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How does your favourite game ease the GM job ? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I keep reading over various internets communities, how being a GM is hard, how player are ungrateful spoiled kids, and how much GM struggles.

So which games have tools/mechanics to ease the GM job, and which are these.

For this discussion I would focus on the game itself, rather than on method used by groups.

Even though I feel like I know some answers, judging how active the community is at the moment, I try to open that thread and may-be a few others to keep the /c/ alive

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Both my favorite systems makes my GMing job easier and they do it in the same way - they give the players responsibility though their character's goals to drive the game forward. And they have explicit rewards helping in this matter.

Ironsworn (a PbtA) is the more direct of these. The characters swears vows and once they are fulfilled they get XP. Starforged, the SciFi version, adds more ways to earn XP through Bonds and Exploration. But we'll stay with the base Ironsworn. The vows are essentially quests but what makes them different from just any random quest is the mechanics surrounding them. First a tracker to measure vow completion is created, then as progress is made it is filled depending on vow difficulty. Now this sounds fairly standard except the only way to mark progress is through triggering moves, primarily the move "Reach a Milestone". Since Ironsworn is a PbtA the moves are player facing, it is the player through their character's actions that triggers them. Second awesome part is those trackers, each being ten segments long. They aren't automatically completed when they are filled instead there is move "Fulfil your vow" that states

When you achieve what you believe to be the fulfillment of your vow, roll the challenge dice and compare to your progress.

That is when the player thinks their character is in a position to have completed their vow they make a roll and see what comes out of it. It lets the player decide if their little work is enough (not much progress marked, high change of complications) or if they should work harder on it. Awesome pacing tool. Ironsworn is also made for GM-less play which gives so may tools to the GM they can almost go on autopilot.

Burning Wheel has an awesome feedback loop called the Artha Cycle. The very short of it is

Player states their character's beliefs (goals)
Player have their character try to achieve their beliefs possibly spending Artha (a player-facing currency used to manipulate rolls) to increse chance for success
Character earns progress in tested skills slowly increasing their proficiency in them
At regular intervals (often end-of-session) the players earn more Artha for their character's progression on beliefs
Player states their character's beliefs (goals)

And so it goes on and on. Often all I have to do as a GM is to keep track of the world and put obstacles in the way of the characters, as in challenge their beliefs. With players working the system I often not only get stated what their character's goal is but also what the obstacle is. Then all I have to do is play the world.