Peers: Codifying a consensus mechanism for TTRPGs.

Over many years of gaming now I’ve seen a trend towards a more collaborative style of play that I’ve wholeheartedly embraced. But I’ve yet to see a term emerge which collectively refers to the different roles that Players can take on when they are playing collaboratively (as opposed to when they are playing their characters directly, as PCs). ‘Metagaming’ doesn’t cut it, because that seems to be such a dirty word these days in certain circles, and because I think that metagaming is too broad of a term to adequately refer to what I’m going to talk about.

So today I’d like to propose a condensation of a lot of those ideas, and an attempt to coin a word we can all start using to mean this fluid but separate role: the Peer.

Your ‘Peers’ means everyone else currently at the table.

It’s a relative term, so your Gamemaster’s Peers are all of their players, including you; and another player’s Peers include you, the GM, and everyone else; and even then, a Peer does not even need to be a player: they might just be a friend sitting in on the session and listening.

The duties of a Peer primarily include:

• Playing to find out what happens next and being a fan of the other PCs, even if your own character must act against their best wishes.
• Offering guidance or help when asked and otherwise being cordial and attentive, even when it isn’t your turn.
• Helping to adjudicate the game rules to reduce the referential and managerial duties of their GM.
• Discussing the game with their own Peers and other friends outside of session time.

How to use your Peers?

Peers are a useful game concept, because they broaden each player’s role at the table beyond the simple ‘PC’ vs ‘GM’ dichotomy that is found in many other tabletop roleplaying games.

They don’t only exist to aid a new or struggling player though; they also implicitly make the game feel more wholly collaborative. Their existence deemphasizes a GM’s role as the sole arbitrator, hence why my own game uses the word ‘Facilitator’ (or FC for short) instead.

By giving them a capitalized name, the ‘Peers’, on par with the ‘Facilitator’ and the ‘Player Characters’, they enable any player (including the FC) to openly call out to their Peers for input if they feel stuck or lost; and they allow us to explicitly defer to them in the game’s rules when Peer input is desired over a singular (or potentially arbitrary) judgment from a GM or FC.

Using Peers means we can make decisions by consensus whenever we feel we need to, for example, during a Session Zero when each player is discussing the world and the starting situation, their characters and motivations, and what themes they want to see in the upcoming campaign; in these moments the players are already playing, but not as PCs, as Peers. This promotes an atmosphere at the table where everyone feels can contribute equally.

Finally, Peers can also function a sort of fail-safe for any other consent and safety tools you may be already using; because if your Peers all trust each other they can help keep you and each other in check, which takes additional pressure off of any one individual.

Can I use Peers in another game?

Yes! In fact, please do. There is nothing special about the concept or their place in my own game that would make Peers nontransferable to any other tabletop experience. And though some games do encourage their players to help their GM out from time to time, few try to codify that good behavior in such an explicit format.

Fundamentally, nothing really breaks if you use Peers in another game (except maybe a GM’s power of fiat); and you’ve just improved the table atmosphere and game feel for everyone.

Alternative words for Peers

If the word ‘Peer’ seems a bit formal, technical, or archaic to you, then maybe try some words like ‘Jury’, ‘Board’, or ‘Panel’ and see if they feel right. Either way, Agora uses the ‘Peers’ throughout.

This article is released to Public Domain (CC0 0.1)

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Seraaron’ has been independently making free content and other stuff on the internet since 2012. You can find my writings on world anvil and medium, my code repos on github, my videos and devlogs on youtube, and my art on twitter and artstation where I make maps and draw characters from my worlds and games. My commissions are usually open, so just message me on any platform or email me if you want a quote.

My most recent project is a Libre Independa Roleplaying Engine, and it’s associated system called Agora. The game focuses on in-depth character building using a mix of qualitative and quantitative attributes, and creating meaningful consequences from every roll of the dice as you try to uphold your principles!

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