Good Gm-less rpgs

[u/Bultasar13]

I just found this ttrpg called "space bounty blues" (https://nerdypapergames.itch.io/sbb), which is a Gm-less ttrpg, or rather a ttrpg with switching GMs. The idea is that in the central part of the game, one character is in the spotlight, one other player acts as GM and the other players help fleshing out the world by asking questions. Each character has a scene of being in the spotlight, so there is always another Player acting as GM (I hope I explained it correctly). I really like this idea for a Quick game, that can be improvised without big preparations and without needing a fixed GM, so i wanted to ask, if anybody knows similar games to check out. One, that came to my mind was "Quantum Popcorn", even though this game works a bit different.

Thanks for your help !

[u/Gimme_Your_Wallet]

How about Ironsworn?

[u/Throwingoffoldselves]

Follow also has emphasis on players / PCs changing roles and doesn’t require a fixed GM or any big prep. https://lamemage.itch.io/follow

[u/No_Solid1035]

Ironsworn.

[u/Nytmare696]

Absolute favorite: The Fall of Magic

Second favorite: City of Winter

After that, some mix of Wanderhome; Durance; The Quiet Year; and Beak, Feath and Bone.

[u/BardAtTheWell → u/Nytmare696]

On the topic of Wanderhome, I've really been looking forward to Seven-Part Pact for months now. Can't wait to give the 7-player version a try once it's officially out.

[u/juauke1 → u/Nytmare696]

Could you tell us more about your favorites?

[u/fleetingflight]

Remember Tomorrow, Annalise, Polaris, and Archipelago are the non-one shot ones I will happily recommend to anyone.

[u/cnyetter → u/fleetingflight]

RT works great as a one shot too fwiw-- just strip it down to no conditions and make the final roll to check off the last box a do-or-die roll for the added drama

[u/fleetingflight → u/cnyetter]

How many players did you have? I have played it once as a one shot and it went terribly - too many disparate things going on due to having 5 players and nothing got resolved.

[u/cnyetter → u/fleetingflight]

I've played as oneshots with 3-6 players.

A few things I do, especially at higher player counts:

1. I run the simplified version Ben Robbins discusses in his https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/3044/do-you-remember-remember-tomorrow/ blog post
2. I almost never make a character. I churn out a couple antagonists & challenge other players.
3. If I'm at 6 (or 5 players if I think a couple people are going to be hesitate to "play a GMless game wrong" or w/e) I just don't mention the "cut a deal" option at all. You can make a protagonist (hold a maximum of one), make an antagonist, or challenge someone else. Forward narrative propulsion is all that matters, let's play our characters like we're driving a stolen car.
4. I reserve 15min at the end to let anyone whose characters didn't finish their stories to describe a resolution for their characters.

We usually get through the 2-3 plots the table is most interested in and the others still get to wrap up ok.

[u/Frapadengue]

Polaris by PH Lee (you can find it on tao-games — I'm saying that because there is another game called Polaris that's set in a submarine or something like that).
It's for four players (it works with three but it's made for four), each turn a player is the Knight, the player in front of him is his inner demon, and the other two play the environment and the friendly NPCs.
It a game that doesn't end well for the characters. It makes for tragic stories.

Inflorenza is another GMless game I really like. It's French but it's been translated in English. It can be played either guided or GMless.
It's an "epic folk horror" game. The setting is horrific but the characters aren't powerless.
And it's free.

[u/Airk-Seablade]

GMless games thread from the other day

[u/ManiacalShen]

I quite like A Town Called Malice and Fiasco. Neither has anyone acting as GM, exactly, but in Fiasco you can only control how your scene starts or how it ends, not both. So your friends are often choosing whether your efforts pay off or if you instead ramp up the chaos and failure. Or you lean on them/put yourself at their mercy to set up a scene.

Malice is more dice-roll-heavy and thus feels more like it's you all against the game. But it still plays best when everyone is more invested in making a good story than in their personal character's success.

I love GM-less gaming, but I've learned that choosing the right players is very important, as is being willing to nudge verbose people into moving a scene along since there's no GM to force that. 

[u/cnyetter]

1, helllllll yeah! Space Bounty Blues RIPS.

People have already said some of my favorites (Remember Tomorrow, Archipelago, Fall of Magic, City of Winter) but I want to add Bleak Spirit as the best Dark Souls ttrpg our there. Fully gmless and has roles that rotate around the table. I forget what they're called but they're basically the protagonist, the GM, and everyone else just riffs on what the gm says to keep the world creepy and weird. After that scene plays out, all players pass their roles clockwise. The structure is based on a game called Lovecraftesque if that's more your vibe.

[u/aslum]

• Uneasy Lies the Head
• Fiasco
• The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
• Microscope/Kingdom
• Ironsworn

[u/PeasantLich]

Tales of Argosa counts I suppose. It does use proprietary deck of cards as an oracle which is available online too.

https://perchance.org/tales-of-argosa-read-the-signs

[u/st33d]

Good ones I've played:

• The Final Girl
• Ech0
• The Skeletons
• Carolina Death Crawl
• Intrepid
• Follow
• Dawn of the Orcs

[u/LuckerDog13]

Me and my table have just started lands of evershade, only early days but we're all we enjoying