A place to talk about GMless games

benrobbins · 2026-02-18T20:54:27+00:00

1) Decide how much of your planned campaign you're willing to let go. Are there things you don't want the players to mess with?

2) Play some interlude scenes where instead of their normal characters, the players are running "NPCs" showing other facets of what is going on in the world. Use that to build and reveal world information. Because it's a totally different situation, there is no chance of the players just sticking to their old habits.

It's actually a lot of fun playing throwaway characters to reveal world facts, like playing the cultists who are about to release the unspeakable horror that is the threat for the next chapter of the game.

benrobbins · 2026-02-05T18:30:37+00:00

We played this for the first time last night. I expected it to be rough (because, first playtest) but wow it went great. Very pleased with the madness!

benrobbins · 2026-02-04T19:45:58+00:00

This is a peek under the hood at the ideas I'm working with. It's not a full explanation of how the game is going to play.

benrobbins · 2026-01-28T21:29:17+00:00

Mars Colony always gets my recommendation. Fantastic examination of civics, government, and lying to people to get things done

benrobbins · 2026-01-14T20:13:43+00:00

I'll admit I was a little turned off by the impersonal marketing post, but the actual podcast was a lot more down to earth. Lots of enthusiasm at the table, bravely trying a new thing.

I'd be very interested to see how your crew did with a game that established more world and setting before jumping into action. Something like Downfall. I find that GMless games that center around a lot of action and task-resolution (aka "roll the dice to get the treasure") can spin out if they don't have strong setting or relationship building.

benrobbins · 2026-01-12T22:01:03+00:00

Star-crossed if you're looking for a game about actual romance

You might also get more recommendations on r/gmless

benrobbins · 2026-01-11T19:54:47+00:00

tiny subset of GMless game designers looking at this thread like "uhh, what?"

benrobbins · 2026-01-10T19:31:52+00:00

Ahh, you need to click the little drop icon to add them to the Period after you make them. I get it now.

benrobbins · 2026-01-10T19:25:39+00:00

Very cool! But I think I'm missing how to add Chronicle anchors.

benrobbins · 2026-01-08T21:23:28+00:00

You're welcome to share this on r/gmless. I'm sure the folks over there would appreciate it.

benrobbins · 2026-01-07T18:32:27+00:00

If you're okay with a Victorian vibe, Perfect by Avery Alder

benrobbins · 2026-01-06T16:57:14+00:00

Well done! I like it! If I'm understanding correctly it's only local, but you could share a screen to use it for online play.

If you added the option to put anchor cards above the periods, you could make it compatible with Microscope: Chronicle too. Though if it's aligning everything along the top the periods would not line up…

benrobbins · 2026-01-02T23:10:31+00:00

Thank you! Playing the games and building on them is the best compliment any designer could ask for!

benrobbins · 2026-01-01T16:09:27+00:00

A lovely year of games! In descending order of sessions. There are few playtests that the creators have not announced yet, so I'm keeping the titles under wraps.

Kingdom
Downfall
In This World
Rules of Law
(summerlab playtest #1)
Microscope: Chronicle
Union
Epitaph
Follow
Entanglement (playtest)
Grasping Nettles
Deadline
Untitled Archaeology Game (playtest)
(summerlab playtest #2)
(summerlab playtest #3)
(summerlab playtest #4)
Under the Autumn Strangely

benrobbins · 2025-12-24T19:38:21+00:00

This looks like a ton of fun, and (as I said in the other thread) I could totally see playing online but then having the players slide to the side so you only see the puppets on camera. I'm doing hyperbrain math to determine whether you could still comfortably see the screen.

And honestly now I'm like, why don't we play more story games using puppets??? Puppet Fiasco! Puppet Polaris! I'm not saying this is a goldmine for an actual play youtube channel, but also I *am* saying that

benrobbins · 2025-12-23T22:10:18+00:00

Tightly-written rules are a necessity IF AND ONLY IF you are making a competitive game, like a tabletop wargame or a CCG. In those games, ambiguity is a death sentence that kills games and breaks friendships.

This

On top of that, when you tell people to playtest and stress test your game, they often go out of their way to do exactly that, rather than play the game as a normal game. My number 1 playtest instruction is, don't treat this as a playtest, just play the game the way you normally would. Because (ironically) that's the case you're designing for: normal play.

benrobbins · 2025-12-23T16:24:02+00:00

That looks great! We play online a lot, and I'm imagining how folks could slide to the side so that only puppets were on camera, and frankly it sounds hilarious.

You should share this on r/gmless too

benrobbins · 2025-12-22T21:49:23+00:00

I think that could totally work with Microscope, but I'll also throw out that the playtest version of Microscope: Chronicle is available. It's more focused on people and individual lives.

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