Thursday, November 12, 2015

An RPG Board Game: Everyone has a turn as Gamemaster

I have never in my life encountered a board game that was able to simulate the open structure of an RPG. Lately I came up with a new approach that maybe can solve this issue.

One of the problem those games encounter is that they require preparation of a GM not to stay very static. While in an RPG being the GM is the reward in itself, this breaks down in a board game simulation of an RPG.

My approach is to make every player the GM in each session of the game.

My basic idea was: elements are randomly shuffled around before the (sub)game starts and the GM of that section tries to create a story/ an adventure based on this card.

After half an hour his turn is over and the next player, becomes the GM. There are two different ways for it to play out: a completely new story starts, or the new GM continuous the current one.

At the end of the game - after everyone took turns - the winner is the one who gets most votes for his or her adventure. This voting process should be anonymous. And it should be split in to multiple categories. Additionally voting for best "normal" player can take places. Even splitting it up, for best actor, strategist, etc.

A potential title would be: Storyteller Power Hour, although something based on the theme of the cards could also make sense.
"The Oscar goes to" would be a title if you want to make it more mainstream. In this case creating a random title for the story/ movie would also be fun. Another option would be "Director Awards".

Actually you don't even need cards: a set of tables should do the job as well.

Categories for cards or tables could for example be:
Profession
Strength
Weakness
Location
Items

Here you can find a list of attributes for random generation.

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