Hello all
I was looking for an alternative to the paradigm of GM-Player and I found this and I want to share it with the community
I start looking for something like this because of problems with the GM, I don't feel comfortable with that one person has all the power and responsibility of the game, bad things can happen. On the other side be the GM consume a lot of time and can be stressful.
So I like to know what other people think about this system, I think is not to difficult to implement and can be very fun.
Really is nobody interested? Perhaps I should explain a little more what is this about.
The collaborative roleplay system is intended to distribute the work of been GM among all the players, so everyone can take different roles, manage NPCs, contribute more to story. Still there will be a person in charge, but another is going to be the director and another referee.
With this I think it can be solved some of the problems between GM and players and an opportunity to know more deeply the game.
We do a variation of this at our table already, I suppose.
Sharing the director role to the players is commonly referred to as 'sandboxing'. I think most tables are familiar with that concept.
Our current gm wants to keep control of the game engine and reserves the right to make final rulings, but we've given referee to every player. When a decision comes up that isnt covered by the rules we pretty much hold a table wide vote on the fair way to handle it. At least at our table this resolves fairly quickly. I can see it not working out so well at other tables where trust or interpersonal politics and gamesmanship becomes an issue.
We have one person in our group that is the chairperson for every session even if he's not GM that week. Even if he sometimes resents the position, he gravitates to it.
The gms at our tables are pretty lenient about letting us control our summons/familiars/animal companions but that's as far into controlling an npc as we typically go. Gm always has control over Npcs in our group.
So yeah. We do a version of this.
As long as they roleplay their animal companions and intelligent items, it only makes GMing easier. I had a sorc. who would summon a Hound Archeron, and he just let him attack the most evil creature in the room.
This sounds pretty interesting. I believe I will link this to my group.
Hmm... Interesting... But what if a group normally runs with a GM and a Co-GM that already split the jobs?
Like I might control the story while the Co-GM handles the NPCs and such?
Or is that basically what they suggest doing?
Hmm... Interesting... But what if a group normally runs with a GM and a Co-GM that already split the jobs?
Like I might control the story while the Co-GM handles the NPCs and such?
Or is that basically what they suggest doing?
Something like that but even more distributed. One person is the director who manage the story and plot, another is the referee for rules clarifications, but (and here is the innovation) everyone manage a set of NPC and parts of the game, in some way at the there is no more GM, because everyone take part in the job.
If you have time give a read Collaborative Roleplay is much better explained than I do.
Ok so we are just using a lesser version of their suggestion.
The only thing I see is getting New Players involved with it...
Though my group seems to be more along the lines of Figure 4. Only with the Game Engine/Director Players numbering in around 4-8 on average.
Wait does that mean we are doing what they suggest just with the GE/D Players controlling a PC only.
Well yes I suppose, the next step would be to take the rol of some NPC.
That is a frightening thought for my groups...
They already handle their Leadership Cohorts and Followers.
That is a frightening thought for my groups...
Why is frightening?
They already handle their Leadership Cohorts and Followers.
But still that is great and much more than for most of the groups, good for you.
They already go nuts with the Leadership Cohorts and Followers.
This set-up is really excellent.
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I've had some successes by moving all die rolls to the player's side of things (Players gain a Defend roll instead of AC, or a Magic Check vs a monster's fixed defenses), this really freed me up to get into the thick of description, or for players who had some skill to do that instead and it also meant no fudging!
It's tricky to tell a coherent story without a single director at the head. Indy games specifically designed for this style of play tend to work better. (See Fiasco as an example).
I seen that Variant in Unearthed Arcana. Never thought to use it though... I have used the Bell Curve system. Basically using 2d10 where you would normally use 1d20.