[CoC] 2 GM, 7 players

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello everyone!

This is my first venture into the AP forum and I'm going to discuss an aspect I found really neat in our last CoC session. I'm wondering how experienced forgists could comment what happened :)


So, we were supposed to play a traditional Call of Cthlulhu 1920's adventure (the one where a wizard (Sermon Bishop) who got out of his emprisonnement in an old bridge tries to get vengeance).
The Keeper, Julien, said we would be 4-5 players.
When I got over to his house, we were 8 players... some of which had never played an rpg! (others where quite experienced CoC players though)
So I go over to him and suggest I do the secondary GM. He just slightly hesitated before gratefully accepting. He sent me into a dark room to read the adventure while he supervised the cration of 7 PC...
An hour of preparation was a bit scarce as we were going to learn near the end of the adventure. Nevertheless, here is how we managed the game:

Julien set up the initial situation, tying everybody into the adventure (all I did during that time was to play an NPC who read an article in the Arkham Gazeteer) and soon everyone was trying to find clues about the case that was going on.
This is when is stepped in. While some were nosing around in the countryside, other where investigating the local library. Us two gms were able to handle both situations simoultaneously, resulting in less down time for the players.

But the greatest parts where the "big scenes", when some really important parts of the plot where supposed to happen.
For example, finding the undead body of the wizard buried in a forest clearing. The primary GM got us all out into a room with lots of free space and then did his descriptions (I would toy around with the lights during that time).
As his description focused on a flight of crows, I got to one end of the room and acted a landing crow (might sound ridiculous, but please bear with me). This really hooked the players in. After some crowing around, they approached to see what was going on. This is when I "flew" away. Julien stepped into the cercle of standing players and told them they could see clothing peeking out of the ground where the crow had been.
One player started "digging" and didn't really realize why I was sitting (well, nearly lying) next to him. He did when I suddenly grabbed his ankle and shouted out... (I admit this is a very cheap technique, but boy did it work! we really had the player's full attention). That's how they freed the sorcerer's feeble body, in which someone elses mind was held captive, while the wizard was about achieving mischief in this person's body.

Other similar scenes included me playing a near unconscious patient in a hospital bed, mumbling silly chit chat; two policemen coming down to one of the PC's house after said patient "mysteriously" disappeared; etc.

So our game drifted somewhat into LARP, but those where only the key moments, where we could get the players back into focus. Between those scenes, the PCs would do their classic investigating, and us gms would update each other regularly about what was going on on either side.

The final scene kind of died because it was pretty bland and the PCs really had no other choice than fighting the wizard. The "action" scenes had to be singlehandedly mastered by Julien, because I hadn't had enough time to prepare that part (then again, it was about rolling dice). Retrospectively, we should have acted out some parts of this as well.


But all in all we really were satisfied by how we managed the game for 7 players with so little time to prepare. The "live" scenes were great for focusing the investigation and to involve all 7 players. The downside is that shy players must even more be enticed to do something than when sitting around a table. We still kept dice ready for important actions, so as to keep in mind that it really was the character who handled the imaginary events.


I'm not sure if this can start off any discussion, but at least I can now refer to this thread when someone wants to know what I like to do in game.

[clehrich]

I don't know that I have anything particularly clever to say, Christoph, but for my money this is pretty cool.  Frankly, if you can scare the pants off someone during a CoC game, which all too often is not at all scary but more of an atmospheric monster-stomp, it really doesn't matter what produced the effect. Grabbing someone's leg is a little outré from where I'm standing, but hey -- it worked!

This reminds me, actually, of a game I once ran... I feel an Actual Play post coming on....

[ffilz]

Cool! I think that live acting when done with some enthusiasm and a little bit of skill, and when done for emphasis or focus gathering, like you did it, is almost always a good thing. It is easy for games, especially with many players, to start to slow down and drag, and almost anything which disrupts the pattern but is relevant to the game will re-energize the game.

Having one person narrate or handle game mechanics, while another acts out can help keep the game flowing. There's nothing worse than cartwheeling across the room, and then realizing that to maintain the impact, you need to roll RIGHT NOW! And your dice are back on the other side of the room...

You also point out another advantage of a 2nd GM in handling split parties.

Frank

[GB Steve]

Last year, I played in a 7 GM, 24 player game of CoC at Continuum, a UK convention. There were 4 tables each with one GM and three other GMs moving players around between the tables, and generally messing with players heads with a combination of blindfolds and FX sounds.

Which is not quite the same situation as you describe, it was in fact more like a LARP.