Dual-GMing

[Kimyou]

I've been thinking about maybe starting a game with a buddy of mine as a second GM, I've heard of such a thing being done, but know little about the ''how'' of the whole deal.

I wondered what you guys had as far as experience goes in the field of co-gming, if you can give any tips on how to do such a thing.

The game in question would be a game of Shadowrun (fourth edition), running with 6 or 7 players.

 

[Nagol]

I participated in a situation like this many years ago to reasonable success. I was one of two GMs. We defined a common understanding of the world and each of us developed adventures/ran sessions independently of one another for the same group of characters.

Our rules were the following:

• The GMs had no additional information shared than the rest of the players.
• A GM would prepare and run one or more connected sessions. At completion, the other GM would run one or more connected sessions. A GM could 'pass' his turn if he wanted.
• Anything previously disclosed was available to be incorporated/built upon by either GM.
• A GM could reserve one and only one NPC, organisation, or location for private use.
• Both GMs had to take into account world changes on their future adventures.
• The level of nesting of reversals (" she's an agent! Actually a double-agent! No a triple agent!") would be limited to two and preferentially none.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

I did this with one of my players and it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. If you're going to run an episodic campaign, that's one thing...but any attempt at having a long story based campaign in which decisions made by one DM can affect the other is more likely to have problems.

 

[Nagol]

I think the key to success is for both GMs to understand that everything is in flux and neither GM has complete control over the long-term narrative of the game or any individual piece of the world. Both GMs must be prepared to adapt their expected future developments and re-visit the resaons for prior events to have occurred based upon new knowledge entering the campaign.

Things can unfold exactly like a GM expects. Things can change abruptly and make the initial expectation impossible to advance further or even unthinkable as the original premise.

 

[interwyrm]

I played in a dual gm game once. It was pretty fun. The two GMs got together and made up index cards describing each of the NPCs (this was more of a social challenge than combat challenge based game - winter court for L5R).

Then they divvied up which NPCs they would control. I'm pretty sure that they worked a general series of events that ought to occur each week, and then reevaluated the situation after each session.

If I'm not mistaken, one acted as the primary GM, and made most of the plot decisions.

 

[Hereticus]

I've been thinking about maybe starting a game with a buddy of mine as a second GM, I've heard of such a thing being done, but know little about the ''how'' of the whole deal.

I wondered what you guys had as far as experience goes in the field of co-gaming, if you can give any tips on how to do such a thing.

The game in question would be a game of Shadowrun (fourth edition), running with 6 or 7 players.

I don't know a thing about Shadowrun, but my group had a multi-DM arrangement for years.

Basically each DM had a corner of the world where they would develop adventures around. The same location was rarely used, but that required an agreement between the DMs. This allowed us to use the same characters in in different but very similar games.

 

[Umbran]

Are you talking about having two GMs for a campaign, or two in the same session? I've done the latter a bit, the former somewhat less.

 

[los]

This can work pretty easily in a sandboxy game; there's a very natural division of responsibilities. Even then, though, you *really* need to sit down and chat about some important stuff -- tone, power level, and so on.

For a non-sandbox game, then you should have regular planning meetings, IME.

 

[Wormwood]

Our group is running the Scales of War adventure path, with four alternating DMs (averaging two adventure per DM).

This situation (unique in my 30 years of D&D) has taught me that alternating DMs works best when they draw from the same source material.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Our group is running the Scales of War adventure path, with four alternating DMs (averaging two adventure per DM).

This situation (unique in my 30 years of D&D) has taught me that alternating DMs works best when they draw from the same source material.

Yeah, that scenario would certainly work much better than one involving a custom campaign.