I thought we had a tag for this. Where one of the players is a 'Dungeon Master' able to interact with the world and/or players in a different or more powerful way in order to provide supplemental challenge to the other players or, optionally, make it easier for them.
One of the players is a 'Dungeon Master'?
Asymmetric multiplayer is closest probably.
Crawl and Dungeonland at least has the player as the dungeon master thing going.
Crawl and Dungeonland at least has the player as the dungeon master thing going.
As defined, Asymmetric multiplayer does sort of apply. When applying this tag, I have always presumed the difference is not unbalanced and that each may likely have different yet complementary win conditions. The definition is missing these clauses. A Dungeon Master player does have any win conditions in relation to the win conditions of the main players. They probably function with entirely different game mechanics even if the same interface is used. They probably have no score if the main players do. Players have can have an inventory, carry capacity, lives, health, stats, magic system, experience, skills, and advancement system that the DM lacks.
For existing tags, Co-Play is also somewhat applicable but not accurate.
As for example games:
Quest for the Rings was designed for 2 players + 1 Dungeon master. The manual does offer options for having no Dungeon Master and 1 or 2 player games but this really puts a crimp in the fun factor. The DM sets up a game, can make alterations to the setup, and may 'possess' a main player.
Neverwinter Nights has the Dungeon Master Client mode that allows a DM to enter and manipulate the game world while regular players are playing it (provided the person running the DMC has access to the server). They can 'possess' any character in the game, modify or create content as desired (encounters, triggers, traps, waypoint, objects, monsters, teleports), provide awards to players, modify global difficulty, and even pause the game for everyone but themselves. Using the DM Avatar, they can be seen by other if they wish. Multiple DMs can be part of a game world where each is independently enabled or restricted (a feature that was not emphasized as well as it could have been, imo).
Sceptre of Goth (not yet verified and entered at UVL) was distributed with a "world editor" that basically gave the server operator a full toolset for not only modifying and creating the game world, but also doing so while the game was running. Effectively offering the same functionality for SoG as Bioware did for NWN (albeit for a less complex game)
For existing tags, Co-Play is also somewhat applicable but not accurate.
As for example games:
Quest for the Rings was designed for 2 players + 1 Dungeon master. The manual does offer options for having no Dungeon Master and 1 or 2 player games but this really puts a crimp in the fun factor. The DM sets up a game, can make alterations to the setup, and may 'possess' a main player.
Neverwinter Nights has the Dungeon Master Client mode that allows a DM to enter and manipulate the game world while regular players are playing it (provided the person running the DMC has access to the server). They can 'possess' any character in the game, modify or create content as desired (encounters, triggers, traps, waypoint, objects, monsters, teleports), provide awards to players, modify global difficulty, and even pause the game for everyone but themselves. Using the DM Avatar, they can be seen by other if they wish. Multiple DMs can be part of a game world where each is independently enabled or restricted (a feature that was not emphasized as well as it could have been, imo).
Sceptre of Goth (not yet verified and entered at UVL) was distributed with a "world editor" that basically gave the server operator a full toolset for not only modifying and creating the game world, but also doing so while the game was running. Effectively offering the same functionality for SoG as Bioware did for NWN (albeit for a less complex game)