Talkback: Deathmatch Island

Listeners write back with their thoughts and responses to the last episode of the Rascal Reading Club, where we discussed Deathmatch Island by Tim Denee and Evil Hat.

Excerpt:

 Another interesting thing that you said, Andrew, was that you said that you are a fan of breaking the GM screen, treating them as just another player. Now, this is a thing I've said before and I think that one of the big things that's going on in the story game side of indie RPG development. I'm thinking of PbtA, I'm thinking of Forged in the Dark. A post-Apocalypse World state of being, trend, philosophy, a school of design...

This is the thing that all all games say all games. D&D says it, Call of Cthulhu says it, OSR games say it. Everybody is like, oh yeah, the GM is just another player. Like they should have fun. But that asymmetry between how the GM is supported and how the players are supported is still a very much at play there. If you've heard the sentiment that rules for GMing are restrictive. I don't like rules for GMs, that is a sentiment that says, I would like to preserve a central asymmetry, I don't want the GM to be just a player. Because players, they have rules. They have rules that restrict them.

Now. Sometimes I don't like those rules as well. But it's not that I have a principle disagreement to them. I just don't like that rule. And we, we all don't like tons of individual rules, right? The question is like, is this a principle or not? Are you in principle against stuff like Apocalypse World saying things like, here's your agenda, here's you moves, do only them.

And I think that there is this ongoing project: to actually reduce the GM to a player in terms of having a well-defined role that they do, no magic around it. Just here's the part of the game that you play and here's how you play that game. And just do that. And I think Deathmatch Island is a good example. Agon, like you said, calls the GM the strife player because they play the strife. And that's intentional. It's a very well defined GM role, which makes it easy to GM, but that's not necessarily the same thing.

OSR dungeons, very easy to GM, completely different. There is an asymmetry, but those are games that are completely player driven, right? That are like, Hey, GM. Here's this adventure. Here's a key location. This adventure is going to run itself. That sentiment, this adventure is going to run itself, is functionally the same thing as making the GM a player, right? I think a similar sentiment, but the method is completely different and those two play communities don't like the other person's method of doing it.

But generally I think it is good to name this project that we are undertaking in some forms of game design, which is actually making the GM a player and what does that look like and those methodological differences. And those play differences. And go like, oh, this is a cool thing that's happening now. And it's happening now. It was not happening 30 years ago. The thing that was happening 30 years ago was interesting and cool and good, but it is not this — this is a new thing.