(In the interest of posting more often around here, I’m going to spend some time sharing rough thoughts and sketches of ideas, rather than aiming wholly and solely for breakthroughs and finished essays. This is a blog, after all.)
Can an RPG be made GM-proof? Is the goal to create a dynamic script, an unpredictable mechanism that produces unforeseen but satisfying results every time? Even a fixed script isn’t guaranteed to produce a reliably fun and satisfying experience, so why do we sometimes think that a properly designed system can?
What was it David Mamet said about the inevitability of outcomes in satisfying stories—that an ending should seem both unpredictable and inevitable?
Can we both be on the inside of a story — as writers with authority, as actors with freedom, as players making meaningful choices — and also on the outside, as the rapt audience, unsure of what’s going to happen yet trusting that whatever comes will be sound and satisfying? Can an ending be so fulfilling in its unpredictability and inevitability when we’re on the inside of it, working the machine, that we exist simultaneously outside of it, surprised by the operations of the contraption built from out interlocking imaginations?
These are old questions — and they just scratch the surface of some bigger issues— but I ask them again because I think they’re worth considering and reconsidering as I build towards a GMs-only seminar I’m cooking up. I have my own answers to some of these questions, but I can read my own answers whenever I want, so I choose to think out loud here so as to attract opinions other than my own. Have at it, reader.
Is the Goal to create a Dynamic Script every time we play? Yes, in an ideal world.
Should a GM feel that they are a failure if they do not achieve that? No. The Primary Goal of a GM ought to be to create a fun game, fun for the Players and fun for the GM to run too. While the achievement of a Dynamic Script is likely to heighten Player fun, it is not the only way to have an entertaining game.
This type of Dynamic storytelling should be part of a GM’s arsenal of gaming tools, especially if they are aiming for a more Narrative style of game. In all probability, a GM ought to be critically reviewing their gaming style on a regular basis, in an attempt to improve their games. Attempting to move their sessions towards a more Dynamic storyline with a suitably satisfying ending would be a valuable part of that review process.
Can a game be made GM-proof? Sure. Buy a video game console.
@Phil, I actually cut a bit from this about the goal of fun and the ways that players serve (and don’t) their own entertainment — it’ll appear in another post — but nobody’s defining “failure” here. A dynamic script isn’t the same as dynamism in actual play. A dungeon is a dynamic script, with preordained events and opportunities, built to produce certain key results (e.g. a battle with a dragon, the rescue of a prince), but it’s still not player-proof. People have to serve up their own entertainment. Even a tightly designed dungeon can be undermined.
The word “script” is important here — it intentionally implies decisions made before play that will impact how certain things will go. D&D4, for example, is “scripted” so that monsters become bloody before they’re defeated, thus you can map certain events to “When bloodied” and others to “When defeated” and they’ll produce results in a fun order. It’s dynamic, though, insofar as the game doesn’t dictate all the details of how play will unfold the way a screenplay (a more static script) might.
@Justin, In the metaphor I’m working with here, a video game isn’t any more GM-proof than a novel is author-proof. The designer is still in danger of not connecting with the audience by making and implementing choices that don’t synch with expectations or hopes in the players. The GM plays a design role in actual play.
My point is that I’m skeptical of GM-proofing. The GM (and, often, every other player) helps to make sure that the game returns results that are not just accurate or understandable or logical but entertaining. I like GMs and games with GM authority (in any of various modes and measures), I think GM-proof games are probably folly, because to give the GM the freedom to tune the game just so is also to give the GM the freedom to make mistakes. No big deal. The threat of mistakes is just another source of peril in the play experience, I think.
Hi Will. This is a really good question. On the one hand, as you say it probably isn’t possible to restrict the GM’s job down to a fail-proof procedure and still end up with a rewarding experience. On the other hand, a game’s rules should not just abandon a GM to his own pre-existing skill and experience either.
The challenge of GM rules design is finding the right set of limitations to give GMs which empower them as much as possible, setting their minds afire with the possibilities that still remain within those limits.
It’s like, if I say, “tell a story!” you might not know where to start; but if I said, “tell a story about a girl, a dragon, and a magic crystal,” you could get going much more easily. But then if I went too far and outlined every step of the story for you, so that there was little left for you to fill in but details, it would go out of balance on the other side and make the exercise seem pointless and boring. The sweet spot between “script” and “dynamic” is somewhere there in the middle, and the art of game design is finding it.
Well said, David.