This morning I discovered a new post from the always-insightful Ben Robbins that touches upon one of my favorite hot-button issues in the arena of roleplaying styles – the distribution of power and control between the person designated “GM” and the rest of the play group. Those of you who have followed my rants and other exploits will find it unsurprising that I’m in total agreement with Ben’s sentiments here:
Ben Robbins: ars ludi – The Benefits of Tyranny.
Ben’s whole post is incisive, but the first bit that really grabbed my attention was this:
“But never mind for a second why a GM would want to be overlord and god: instead ask why a player would put up with it.” – via ars ludi.
This is the question for which I’ve been demanding answers for a couple of years now. Not having been as active in the in-depth theory wonkery that goes on at rpg.net, Story Games, The Forge, and similar communities, I haven’t built up the vocabulary or the rep to talk about topics like this with clarity and credibility – but that hasn’t stopped me from talking about it anyway. My time with The Game Master Show and some of the meta-talks we had on The Rolemonkeys are rife with examples of me harping on the subject of everyone at the table sharing responsibility for the fun and investment of everyone else at the table. I’ve developed a reputation for being anti-GM power and pro-player power. I think my actual beliefs are more nuanced than that, but I still get why that reputation prevails. Taken in my often convoluted sound bites, that’s a fairly accurate oversimplification. But it’s still an oversimplification. What I appreciate most about Ben’s post is that he puts his points across clearly and unapologetically. He expresses himself simply but not over-simply.
Obviously I want you to go read his whole post on ars ludi and comment there if you have anything to say, but I’d like to pull out one more section of his post here:
“Let’s say there are two kinds of responsibility a player has at the table: creative responsibility and social responsibility. On the creative side you are trying to make a good story, to do something interesting and add to the fiction. On the social side you are trying to make sure everyone else is having fun, and that their idea of what is good and interesting is also being respected.”
“All that can be a lot of work. But with the tyrannical GM, you have one person who steps up and says “this is my game, it is my creation, I’m in absolute control and make everything happen. I resolve all disputes and I make sure all players are entertained.” Which means you, the player, are completely off the hook. You can be as selfish as you want, or as rude as you want, or as lazy as you want, because the GM has taken responsibility for making the game work and taking care of everyone at the table.” – via ars ludi.
Generally, people don’t like their behavior to be labeled as selfish and/or lazy. But in my opinion if you set aside the baggage that goes with the labeling and focus on the actual definitions of the words, and compare those definitions to the behaviors – and motivations – being identified as selfish and lazy, then I think overall, there’s accuracy in the labeling. If you think it’s good that one person carries the brunt of the social and creative responsibility so that the rest of the group can kick back, have it easy, and be entertained, well, it is what it is.
Are GM tyrrany and the attendant player abdication of responsibility wrong? Are they bad? Well, I don’t have a right to say so. The Big Caveat that those of us who lean hippie in our play preferences always have to put out there applies here: If everybody in the group is really okay with the arrangement, if everyone is having fun and getting what they want out of it, then I have no right to tell them they’re wrong.
And for that matter, even though in the past I may have said that it’s wrong and even though I’m sure that my occasional rants still carry some of that judgmental tone, I think that my problem is not so much with the actual thing itself – although in my own play it is something up with which I will not put – but rather with my belief that the thing is so extremely prevalent in the hobby that it is considered the norm and that attempts to examine, discuss, and offer alternatives STILL meet with so much mainstream resistance. In other words, I have no problem with admitting that the powerful GM-passive player model is A way to play. But I have a big problem with the prevailing notion that it is THE way to play. I will harp against that notion until someone manages to smash my harp and shut my mouth. And good luck with that.
So, thanks, Ben, for stirring my pot and giving me an excuse to get back on my favorite soapbox. If nothing else, it’s finally gotten me to put some passion back into my journaling.
I think it sheds a lot of light — though I hate, hate, hate the biasing language of the labels used (‘lazy’, ‘selfish’, and ‘tyranny’ can all be expressed using more neutral words) — for those of us who sit on the fence between the fully distributed situation and the traditional GM thing.
I’m actually strongly in preference of traditional GM roles — but I recognize that the way I’ve always handled that actually appropriates *some* of the hippie agenda all the same.
To the point, I think there’s a lot to be said for games where the creative responsibility is *primarily* in the GM’s hands (there’s some coherence of story that can emerge when a trad GM with this responsibility is operating at peak form), but the social responsibility is shared by all.
For me, my personal preferences, my play, and vast vast swaths of my experience, that’s how it is, how it has been, and how it should be. The lack of “everyone shares the social responsibility” is usually my surefire detection method for “bad playgroup”. But a GM being the prime driver and possessor of creative responsibility? Hell, that’s what a lot of players I’ve encountered *want*. And I include myself, when I act as a player, in that.
Creatively, at the table, as a player, I might want to be “lazy” (in that I don’t want to have to work to construct the overall story of the game, I just want to participate in the story as it happens) and “selfish” (in that I want to focus on the involvement of my character in the story without having a responsibility for integrating others’ characters into the story). But where I’m not lazy (and in fact where I find it unacceptable to be lazy) is in a responsibility to everyone else at the table (GM included) to make sure that the things I do generate entertainment value for everyone.
And I think a lot of semi-trad players live in that headspace: again, my own experience is overwhelmingly filled with them.
It’s cool that you’ve popped up on my other shoulder and given us a reminder of some very legitimate points, Fred. This is just the sort of good discussion I crave.
I think I’m guilty of over-simplifying stuff again in this case. The thing that struck me most about your comment is that you managed to hit a very important point that I missed – that lumping social responsibility issues in with creative responsibility issues and making them one argument is problematic. I’m not saying that was Ben’s intent in his original post, but it is definitely how I framed my post.
Now that you’ve explicitly pulled them apart, it is easy to see that my real ranting is for the most part about the social part of the equation. In fact, from my experience I can say that when there is an atmosphere of sharing the social load and everyone paying attention to bringing the fun and not just taking it, then the distribution of creative responsibility is going to pretty much work regardless.
Another aspect of this is that when I feel a disparity about something I tend to pull against the thing I think is out of whack HARD, often resulting in pulling things too far in the other direction. So it comes off like I demand full creative equality in all my roleplaying games, when in fact that’s not true at all.
I actually agree with you that in many cases a more cohesive story tends to result if one of the group is bearing more responsibility for guiding the process. In fact, I’ve never actually played a truly GM-less game up to this point. I think my comfort zone – and my creative sweet spot – lie in the space where you’ve identified your preferences. I mean, you created or co-created two of my three favorite game designs, and both of them involve a GM providing a guiding hand along with encouragement and mechanical support for player creative input. And the other game of the three is PTA, which of course has a producer who fills a similar role.
So it is disingenuous of me to paint myself as Mr. GM-Hater. I’d actually probably feel creatively stifled in most cases if there was no GM to act as primary guide and director.
On the other hand, it DOES rankle me mightily when people show up to the table and expect to be entertained without having any regard for assisting with that responsibility at least a little bit. And I also get rankled when the creative responsibility falls so far into the hands of one person that neither the dice nor the choices of characters in play have any meaningful impact on the world or the ongoing story.
So I’ve been framing in extremes and pushing and pulling hard in order to amp up the drama of my argument, when in fact, most people in my direct experience (and my anecdotal experience for that matter) don’t really behave at the extreme levels I’m arguing.
Then again, the rather extreme language that Ben used in the first place was effective in waking me out of my lethargy and inspiring me to think about this stuff and post. And that resulted in your comment, which made me think even more, and keeps me inspired to share and discuss.
I think one of the reasons why the anti-GM tangent strikes me as so offensive is that it’s clear from posts like this one that you haven’t made any effort to understand why so many players like having game masters.
I will use a personal example to illustrate. I belong to a group of highly talented friends who are gamers, but we are not clones of one another, nor are we identical in all our capabilities.
One of us is a brilliant chef. She loves to cook but long ago learned to hate cooking in a restaurant. It used to be that when we got together for a meal, on occasion one of us will manage to burn water and put together some plaster of paris nightmare that was supposed to be Kraft macaroni and cheese, as our way of avoiding appearing selfish and lazy when it came to cooking duties. Except — she absolutely loves to cook. Except — we absolutely love to eat what she cooks. Except — she is a master chef.
Now, if an anti-GM person were to look at our arrangement, he would probably attack us as lazy and selfish for letting her do what she loves to do and letting her do what none of us do nearly as well. The anti-GM person would insist that each of the seven of us cook, so that we would have six barely edible dishes and one delicious dish at every meal.
Fortunately, we don’t listen to anti-GM people.
So our brilliant chef who loves to cook does all the cooking (we purchase the food and thank her), our brilliant party designer arranges all the parties (we contribute funds and thank him), our rich gamer who is the only one to own a home large enough to handle seven gamers at once hosts every game (we cook for him, design parties for him, and of course we thank him), and our brilliant gamer who can come up with wonderful sandbox play settings and juggle multiple social interactions effortlessly is our game master (we cook for her, design parties for her, give her a place to game master, and of course we thank her).
I will never understand why the simple notion that human beings are NOT identical and that human beings enjoy divvying up functions — why the idea that too many cooks spoil the broth and that conscripted equality is slavery — eludes anti-GM folk.
And the fact that anti-GM folk seem incapable of grasping such a basic, obvious aspect of human nature and human social nature calls their credibility into question every time.
“I think one of the reasons why the anti-GM tangent strikes me as so offensive is that it’s clear from posts like this one that you haven’t made any effort to understand why so many players like having game masters.”
@Matt:
1. I’m not anti-GM.
2. I’ve actually made quite a lot of effort to understand why players like having a GM. I’m a player who likes having a GM. I’ve never yet actually played in any game that didn’t have a GM of some sort.
3. I AM, however, anti-”I cook it, you eat it, that settles it.”
For me and the people I prefer to play with, roleplaying is like being a band, not like being consumers of someone’s food. However, I actually have no problem with those of you who like to play the way you describe your preferences. My problem, rather, is when your preferences are presented as the one-true-path and that any other way of doing things is hogwash. Now, to the extent that I might have come off as being the “my way is right, yours is hogwash” guy, then I am not coming off as intended. But as I read back through this thread, I actually don’t think I’ve been that guy.
Finally, I have no problem with you calling my credibility into question. I just ask that you sincerely question it, and be open to the possibility that you might discover answers that don’t fit your pre-defined notions. Arriving at your POV after sincere consideration of the question is cool. Sticking to your preconception while pretending to be questioning is not cool.