[CalibanX9]

My group has been going for about a year, but our current GM "had" a kid and he's been unable to GM or play reliably. I've ran another Shadowrun campaign and another friend knows the rules pretty well. We decided to start doing rotating GM duties.

One will be running the current missions season, I've done two shorter runs, and the third, our previous full time GM will work in as his daughter's temporal demands recede.

When we were down to three players in my second game I made the mistake of letting them bring along my PC as a GMPC. I made it so my character didn't get karma and a reduced nuyen reward, but I definitely didn't feel right playing the character and GMing at the same time (if my character said something it was taken as gospel + rp was just weird + all the normal crap with a GMPC).. So we're banning that, I'll whip up npcs or tone down the game if we get short shifted on players again.

So, any other pitfalls to avoid with rotating GMs?

How do people with rotating GMs handle in between stuff (joining magical groups, purchasing, rping contact stuff)?

Any other general tips? Do people like having rotating GMs? Besides getting to play more frequently any benefits to it?

Thanks in advance

[rasmusnicolaj]

We have played with rotating GM's for approximately 20 years (the same 2-3 guys).
It has worked fine for us. It is nice to be able to play instead of always being the GM and as the GM you have only half the workload because you don't have to prepare a session each week (or how often your group play).

From time to time we use our players as NPC's but not much - as you say it becomes a little weird when the GM's player character states that and idea is not good or something like that, but being part of the group they are still there and sometimes you have to step out of you GM shooes and roleplay your character*.

We normally gives full xp/karma whatever to the GM's player character. We don't feel that because you take a turn as the GM your character should fall behind the curve and they also get a basic part of the monetary reward.

For us it is generally speaking a bonus to share the GM chair. You have to be willing to compromise with the other GM if you have a campaign but usually that is not an issue for us.

And later on when you get more comfortable with you shifting roles as GMs I will suggest that you broaden your GMing style and excperiment with the possibilities a group of GMs can give. It is great fun to share the table between two GM's.
Tell the story together
Let the other GM play his character but during the session let him reveal some hidden knowledge
Start a story and when the other feels inspired he take over and let the story flow from there so the GMs take turns forming the story and plying their role.
Let one GM be an assistance. Whispering evil words to the players, let him deliver effects etc.
Only the imagination is the barrier 

Regards
Rasmus

*) When you at the same time have players from different countries and are GMing on danish, german and english at the same time your head occasionally explodes 

[Mirikon]

My RL group (before RL intervened) had rotating DMs. How we ran it is that we had two different campaigns, with different characters. This gave everyone a break from the same campaign week after week, and kept each one fresh. When we got to the end of a plot arc, wherever that might be, we would switch to the other DM, and they'd continue their campaign. Worked well, and kept the DMs from suffering from burnout. Also, the DMs had another DM at the table they could bounce rules questions off of, especially for all those 'gray area' things.

[Ratboy]

So, any other pitfalls to avoid with rotating GMs?

Dizziness!   

Seriously, though, if you have a group that likes to have hidden motivations/character traits, it's more difficult to do when a new GM gets all the character sheets--"Oh, wow, your character isn't really human--you just took human-looking" might be a mild* spoiler, but "Oh, wow, you took Judas" might likely ruin a major dramatic point.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from it, as I support spreading the responsibility around, but there are some downside elements.

*though it could quite possibly be major, too!

[GiraffeShaman]

We just started rotating GMs after years of not doing that, and so for it seems to be working. As has been pointed out in this thead, it takes both maturity and trust for it to work. If one of the GMs is going to cheat in any manner, it's just not going to work. More, if one of the players even thinks one of the GMs will cheat, it's not going to work.

Some of my players suggested it after the campaign had already started. They believed it would help me with GM burnout, since I run two games per week. The npc runner became my pc, also their suggestion. I was a bit leery about the idea, but I do like the opportunity to be a player. I love GMing, but sometimes it is fun to have few responsibilities and just roleplay and fight.

 We give eveyone karma evey session their character is on a run. As long as GMs aren't cheating to make sure their character doesn't get shot at or whatever, it's fair and everyone's karma stays the same. In fact a couple years ago I removed ALL individual karma rewards, after some incidents with player jealousy. Any bonuses go to the team karma reward, and not just in the rotating GM game.

One problem I can see is with my overall campaign arc and ongoing storylines and npcs. I'm not sure yet if the GMs are going to want to take part in running this. The problem is that if they do I have to fill them in on campaign secets, such as who the corrupt cop ring that harassed them is working for. I know they won't cheat, but the game will be less fun for them as playes if they know these things, like reading ahead in a detective novel and knowing who did it. I don't think they'll want to take part though, which will solve the problem. Most of our GMs just create shadowuns, no long arcs or ongoing storylines.

NPCs are another problem. I plan to just ask them to talk to me before using any of them so that I can tell them how to play them. Hopefully they can create their own though and only use my fixer npcs.

I am a bit worried as one GM who hasn't entered the rotation has stated the danger level is too low and plans to set it higher when he runs it. Also he always uses published adventures, which I'm also a bit leery of. I purposely set the danger levels for this campaign fairly low, both so that we would have a long campaign and have time to enjoy the characters, and also because for a year or so I became known as something of a killer GM and even tpked a party at one point.

So far it's been enjoyable though and I just GMed my last session, so I'm looking forward to having 3 full weeks to read SR books and work on my adventures and camaign design. I have to admit trying to run two games every week stretched me to my limits.

[Mirikon]

Seriously, though, if you have a group that likes to have hidden motivations/character traits, it's more difficult to do when a new GM gets all the character sheets--"Oh, wow, your character isn't really human--you just took human-looking" might be a mild* spoiler, but "Oh, wow, you took Judas" might likely ruin a major dramatic point.

One reason I'd suggest having separate campaigns, with separate characters. Not only do you get to shake things up for both players and DMs, you also get to keep your secrets.

[CalibanX9]

Thanks for the tips!

It seems to me that we can still have continuous story lines, and not spoil them by sharing with the other GMs, we just have to have the other GMs operate in a relatively separate gamespaces. my runs have been more operating in a metahuman/ infected rights v.s. humanis sphere, one has been operating mainly in a crooked cop sphere, and the other has run more corp/wet work sphere.

Of course cops show up all the time in all of the adventures, we just fudge and act like they are different jurisdictions.

[Walks Through Walls]

I've never done a rotating GM in Shadowrun, but have in other games. A couple things to be wary of is to make sure that all the GMs are on the same page about things like compensation, tone of the game, NPCs, lethality, and other metasetting type things. Also if some players aren't taking a turn as GM you need to make sure they don't feel like those who are GMing are playing favorites to each other. A you scratch my back I'll scratch yours type arrangement.

It can work well as long as you all communicate and are on the same page about the game. If you have different ideas about how things should work you are better off with a couple campaigns and alternating which one you play in.

[Mirikon]

Most of those things are moot, of course, if there are separate campaigns for the different GMs. So you could have one group of characters doing the pink mohawk thing, and then another group with the black trenchcoats, and another that dresses in combat fatigues, doing the merc thing.

[sting123]

We have two gm's one runs one city while the other one runs another. They switch up every two weeks with whos going to be telling the story but it works well

[Glorthoron]

Do not, I repeat, do not let the munchkin players GM.  They will go out of their way to manipulate the campaign so something really good can come the way of their characters.  Even if their characters are not active while they are running, they will still do it.

[All4BigGuns]

Do not, I repeat, do not let the munchkin players GM.  They will go out of their way to manipulate the campaign so something really good can come the way of their characters.  Even if their characters are not active while they are running, they will still do it.

That's a hell of a lot of assumption there, dude. Sure, there are some that might, but it becomes fallacy when you make a blanket statement that just flat out lumps all of them together, especially in a case with a buzz-word that is subjective as 'munchkin'.


As to the actual issue at hand, when doing a  'solo' game with one GM and one player, it can be pretty awesome if the two involved swap position at times. A buddy of mine and I did that at one time for a SW Saga Legacy Era game, and it friggin rocked, especially since both 'parts' were actually connected.

[Glorthoron]

Do not, I repeat, do not let the munchkin players GM.  They will go out of their way to manipulate the campaign so something really good can come the way of their characters.  Even if their characters are not active while they are running, they will still do it.

That's a hell of a lot of assumption there, dude. Sure, there are some that might, but it becomes fallacy when you make a blanket statement that just flat out lumps all of them together, especially in a case with a buzz-word that is subjective as 'munchkin'.

I've seen no evidence to convince me that my statement is not accurate.

[ArkangelWinter]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[All4BigGuns]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

This.

And one must consider how subjective, rather than objective, the label you used is.