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Seperating GMing from IC Command

Zack

Zack

Inactive Member
Alright, So I spent 5 hours in a car last night trying to get stuff together to fix my computer so I had plenty of time to think about things like what I have dubbed 'Miharugate'. There is plenty to talk about there but I wanted to focus on one specific thing: Bored GMs.

The problem here is the GM is typically also the Captain. In this circumstance they will always know what to do and how to save the day because they can also 'read the mind of the GM'. This results in the captain's character not really being able to do anything because it would be metagaming.

The obvious solution is PvP, remove the GM entirely and let the players be at the forefront of how the story progresses though this isn't an option for everyone.

The other solution I was thinking about, and wanted to explore here, was separating the captain and the GM, switching over to a more DnD style set up where there is the crew and there captain is the party and its leader. The GM would then control NPCs that relate to the story (leaving sprites and other shipboard NPCs to be controlled by the party leader/captain). This way a single plot could have multiple GMs changed out as time goes on over the course of different plots and allow GMs to get to play with new sets of characters. When a GM gets tired they can always revert back to only playing for a while and people who are just playing can be encouraged to 'try GMing' out.
 
Re: Bored GMs

I'm actually attempting this in my bounty hunter roleplay, I've stated as much as having no GMPC's on the introductory plot arc.
 
Re: Bored GMs

knows the feeling <<;

Then again right now I am working finishing a post for Aeon that will allow Wes eventually more leverage to make things more fun for people :3

Well at lest a source of new technology. ^_-
 
Re: Bored GMs

Currently there are no limitations on the site that prevent this from happening. I think the main reason it hasn't happened before is because no one has actually brought up the idea (even though several people have probably thought of it)

I have a couple comments/ideas/suggestions on this topic:

*This paves the way for a more "democratic" plot. Currently, there is always some sort of leader of each group that gives the orders. However, in certain military RPs it has been known for a group to be all the same rank or have leaders that allow freedom within the group.
*Current method: A group of Yamataian Infantry are sitting around a table playing cards when a Juni walks in and informs them they are being sent into combat. Upon arrival, this same Juni gives the orders to attack an enemy complex. Once the siege begins the Juni continues to give orders on when and what to do. Lots of ordering around.
*Possible method: Upon arrival the soldiers are told that their mission is to take the complex by any means necessary. Between them they quickly choose a route and begin the siege. Now they can choose whether to blow it up, kill everyone inside, take everyone hostage, etc. I understand it's not the typical military scenario, but it wouldn't require someone of higher authority and would be a lot more entertaining for the players.

*Allow people with only higher-ranking characters to get more entertainment. Running a plot can be stressful and I'm sure a lot of GMs would agree that it would be enjoyable to RP a Captain or person in authority without having to worry about running the plot. It would definitely entertain the current GMs more and would make it so its not the same 10 people or so doing all the GMing. It would provide a less-stressful environment that's fun for everyone and doesn't limit certain people to GMing and certain people to not being able to GM.

*This method would provide more thought out plots. The GM wouldn't have to worry about character reactions, how to solve the problem, etc. They would only have to create the problem and leave solving it to someone else. Not only that but it truly makes surprises a surprise.
*Currently: A GM decides to have an unexpected event of an enemy sneaking onto a ship and detonating a bomb. The GM can't have their character stumble upon the bomb because it will seem like they're trying to glorify their character and they can't randomly send people there because it may not have been a reasonable choice based on what the character should know. Basically, a GM can't ever be sure what his/her character would do if a bomb were on board because the fact remains that the character doesn't know it's there but the GM does.
*New Method: A GM decides to have a bomb planted on the ship, the captain can act exactly the way she would if she didn't know the bomb were there because the GM doesn't have to inform the players of the bomb, he can inform the characters after the fact. Therefor, the chances of finding the bomb are more realistic rather than having the GM/Captain bias of wanting their plot to succeed.

*It removes the bias for success. Currently a GM wants their characters and plot ships to succeed because everyone likes to win. It's rare to see a ship being defeated (it does happen, its just not common) But realistically, losses should be more common than what SARP is seeing. The new method would create more of a D&D feel where the DM would be 100% okay with a ship getting trashed or the captain getting killed because it might be how things would realistically play out.

Ultimately, from all the ideas you've come up with Use, this is by far the best and most useful. Bravo!
 
Re: Bored GMs

Nothing wrong that would prevent a GM from setting up a plot to operate this way. For it to work you would need a dedicated player to be the CO of the plot ship. Because if that player goes away for a significant amount of time, the plot suffers.

Also that person would also be expected to ICly and OOCly take care of the administrative part of the ship. Eg, if PC CO Dunsel promotes character Red, then they would be expected to make the necessary posts in the Orders thread.

But the concept has merit. After all the GM still retains ultimate control, the the PC CO doesn't perform well, the GM can always have the character disciplined and or replaced if necessary.

I have run plenty of campaigns in table top mode and have use both methods of running the plot ship. Both work out well, if you have the right people.
 
Re: Bored GMs

The idea has been brought up now and then, actually.

But it just isn't, you know... Done. For whatever reason. Mostly I say there isn't a lot of plots popping up to apply new things to and such, I'd say. But that's just a guess.

The primary issue with this form of GMing, though, is that the GM... Will still be bored! After all, most of these plots take place on a space ship. Space ships are rather closed places - One can't suddenly input characters, leaving them, for the most part, stuck with playing out the world around the characters and having them react and do actions. The actual roleplaying a character part, though, is a bit faded. (One can do it with minor ones, sure... But those are minor characters.)

And, of course, another reason is the inability to railroad the plot particularly well if you're not the figure head. Orders can do it fine, mind...

... And, of course, another thing is that, well... Unless you want to keep a hands off thing to the plot, the only way to keep doing things with the plot is to keep things happening. To a extreme, this means that there will be little time for characters to just... Talk and mingle. This might not be a bad thing. Additionally, the players in the plot best like these things over the previously mentioned RP. I for one disliked PA and Ship combat when I played, but more because I just... Didn't particularly care for it. (X does blah blah and shoots Y! X regulates the power to systems Y!)

Anyway.
 
I suppose my method lies closer to the "Create a problem and leave it up to someone else to solve" method listed above.

I create a situation in which it is advantageous for a PC to take initiative and do something, rather than wait around for someone to tell them what to do. Generally, in the military someone taking initiative is actually encouraged anyway depending on the context. You can't disobey an order most of the time, for instance. You also should never really shoot at civilians, attack team mates, etc. .

Something else I also like to toss in is perception. "What did the NPC's see?"

A PC notices a technician drawing a pistol after threatening their life. When the PC acts and neutralizes the technician, all the other NPC's saw was the PC knocking out one of their pals. They'll probably act accordingly.

This gives me some wonderful freedom, especially with a set up like I had with Task Force Phantom. The two primary NPC's I managed: Arkase and Tachibana were both opposed to each other. Tachibana didn't care if his crew lived or died, and in one of the missions that came after the one where I canceled the plot was going to order them to surrender to the NMX.

Once they were with the NMX, I'd have my fun developing Arkase aside from the PC's in a perilous situation. The PC's would be cut off from command, and it would be their duty to escape on their own or otherwise.

All of this is fun for me because I get to play both sides of the spectrum with my Players' emotions. On the one hand, their overall commander doesn't care about them past what they can provide for him: Basically a villain in his own right. On the other hand, their immediate 'leader' is a depressed wreck AND chafes against their other commander: Perhaps not a hero, but a good guy.

So, by playing both sides of the spectrum and tossing in "You Solve It!" Puzzles, I can entertain myself by interacting with the PC's and writing up ways to kill them and (happily) be disappointed when it fails.
 
For my next plot, I plan on having a character similar to Kyosuke — a character I don't care much about and can effectively use as a GM device.

I also want to play antagonists that deal less in plot-changing events and more on just entertaining players. More than GM + IC command, I want to do for players what Fred's done for me most: Entertain me and make me forget the bad moments and stress of my life.

I think good stories do that, and having a kind of developed-but-throwaway GMPC can best serve that.
 
What Doshii Jun mentioned here has not proved to work out incredibly well on the Miharu plotship.

Apparently, there's a level of incongruity between having a GM referee (whom handles anykind of opposition) and having a player entity in charge of the plotship. The idea looks neat on paper, but putting that much 'power to make a difference' in the hands of players doesn't appear, in practice, to be such a great idea.

When there are important backstory implications, or a sizeable playerbase under the player-run CO, it apparently shoves a lot of responsability and stress on the person handling that key commanding character. The prospect of failure brings about the fear from the 'person in charge' of screwing up - in turn hindering both the ongoing plot and the attached playerbase.

It also appears to create an undesirable adversarial relationship between the player and the referee involved, most especially when the referee attempts to represent credible opposition and to seriously weight player action so that they carry consequence - with the idea that if a player respects the danger the opposition represents, he will think carefully about his chosen course of action.

A referee trying to 'be swell' by communicating with the player CO and providing the player with contextual tips and insights to help better present the CO professionally hasn't seemed, in my experience, to help much. In some cases, when the proverbial crap-hits-the-fan and that the player CO is stumped about what he could do to 'save the day', it appears to create dependency on that 'helping hand' ("I don't want us to blow up. What should we do?").

It unfortunately doesn't seem to suit the casual roleplayer very well; the members present on-site in order to develop relationships between characters and be along for a nice story.
 
I've thought about this some, since this has all happened. I believe, in the end, it's come down to being more about me and Fred than about the system as presented.

With the pressure off of me in Miharu, I've had time to think about what I wanted. I sum it up like this: "I want to escape with other people into writing a good story, not play a game that could end badly."

I am not fit to be the "player in charge," because the reactions Fred describes above are all mine. I hated carrying so much responsibility for how the plot could end, yet I didn't feel I had any power to determine the outcome. My actions, or inactions, could abruptly end the plot in one hell of a disappointing way, and I take no joy in that.

Fred, having the strategic mind that he does, is too great an opponent for me to beat, and each new post brought me only anguish — "Jesus, now what the fuck am I supposed to do?" Thus, I kept leaning on him, again and again, to tell me how exactly I should handle the latest crisis (and it was always a crisis). For me, there was no other choice: I had no power to say, "OK, Miharu made that debilitating shot to the bridge and Eve was there, and she died. You win!" But I felt, without Fred telling me so, I had the responsibility to somehow get the players to that outcome.

To me, it wasn't roleplaying; it was real. It wasn't telling a story; it was like a real war where if I made the wrong move, me and a lot of other players were "dead". With those deaths, I thought, judgments and tempers would fly, bad blood would pool, and everyone would generally feel like four years were pissed away because we got the "bad end."

All I could rely on were dice I didn't roll, skill checks I didn't see and ... well, nothing else. Narrative flair doesn't win a player any points or plot armor in Fred's plot, and in the end that's all I've got.

For me, that's not any fun.

I think that another player, who could better handle command and would enjoy the adversarial relationship, could thrive under Fred's/Gabriel's/Uso's system, and great things could come of it. I'm not that player.

Fred's not at fault for that. He's always been clear, from the get-go, that this is how it would be. However, Miharu kept winning, and at some point I stopped thinking we could suddenly lose this just because we didn't perform up to par. That we'd get mulligans or something.

The retcon put everything in perspective: Fred's serious, and if you screw up, you're fucked. Therefore, you can't screw up.

For me, that meant that the story might end horribly because of something I did. That put the pressure on, which led to the constant asking for help, then the whining, then Fred cutting me slack to wait for the GM's PC to come back and handle more things.

I plan on thinking more about my future plot now, and how I want to do it. Even with all the drama, though, I'm incredibly thankful for the lessons learned, as it helps crystallize in my mind just what I want and how I want it.

What I know for sure is Gabriel's and Uso's idea is not for me. I'm guilty of all the things they write about, because frankly, this is fun escapism for me, not a win-lose-type game.
 
The way I tend to GM, is I have a story in mind, with an A, and a Z, and maybe a couple other letters in between. It's up to the players to fill up the alphabet, and they often skip letters, or do them out of order, or whatever, and I react accordingly. Sometimes, it's bad for the players, sometimes, it's good, but always, in the end, my story comes first, however it may have changed due to player actions.

But, I know that in order to make this happen, I have to control the person in charge of them. I have to give them tips and pointers and lead them to where they need to do what it is to follow the story. But I don't railroad. Players always have the ability to ignore, convince, or supercede my GM characters authority, and based on the success of what they do, it could end good or bad, but it all centers on their writing and how it all affects the story.
 
Uso said:
Honestly that reminds of the twilight zone episode A nice place to visit. You can never fail, the story always has the same ending, and your character's actions are meaningless because of that.
Click to expand...
That's definitely one way of looking at it.

However, there's an inherent need in that for the character's actions to matter beyond telling the story, beyond being cool and entertaining yourself and others.

An inherent need to achieve greater meaning, perhaps. I think there's greater meaning in telling a great story.

You might say I don't belong on this kind of site for that reason. That I'm not recognizing the "game" portion of SARP. I believe there's room for your system and mine.
 
I'm sorry, but I've no plan to let this slide and just see Doshii Jun nod along with the kind of comment Uso just made. Uso crossed a line that I'm not going to let slide without confrontation.

No one has gone and debunked the idea unveiled in this thread. No one said that the concept wasn't an admirable one, one worth pursuing. It's one I myself would've liked to adhere to, but in practice I've had to contend with certain drawbacks that I thought I'd share. Doshii Jun added his personal input to it. Kai added his own take to that.

Why should we share that? In the hopes that our insights should help with any future attempt from anyone to do so.

...and what does Uso do? A veiled comment that between the lines basically means "Your way of GMing sucks and your roleplaying efforts under such an arrangement are meaningless."

Is this what this has come to? You being rude and condescending with us when we share our own experiences and explore preferences, only to have you belittle us in return? Heck, just your "miharugate" insinuation in your opening post was already a form of mudslinging I was trying to look over... but if you're going to go so far to poke us in the eye I won't let it go after all.

There are some lines in a 'friendly roleplaying community' that you do not cross, Zack. This is one of them. You owe us a damned apology.
 
The GM on the Sakishima is @Gunsight1 while the Captain is @Yoshi and I think they're striking a perfect balance between GMing and not ICly being in command, together.
 
I don't think this is necessary... as a writer, I know very well that there's a lot of fun to be had even when you're the only person writing the story, and there's not really an issue with trying to avoid metagaming even when you're in complete control of both the hero and the villain. Having such complete control also means that you don't have as much of a conflict of interest when deciding what characters do as a player does (or shouldn't, at least.)

This thread doesn't look like much fun, but I guess it points out that this isn't a new idea nor is people comparing it to the way D&D groups are often run. I've played a lot of D&D, and I'll say that it's usually much better to have NPCs in the party than not, since they can be a great source of resources most parties desperately need, common sense and social connection. It's true that they're usually not 'in charge' and parties tend to make decisions by consensus, but of course that's not a very good way to run a military unit (except maybe after a mutiny.)
 
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