A coup d'etat, wikipedia tells us, is
the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a (typically small) part of the state establishment – usually the military – to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.
A coup de jeu is the gamer version of this. One or more people in the game group decide that the GM is unfit, and decide to replace them. Often, a conspiracy is involved - a private email or phone call saying, "Jim sucks, Bob has this game he wants to run, let's get him to do it." Usually players are considerate enough not to spring this on the old GM at the beginning of the next session, since unlike a coup d'etat you usually want the old GM to remain part of the group!
Often it's accomplished by people running some other game as "just a one-shot", and then, "that was fun, why don't we, um, postpone the regular campaign and play this for a while?"
Sometimes the coup de jeu attempt is carried out without much planning or check to see if there's any support for it, and it fails embarassingly, with the coup plotter slinking away from the group.
Have you ever carried out or suffered a coup de jeu?
the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a (typically small) part of the state establishment – usually the military – to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.
A coup de jeu is the gamer version of this. One or more people in the game group decide that the GM is unfit, and decide to replace them. Often, a conspiracy is involved - a private email or phone call saying, "Jim sucks, Bob has this game he wants to run, let's get him to do it." Usually players are considerate enough not to spring this on the old GM at the beginning of the next session, since unlike a coup d'etat you usually want the old GM to remain part of the group!
Often it's accomplished by people running some other game as "just a one-shot", and then, "that was fun, why don't we, um, postpone the regular campaign and play this for a while?"
Sometimes the coup de jeu attempt is carried out without much planning or check to see if there's any support for it, and it fails embarassingly, with the coup plotter slinking away from the group.
Have you ever carried out or suffered a coup de jeu?
