Other GM involvement in the rp

[Onmyoji]

I'm curious what type of moderation in group rp do people generally prefer - in terms of how heavily the plot is influenced by the GM (game master / creator of the rp).

The poll choices are pretty self-explanatory.

1. Heavy GM involvement. The story is pretty much written by GM and players only follow it. GM is involved in interactions between players (for example as NPC or GM's character is somehow important in the story to drive it forward).
2. Medium GM involvement / semi-sandbox. Only major plot points are decided by the GM, the rest is made up by the players. GM may or may not have a regular player character, may control some important NPCs.
3. Little GM involvement / sandbox. GM only introduces the lore and is responsible for accepting characters etc, but doesn't influence the way the story is developed. GM's character is also a regular player character.

I'd like to see which type is preferred by the players and why.

 

[Nue]

Medium to little. I see how certain types of RP require being really heavily directed by the GM, like a mystery one, but apart from that I think it takes away from the fun.

That, and there have been a surprising amount of roleplays for me where the GM has disappeared but the RP has carried on lol.. so if the RP needs the GM then that can't happen. Basically I think I just dislike group plots where most of the responsibility rests on one person or character.

 

[rae2nerdy]

So honestly until I came on here I never heard of any roleplay where the didn’t take part in the story as a regular player. They might also have set story arcs OR NPC if necessary to progress the action but they mostly just set up the lore and accepted the characters.

So I would say probably according to your definition Little & Medium are the ones I’m mostly used to.

 

[Idea]

In between medium and heavy. I prefer the GM deciding the major points accounting for player influences and decisions, and the GM being heavily involved through having a character of their own that is at the level of other player characters, while also controlling most NPCs.

While it seems this leans more towards medium, to me the medium proposal seems to imply a half/half involvement, and I definitely prefer a much bigger involvement and control than that. For instance, while the GM would decide only the major points they would still steer players towards those, including the targeting and proactive removal of plot-breaking elements. Now, of course there are right and wrong ways to go about this, chief among them I believe regards the transparency of what is or not removal criteria, but I nonetheless believe both ability to implement things and the relative constraints it creates help the RP in the long run.

 

[FoolsErin]

Medium to little. I see how certain types of RP require being really heavily directed by the GM, like a mystery one, but apart from that I think it takes away from the fun.

That, and there have been a surprising amount of roleplays for me where the GM has disappeared but the RP has carried on lol.. so if the RP needs the GM then that can't happen. Basically I think I just dislike group plots where most of the responsibility rests on one person or character.

Pretty much my feelings on this. You couldn’t have said it better.

 

[Jannah]

I typically prefer the second option. I think there needs to be a healthy balance of both the GM and players contributing to the story. RP is a joint effort so doesn't really work when one single person is contributing everything to the story.

 

[d1uni5ys24si3o]

As a GM, heavy involvement ends up with you having too much stress.

Medium is usually good but you do tend to lose a lot of players but you do retain a lot. Usually the more successful rps.

Light never worked. Literally never worked UNLESS you were a gm that was involved, maybe 50 pages in the IC u disappear and everyone just continues (happened to me once) the rp continued on for like another 50 pages.

Overall, my preference is medium-light. Having roleplayers direct the story is amazing as long as they respect the limits of the universe if the GM desires.

 

[Lorsh]

As a GM, I let the players do whatever they want usually, but I still control all NPCs, as well provide the descriptions of the environment. If they want to go somewhere else, they can, but they can't pull new locations or NPCs out of their ass.

 

[Jannah]

I personally have only a GM'ed a few times, but each time I did have a set direction I wanted the story to go in, but I gave players creative liberty on how to get there. I also didn't really care what they did between the major set plot points as long as it didn't deviate from the lore for the universe.

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

Probably Medium, the GM, in order to hold roleplayer interest, needs to make roleplayers feel involved with every post. The perfect roleplay should put players in a situation where they feel like they are doing impactful things every post. Medium would be having those goal post but catering goal post with little touches to make the characters actions feel like they created the result of the goal post.

Heavy usually results in players realizing they are just listening to a story by GM.
Little seems like the GM gives no pushes or prodding to characters. Players cannot be trusted to figure out how to make things interesting and fun by themselves.

 

[Shuusuke]

I'd have to say the voting options make it complicated for me to vote. If there were something other than 3, it would've probably reflected the spectrum better, which is why I'm not going to vote. That said...

I dislike both extremes. The former feels like "hey I'm writing a story, fill in where I don't really care" and the latter feels like "hey I want to read a story, write it for me", and both of them step on the cooperative storytelling aspect, which is a pillar of RPing. Now while this may sound like I'm going for the middle option, that's not quite it either. I think the GM by definition needs to bear a greater responsibility on the RP (that they proposed themselves) than the other players. They spent the most effort coming up with it, so they should be the ones with the most to lose. I'm not saying they can't listen to the other players (which would be the heavy involvement route), but they need to have some control (otherwise that would be the little involvement route) and the final say in my opinion.

So for me, it'd be something between middle and heavy involvement.

 

[Idea]

The perfect roleplay should put players in a situation where they feel like they are doing impactful things every post.

I have to disagree there. While there are some RPs where that may be the case, unless you have an extremely low bar for what "impactful" means that is a goal to unrealistic to make for the perfect roleplay. Roleplaying is by nature, at least as far as forum roleplaying goes, a productive medium that involves a story. You have to write and make it, and it involves a story. Stories have low points and points of calm, and unlike a real story most of the time you can't trim a roleplay out of the "uncessary" parts, because by nature it's far more continuous and less structured than, say, a book.

What I'm trying to say in short is that low-impact to no-impact moments are a part of roleplay itself, an inherent aspect of it. Rather than eliminating these, I would argue the focus should be on making the best of them.

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

I have to disagree there. While there are some RPs where that may be the case, unless you have an extremely low bar for what "impactful" means that is a goal to unrealistic to make for the perfect roleplay. Roleplaying is by nature, at least as far as forum roleplaying goes, a productive medium that involves a story. You have to write and make it, and it involves a story. Stories have low points and points of calm, and unlike a real story most of the time you can't trim a roleplay out of the "uncessary" parts, because by nature it's far more continuous and less structured than, say, a book.

What I'm trying to say in short is that low-impact to no-impact moments are a part of roleplay itself, an inherent aspect of it. Rather than eliminating these, I would argue the focus should be on making the best of them.

Making the best of them would be the same as making them impactful. I would say that bar can be reached at least by a creative GM.
Here is an example:
I have a teacher greet both Player A and Player B who are both students. The teacher sees them walking down the hal and greets the both of them with the same hello in a nice manner.
Now usually a player would default to remarking the greeting is nice and just say the equivalent back (unless they really are an extreme of negative or they are a seasoned player).
In this situation that players would also likely say hello slightly back differently,if not my teacher can still judge by looks or body language-because I'm going to have the teacher hate student B's reaponse. Easy enough to come up with random reasons to then integrate in my NPC:
-Student looks so off.
-"Ever hate someone's voice"
-Teacher as walks past is hit by the student waving back.
I was able to make both players have different affect on the world, making a single teacher feel positive and negative is an impact I player will notice and take care in understanding how they use words won't always get them a result.
Next step after this would be to throw another NPC to student B that notes how they liked the same aspect the teacher critsized. This reinforces that my teacher was not a punishment for your response; it pushes an idea that you never know for certain but everything you do would lead (in the player's mind) a result unique to every action you do.

All of this cannot be thought of lowering the bar of impact if it can sway a player's perspective so much.
A RP is not more a book, but it is more akin to game design for a game with infinte and streamlined way to manipulate information and return an output. Ignoring an input would be horrible in a game, rewarding combination of inputs is the goal.

 

[Idea]

Making the best of them would be the same as making them impactful. I would say that bar can be reached at least by a creative GM.
Here is an example:
I have a teacher greet both Player A and Player B who are both students. The teacher sees them walking down the hal and greets the both of them with the same hello in a nice manner.
Now usually a player would default to remarking the greeting is nice and just say the equivalent back (unless they really are an extreme of negative or they are a seasoned player).
In this situation that players would also likely say hello slightly back differently,if not my teacher can still judge by looks or body language-because I'm going to have the teacher hate student B's reaponse. Easy enough to come up with random reasons to then integrate in my NPC:
-Student looks so off.
-"Ever hate someone's voice"
-Teacher as walks past is hit by the student waving back.
I was able to make both players have different affect on the world, making a single teacher feel positive and negative is an impact I player will notice and take care in understanding how they use words won't always get them a result.
Next step after this would be to throw another NPC to student B that notes how they liked the same aspect the teacher critsized. This reinforces that my teacher was not a punishment for your response; it pushes an idea that you never know for certain but everything you do would lead (in the player's mind) a result unique to every action you do.

All of this cannot be thought of lowering the bar of impact if it can sway a player's perspective so much.
A RP is not more a book, but it is more akin to game design for a game with infinte and streamlined way to manipulate information and return an output. Ignoring an input would be horrible in a game, rewarding combination of inputs is the goal.

Hmmm...I see. Well, that would be lowering the bar in my eyes, as the word "impactful" carries a lot more of a bang in my eyes, if you know what mean. Like making significant or meaningful progress in the plot or severely affecting a character arc. So in relative terms, it is that lowering the bar option, so I guess that clears the disagreement and misunderstanding on my part.

Thanks for clarifying

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

Hmmm...I see. Well, that would be lowering the bar in my eyes, as the word "impactful" carries a lot more of a bang in my eyes, if you know what mean. Like making significant or meaningful progress in the plot or severely affecting a character arc. So in relative terms, it is that lowering the bar option, so I guess that clears the disagreement and misunderstanding on my part.

Thanks for clarifying

That above could, should affect character arc or plot. It would be up to the GM how exactly to make actions impact the plot or a character arc but ,using the example above, possible options would be : pointing out a flaw from the Character Sheet of that player's character or makes the teacher realize- "Because I hate that student this school does deserve to be sent to a magical world".

 

[Idea]

That above could, should affect character arc or plot. It would be up to how the GM exactly but could be pointing out a flaw from the Character Sheet, or makes the teacher realize. "Because I hate that student this school does deserve to be sent to a magical world".

Pardon, I don't think I understood what you meant starting from that second sentence.

 

[NoviceOfRoleplay]

Pardon, I don't think I understood what you meant starting from that second sentence.

Edited.

 

[Idea]

Edited.

Thanks

That above could, should affect character arc or plot. It would be up to the GM how exactly to make actions impact the plot or a character arc but ,using the example above, possible options would be : pointing out a flaw from the Character Sheet of that player's character or makes the teacher realize- "Because I hate that student this school does deserve to be sent to a magical world".

Sure. I didn't say it shouldn't affect the character arc or plot at all, just that there should be a few times when that amount is very very small- to the point of being pratically insignifcant in the grand scheme of things I would argue- as otherwise you wouldn't actually be progressing things so much as shoving new content that doesn't belong in the RP.