#40: Love 'em, Hate 'em, GM
I. Dear Reader,
One of my favourite tidbits of RPG history is that Arneson or somebody else felt that DMs should sit behind a black curtain so when they spoke to their players, they seemed like an objective narrator. The high theatre of it is hilarious to me - the hope that pulling some Wizard of Oz trick would make me forget that it’s just Tommy or Gina or whatever telling me that an orc stepped on my character’s head.
I don’t even know if that is really true - but the cultural idea behind it is real enough. The style of play where the GM leads players through a curated, epic movie-like experience is common enough. (We could even call it trad.) But at the same time, it’s also common enough now for everyone at the table to know the GM is winging it - there’s no grand plan, just improvisation. And this is, to me atleast, a Very Good Thing. Because it has been so much easier for me to have fun when I embrace how fundamentally sloppy RPGs are.
This is all a bit of a run-up for me to talk about GM-less games. Because goddamn, GM-less games are sloppy. I played a game of Follow recently - it’s a classic GM-less game where players take turns framing scenes and then roleplaying them out. That’s a process with a rhythm - out of character, in character, out of character, and so on. But it’s sloppy - everyone always constantly figuring out what they want to do next and that is a messy process. But the game was fun! We played gods trying to get mortals to love us. I ate my husband and became the head of the pantheon. Good wholesome fun.
But it was hard kind of fun. Calling Follow GM-less is inaccurate. I mean, think about it. Framing scenes and then roleplaying them with other characters? That’s what a GM does. Follow, like so many other games, is GM-full. I know this is Grade A “RPG lingo” but I am now going to faithfully use it. I need to know when a game is going to ask a lot of me like GM-full games do. I’m only going to use GM-less games when it doesn’t ask players to do GM-like activities. For example, For the Queen which simply asks you to answer questions.
GM-full versus GM-less is already too jargon-y for many people. But games are now even going past that. Vincent and Meguey Baker’s Wizard’s Grimoire has one player and 2 GMs. The wonderful Sonja and Conan versus the Ninjas has one player and everyone else is a GM. 6e GMless by Viditya Voleti is a game where some players can play characters, others can play towns, and others can play abstract things like a genre or the mystery itself. ** What do we even call these games?
And since we’re talking about this, let me drop links to Games without Master, a blog about GM-less and GM-full games, and Unprepared, an Actual Play series focused on the same types of games.
Playing games with zero, half, one or many GMs,
Thomas
** 6e GMless is a wide-open game that reminds me of Archipelago and could really benefit from a game like Love in the Time of Seid, a standalone game that is a sorta pre-made scenario for Archipelago.
II. Listen of the Week
Two excellent recommendations for you, dear readers! First, here is an excellent deep dive into the history of “narrative choice” games in the run up to a review of a board game. It takes entertaining pot shots at Tomb of Horrors and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and gets at a lot of the racism and sexism that makes RPG history less fun for some of us. Also, it’s one hour long. But it’s very good,
And second, Yes Indie’d Pod, which we’ve featured before, has been interviewing designers from South East Asia, including momatoes, Maria Mison, and Jammi! Momatoes and Jammi both have kickstarters going on and their games are discussed in the episodes so check them out if you want some previews!
III. Links of the Week
News
RPG Kitchen is a store where people can rent out PDFs of games before they buy them. It’s not fully done but it seems like a nifty idea!
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is now an SRD as the author licenses the entire text under Creative Commons. The tagline? Powered by Lesbians!
This week saw itch.io host the first Creators Day where they forego their cut and give 100% of revenue to the creators themselves. It’s over by the time you see this. But I bought some cool games including Sonja and Conan versus the Ninjas and 6e GMless so am a very happy boi.
Media
On the Hacked in the Dark podcast, Caro Asercion and Ben Roswell discuss Rearguard, their supplement for Beam Saber. Great game material while being excellent games criticism.
The same designers have also been working with One More Multiverse recently to figure out what a visual-focused VTT might bring to storytelling games and indie RPGs.
Video: Five ways to be a better ambassador to the hobby by GMS Magazine.
Writing Excuses is the writing podcast run by writers Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, among others. For the next few weeks, they’re making episodes about writing for RPGs. The first episode is trash but the series might go to some interesting places.
Articles
A wonderful article about Brindlewood Bay, the PbtA game of grandmas solving mysteries: “It’s about the quiet downtime and sleuthing the inner-workings of trust and intimacy, in the spirit of collaboration and at the service of telling great stories and solving spooky mysteries of the heart. This is the epitome of cozy, and the cozy mystery itself. So to Brindlewood Bay, I say this: thank you for being a friend.”
Monte Cook has a newsletter and in one issue, he talks about the three motivations that guide players.
Review of Everywhen on Cannibal Halfling Gaming
A review of Orun: Post-Apotheosis Afro-Centric Space Opera on GnomeStew (the first game I was hired to write for!)
A review of Vaesen on the Indie Game Reading Club
IV. Small Ads
This section contains sponsored links and advertisements.
AZAG: Weird Sword and Sorcery RPG. Mechanics hacked from Fighting Fantasy. Setting inspired by the bizarre corners of Appendix N. Packaged with a Psychedelic Rock score.
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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.
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I enjoy the newsletter, but "The first episode is trash" feels like a very out of place comment given that the rest of what you write is generally positive.