There's an inappropriate but interesting thread in General going right now about the nature of GMs... I thought in order to keep it going, I'd try to divert it here. :)
I think one of the mistakes everyone involved in that thread is making is generalizing what a GM is. The philosophical portion of the thread started with FireKing telling someone his idea of selling GMship was ridiculous because no one would pay to be an administrator. Clearly, to him, a GM is someone who works hard to keep a game running smoothly for all the non-GMs, that is, the players. All very well and good... but what are the odds that this is anything like what the budding young entrepreneur had in mind? Clearly, he's defining GMs simply by the abilities that come with the rank.
And what, exactly, is wrong with that? The first letter in GM stands for "Game", after all... so the first thing we must ask ourselves is "What game?", with the unasked question being "Whose game?" Trying to tell someone else what a GM is in their game is like going into their game and going "how com u dont have vampire clans. vampires without clans SUX. vampires are suposed to have clans" or "y can clerics use swords in ur game? clerics cant use bladed weapons".
Now, you can argue until you're blue in the face about what a GM "is to you", or what you think a GM should be... but the fact is that the ultimate master or mistress of a game is the person who created it. It's up to him or her to decide what does or doesn't constitute a GM, administrator, deity, immortal, hero, helper, implementor, assistant, aid-de-camp, van-de-kamp, or whatever in their game.
That having been said, I still think it's worthwhile to discuss different concepts of GMs (and of GMing), as it's an important subject that touches on so many aspects of design: fairness, game balance, and the ever-elusive RPG question of which takes precedence: the R or the G?
What a GM is in my games depends largely on what game you're talking about. In LexyQuest, the GM is simply the person who starts up a session. They have the administrative authority to make a game private or public, and to escort people from the game if it becomes disruptive. They don't have any special powers within the game, though.
In LexyMUD, though, the GM is... well, me. LexyMUD is just what the name suggests: Lexy's MUD. In it, I can choose to be pretty close to omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent... and of course, immortal. But even when I choose to log in with a regular human character, I am stil the GM. Even if I were to use a different key that didn't activate admin powers... I would still be the absolute mistress of the game. It's still Lexy's MUD, after all.
So, anyway, that's my seventeen cents worth. (Yes, I do have an inflated opinion of myself. :P )
ID:154468
 Aug 18 2001, 7:32 am
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Foomer's idea for GMing in Foomer's stuff. (I love this topic!)
GM - What does GM stand for? Not GameMaster, not GameModerator, but simple Game Maker. That would be, me, in my game, anyway. Anyone else who contributed a significant amount of code would be a Co-GM, with perhaps minor powers or just for reputation's sake. But all the nifty goodies are in the hands of the master GM, the guy responsible for the creation of the game, the guy who adds new features and gets rid of the bugs. GM's aren't picked; you can't become a GM unless you make your own game. As the game maker, the GM can basically go anything he or she wants, with no one to stop them. There are no rules anywhere for what the GM is allowed to do and who has the right to set them anyway? :oP "It's my game I'll do whatever the heck I want with it!" Administrator - Administrators are in now way considered a GM, they are merely the people who keep things running smoothly, punishing problem players and giving the other players things to do, keeping things in line, yadda yadda. You can become an admin if the GM decides you are "worthy" to be one. Personally, I would never elect someone to be admin unless I could trust them, had known them a relatively long time, and knew they were mature enough to not abuse their power and interested enough in the game to show up regularly. This does not mean that just because you like someone they're instantly an admin, they have to be beneficial to the game in some way, more than they could be without that status. Admins are restricted to doing what is beneficial for the game. For the most part, they should remain invisible and not talk to players, but just watch over things and fix us what's not running smoothly. For this reason most admins have alternate player characters, who play the game... otherwise you end up with a game where the only people anyone sees are admins everywhere, which isn't terribly fun... Abuse of power results in lack of admin powers thereafter. Hero - A hero is a player, but a player who has considerably higher abilities that most players. This is NOT due to GM or admin modification, this is because the Hero player has been around a long time and is familiar with the game. By this time, they have usually been granted special status by GM or admins due to their experience (Captain of the Guards or Mayor, for example). But none the less they still lack admin powers such as BOOT and BAN. However, GM and admins can call them on to help the game flow better, perhaps setting up events and things for players to do, keeping the game interesting. These are usually the players who help newbies most, because the GM is busy coding and admins are busy running, the Hero's get bored and help out the little people. Hero's are player, so they can do anything a player could do. If they have special privileges they should be able to enforce those privileges by some player-caused means, and without interference from admins. | |
Deadron wrote:
LexyBitch wrote: Yep, a lot of games are made, because you can play god. You can, rain thunder down when people piss you off, or you can even erase them from the game permanently (Thats my opinion anyways). The same goes for GM ship, as Deadron stated. In my opinion, a GM can be many things depending on the type of game. Im currently making an RPG, and a GM in this could still mean many things. It could mean an immortal being with the sole purpose of making sure people dont abuse bugs, and general enforces. Or it could be a person hosting Quests, who is able to create mobs, objs, and turfs as they see fit to make the quests as fun as possible. Or something completely different. But, generally a GM is someone, who has the power to rig(Boost) the vars, and various things about players, or lower any person, and thats what attracts a lot of people who want to be GMs. And, thats how most games can turn bad, or atleast loose quite a few players. Anyways, my 2 cents Alathon | |
Foomer wrote:
Foomer's idea for GMing in Foomer's stuff. (I love this topic!) Actually, I was surprised when you weren't the first person to respond. | |
LexyBitch wrote:
Foomer wrote: Sorry I went to get coffee and got back too late. | |
Exactly right. When people come into your game and ask "can I be GM?" they're in fact asking, "Can I have more power than any other players in this game so I can lord it over everybody?" which Is why I never say yes.
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Foomer wrote:
Exactly right. When people come into your game and ask "can I be GM?" they're in fact asking, "Can I have more power than any other players in this game so I can lord it over everybody?" which Is why I never say yes. My answer varies depending on their phrasing when they ask. When somebody asks me how to become a GM, I tell them, "Make your own game." | |
LexyBitch wrote:
Foomer wrote: Which is really the best responce for people who come into XO and ask how to be a GM... | |
Foomer wrote:
LexyBitch wrote: I have the hardest time convincing people that I have nothing to do with the creation or overseeing of Lexiconomy... so I'm always being pestered by people who want to be a GM there. I asked someone what he thought a GM in Lexiconomy does, and he told me, "Decides who wins.* I told him he already was. *This is apparently a common misconception, because I've seen numerous grumblings by players about "unfair GMs" after the points are totalled in a round of Lexiconomy. | |
I have the hardest time convincing people that I have nothing to do with the creation or overseeing of Lexiconomy... so I'm always being pestered by people who want to be a GM there. I asked someone what he thought a GM in Lexiconomy does, and he told me, "Decides who wins.* I told him he already was. You'll just have to face the fact that some people are idiots, and they can't help it. | |
I don't care much for reading right now, but I'd just like to make a quit rant. Doesn't it piss you off when someone, whom yourve never met before, logs into your game, plays it for 2 minutes, and then starts nagging you to be a GM. I mean, what the hell is there problem? If I've invested hours of my time into making a game, why should I just let them log in, become onipitent, no doubt abue their power thus ruining the game for others, and completely miss the entire point of the game.
Best example for me is my super splat game. I havn't put admin commands into that game, and yet people still ask me if they can be an admin, when I tell them there arn't any admins, they go "Well why havn't you added them yet?". Well I've decided now to add a boot command, for those very people... | |
Botman wrote:
I don't care much for reading right now, but I'd just like to make a quit rant. Doesn't it piss you off when someone, whom yourve never met before, logs into your game, plays it for 2 minutes, and then starts nagging you to be a GM. I mean, what the hell is there problem? If I've invested hours of my time into making a game, why should I just let them log in, become onipitent, no doubt abue their power thus ruining the game for others, and completely miss the entire point of the game. Yah, ive seen people want to be GMs in games that just consist of an attack verb and a few mobs, 2 rooms. Its sad, utterly sad. I guess thats some peoples ways of, relieving stress, dealing with life, or just being plain idiots. Gonna go to bed and code an armor system in my sleep, or sumthin. Alathon | |
Best example for me is my super splat game. I havn't put admin commands into that game, and yet people still ask me if they can be an admin, when I tell them there arn't any admins, they go "Well why havn't you added them yet?". Well I've decided now to add a boot command, for those very people... My idea to deal with this would be to setup a little system, and start anyone with the key "Botman" with a verb called make_gm. When you use the make_gm verb on someone, it tells them: "You are now an official GM!" and adds them to the GM list. (which saves, mind you, and loads at a new game.) Everyone who is added to the GM list gets the make_gm verb now. So they are free to make whoever they want GM's as well. Of course, being a GM gives you nothing but a verb to make someone else a GM, but hey, this might actually satisfy some people :o) | |
Very good points lexy, I agree with everything u said there 100%. The only problem with people paying to be GMs is you can run into some very immature people. I used to use a system where people could pay to be gms in one of my games, 50% of the people who became GMs were corrupted(tho i only did this for 2 people). I simply kicked the other guy off, no problem whatsoever. So my 2 cents is : It's a good way to make money off your game. There are many people willing to pay to be GMs in game(my fee was 18$ a month), you just have to sift through and knock the immature ones out.
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Foomer wrote:
Best example for me is my super splat game. I havn't put admin commands into that game, and yet people still ask me if they can be an admin, when I tell them there arn't any admins, they go "Well why havn't you added them yet?". Well I've decided now to add a boot command, for those very people... I'd like something like this: mob/verb/make_GM(mob/M in world) if(M.client) M << "[usr] makes you a GM." var/mob/GM/G = new(M.loc) G.client = M.client G.icon = M.icon // transfer any other variables you like del(M) mob/GM // make a different mob if you already use GM in your game density = 0 visibility = 0 //overide all important verbs so they can't interact with anyone but they still think they can say(T as text) src << "[src] says: [T]" attack(mob/M in view()) src << "<span class=combat>[src] attacks [M] for [rand(10000,99999)] damage.</span>" get(obj/O in range(1)) src << "GMs don't need items." // etc. Sure, give them make_GM as a verb, but make sure to give the victims an option, like an alert box that asks "Would you like to be a GM?" so they can't use the verb to interfere. | |
Botman wrote:
Best example for me is my super splat game. I havn't put admin commands into that game, and yet people still ask me if they can be an admin, when I tell them there arn't any admins, they go "Well why havn't you added them yet?". Well I've decided now to add a boot command, for those very people... These are the people that believe you can never have too many managers in a given work place.... I shudder when I think of their matching haircuts.... | |
Ebonshadow wrote:
Very good points lexy, I agree with everything u said there 100%. The only problem with people paying to be GMs is you can run into some very immature people. I used to use a system where people could pay to be gms in one of my games, 50% of the people who became GMs were corrupted(tho i only did this for 2 people). I simply kicked the other guy off, no problem whatsoever. So my 2 cents is : It's a good way to make money off your game. There are many people willing to pay to be GMs in game(my fee was 18$ a month), you just have to sift through and knock the immature ones out. I have to play the bad guy here, you work damn hard on a game... and people are willing to actually pay money to be a GM, what's wrong with this idea/ so what if they terrorize people, the people playing it aren't the one's generating money :D take into consideration the fact that the game say was a quick game anyhow and not your masterpiece, just like a quick game you threw out there. Consider also adding a timelimit, say you can be gm for 12 hours per certain amount you enter. If I made 1$ out of my game, then that's 1$ closer to buying another blue book, etc and helping BYOND out :) | |
JonSnow13 wrote:
Ebonshadow wrote: If it was, a game that took a while, would you want to destroy the game? because thats what your doing by giving anyone GM for, say $5. In the end itl be so unplayable it wont pay off. Neways, off to do homework *bahhh* Alathon | |
However I think we can generalize about what is usually meant by GM in these hobby RPG games...
A significant part of the reason people create hobby RPG games, and almost the entire reason they try to become GMs of them, is to have power over other players.
It's not about having fun, or allowing other people to have fun -- it's about exercising power over them.