Have you ever had a game master that ran out of ideas during a session? Why not have 2 gamemasters? they can create a fun plot for the players and have twice as many ideas.

:)

Hi there,

This is not an Actual Play post - it doesn't deal with a real game, played by real people. I'm moving it to Theory.

Charly, you may be surprised to learn that this idea has been utilized by many role-playing games since the late 1970s. It often raises a lot of problems, but I'd be glad to see some people give examples of successful and unsuccessful play alike.

(Folks, I am referring to a traditional GM/player split, not "GM-full" as employed by Vincent, Meguey, and Emily Care.)

I also suggest that you consider the idea of the GM "making the plot for the players" to be a type of role-playing, but only one of many types.

Best,
Ron

It didn't work for my group.

The first time we tried it, the group kept wanting to split up. Because they didn't have the penalty of waiting for the GM to work with other people, they would usually split up into two groups, one with each GM. Sure that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in the game I was playing in it happened so much that we might as well have been playing two separate games.

It really didn't inspire synergy between the GM's. The two GM's by themselves were very creative people, but when they got together, I think they just expected the other to do the work. One person ended up basically writing all the stories, and the other just ran scenes when the group split up.

The third and final problem was just time. Trying to set down and have time to work together on plots and such is time consuming. A two GM game needs so much more preparation than just a normal game. So time was always a problem for our group.

Theoretically it sounded like a good idea to us. And maybe if the GM's had worked better together it would have been an enjoyable experience, but for us it didn't work.

Trav wrote: It really didn't inspire synergy between the GM's.

I ran a "shared GM" game of Champions a long time back... well it was more of a two GM's set in the same world sort of thing.

I ran a game set in Detroit, and my friend ran a game set in New York... in the same game world.
We each played in each others games.

Since our groups were composed of practically the same folks we would run a monster game session every other Saturday, in the afternoon my friend would run his game, break for dinner, then I would run my game. We would get together a couple times in between to discuss world events, overall large Plots, and such (we each started our game with a "news report" sheet... that might have crossover info). The main things we would try to hash out/ agree on is any continuity type decisions ... like jail breaks at the super prison Stronghold... or killing/ capturing a hero/villain the other planned to use...

It went pretty well, but there were sticky spots... primarily in the style department.

Bob McNamee

Mike Holmes wrote:
Note how in GMful play (which Ron mentioned is descibed to us by Vince, and Em et al.) there is a careful separation of power, and rules, similar to what you have in government, for passing control from one player to the next. So, my point is that it can be done, but only if you have a formalized method for sharing control.

I'm not sure if this qualifies, so someone should clairify whether this thread is about 2 GMs in one session or 2 GMs in one campaign.

A few months ago Moose and I co-ran a D&D 3E campaign. The setting was a world that at a precise point in history split into two parallel worlds. Each world followed its own time line. Moose and I each had complete control over one of the two time lines. In one world (the one I ran) things progressed much like any other D&D game, but in the other (the one Moose ran) Orcs became the dominate race instead of humans. Because the worlds were parrallels of one another there were similarities between them; cities developed in the same places, the geography was the same, and every person had a counterpart in the other world. In some places things were identical and the players could cross between the two worlds there.

The whole things went rather well IMO, but required a lot of cooperation between Moose and I in regards to the goals of the main villain and his growing army. The best part was that it allowed both of us to play and gave us more time to prep before we GMed. The two time lines also allowed us to run games in settings that we were comfortable with, unlike some shared campaigns.

One problem we discovered was that we were unable to keep plot information from each other. This required us to play dumb at times in regards to our characters.

The secret to making it work (in this senario) is having two GMs that can work together well and are willing to sacrifice the element of surprise when they are a PC.

,Matt G.

Yeah; for what it was, that game was fun. As I remember, scheduling and the character power escalation killed that game, but Matt and I never had any difficulty adjusting to one another's stuff. Personality definitely counts for something int his regard...

- Scott

Scratchware wrote: Have you ever had a game master that ran out of ideas during a session? Why not have 2 gamemasters? they can create a fun plot for the players and have twice as many ideas.

:)

Andrew Martin wrote:
Why stop with just two gamemasters? Why not give all the players the powers of gamemasters and make the game democratic?

Hey,

Back on topic, please.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hey,
Back on topic, please.

I'd like to add a voice to the idea that 2 GMs can work, but with a clearly defined sense of roles. In college, waaaaaaay before I ever heard of GNS or anything like it, I ran a game that was supposed to be an Anime series -- this was back when the only Anime RPG was Mekton. But we didn't use Mekton. Instead, we used my co-GM's homebrew system.

Regardless, this was how it broke down: I came up with "episode outlines", which my co-GM gave input on and added/subtracted from, after a negotiation. During actual play, I generally handled all NPC interaction, exept for this one "pet NPC" my co-GM ran. (The latter wasn't as bad an idea as it sounded as my co-GM tended to use that character as a commentary/contrast of the other PCs, highlighting their protagonism.) My co-GM handled system issues and combat, though I generally described combat results (melodramatic Anime style -- I even had a cheesy plastic sword for acting out certain combat results) based on what he told me. He got to concentrate on what he liked (system stuff) and I was freed to handle the rest of the game creatively, with at least one solid sounding board (my co-GM) to keep me down-to-earth.

On the other hand, I tried this same method with another person for an In Nomine game a few years back, and it totally tanked. My co-GM didn't seem to be willing to do what he agreed to do/what I asked him to do, but seemed afraid to tell me this. (It was as much my disfunction as his for not recognizing this.) Eventually, he just became a player in the game and I became the full GM, as the co-GM thing wasn't working out. (Also, another thing I think I did wrong is I didn't brief him enough about where the campaign was going.)

So, to sum up: Two GMs can work great, but like any good relationship, communication and established ground rules are essential.

Side Note: I have officially decided I dislike Andrew Martin.

A few months ago Moose and I co-ran a D&D 3E campaign.

Scratchware wrote: Side Note: I have officially decided I dislike Andrew Martin.

Why stop with just two gamemasters?

I've played in and GMed in campaigns and/or one-shots with multiple GMs, under a few different circumstances:

Twice I've been involved in one-shots with multiple GMs: once as a player, once as co-GM. In both cases, the main use of the two GMs during play was to allow splitting the group without problems. The first one, in which I played, was a more-or-less traditional adventure setup, and the party splitting was incidental. The second one, in which I co-GMed, we had about twelve players on hand, so we decided to run a competitive scenario, with the players being divided into two groups who were trying to reach the same goal. For the first part of the game, we handled them separately, with the two of us periodically checking with each other to see where the other group was, etc. When the two groups finally came together, we worked together to resolve the massive argument followed by combat that resulted.

In a campaign setting, I've co-GMed in two ways: first, with us working together to create the setting, then switching off as GM for the campaign. This allowed both of us to play, and resulted in a greater variety of storylines for us.

Second, I've co-GMed with a shared world, where I ran campaigns in one part of the world, and another person ran campaigns elsewhere in that world. There wasn't that much communication required, but we did share our new stuff with each other, and every once in a while a character from one area would wander into the other.

Overall, my co-GMing experiences have been positive. I'm also of the type who likes to encourage players to "join in" by creating world background, subplot ideas, etc... I like the greater variety of ideas that comes out of sharing. Even when I don't have a formal co-GM, I'll often talk over my ideas for a campaign with one of my gaming friends, and "bounce" ideas off him/her to see what he/she comes up with.

--Travis

Scratchware, since you started this question, do you have any suggestions as to how you'd apply multiple GMs and division of power? I've seen this in Universalis, Scattershot, and a variety of othergames, but since you specifically state 2 GMs as opposed to "Any player can GM" what would you implement to make it work?

Chris