Any GMless PbtA games out there?

#1

I have been contemplating taking the gmless route for my design and I was wondering if there are any games like that out there for inspiration.

Also, how would you go about it?

Thanks!

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#2

Belonging Outside Belonging (also called No Dice No Masters) is a GM-less change rung on PbtA. I don’t know of any GM-less PbtA games per se. However, BOB’s basic idea of distributing setting elements among the players would work relatively well in PbtA games.

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#3

That’s where my kind went at first, making setting elements into playbooks to be shared among the players inspired by BOB.

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#4

I too am unaware of any “standard PbtA” games that are GMless. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I don’t know them. BoB is already mentioned.

Out of curiousity, what part of the game are you most concerned with “De-GM-inating?” Roll results? World creation? Moment to moment play?

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#5

The GMless mode of Ironsworn probably fits the bill.

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#6

I just got it yesterday. I’ll give it an actual read as soon as I can, but through a skim it seems it runs on an oracle.

I haven’t played with oracles before, but I have played with setting elements (from BOB games).

Now I just remember that Venture, from Venture & Dungeon, has great setting elements and I think i will tinker with them a bit at some point. What do you think of that?

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#7

Dream Askew is GMless/GMfull.

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#8

Yes! I’ve read them! Same with Venture and Dungeon. I am gonna try to find some time to put a thing together based on Venture.

#9

Answering your question, I’d like to play some games instead of dming sometimes haha.

Seriously, I would like the world building and overall narrative outcomes to be handled by this engine. So yeah, so far BOB is the best framework to start of in my opinion, through adding setting elements players take control of.

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#10

We Used to be Friends is the only conventional PbtA game (not BoB or Firebrands) I can think of that’s GMless

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#11

Cool, I’ll check it out!

I was just suggested to look into 6e GMless too and to be fair, I think its approach is SO INTERESTING!

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#12

By my money the two best GMless PbtA games are ones not using No Dice, No Masters framework.

These are Flotsam: Adrift Among the Stars (diceless, shares some of BOB themes but takes a more structured, scene calling based approach to GMless play) and Encounter Force! (far more akin to ND, NM but utilising more classicaly constructed moves within the freeplay, token-based framework).

Personally I’m a huge fan of Flotsam, as it clearly defines who controls what within a given scene (and this clarity is sth I value immensely and lack in freeform GMless games).

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#13

Paranormal Inc. by Alicia Furness is a GM-less game based on the Brindlewood Bay system (which is PbtA). I haven’t read it in detail yet, but it looks very interesting! https://afurness.itch.io/paranormal-inc

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