The Good GM

I have mentioned several times before my hobby of tabletop roleplaying, and used it to discuss ‘railroading’ vis-à-vis predestination and free will, and talked about the fictional religions often used in such games. 

I tend to run more games than I play in, and I’m a fairly experienced GM. I read online forums like RPG.net, I’ve written my own set of rules, and created several different worlds in which to run games. Recently I’ve been watching RPG streams like Titansgrave and Critical Role (the latter especially is excellent) and got some quite good GMing tips from these. I really enjoy running games. I love the creativity, the story-telling, the necessary improvisation when your players do something really unexpected (i.e. stupid). Even the frustration (e.g. when your players spend an entire hour discussing how to give a group of guards the slip, and then pop back to let them know where they’ve gone, just to give an example) is entertaining in its own way.

There are certain things that are considered good and bad practice when it comes to running games. I’ve discussed railroading (forcing the players into a given action instead of letting them choose) before. However, one of the other devices usually considered a significant no-no in GMing is the GM player character, or GMPC.

This is essentially what it sounds like. Usually, there is a firm divide between the one player character (PC) controlled by each player, and the vast number of non-player characters (NPCs) controlled by the GM, and with whom the PCs interact. The GMPC blurs that division, and can potentially take advantage of out-of-character knowledge that the PC’s can’t possibly have, purely by dint of being controlled by the person who knows the plot. At it’s very worst, the GMPC can become a self-insert for the GM, a power-trip in which the character is more knowledgeable and competent than the PCs, and becomes the main character in the plot, relegating the players to the role of observers, or, at best, assistants. It’s rarely much fun for the players, who rightly expect to be the focus of the unfolding story.

However, the GMPC can also be used effectively to help steer characters in the right direction and avoid the forbidden railroading, and if there are a limited number of players, can be used to fill a gap in a party’s capabilities. The GM has to take great care though that the GMPC never makes decisions for the rest of the party. It can and has been done well, but the dangers are constant and real.

C S Lewis used chess as an analogy (in Mere Christianity, I think) when discussing miracles and nature, but I am convinced that he was limited by the technology of his time, writing as he was before the invention of Dungeons & Dragons. I am not so limited, and can utilise resources denied to writers who would have been able to make much better use of them than myself, but I’ll do my best. With Easter just behind us, I’d like to think about the Good GM, and his GMPC.

The Great GM in the Sky is (if it’s not blasphemous to say so) a mega-nerd of the kind who has not only created His own campaign world, He’s even created the rules-set by which it operates. The best number of players for a game is generally considered to be between three and six, but God is currently running for several billion, and inviting more in all the time. That there is a plot, I have no doubt, although as a PC obviously I have no idea what that plot might be. The GM’s screen is vast and impenetrable, and we’ll only get a look at His notes when we lose our last hit point and our character sheet is relegated to the Folder of Dead PCs.

Like all players, we seem to have a remarkable ability to ignore the plot, and when we’re not ignoring it we’re messing it up. The Good GM will not railroad us though. We must choose to follow the plot, or else there’s not much point of playing, either for us or the GM.

Instead, He has done what other GMs have done since, and sent NPCs to us with tasks to draw us back into the story, or dropped clues or information that we ought to be following up to get us back on track. Instead we’ve either ignored the NPCs, or beaten them up and looted their treasure. We then complain that we’re getting bored, that the campaign doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and that we’re not levelling up as quickly as we think we ought to be.

The GM considered His campaign, and what would happen if events continued to unfold in the way in which they were. According to both the nature of His campaign world, and the rules by which He was running it, the only obvious conclusion was a massive and inescapable TPK; the complete destruction of both the world and every character within it.

With every other reasonable option exhausted, the Good GM had to take a drastic step, and introduce a GMPC. He had to insert Himself into his game world, build a character according to the rules by which His universe operates, and interact directly with the players. It is not best practice, but if anyone could do it well, it’s Him. Nor did the GM stop being the GM just because he was also the GMPC. He is capable of being and doing both at once.

The GMPC walked amongst us, but didn’t try to overshadow us with His perfect knowledge of the plot, or make decisions on our behalf. The Good GM used Him well, giving us extra information, dropping hints and clues, pushing us gently back towards the plot.

We beat him up and looted his treasure.

No doubt holding His head in His hands even though He knew it was coming, and as much as perhaps He wanted to, the Good GM could not fix things by merely breaking the rules. If he did so, then the game became meaningless and pointless. Instead, he did the next best thing. He fudged.

Every GM occasionally has to ignore a dice roll or hand-wave a rule to further the plot, and the Good GM has been no exception. From our limited perspective within the game, we call such things ‘miracles’. However, if you ignore every dice roll and hand-wave every rule, then there’s no game left to play. The rules are there for a reason, and have to be followed, at least most of the time.

Now though it wasn’t simply ignoring a bad roll or conveniently forgetting an incidental rule for a moment or two. This time, He had to fudge the rules in a massive way, but without breaking the world or the game. He also had to do it in a manner which didn’t remove player agency; which avoided the dreaded and game-breaking railroads.

He found a way. The GM subverted His own rules, and the GMPC sacrificed himself to change the way the game was going, and pull us back from the brink of destruction. The plot isn’t over; it’s still up to us PCs to get back on track and follow the story to its conclusion. It’s up to us to ensure that we play in the best way possible, use our abilities and equipment to greatest effect, cooperate to maximise the overall capabilities of the vast player party in which we find ourselves, and eventually bring the campaign to the end the Good GM has envisioned all along, whatever that might be. Whatever it is, I believe that it will be the best of possible endings, both for the Good GM who so ardently desires the enjoyment and satisfaction of His players, and for those players and their PCs, for as long as the great Campaign runs, and for ever afterwards.

Game Mechanics and Real Morality

I’ve mentioned before in this blog that one of my hobbies is the running and playing of table-top roleplay games.  I think that I’ve also mentioned that I have written up my own set of rules, and created several different campaign settings to use them with.

My rules are in a constant state of development and play-testing.  They’ve gone through 3 distinct ‘editions’ and uncountable minor tweaks and changes.  Almost all roleplaying games (and mine is no exception) describe both player and non-player characters though a series of numerical statistics that show how strong or weak they are in various mental, physical and interpersonal aspects.  I’ve recently been toying with the idea of inserting another appendix into my rulebook dealing with additional character attributes that could be included, depending on the genre of game being played.

Many games make use of an ‘alignment’ mechanic of some kind to track a character’s morality and ethics.  The classic example is Dungeons and Dragons’ double axis system of Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic and Good-Neutral-Evil, allowing a character to choose one of nine alignments, from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil, to represent their moral outlook.

I’ve been tinkering with this idea, mostly thinking about how it would work for an Arthurian-style game, and I’ve been considering 2 separate numerical traits, Virtue and Glory.  Virtue is gained through acts of generosity, mercy and kindness, and lost through acts of cruelty, ruthlessness and evil.  Glory is gained by defeating enemies, courageous deeds and completing quests, and lost by being defeated, and through cowardice and failure.  It would be possible to increase both scores at the same time, or increase one and decrease another (by, for example, defeating a powerful enemy and gaining Glory, but then killing him after he’d surrendered, losing Virtue).

A certain level of Virtue would be required for a character to be able to enter a particularly sacred place, use certain magical items, be approached by certain magical being, or to look upon, or even be allowed to drink from the Holy Grail.

The idea is that it encourages player to play their characters in a certain way (which is why such a mechanic is only suited to certain genres).  However, there is a problem with such a mechanic (and this goes back to the whole ‘means and ends’ thing I’ve been chewing over recently, and to my pondering on ways of giving to charity even further back) in that it encourages characters to do good not because this is how their characters ought to be behaving, but for an out-of-character reward.

“Ok, so I murdered that peasant because it was funny, but I can just get that Virtue back by donating money to the next five beggars I meet.”  It ceases to be a reward for good roleplaying, and becomes a currency for which they sell their good behaviour, in the expectation of being able to spend it further down the line.

And now; the inevitable real world analogy! (You knew it was coming!)

It is my belief that people ought to do good, and avoid evil for the sake of doing good, and avoiding evil, as ends in and of themselves, and not as means to some greater reward or evasion of punishment.  I always refused to get involved in the very public displays of charity that the supermarket I was employed by indulged in, because it was done as a form of marketing, and with the good of the intended recipients as a secondary consideration, at least by the company itself.

Should it matter?  If good is done and evil avoided, if charities are supported and people helped, does it matter whether it is an ends or a means, and whether our motivations are pure or self-centred?

In a word; yes.  In fact, my understanding of my religion is such that I think it’s possibly more important.  As I’ve said before, you cannot buy or bargain your way into Heaven.  God does not award Virtue points, and there is no threshold of points which will give you entry.  In fact, I believe that humans are incapable of ever earning enough Virtue points to ever get in.  This being the case, our motivations are far more important than our actions, although of course if they never become actions at all, our motivations count for less than nothing.

We should play our characters the way the great Games Master wishes them to be played, without any thought of out of character rewards.  We will be rewarded, but not because we have earned it.  In the meantime though, the Game will be that much better for our playing it well.

Fictional Religion

I’ve mentioned a few times before that one of hobbies is table top roleplaying games in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons and its ilk.  Many of these games revolve around medieval fantasy worlds more or less in the style of The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones; worlds which approximate Earth’s middle ages, but with the addition of elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards, magic, dragons etc.

A vast array of settings have been created to facilitate these games, from professionally published worlds that are specifically designed to accompany one set of game rules, such as the worlds of Glorantha, Harn or Titan, or worlds originally created for novels and adapted for roleplaying, such as Middle Earth, Hyboria or Westeros, to those created by individuals players and games masters (GMs) for their own use and tailored to their own individual tastes.

One thing that almost all of these have in common is the presence of religion in some form or another.  Because these worlds are not our own, neither are the religions.  There is no Christianity, Hinduism or Islam in these worlds, although homages, parodies and approximations appear in many of them.  In early versions of D&D, the ancient Norse and Greek pantheons were offered as gods that the Cleric could worship.  Normally though, fantasy religions are created out of whole cloth, sometimes inspired to a greater or lesser extent by real world religions.

The majority of fantasy religions are polytheistic, in which an array of gods covers various different domains, ideals and concepts.  These are largely created with the game in mind, and presented as gods that player characters are likely to follow.  As such each god has a fairly limited portfolio, and individual cults tend to be fairly straight forward, and while many games outline creation myths and stories covering the relationships between the gods, and outline each god’s teachings and commandments, few settings tend to go into too much depth regarding theologies or the details of regular ceremonies, rituals or services.

This presence of fictionalised religions is one of the things (along with the in-game presence of magic, demons and devils) that alarmed some Christians, and helped give rise to the hysterical religious anti-roleplaying movements of the 80s and 90s (and which still linger amongst some groups).  Needless to say, I share no such concerns.  I have no problem whatsoever with the concept of fictional religions, nor do I think that they trivialise real world faiths.  I have myself created two fictional religions; a standard fantasy polytheism for my Caledain setting, and a religion based on dual gods worshipped together as a single united faith, for use in a fantasy world which currently exists only in my head and a couple of very rough maps, and which may or may not see future development.

This is all a rather long-winded introduction to what I really wanted to talk about, which is the mental exercise of looking at Christianity as if it were a fictional religion.  How would it appear as detailed in the ‘Gods’ section of the D&D player’s handbook, with its scant details and basic information?

I’ve already said that most fantasy religions are both very specific and very poorly detailed, and this is largely because very few roleplay games are going to involve the minutiae of religious observance.  A cleric stating that they will spend an hour or two praying in order to recover their magical powers is about as much as you’re likely to get in the majority of games.  Individual gods will have tightly defined portfolios: Law and retribution; Fire and light; Healing; Plants and animals; Learning and wisdom etc etc.  Fantasy religions are also almost entirely devoid of metaphysics.  Because the gods are known to exist, and frequently intervene in the material world, primarily by providing their priests with magical spells and the ability to perform regular miracles, but also sometimes directly, there is little requirement for it, and for any concept of religious faith as we would understand it.  Games set in a fantasy version of the real world usually portray a very restricted, narrow version of Christianity, suited to the particular tone and requirements of the game (after all, they neither need nor want to be theological or anthropological treatises), and have it as either an oppressive force complete with bloody crusades, ruthless and unscrupulous witch hunters and sadistic inquisitors, or as a protective power, helping hold back evil and defeat monsters (or sometimes both versions at once).  What they actually have though is only the faintest approximation of Christianity as it is recognised by real world Christians.

My main conclusion is that Christianity is simply too large and too vague to function as much of a fantasy religion:

Symbol:  Which one?  The cross?  The dove?  The fish?  The Chi Ro?  We even use boats sometimes...

Associated colour:  Um, white maybe?  Or the rainbow?  Or none at all? 

Favoured weapon:  None really.  The sword? 

Portfolio:  That would be life, the universe and everything… 

Core teachings:  How long do you have?  Pull up a chair… 

It is also wholly counter-intuitive in its concepts of salvation and the Trinity, paradoxical, rich, wide, deep, mixed and baffling.  Many people shy away from this, or use it to claim that it must therefore be false, since no single, true thing could be this way.  Conversely (perhaps even perversely) I see this as being wholly supportive of its claims and teachings.  If Christianity truly claims to best represent the infinite vastness of God, then it must, almost by definition, be paradoxical, counter-intuitive and almost beyond understanding.  If it could be fitted into a column in a rule book, then I would assume that it was indeed fictional.

In short, any theology that could work as a fictional religion in its entirety, and which I could wholly understand, must be far too simplistic to even approximate reality.  That’s obviously not to say that if it doesn’t make sense, it must be true; madness that way lies.  There must be enough solid sense to be able to hang all the apparent vagueness from, a frame to hold up all the concepts that stretch further than the mind is able to go.  There seems to be a belief amongst some people that humans should be able to understand everything, and anything we can’t understand must therefore be false, or can at least be disregarded as unimportant.  I do not agree.  I believe that Christianity has such a frame, and if I can’t understand parts of it, it is only because its canopy stretches far further than I am able to see, and I am content with that.