Hello! I’m sorry if you’ve answered this already, but do you have any recs (or anything you want to say for fun) about games with multiple GMs?
Theme: Multiple GMs
Hello friend, I may have recommended games similar to this but I don't know if I've actually fulfilled this prompt before! I'll do my best to show you some interesting games, and you can check out previous posts at the bottom in case there's something there that fits your tastes more.
Questlandia: Second Edition, by Turtlebun.
In Questlandia, you and your friends will invent a world from scratch. It might be fantastic or bizarre, from a remembered past or imagined future.You’ll paint a picture of your society and its people, their laws and customs, how they live and how they dream.
But your society is failing. As you play, your characters will attempt to find beauty and purpose amidst the chaos of a changing world.
Questlandia is a tabletop roleplaying game that creates fantastical worlds in states of change. It may be medieval fantasy in a ghost-haunted kingdom, neo-noir in a roboticized undercity, or microscopic slipstream suburbia in a puddle. The possible settings are boundless, but will always come from the interests of those at the table. Bring in real-world themes that intrigue you, references that inspire you, worldbuilding that follows your curiosity.
Questlandia uses dice and cards to help you create a society, as well as your character’s role in that society. I think this is a good example of a game where every person is a character, but every player is also a GM. You’ll roll against each-other to determine whether or not your society will be able to overcome their troubles. Overall, I think Questlandia is great for telling a story that spans a number of factions or nations.
Pantheon, by harpoon_gun.
4-6 GMs, who are distant Gods with their own desires and needs, and up to 3 players, champions of the Gods who are being forced to do their chores. Take turns toying with the champions, screwing over the other Gods, and building relationships of both the positive and negative variety.
All I know about this game is what I can divine from the description, but I would hazard a guess that much of this gameplay is going to feel a little bit like PvP. The gods that your GMs are embodying will have conflicting goals and desires, so expect to run into a lot of backbiting and backstabbing. The game itself was designed for the Bad TTRPGS Jam, which encouraged designers to fuck around with rules and see where it got them. So no guarantees for a balanced game here - but maybe an interesting experiment!
Fool’s Errand, by Myles Wirth.
You are a group of questants, pledged to a seemingly-impossible task. You must set out alone into the world, each following your own path by which the quest might be fulfilled. They will be long and difficult journeys, with no guarantee of success.
Inspired by legends and travelogues, Fool's Errand is a single-page tabletop game about perseverance in the face of uncertainty and the joy of worldbuilding together. It is prepless, gm-less, setting-agnostic, and can be played on its own or as a setup or interlude for another game. Rather than flattening Player-GM distinctions entirely, it inverts the traditional balance of a ttrpg table; players take turns as "seekers", individual characters traversing the world in search of an impossible goal, while the rest of the table forms the "Chorus", building and refining the world around the seeker as they explore it.
Fools’ Errand asks you to make some travellers and give them a quest that they cannot achieve. The game occurs over a series of turns; on your turn you’ll control your Seeker and declare what you want to do. The rest of the table becomes the Chorus, and build the Location that Seeker is in. The Seeker may then attempt to convince the Chorus that the way in which they will attempt to solve the problem is something they would be good at; and then rolls 3d6. Your result may grant you a Boon or a Burden, which may draw you closer to or pull you farther from your character’s goal. Your characters also have a Resolve pool, which will diminish over the course of play.
I think success is still technically possible in this game, but it’s highly unlikely. What is more likely is that characters will slowly give up on their quest, and join the Chorus in telling the story of who remains.
Bleak Spirit, by potatocubed.
Bleak Spirit is a storytelling game where you and your friends create a brooding, cryptic tale about a stranger in a strange land. Everything is falling apart, crumbling, corrupted, and the wanderer carries the potential for a return to past glories – or the power to sweep away all that remains.
Everyone contributes to the tale, sharing the sense of mystery that comes from no-one knowing the entire truth of what's going on. Everyone takes turns being the world for a scene, introducing lore which hints at the history of the setting. After every scene everyone leaps to conclusions based on the lore which has been revealed – and these conclusions affect the sorts of lore they will introduce when it's their turn to be the world.
Bleak Spirit is meant to replicate the narrative beats of Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, and Bloodborne. It gives everyone at the table a chance to play the Wanderer, a chance to play the World - and a chance to sit as part of the Chorus. The game is very structured, which I think helps the table keep on track, since everyone is going to have a chance to contribute to the story. The Wanderer dictates the character’s actions, but never their internal thought or feelings. The World creates Areas and Locations that the Wanderer will visit. The Chorus will introduce themes, descriptions, and motifs that are meant to make the world full of grandeur, mystique and decay.
This is a game that you might be interested if you like melancholic tones, large gaps in historical knowledge, and collaborative world building. The creator has also created a Cat version of this game, called Cat Spirit!
Two Weeks One Summer, by Rick Cockram.
In Two Weeks One Summer the players take the role of a family visiting a rambling old house in the woods during a summer holiday. The game focusses on the activities of the children of the family as they explore the house, it's grounds and the surrounding woodland. It is a game about finding things to do, creating your own excitement and exploring an unfamiliar environment.
This game divides the participants into two roles: the Children and the Grown-Ups. Over the course of the game, each of these roles will contribute different things to the description of the house, and the events that happen as you stay here. I think this works well for a slice-of life game, but it also might be an interesting source of inspiration for telling stories that are more dramatic or fantastical.
I'd Also Recommend Checking Out...
Co-Optional Games Rec Post
Unique Player Responsibilities / Rotating GMs
Asymmetrical Games Rec Post
Polaris ( https://payhip.com/b/lTg5 ) A dying civilization at the North Pole, it's last days of magical wonder fading as demons lap at the borders. You play the Knights sworn to defend this ice kingdom. Each player plays as a protagonist AND a GM to one of the other players. The conflicts are played out through a bargaining system of special phrases, and each character is doomed to either die or be corrupted by the demons at the end. The Drifter's Escape ( https://payhip.com/b/GbWh ) One player plays The Drifter, coming into town, in need of food, a shower, maybe a job, etc. Two players play GMs - one is the Devil, one is The Man. During the game, one GM or the other controls the scene, and the Drifter tries to get what they need... their only ability to overturn the GMs choices by saying "Let's make a deal". Each GM draws a poker hand, and you're trying to pick the winning hand... except they can completely lie to you about what the hand is like, AND they can make any demand of you as the price for taking the hand. Or you can spend one of your few chips to deal yourself a hand... The Man encourages your Drifter to conform. The Devil encourages your Drifter to do evil. At the end of the session, we ask, "Who owns the Drifter's Soul?" and that's something for the group to decide. 1001 Nights ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/194488/1001-Nights ) Servants and members of the Sultan's court tell each other stories and play out their little angles and rivalries by casting each other in these stories. When you are the storyteller, you are the GM, effectively, for the story within a story, and the other players can ask questions. Whenever the story answers one of those questions, a die is rolled and either the GM or the player gets to keep it.... And those dice are used between the stories, for the times in the Court, to see if you find your freedom, achieve your ambition... or get beheaded between the political games.
