Communist Sandboxes and Random Adventures

Most of the people I know never want to GM. There seems to be an informal sort of etiquette, about it, even where someone who is sort of “Due” to GM is coerced in to running a game by having no one else agree to run them. It’s actually kind of depressing… So, in my player-free (because I am a sucker) days I often wonder whether there is a way that the traditional style of RPG (Pencils, Character Sheets, Dice, Rulebooks) to which I have become accustomed can be adapted to work without a GM. I came up with a couple of solutions, which were:

Randomly determining the plotline on the fly.

This worked OK if the game met 2 of these 4 criteria- it was simple with it’s types of encounters, had less than 4 players, was at low level, or used primarily shambling undead. It made a magnificent Savage Worlds zombie game, but the preparation process definitely requires an imagination, and probably requires an advanced course in statistics.

The text of this is going to be made available once I figure out how to generate the map effectively as the game goes along. The Zombie game is 6 pages of typewritten tables detailing the- Contents of each possible area, The likelihood of finding a set of resources, likelihood of behaviors for each monster type and for randomly generating NPC’s and their behaviors, the rules for randomly generating buildings and their degree of repair, randomly determining dead-ends, and a system for tracking the in-game time using the adventure, and modifiers to each table based on the player’s actions.

* Pros: Requires absolutely no GM, quick and easy to play, TOTALLY REUSABLE

* Cons: Limited Circumstances where the system is practical, Entirely too complicated to set up, Outliers occur and break the action, Final product is disproportionately small compared to work involved

* Points: Almost all Roll-Playing, for good or ill. Also, probably will drive those who attempt to create it insane.

Giving each participant 2 roles, and alternate the secondary role across each participant.

The primary role, for all participants, is still the player character, but the secondary roles are Adjudicator, Storyteller, and GMPC. When the participant is acting as the adjudicator, he is responsible for determining the difficulty of an action when it is provided by the storyteller, and for concealing that difficulty from the Storyteller and Players. The Storyteller is responsible for coming up with the action of the story.

When the participant is the storyteller, he also controls all NPC actions and temporarily relinquishes control of his Player character to another participant. The Player who’s secondary role is the GMPC is responsible for playing the storyteller’s character when he is moving the action of the story along and controlling the NPC’s. These roles are rotated several times during the game when the Storyteller dictates thus.

* Pros: I don’t know. I haven’t tried it yet, but it is a cool hypothesis. I think the “pro” here is that it requires no real alteration of the pre-existing game system, but rather compartmentalizes the role of the GM.

* Cons: None forseen by me.

* Points: The Participants would have to agree on a general story concept before beginning the game.

Certainly would require experienced, comfortable, and cooperative players. People who like each other and want to role-play will probably find this fun. Kind of an homage to Lord Byron’s party game, who’s name I cannot remember, but supposedly was the game in which Mary Wollstonecraft came up with the beginning of Frankenstein. If anyone can remember what it is called, it would save me a trip to see the world’s worst poetry professor… Please?

Daniel Koksal
Nameless Kingdom Tabletop Games