PAX Prime 2011 launched today. After briefly walking the floor, I marched to the Games on Demand gaming room (Room 306) to get my game on. Another gamer filled me in on the GM-Less Gaming Workshop led by Ben Robbins that was going on a few rooms down. I figured I go check out the talk.

You may already know Ben Robbins as the debonaire heir to the Baskin-Robbins family fortune. Between parties with the jet set on the Riviera and counting piles of money while sitting at a desk constructed entirely from piles of money, Ben finds the time to design games. He is the author of Microscope, a popular GM-less game.

In his talk, Ben goes over the role of the game master, defines GM-less games and goes over several examples including Fiasco, Polaris and Shock. The discussion was excellent and I came away learning something new.

I apologize for the crappy audio. I wasn’t planning on recording and just slapped my phone on the table to record the session.

Download PAX GM-Less Gaming Workshop with Ben Robbins