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Greetings Game Designers,

If you go back tot he misty roots of Rogue trader, you see that is was originally intended to have two opposed players and a GM as arbiter. As we look through history, we also see games that pit players working as a group against GMs with the rise of Role-playing. This same feature has also come into play in various boardgames and dungeon crawler games such as Heroquest, Silver Tower, Space Hulk, Last Night on Planet earth, etc. etc.

Can this same concept of party/players vs. GM scenario be applied to wargames? What games have you read that do it well? What success criteria would you place on such a game? How would the mechanics work?

Discuss!

Yes, it can, I am not sure how to commercially do it though.

Creating another variable in the players needed for the wargame is a serious issue not to be trifled with.

Technically, the GM of a RPG is not actually "against" the players. Refereeing the antagonist forces and resolving things on their behalf isn't an active opposition specifically designed to defeat the heroes. Given that RPG worlds are relatively open-ended, a GM who is actually against the players would simply drop an Ancient Dragon or other high difficulty monster on them, and annihilate them outright.

D&D 4E is often considered a tabletop wargame in RPG clothing, so I think that kind of answers the OP question.

Many co-op games a la Zombicide, Journey, SDE might as well be refereed, and that sort of game engine can be done quite well as a direct wargame. Multiplayer OGRE would also work this way with one player controlling the OGRE as usual, and the other player(s) controlling detachments of pseudo-conventional forces.

If I were making such a game, I'd look at something akin to Evolve, with 1 player controlling the big beastie, and the other players controlling their individual hero(es). In a 40k context, it's me playing the Warlord Titan against a number of allied Imperial detachments.

Yes, yes, the GM in an RPG is there to help facilitate the story yadda, yadda, yadda. However, I think you get the general idea. Not necessarily 'against" but instead to simply challenge them with scenarios/missions/antagonists and the like?

I am not as interested in the idea commercially, more as a concept for a party-style skirmish wargame. Inquisitor got close to this, but there was clearly two players being assisted by a GM.

So, like Descent?

Really, the GM in RPGs descends from the arbiter in classic wargames such as Kriegspiel. RPGs originated as the skirmish version as the players switched from commanding armies, to controlling individuals on a continuing basis.

@OP - I need you to clarify what you are asking for.

PvP+GM?

or

Players vs GM?

There's a difference. The former is any classic double-blind wargame played "properly". ASL, for example. The latter is any co-op dungeon crawl board game that has sufficient complexity that one of the players stops playing a hero in order to wrangle the beast.

I was think Cooperative vs. GM. However, the players would control squads or warbands instead of single models OR they control single models but not on a set board like a board game.

 Easy E wrote:
I was think Cooperative vs. GM. However, the players would control squads or warbands instead of single models OR they control single models but not on a set board like a board game.

Oh, that's Zombicide : Rue Morgue with 1 player wrangling the Zombies.

Coop VS GM is simply asymmetrical PVP.

The old Rogue Trader was PVP+GM which is something completely different.

Yes, I know this.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Zombicide use a board like last Night on Planet Earth style games?

I am thinking boardless, coop vs. GM wargames.

Zombicide is a tiles game, not a fixed board.

It would be trivial to say moving == 4"

I am still not clear what the topic is about -- what the OP is asking for in terms of a game.

Is it a game in which there are several players, all controlling individuals, detachments or army corps on the same side, and an umpire runs the whole opposition?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
there are several players, all controlling individuals, detachments or army corps on the same side, and an umpire runs the whole opposition?

Yup. That's exactly what the OP is looking for, but did a terrible job explaining in the OP.

No need to rib him about it.

I've played Vietnam skirmish games in which the Viet Cong/NVA are played by an umpire and the platoon is split into sections each controlled by a player.

This of course creates a different dynamic to a normal confrontational war game since the umpire can do whatever he wants behind the scenes, such as repositioning units, to create a more exciting game. In this respect it is a bit more like an RPG than a conventional wargame.

The same approach could be taken up in a lot of different rule sets. It is particularly appropriate for games in which there needs to be a strong component of hidden movement, cross ref to the other thread discussing that aspect of game design.

Another game I played was a Megagamers recreation of the Battle of Britain, in which the German raids were generated by computer. The British side consisted of radar and observers, various levels of HQ down to squadron dispatch level, and then the Squadronnaires (I was one) whose job was to "scramble" and make dogfighting messages on the "radio" and roll some dice to reflect combat. Also some AA and balloon forces, and airfield maintenance.

In one respect, there wasn't a German player, since the German operators merely had to read off the computer directions and report the raid movements to the British radar and observer corps players, who fed it into the command and control system.

The kind of game which pits a group of players against a "Dungeon Master" with a genuine competition in mind is Super Dungeon Explore or Doom. There are several board games with a similar concept -- Descent, for example.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
No need to rib him about it.

I've played Vietnam skirmish games in which the Viet Cong/NVA are played by an umpire and the platoon is split into sections each controlled by a player.

This of course creates a different dynamic to a normal confrontational war game since the umpire can do whatever he wants behind the scenes, such as repositioning units, to create a more exciting game. In this respect it is a bit more like an RPG than a conventional wargame.

The same approach could be taken up in a lot of different rule sets. It is particularly appropriate for games in which there needs to be a strong component of hidden movement, cross ref to the other thread discussing that aspect of game design.

This is what I was looking for. Thanks.

Do you happen to recall the name of the game?

The thing is, if you remember the 60s you weren't there.

Joking aside I think it was Body Count but it's over 20 years since I played these Vietnam scenarios.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26766/bodycount-wargames-rules-vietnam-war

In my opinion, practically any set of tabletop rules can be fairly easily adapted to play in the style you are interested in.

You should check out Strange Aeons then.

It's kind of a different take though. You control your 'adventurers'; agents and investigators, and your buddy controls the creatures, cultists and all the ugly stuff. Then you switch sides. The players have different teams.

Your team gains experience, items and everything, campaign-style.

I guess it wouldn't take much work to make it cooperative versus a GM who always plays with the 'Lurkers' (as the game calls them)

To tell you the truth, I actually love this idea, but I think it would be hard to do without stepping dangerously on RPG-ground