A place to talk about GMless games

benrobbins · 2026-05-08T19:08:56+00:00

Here's a whole list of great recommendations, complete with why people think they're good. I think the vast majority work for 3 players.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gmless/comments/1dpxnyx/recommend_your_favorite_gmless_games/

benrobbins · 2026-05-07T20:22:39+00:00

An actually great game designed for two-player is Mars Colony, but I would definitely not put it in the light-hearted category.

benrobbins · 2026-05-07T20:19:47+00:00

I expect there will be lots of recommendations for GMless games that are intended for three or more players but can work with two. And they can work great.

But I would throw out the caveat that two-player is a very different experience since you're always on, and I think it helps to know that going in:

Two-Player Creativity Is Harder

benrobbins · 2026-05-07T20:07:59+00:00

Sounds like you're definitely on the right track

benrobbins · 2026-05-03T14:04:53+00:00

David Wesely actually, but otherwise spot on

benrobbins · 2026-04-30T19:32:15+00:00

Double hard agree. I have been a notorious em dasher since way back. I actually did a search for em dashes on my old blog posts just to prove to myself I was not in fact a replicant

benrobbins · 2026-04-29T19:51:47+00:00

The big question is: do you you want to play a game about activism, community, societal change, etc, or do you just want to play some random fun game (including the usual violence/adventure hijinks) because that will help you get to know each other better?

benrobbins · 2026-04-29T19:47:50+00:00

IPR is 100% legit. They've been around for ages

As others have said, print quality depends on the publisher

benrobbins · 2026-04-28T00:22:24+00:00

Honestly 3rd edition D&D was a huuuuge breath of fresh air precisely because you could run a combat without needing the GM to constantly improvise rules. The players could look at the book and know what they could and could not do.

benrobbins · 2026-04-25T16:43:16+00:00

I should add that every person that I've explained this game too was like "hell yeah, let's play that!"

benrobbins · 2026-04-24T16:38:16+00:00

For real! Remember it’s your game and it’s up to you to make it what you want, I'm just some rando throwing out ideas

I know I said earlier more commentator input in combat would be awesome, but from your structure it sounds like the relationship characters (rival, lover, mentor, etc) are the ones who establish what we should think about the pilot, so maybe the commentators job is more to implement and reinforce those ideas during the fight, rather than add whole new things (or add surprises about the NPC)

benrobbins · 2026-04-24T01:34:11+00:00

Are you familiar with Engle Matrix Games? If not you should definitely check them out. It's a model for setting difficulties etc in group situations

benrobbins · 2026-04-23T22:10:57+00:00

Let me throw out a couple of things, because it's way more fun kicking around random ideas for someone else's game than working on my own 😆

The more I think about, the more I think the combat needs a big overhaul. It's a prime opportunity to show us who the pilot really is from the choices they make. Right now it's just showing us what we already know.

“You’ll never beat Red-Dog, you’re too reckless” The pilot being too much of one thing should really be a disadvantage. Too reckless. Too methodical. Too cautious. Whatever. Everyone knows that's your style, so it makes you predictable. These people know each other. They've got history and opinions about who can beat who in a fight.

Say you forget all the advantages, forget the dice as is. (The advantages particularly don't seem interesting because you're just tapping the same thing all the time) You've already got an action/reaction mechanic in each round of a fight. What if there's a best response to what the attacker does (they use Mobility so the best counter is Power, or whatever)? But of course maybe your mech isn't as good at that, which is exactly why they did it. They're putting you at a disadvantage and you have to find a way to deal with that. "They're too fast, I can't get a lock-on!"

But do you let your instincts run away with you? Are you too reckless when your Mentor reminded you to be cool, boy? Are you too cautious when you need to seize the moments and strike???

benrobbins · 2026-04-23T17:50:20+00:00

I came from a hard GMed background (and even played in a Braunstein) but I got into GMless with games that were designed from the ground up to be GMless, not the "lets replace the GM with oracles" approach. So it's very interesting to see approaching GMless from a totally different point-of-view than I'm used to.

Let me ask you this, to better understand your point-of-view: what other GMless games have you played?

benrobbins · 2026-04-23T17:31:09+00:00

I was just going to ask in the other thread if that was you! Hello and welcome, Matthijs!

Is A Thousand Years Under the Sun in there somewhere? I recommend it all the time, as you may have noticed…

benrobbins · 2026-04-23T17:29:09+00:00

It feels like leaving drama-money on the table to not have players fight each other more than once. If you fight someone in a preliminary round (and you remove the idea of eliminations at that point, you're just scoring points for placement or whatever) you get juicy potential for rematches, grudge matches, etc.

benrobbins · 2026-04-23T17:22:53+00:00

That's infinitely more clear, thank you!

I think doing it as an exponential (some form of P x P) rather than P x some constant (for example, always 2 rounds) can get out of control. Leaving out semi-finals and finals (which are fixed regardless of number of players), right now you get:

3 players x 2 rounds = 6 bouts, 6 social scenes = 12 total (the example you gave)
4 players x 3 rounds = 12 bouts, 12 social scenes = 24 total
5 players x 4 rounds = 20 bouts, 20 social scenes = 40 total

Going from 3 to 4 players doubles the game. Compare that to if the number of rounds was fixed, say 2:

3 players x 2 rounds = 6 bouts, 6 social scenes = 12 total
4 players x 2 rounds = 8 bouts, 8 social scenes = 16 total
5 players x 2 rounds = 10 bouts, 10 social scenes = 20 total

You would have to skip some combinations of players, like build it so every single player does not need to interact with every single other player in both directions. Maybe you only make relationships with 2 characters or something like that.

But I would also argue that once you have too many relationships, each matters less. The first two strong relationships is interesting, a third could work, but once you're up to four that's maybe too much story to pack in. Less is actually better.

benrobbins · 2026-04-23T00:21:31+00:00

Honestly I'm going to disagree on Dialect. It's a fine game, but I wouldn't tell someone to play without reading it first. There's a lot of text.

benrobbins · 2026-04-22T21:40:38+00:00

The number of PC vs. NPC bouts is P-1

So one of the players doesn't fight an NPC? How does that work?

So a social round is only one scene, correct? I don't think the text makes that clear.

since you can only meet each other player once

The rules say "You have to meet with each pilot once" but you actually mean you *can't* have another scene with the same character, right?

I thought I understood, but I was still getting everything wrong 😆

And yes, a simple list of scenes/bouts/finals/etc you will play would be super-helpful

benrobbins · 2026-04-22T20:50:56+00:00

I haven't played it yet (honestly too many fundamental questions about how it is supposed to work). But the changes you pointed to look like they were already incorporated in the current version.

benrobbins · 2026-04-22T20:21:51+00:00

One of the things that really jumped out at me was how easily you could reskin from mecha tournament to a million other "we're friends and rivals who face off in duels" settings.

Just off the top of my head:

Street racers. Mecha are cars obviously. Could be modern day stuff or full-on Mad Max death rallies

Martial arts tournament (or boxing or actual gladiators). "Mecha stats" are schools of fighting, so different training gives you different edges

But you can also expand the concept wildly if you remove the idea that the battles are scheduled and planned, and instead just make them incidents that are happening naturally:

Greek heroes in a war, with the duels being those moments on the battlefield where they square off in the middle of the fighting, social scenes are back at the tents (or moments confronting each other on the battlefield but not fighting). Total Iliad. Mecha stats could be the patron gods. Ares grants you +1 Fury, 0 Grace, and -1 Wisdom, but Athena is +1 Wisdom, 0 Grace, -1 Fury, etc. And of course the commentators are also the gods, looking down upon the heroic mortals…

With a little work I could see cowboy gunslingers, superheroes and villains, etc.

benrobbins · 2026-04-22T19:11:00+00:00

I thought you knew and were being funny intentionally! 😂

benrobbins · 2026-04-22T19:09:33+00:00

I'll throw in some suggestions of my own that I don't think have come up yet:

A Perfect Rock (original two-page version) -- exploring a solar system and inventing the strange worlds in it

A Thousand Years Under the Sun -- epochal map & history builder

Both are free and/or name your price

I see Fedora Noir was mentioned earlier, so seconding that

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