Chop your GM into little pieces

On distributing responsibilities and authority

1. The life of a lazy Game Master

Most of my game design is derived from my limitations, one of them being that I’ve always been a very lazy Game Master.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy planning sessions. There is a kind of solo fun in worldbuilding, creating NPCs, hooks, plots and so on. But that task always filled me with anxiety. The responsibility of making everything cohesive, believable, making sure I was providing opportunities for all characters to shine… gah. Too much.

My first relief in that regard came from PbtA games. I don’t remember exactly if it was by reading a specific game, or listening to someone talk about its principles of shared narrative, but the sheer freedom that came from this possible conversation at the table was unparalleled:

Player: So how is the temple in this city?

GM: I don’t know. You’re the cleric. You tell me.

Oh. My. Goodness. So we can do that??

That was very liberating, and it informed my approach to GMing going forward, as well as my early attempts at game design.

That tied together with another important limitation I have to deal with, which is my inability to absorb lore. I envy players and GMs that talk about the cosmology, the history and the factions of their favorite settings. I could never. So this anti-canon approach (a term I learned much later), the emergent narrative that happens at the table… seemed like a perfect fit for me.

I know that “play to find out what happens” might be understood simply as “don’t prepare plots or storylines, let the narrative unfold”, but I took it to the extreme. I’d go to the table knowing absolutely nothing. I didn’t want to be a Game Master if I weren’t to be as surprised as the other players by the discoveries we faced.

And that got me thinking…

Who lives in that castle? What stories does it hold? Who knows! I certainly don’t. Let’s create it together. (Photo by Cederic Vandenberghe on Unsplash)

2. The death of the Game Master

It wasn’t long before I realized I didn’t quite enjoy this unbalance of narrative authority and responsibility that came with being a GM. With each session, I delegated more and more of my roles as a GM to the players.

It started with a few bits of lore, then descriptions of the places and people, then I handed some NPCs over for them to control. After some time, they were coming up with the possible negative consequences of their actions, and—the most feared aspect by those who don’t believe in GMless playing—their challenges and opposition.

At that point, I was acting more as a host, a facilitator and a guide. I was still responsible for making sure the story moved forward, but most answers that a GM is expected to provide were given by the players themselves. I just nudged them here and there with loaded and leading questions.

Who do you think would be waiting for you here?

What happens if you fall?

Do you think you’d be prepared for a trap?

How does this village look like, and why does it remind you of home?

How is this artifact connected to the faction you just left?

It wasn’t before I came across Mythic GME and Ironsworn that I understood that a game could, in fact, survive and thrive without the need of a GM. Besides sharing the narrative among players, mechanics and tables could fill in the gaps, provide answers, and spark our imagination without the need of a being holding all this information in their head ahead of time.

My dive into GMless games was very natural, and my experiences, deeply rewarding. I could go back to playing a character and enjoy this shared experience with my friends without the pressure of being the one that owned the one and only truth about everything.

I thought I had my favorite play style figured out. However….

Dice and random tables: the best GM I ever had. (Photo by Nika Benedictova on Unsplash)

3. The birth of a thousand tiny Game Masters

I never really left the role of a GM completely.

The thing is, when you bring a new game to your table (as it happens with board games as well), there’s a certain expectation that you’ll be the one explaining it, clarifying rules, prompting players to contribute, suggesting ways of using the rules or moving the story forward, and so on.

And that’s fine, I suppose. This implicit role of the “host” being the one that read the book and suggested the game for the group is embedded in almost all my games.

Almost.

I believe it was in Band of Blades that I saw this idea first (which is odd, since it is not a GMless game). This game has something they call legion roles, that go on top of your selected character playbook. From their website:

The Commander sets mission priorities, the Marshal directs the troupes, the Quartermaster manages precious resources, the Spymaster gathers intel in the field, and the Lorekeeper preserves the histories of the Legion.

If you look closely, this is a codified way to distribute some of the traditional GM roles to the players. Brilliant!

As I write, I am also reminded of Questlandia, which has a similar technology, through the concept of Ownership. From the book’s first edition:

In Questlandia, important concepts, locations, and characters are owned by individual players. Ownership means that when somebody has a question about a specific story element, the owner of that element gets the first and final say. For example, if Lydia owns “the mushroom faeries,” then questions like “What do the mushroom faeries eat?” or “Do the mushroom faeries make art?” are Lydia’s to answer.

That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

The idea of games being GM-ful instead of GM-less has been discussed for a while now, but those are the first instances in which I saw it codified into the rules.

This concept of players having specific roles beyond their own characters stayed in the back of my mind for a while, and it finally showed up in my own game design while I was developing Derelict Delvers.

4. Chopping up the Game Master into meta-roles

When you create a character in Derelict Delvers, beyond choosing your concept, and creating your powers, you pick one or more meta-roles.

I spent some time envisioning what kind of roles a GM would have in this particular game, if it had a GM. The game is essentially a procedurally-generated dungeon crawler, so these are the responsibilities that came to my mind:

• Clarifying rules

• Pushing the story forward

• Coming up with the mission

• Creating and controlling enemies and dangers

• Creating the room

• Drawing and updating the map of the derelict

• Controlling rest and character advancement

• Coloring descriptions and the emergent story behind the mission

With a little more tinkering, I came up with the six meta-roles that you can find on the Character Sheet. During character creation, the group decides how to distribute those roles among the players, and they’re free to swap them around during the game.

Let’s take a look into each one of them more closely:

THE EXECUTOR
Comes up with the mission and describes the derelict they will delve into, decides where the group should go next when the action in a room ends, decides when to end the mission, and handles judgement calls on rules and rulings. This is probably the person that read the book and presented the game for the group. In a way, it is the meta-role closest to the idea of a host.

THE CARTOGRAPHER
Describes the rooms, their features, creates their exits and connections, defines and divides the room into zones, draws and updates the map. This is the person that likes to visualize the battle map. There’s no artistic skill required, but rather an interest in creating a compelling space for players to explore.

THE STORYTELLER
Describes senses, behaviors and visuals, sets the mood and atmosphere of the scene, weaving lore and backstory into the discoveries. This is the person that likes to improvise story from prompts, that enjoys freeform association of ideas, that thrives in deriving meaning from apparently unrelated or random aspects of the game.

THE ARTIFICER
Creates the hazards (which are the environmental dangers of the derelict), describes them, and decides when and how they activate and react. This is the person that likes traps, puzzles and dynamic environments. They have fun creating unique obstacles and challenges.

THE SPAWNER
Creates the monsters, describes them, and decides how they attack, defend, react, move and behave. They enjoy coming up with the aliens, combining abstract terms into a vivid description of a unique foe. They like to imagine special abilities and bring the monsters’ traits to life.

THE KEEPER
Assigns loot to characters, decides when to take a rest, and takes care of upgrades after a mission is over. They care about keeping the group alive and well, making sure that every character has the chance to keep playing and to advance their powers.

This was my approach to solve the issue of GMless games relying too much on a single person to keep the game running smoothly. I’m not claiming that this is the correct way of doing it (heck, I don’t even know if I’ll ever use this strategy again in another game), but it served well for the specific purposes of this game.

If you know of other games that have similar technologies, let me know in the comments below!

Meanwhile, if you liked that idea, make sure to check out Derelict Delvers, it is on sale for 2 more days (as well as all my other games, to be honest)!

And I’ll leave you with the full character sheet, because I think it is rad, if I may say so myself.