Dual-GMing

[TheHand]

I've had a few experiences with this in different capacities:

1) Secret GM: 2 GMs wrote the campaign, but only one visibly ran it: The other "infiltrated" the group as another Player (we did not know he was the co-GM until the final game of a year-long campaign). He would help steer the story from that perspective, and his character ultimately had a 'shocking' fate at the end of the campaign.

2) Troupe Style: The Players rolled up 2 (or more characters). The GMs shared the world and some over-arching story-concepts, but 1 character went with 1 GM and the other with another GM. The 2 GMs would swap during a single play session between chapters. While seemingly independent, events the 2 parties did affected one another, and they had some contact (it was possible for your character to even swap "GMs" or "guest-star" in the other party). The 2 parties would occasionally collapse into 1, especially during big climax moments.

3) Same party, round-robin GMs. Usually each GM took turns running a session. While They shared basic adventure ideas between them (and discussed overarching meta-events), the details of their individual sessions were secret to one another so they could enjoy taking a turn as a player.

In each case, while a different strategy was employed, we all had a lot of fun! I think the key ingredient is to have 2 GMs who really know and can trust one another.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

I've never been a co-GM, but have been in both a table top and a PbP game run by the same pair (Leif and Scotley). In both cases they share duties during the same session - I'm not sure what exactly the division of labor is but however they do it, it's working. Both games have been excellent.

The table top game was years ago. The PbP game is "Constables of the 14th Ward" here on ENWorld. Their homebrew world is detailed in this wiki.

Not sure if they'll catch this thread, but if you wanted to PM them their user names are as above.

 

[fba827]

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.

Are you talking about

a) Two DMs that alternate different sessions (i.e. session 1 has DM 1, session 2 is DM 2, session 3 is back to DM1, etc)

or

b) Two DMs acting in the same session (i.e. both controlling various NPCs and monsters, etc)

?

 

[Hussar]

I've done the rotating DM thing fairly often at least when I started gaming. Less later on.

It's fine so long as you establish a few ground rules - "no ganking someone else's NPC", "No stocking the adventure purely for your PC", "Your PC becomes a silent partner during the adventure - gets a full share of xp, but is curiously struck by uncurable laryngitis for the duration". That sort of thing.

Works best with an episodic campaign IMO.

 

[Hereticus]

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.

More than two for the same extended campaign.

There would be some territorial overlap, and the same characters were used.

But each session would only be one DM.

 

[questing gm]

If I ever used this idea, I would like to have one DM to run the roleplaying and the other running the combat.

 

[Gilwen]

Tag team DMing for story continuity requires that the DM's subscribe to the same vision mostly and IMO is the hardest thing to do. In my group there are 3 DM's and each has his own style and ideas.
Because of this when we switch we generally play in the same world but maybe different characters or in different spots. Each of us like DMing different levels of characters (we ares till discovering where or individual sweet spots are in 4e).

As for co-DMing a session that can work out awesomely if you have enough ppl to still play and spare one for DMing. It can also require more coordiantion before game. A friend of mine and I did this for the palladium fantasy 1st edition for a while.

it work well for us like this:
One of us was the DM for the adventure and was the main DM. The other one ran the monsters and NPC's. This allowed the main DM to concentrate on the story, PC's, and rules. This also gives the monsters and NPC's an more flavor, depth, and better tactics which actually brought their threat level in line with what it was supposed to be. Basically instead of RPing a PC the 2nd DM RPed everything else. When the group split (at the time my group would split up 99% of the time) the 2nd DM took them into a different room and ran them. We had one instance of PC's coming across each other in an underground caverns and each thinking it was the enemy they were tracking ambushed each other!

Once we get more players in my current group I'm hoping to do this with my games again.


Gil

 

[Heathen72]

1) Secret GM: 2 GMs wrote the campaign, but only one visibly ran it: The other "infiltrated" the group as another Player (we did not know he was the co-GM until the final game of a year-long campaign). He would help steer the story from that perspective, and his character ultimately had a 'shocking' fate at the end of the campaign.

LOL, next you should do a "Joe Schmo" campaign, where everyone is secretly a GM except the one player

 

[Redshirt]

One of the groups I play in decided to try a Co-op game in 3rd edition. We rotated who was DM every session but we all used the same world. This would spread the work around and make for interesting games as we reacted to the twists the other DM's put in.

Unfortunately only 2 of us tried to use the plot hooks given or make any sort of connected themes for our games. The others just threw random creatures together and alot of cool magic items for their character. When we switched to 4E I thought this would get better as it was much easier to plan a game. But it's just more of the same.

These people are my friends so I can't just quit, but I really dread when it's my turn to DM. I have found the whole Co-op idea a bad one if you don't have a group who will put forth the effort.

 

[Hereticus]

One of the groups I play in decided to try a Co-op game in 3rd edition. We rotated who was DM every session but we all used the same world. This would spread the work around and make for interesting games as we reacted to the twists the other DM's put in.

I think multi-DMing works best when a DM can finish the adventure they started.