Intro: GM-less means running a game where everyone is a player and there is no master in control. There has been much written on this topic and many approaches, I will outline the approach I have created for my group, its objectives, and the unexpected magic that sprung from it! If you have not already guessed it, yes, I am a GM, and fairly prolific at this point! I run two games a week for large groups and have been running at least a game a week for roughly… 6 years. And I love doing it! Bla, bla, more in bio (coming soon).

Note: Okay, but first, this is the sites first post so I want to just say something about writing style. I favor brevity in writing, so I’ll keep my posts short and to the point. Well then you might ask, “is blogging really something you want to do”? To that I’d say it’s less about writing fluffy articles and more about getting out actionable information with limited page space in this virtual zine. Our other authors will have a differing approach. Who knows… I can already feel myself getting long winded.

Background: The very idea of a GM-less game seems to be ever present in the thought-palace of RPG gamers. We want to have the rich experience of an adventure amid a well crafted campaign without the work and, well… or do we? There’s a lot of pieces to an RPG which one could automate, and it likely depends on the group as to which they’d choose.

The random dungeon concept is nothing new, there are likely hundreds of systems out there for this. Its related to the GM-less concept but can also exist wholly outside of it. There’s a system included at the back of the D&D 5e Dungeon Masters Guide, there are rollable tables online, donjon has an excellent system, there are decks of cards, the list goes on. Some of these systems tie the environment (usually a room) to it’s contents, others may have a loose theme with thematic encounters which can occur in a variety of thematic locations. I wanted to go a step further and ensure nearly anything could happen.

How do I conceptualize this? How do you tie together a seemingly absurd mix of random encounters? Its all in the narrative! Its about the story we tell ourselves, depending on your preference these things do not have occur in fixed time and space, that notion itself can be as random as the encounters, if you can take that leap. I picture my GM-less random system as though its being read from ancient manuscripts and historical accounts pieced together loosely to make a saga. Its up to us to connect the threads or leave it a mystery. I’m getting ahead of myself.

THE SYSTEM
Here’s how you do it, step by step.

Given you have a platform, in person or online, a group of players and all the normal things you need to play your RPG typically (you know like characters and dice) then you’re good to go, with just one additional piece of the social contract.

You’ll need some number of players willing to rotate responsibility for administrative tasks (moving monsters etc) and executing the steps below, ideally more than one player, as many as possible really but you may want to leave out the new person if they are still learning how to play.

On your turn you’ll do the following.

  1. Generate Encounter: There are many ways to do this. I use rpg tools this site gives a CR appropriate encounter with an optional description of motivations, its a great place to start if you’re testing out my system. You can generate a few and pick one, or however your group agrees to do it.
  2. Set the Scene: Whether you’re playing theater of the mind, on a wet erase mat, or using an online tool, you’ll want to roughly sketch the area and drop in features as you see fit (always add a bookcase which can be knocked over). You don’t have to use the prompt from step one, practice thinking on the fly, improv baby!
  3. Motivations: Characters and Monsters need goals. Give player characters a reason to be here and an objective. In the simplest terms it could just be: you need to defeat these enemies, but you’ll get more creative as time goes on. As for monsters, do the same.
  4. AI Tactics / Monster Behavior: we are fortunate as a community to have this resource The Monsters Know What they are Doing but its not the only option. D&D 4th edition Monster Manuals provide monster roles and tactics, they are very informative!
  5. You can do ANYTHING: initially this may sound like a boring combat generator. Hey, I love combat, doesn’t every role player? Seriously though. I’ve literally taken a page from the Mythic: Game Master Emulator to account for anything the players can imagine from the game scenario. “Don’t dream it, be it.” Its quite simply really. Typically you’ll just set chaos to 5 on the chart below, decide on the odds then roll it! Are there burning sconces here? Seconds later you have your answer. I suggest having the entire group decide or vote on odds, you can always take the average. Full Mythic Emulator PDF

6. Generate Treasure: You can use the DMG or one of the many online treasure generators. Again donjon is great for this. Play around with generating treasure hoards, its so fun!

7. Between Encounters: I use a playing card system to generate chances for short or long rest. It’s not a science yet but basically pull from a deck of standard playing cards. Diamonds are short rests, face cards you can save to use later, number cards are immediate. Hearts are long rests, same concept. Jokers can be use for leveling if you want to do milestone. You can do all sorts of stuff, I’ll write an article on this later. You can make cards dictate the challenge of the next encounter or even dictate the type of encounter: NPC, City, Shop, Treasure, etc. This in part will help for the timeline and narrative that stitches these encounters together. Here’s the full random Card Deck Dungeon I’ve been prototyping, it inspired the method.

8. Get Inspired (optional): If the story so far inspires you to come up with an encounter to insert into the mix, then just do it! Also, feel free to insert pre-made encounters from any source into the mix in any fashion the group is okay with!

Experiments: To help reinforce that this is a group effort I plan to experiment with having a player other than the one currently running the encounter actually execute the enemy actions.

Bonus: Here’s a magic shop generator: https://5emagic.shop/generate and for your entertainment: Weak Magic Items for 5e https://www.lordbyng.net/inspiration/

Yes, I’m a simulationist. [Future Article Link]

So, my group “tested” this system and the results, were good, but more surprisingly something really great grew from it almost immediately. I’ll explain that in a following post, stay tuned! [Future Article Link]

-Jacob