Future of RPGing - Lazy GMs, go create a team of GMs

[V-Origin]

In any RPG, there is only one GM and two or more PCs. Average size is one GM and 6 PCs for example.

So how is one human brain gonna match wits against 6 other human brains?

Let's face it. RPGing is basically a game of matching wits. The GM create a scenario or problem for 6 other human brains (the PCs) to solve.

Now the problem is, with a game so suited to power-gaming and munchkinism like Palladium, it is only natural for PCs to gather more and more personal power, money, allies, women. etc etc. you name it.

Yet too often, you will find lazy or dumb GMs coming up with all sorts of stupid "house" rulings and excuses to prevent PCs from growing in a legitimate manner.

"What's that you find a Glitterboy? No can do, the CS confiscated your Glitterboy."
"Mystics are OCCs who are Master Psychics. Therefore you can't dual-class into Mystics. Yeah I know the FAQs say you can dual-class into any OCCs but so what?"
"Build your own city? Oops a company of demons just rifted out of nowhere and stole your hard-earned billions of credits."

All these are marks of lazy GMs who refuse to use their brains and come up with legitimate, believable obstacles for PCs to solve. But who can blame them? One human brain is hardly a match for 6 human brains in a game of strategy unless you are a genius.

And that is what RPGing is. Matching strategies. Whether it be a 6 man team surviving on the streets of a CS burb or a 6 billion army carving out an empire in Rifts Dimensions.

So my suggestion for lazy GMs who refuse to use their brains or whose brainpower is too limited.

Create a team of GMs. Get 3 GMs to play against 6 players. If you are too lazy to use your brain, then get some help.

[NMI]

moved to appropriate section

[V-Origin]

moved to appropriate section

Thank you.

[MADMANMIKE]

I've never approached it as a battle of wits. To me it's a symbiotic relationship. As the GM, it's my job to weave a tale that both entertains the group and allows them personal growth within the confines of the game setting.

It's not that some GM's are lazy, it's that they have too much difficulty being creative and allowing the players to express themselves.

-Mike <8]

[Misfit KotLD]

I've never approached it as a battle of wits. To me it's a symbiotic relationship. As the GM, it's my job to weave a tale that both entertains the group and allows them personal growth within the confines of the game setting.

It's not that some GM's are lazy, it's that they have too much difficulty being creative and allowing the players to express themselves.

-Mike <8]

That's how I try to approach GMing. However, my NPCs may bear grudges and plot PC death.

[Grell]

I'm happy when my players win against the obstacles I set so it's never been a battle of wits in my mind.

[Shorty Lickens]

The very first sentence you wrote was wrong, so already I can correct you.

In my games, if the group and the story is big enough, I will often have a GM assistant to take some of the menial duties off my plate. Usually its basic stuff like rolling for NPC's, sometimes I even let him take charge of the storytelling for just a little while.
I also make sure he follows the most important rule: The players and GM come together to play an interesting game. They each have different roles in the game but they are NOT competing with one another. And I dont always treat adventures like I am a college professor trying to make an unsolvable problem for my students to see if they learned anything in class or not, or to stoke my ego.
The idea is getting together for fun. To this end we usually start each new campaign with a little brainstorming session to discuss what it is we want to get out of our time together.

[MADMANMIKE]

I should also add that I've run games with upwards of 24 player characters with little difficulty online, and at the Open House with an average of 10 PCs. Granted, in the Open House they were characters of my own design, but I always leave leeway for the player to customize the character's personality.

That said, when I was new at this, I had my difficulty with the players. A good deal of that difficulty lied in my lack of familiarity with the rules/setting. Coupled with my Asperger's Syndrome/lack of skill in dealing with people in general, it was a difficult road. Maturity makes for better gamers.

-Mike <8]

[The Dark Elf]

I try and play WITH my players rather than outwitting them.

We all have our lazy days.

I also get the players to roll for the npcs villians (general mobs, not the big baddies). They seem to love to attempt to kill the other players but I now have them trained to use that stats given and a fight for a more favourable (to my plot) outcome (so they pull punches and roll with punch we they need to etc.).

[Severus Snape]

I have never viewed RPGing as a battle of wits or wills between the GM and the players. To even think that is assinine and a complete and utter BS statement.

The role of the GM is to create a story that (in a perfect world) will be highly enjoyable, flow easily from chapter to chapter, and get the players involved. The GM gets to relay the details of what's happening, roll some dice as needed (such as for NPCs or random monster checks), and be the intermediary that determines if an action a PC wants to perform is feasible or not. Hey, I've had to hit some PCs with a 2x4 at times ("No, you can't jump 50 feet straight up while wearing 7000 lbs. of combat armor while your feet are encased in cement"), but the PCs have always understood that I'm only reminding them of what's feasible and what isn't.

The role of the players is to take part in the story as the central/integral characters. This may not sound like much, but it is. All that happens in the world and story the GM create is a direct result of the actions the PCs take. Bank looted by PCs? They're in trouble and the banking system may fail. Saved that damsel in distress? She may return the favor at a later time, or become the love interest for one of the PCs. It's interconnected. And while some PCs may try outlandish stuff, you never know what works until you try.

Together, the role of the GM and the PCs is to determine what set of rules to use, and to create house rules that are for the enjoyment of the game and to provide overall balance. Some GMs ask for input from the players on what they find fascinating in stories, while some PCs may ask a GM what particular OCC or race may be fun to try out in a particular campaign.

I will admit that there are some GMs out there who think that they need to "beat" the players, and that if they kill PCs then they "win". But there is no winning or losing. Except in the case of a GM who needs to beat the players, or the players feeling that they need to beat the GM. In these cases, everyone loses cuz nobody is having any fun. The PCs and the GM should come together to form one cohesive unit that works together to have fun.

It's not a battle of wills. It should never be the GM vs. the PCs. All sides should be playing together to get the most out of the story, and to have the most fun they possibly can. Cuz that's what it's all about.

[Mercdog]

Most all of the house rules I've made are in favor of the Players to keep them alive more than two sessions. I haven't been very fortunate finding players who play their characters very intelligently. (If you've seen the movie Gamers, I've had about five "Reeses".)

To the Glitter Boy comment, I don't consider that "Lazy" or "Stupid". The GB is a major piece of hardware that one does not just "find", and the CS does NOT want your average merc-adventurer (and possible Mage/D-Bee Lover) to possess one any more than they'd want someone flying a black market SAMAS around Chi-Town. I'm not likely to just strip the player of one if he does manage to get it, but he may be questioned by the CS as to how he came across it. It's up to the player what direction this takes. If he answers the CS's questions respectfully, he'll probably be let go with a "We'll be watching you." If he's belligerent, or is dumb enough to open fire on the CS official, well..... Having the GB confiscated would be the least of his worries.

[Spinachcat]

So how is one human brain gonna match wits against 6 other human brains?

Preparation + Creativity

It's not rocket science.

"Mystics are OCCs who are Master Psychics. Therefore you can't dual-class into Mystics. Yeah I know the FAQs say you can dual-class into any OCCs but so what?"

As GM, I don't care what any FAQ says. Any player who thinks he can whine and hide behind the books is off my table. I don't game to obey rulebooks.

[mastermesh]

No, it's not a battle of wits... BUT... it is still a good idea to have more than one GM. Back in high school, many, many years ago, the main people "playing" were me, my brother, and a guy from around the corner and his brother. Occassionally, we had 2-5 others join in to play too... I got sick of being a GM and so did the guy from up the street, but we switched pretty regularly on various campaigns to make it interesting and allow us to "play" the game instead of just being the "coach" - and that is what a GM really is, a sort of theatrical coach/umpire, not the oppossing team... even if it does seem that way sometimes.

[Rallan]

RPGs are a battle of wits between the GM and the players?

Damn, I guess everyone who's been using them to tell interesting stories or watch the personalities of their PCs grow and develop has been doing it wrong all this time

[Cinos]

I see it as both, 75% of it is story telling and character growth. But I'd be pulling a fast one if I said it wasn't tons of fun to engage in a battle of wits with my players. I'm often right when it comes to predicting their actions (a talent I've learned to help make stories, predicting actions and having responses ready, and at times, trapping them within what I expect their reactions to be to a situation, at times they reverse it and go a completely tangent way, often coming out well on top). The ability to lay puzzles, subtle clues, and riddles as I go with a story, or a crawl, and watching them fumble or figure it out (one time I used a physical object, a puzzle item needed in an arcane lab they found, a large key looking item with a circle ring around it with grooves cut into it, which you could only take off by turning it and twisting at the right ways back and forth before getting it off, and thus, into a lock. Sadly their cagey nature saw them through, in that both the key and the ring where needed to open different points through the labs, the ring for a special room full of magical items in experimental states and loads of reagents they sold to make a bundle and used some).

[Rallan]

"Mystics are OCCs who are Master Psychics. Therefore you can't dual-class into Mystics. Yeah I know the FAQs say you can dual-class into any OCCs but so what?"

I will contest that this is inherently a matter of GM laziness. Sometimes a certain combination is inappropriate for my game, and at my table, I am the final word on the rules, not the often-inconsistent rulebook.

Actually it's a matter of the original poster including a diss against people who disagreed with him in an argument in another thread about whether Mystics count as master psychics or not

[Natasha]

Sounds about right, yea.

And only B has a chance at being a legitimate situation. Sometimes the GM is trying to kill them or otherwise inconvenience them. It's a question of why that becomes important in the situation.

[Misfit KotLD]

Sounds about right, yea.

And only B has a chance at being a legitimate situation. Sometimes the GM is trying to kill them or otherwise inconvenience them. It's a question of why that becomes important in the situation.

Actually, that should never be that case. The GM should never specifically set out to kill the PCs. This simply creates an adversarial atmosphere that is not conducive to fun.

The GM should challenge that players. There's enough bad luck, stupidity and happenstance that occurs to kill characters without the GM specifically saying "Hm, the juicer, line walker and the scholar are all going to die this session".

In some cases, it can be ok for the GM and players to be adversarial. But not many. I don't try to kill the PCs, but I may have NPCs who will stop at nothing to kill the PCs. I just think it's as important for the GM to stay in character as it is for the PCs to. By that I mean the GM should play the NPCs with only what individual NPCs may know or be able to guess at.

[Natasha]

Sounds about right, yea.

And only B has a chance at being a legitimate situation. Sometimes the GM is trying to kill them or otherwise inconvenience them. It's a question of why that becomes important in the situation.

Actually, that should never be that case. The GM should never specifically set out to kill the PCs. This simply creates an adversarial atmosphere that is not conducive to fun.

The GM should challenge that players. There's enough bad luck, stupidity and happenstance that occurs to kill characters without the GM specifically saying "Hm, the juicer, line walker and the scholar are all going to die this session".

I did not say a GM says the PCs "are all going to die this session".

Combat is one way to challenge PCs. PCs and NPCs die in combat. That is not an adversarial environment if it is a realistic environment. Before play begins, the player group should decide if they want the bad guys to always stop short of killing in every single combat encounter or not. Personally, I do not want to play in such a game, I do not think it's conducive to fun to play with kiddie gloves on.

[Misfit KotLD]

Sounds about right, yea.

And only B has a chance at being a legitimate situation. Sometimes the GM is trying to kill them or otherwise inconvenience them. It's a question of why that becomes important in the situation.

Actually, that should never be that case. The GM should never specifically set out to kill the PCs. This simply creates an adversarial atmosphere that is not conducive to fun.

The GM should challenge that players. There's enough bad luck, stupidity and happenstance that occurs to kill characters without the GM specifically saying "Hm, the juicer, line walker and the scholar are all going to die this session".

In some cases, it can be ok for the GM and players to be adversarial. But not many. I don't try to kill the PCs, but I may have NPCs who will stop at nothing to kill the PCs. I just think it's as important for the GM to stay in character as it is for the PCs to. By that I mean the GM should play the NPCs with only what individual NPCs may know or be able to guess at.

The only game that I can think of where it is ok for the players and GM to be adversarial is Paranoia. It's heavy there, but not total.

What you describe is a GM playing the NPCs in character, not being adversarial and trying to kill the PCs. Even NPCs who will stop at nothing to kill the PCs will have specific motives and means for doing so and will realistically stick to those. GMs who have it out for the characters throw out any pretense of realism and basically just say (with more or less fanfare) "Ok, you die, make a new character."

That should -never- be acceptable.

I'm pretty sure I said I was describing playing in charactrer for GMs.

[Rallan]

Sounds about right, yea.

And only B has a chance at being a legitimate situation. Sometimes the GM is trying to kill them or otherwise inconvenience them. It's a question of why that becomes important in the situation.

Actually, that should never be that case. The GM should never specifically set out to kill the PCs. This simply creates an adversarial atmosphere that is not conducive to fun.

Right, you're off my "people who would make good Call Of Cthulhu GMs" list

[Beatmeclever]

Sounds about right, yea.

And only B has a chance at being a legitimate situation. Sometimes the GM is trying to kill them or otherwise inconvenience them. It's a question of why that becomes important in the situation.

Actually, that should never be that case. The GM should never specifically set out to kill the PCs. This simply creates an adversarial atmosphere that is not conducive to fun.

Right, you're off my "people who would make good Call Of Cthulhu GMs" list

Even in COC, it should be about having fun. You might be trying to have the character's losing their minds and dying at the hands of he-who-shall-not-be-named, but the point is still to have fun. And if you are doing it right in COC, as the GM, you are not saying, "today the English professor dies," you are playing the Thing from Beyond so that when the characters get too close it comes out to steal one of their brains - if that ends up being the English professor so goes life, but it could just as easily be little Billy from the 1st grade (sorry little Billy we still miss you even today). GM's playing in character are not being adversarial for the sake of killing characters, they are simply adding that element of good storytelling to the game. As has been said SO many times above, if the opposite is true the game stops being fun and starts being a chore (and let me tell you I don't do chores while I play).