame this as “prepped” versus “improvised” on one axis and “GM-driven” and “player-driven” on the other axis. I like this because all games are to some extent prepped and to some extent improvised, all games are to some extent GM-driven and player-driven. It’s usually a question of degree or priority.

Prepped and Improvised are pretty self-explanatory. The more prepped a game is, the more the GM knows the world before the session begins. The more improvised a game is, the more GM leaves to being decided at the table.

GM-driven and player-driven is a bit more complicated to explain. In almost all playstyles, the GM kicks off the first session with a clear premise for the players. It is one of the sacred duties of the GM - “Help Us Start Playing”. In a GM-driven game, the GM is constantly “starting” things like they did in the first session. The players mostly “finish” things and look to the GM to start the next thing. This could be encounters, plot arcs, locations, quests, etc. In a GM-driven game, the GM isn't usually building on the player’s actions from the previous session. In a player-driven game, the players start things. The GM reacts to what they’ve instigated. Before every session, the GM is asking, “So my players did this last session, what consequences should that attract? What would my NPCs or factions be doing in response?”.

I think some games are designed to be in a specific quadrant. But often games can be played across multiple quadrants. For example, Troika! is often played in Improvised+Player-driven quadrant even though it can be played in the Prepped+Player-driven quadrant (where most OSR games live). Theoretically, you could play a game like Spire in any of these quadrants but I think it probably works best in the Prepped+GM-driven quadrant.

What do you think? Keeping in mind that this stuff is a spectrum, do you have a sweet spot for where you enjoy games best?

Yours graph-ically,

Thomas

PS. Lot of indie games tend to be opinionated about how they should be played. Apocalypse World is firmly in the Improvised+Player-driven quadrant, I believe. I like that in a game. But more on that next week.

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II. Media of the Week

• Over on the Yes Indie’d Podcast, I speak to Becky Annison about werewolves in Bite Marks and also summoning demons and in her new game, Wreck this Deck. If you like the idea of chopping up cards or drawing on them, you will probably like this game!

• Andrew Gillis goes on the Third Floor Wars podcast and talks about Girl by Moonlight. This is a good listen if you don’t know the magical girl genre at all!

• Lexi from the Gaming Table explains Wickedness, a GM-less game about tarot and covens from Possum Creek Games.

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• If you’ve released a new game on itch.io this month, let me know through this form so I can potentially include it in the end of the month round-up.

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III. Links of the Week

Articles

• In Strange Horizons, designer Tan Shao Han talks about how he uses wuxia in his new forged in the dark game, Da Xia: “The premise for Da Xia was inspired by the Japanese Occupation’s ‘chilling effect’ on ideals of righteousness and justice … Would people be discouraged from practicing benevolence or standing up for justice, lest such behaviour draw the dreadful weight of the war machine’s gaze upon them? These were questions which led me to imagine a kind of unique ‘Syonan Jiānghú’ setting for Da Xia, where questions about morality and justice were handled quite differently from more traditional wuxia stories.”

• On mindstorm, using scrabble tiles to emulate Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom. This is the kind of adaptation / translation I like seeing from videogames to tabletop!

• The Goatsong blog continues looking at core RPG mechanics with another good article about the dice pool.

Misc

• Anya Reyes shows off some very cool props for a con game of Flying Circus.

• More info coming in about the DriveThru / Roll20 merge and how productions will be sold on both platforms.

• In a surprising move, Pathfinder are “evicting drow from its official lore”. They’ve decided that there is no good way to deal with the tremendous baggage that comes with the race.

• Two bundles raising money for some important charities:

  • The Anti-Imperialist bundle raises money for Solidarity Kitchens, an organisation serves up food and community in Brazil. The bundle has Malandros, Bones Deep (a Troika sourcebook) and lots of other cool OSR-inflected stuff.

  • The second bundle raises money for building a home for HIV-affected children in India. It’s got Wanderhome and my deck of cute animalfolk NPC cards among lots of other games.

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IV. Small Ads

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This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.

• Two Lankhmar bundles. First, the core bundle with the boxset and supplements and then a second bundle called Lankhmar Thieves with more adventures.

• A bundle for Sorcery & Super Science, the gonzo game from the same designer as Arden Vul.

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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend or buy one of my games from my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!