Co-GM? How does it work and what does it do?

[hymer]

I've been wondering a while about this phenomenon. It seems to be a somewhat bureaucratic approach, but it would relieve the GM from feeling rather alone. I've never tried it, and I've only seen it in action once (and that wasn't a fair portrayal I would say).
Anyone have any experience or thoughts about co GMing? Is it good or bad?

[Knaight]

I've been wondering a while about this phenomenon. It seems to be a somewhat bureaucratic approach, but it would relieve the GM from feeling rather alone. I've never tried it, and I've only seen it in action once (and that wasn't a fair portrayal I would say).
Anyone have any experience or thoughts about co GMing? Is it good or bad?

It's something I've heard about but never seen. The type I've heard of most often involves one GM handling dialog, setting, NPC actions, and basically everything non-mechanical. The other one interacts with the system end of things, crunches numbers, handles mechanical interactions of NPCs, assigns mechanical things like roll difficulties, and does other such things. I like having a toe in both pools and wouldn't enjoy it, but if someone really had fun with one end or the other I could see it working.

[Benthesquid]

I've co-gmed one campaign before. Generally the theory was we'd both prepare adventures with plot hooks, and whoever's adventure got picked would take point, while the other would backstop for rules questions, tracking initiative, and non plot-critical interactions (it's nice to have somebody play the flirtatious bartender and out-of-his league pickpocket trying to fleece the barbarian when the party decides that he shouldn't come negotiate with the mob boss).

[Faily]

Got two different experiences with it.

One was for Vampire: The Masquerade. Since it was an Elysium-gathering, there would be many NPCs about, and we were a decently sized group if everyone showed up. To avoid others having to sit around and wait their turns (or the GM being out in the next room with one player at a time as they did their secret-stuff), the GM had a second guy we all knew (who had played in the campaign earlier, iirc) come in and run some of the NPCs for the meeting. It did help with the time-issue.

Second one is for an on-going dynastic campaign we have at home. Since we're only one GM and one player, the campaign has become a co-op thing with a pool of characters. While I get most of the "last call" on things since it was my setting to begin with, both are still GMs and take turn in GMing.

[Yukitsu]

I've had games where DM's would have me track rules for them, create NPC bosses in particular for them and had me approximate the balance of encounters before we'd go in for them. Traditionally, I'm good at distinguishing what my character knows and what I know, so this is a role I've been given from time to time. Since I'm the one doing it, I don't have much outsider perspective in it, but it helps a DM who isn't very good at optimizing present challenging but not overwhelming encounters that they otherwise couldn't have created themselves. Other players do complain because inevitably the ones I create and balance are much harder than the ones the DM makes himself, but on the other hand, I've caused far, far fewer party deaths since I'm usually very careful about encounter balance while our DM is not.

I don't DM myself all the time because I don't particularly enjoy it and have some difficulty in keeping the flow of the story going at a reasonable pace, my other DMs are far better at that element of things.

[Glimbur]

I've been part of a group of 3ish Co-DM's. We ran two different 6-person parties in the same world for a semester. It worked pretty well. Generally, one DM was interacting with the party while the others were taking notes, statting encounters, or plotting. It also meant we didn't all have to be there every week, which was nice on a college schedule. Sometimes we had multiple NPC's played by multiple DM's, which was also nice.

You need to be willing to not always get your way; we liked the improv rule of "yes and" rather than contradicting each other during the session. You have to have the right relationship to give and take like that, but if it's good it's very good.

[gom jabbarwocky]

There's something slightly tragic about GMing. The isolation that comes with being in command, the power and responsibility that is yours alone.... so why not get someone else to help?

I've done it once. I did the story stuff and NPCs and my friend did the crunch. Oh, so much crunch. It didn't really work out. I appreciated the help since I'm not much of a crunch guy, but as a GM I'm too much of a control freak, so he didn't have much to do. However, the game ended up being such a perfect storm of disaster that my friend swore off co-GMing entirely - And the game system we used.

It was a really bad game. Which is a shame, because it wasn't necessarily due to the GMing technique or the game system. I'd like to try both out again (separately), but my current gaming group won't allow it.

[hymer]

Thanks for all the replies! I see that co-GMing isn't usually what I thought it was.

[Eldan]

I once had one of the players help me develop the world. Came up with ideas for cultures, names and layouts for cities, bits of historical trivia, things like that. Then I ran the adventures in that world we had developed together.

Does that count?

In a large group, say more than five players, I might consider getting a second DM and splitting the group, bringing them together for large boss fights. But that's really more just playing two groups that occasionally overlap.

[BWR]

Got two different experiences with it.

One was for Vampire: The Masquerade. Since it was an Elysium-gathering, there would be many NPCs about, and we were a decently sized group if everyone showed up. To avoid others having to sit around and wait their turns (or the GM being out in the next room with one player at a time as they did their secret-stuff), the GM had a second guy we all knew (who had played in the campaign earlier, iirc) come in and run some of the NPCs for the meeting. It did help with the time-issue.

Second one is for an on-going dynastic campaign we have at home. Since we're only one GM and one player, the campaign has become a co-op thing with a pool of characters. While I get most of the "last call" on things since it was my setting to begin with, both are still GMs and take turn in GMing.

You forgot Kult.
I was a player in the first group the GM ran the adventure for and was an assistant for the second group. I mostly ran one NPC, but came up with some flavor and gave second opinions on story direction. I think it worked out well.

[hifidelity2]

I have done this once although it was really to give someone who played but was going to leave the group something to do for the new weeks they were there when we started a new campaign

I handled the plot while he handled a couple of the major NPCs (so giving the more detail that I would have time to do) as well as assisting with battles and record keeping

It worked well as we had defined roles

[Tyndmyr]

I've been wondering a while about this phenomenon. It seems to be a somewhat bureaucratic approach, but it would relieve the GM from feeling rather alone. I've never tried it, and I've only seen it in action once (and that wasn't a fair portrayal I would say).
Anyone have any experience or thoughts about co GMing? Is it good or bad?

I've done it, in a number of different contexts. Sometimes, around a single table it's "hey, you wanna handle this combat for me"? This is particularly fun when a PC is out of the action for some reason, and would otherwise be twiddling his thumbs. Getting to roll dice for the baddies can be fun.

For larger games, such as larps, or multi-table events, you may simply have too many players for one DM to run all of them. Most DMs top out at around parties of eight people, and even that is a bit much at times. Multiple DMs, working together, can handle many sub groups. Communication and planning is important for this.

Sometimes in a group that has all DMed a lot, you can round robin DM, or different folks DM for different physical areas, or whatever.

Like with normal DMing, not every player will necessarily want to be a co-DM, or be good at it, but in certain situations, it can be super handy.

[LibraryOgre]

I've co-GM'd a few times. IME, it's been a matter of helping look up and interpret rules, and providing an out-of-session sounding board for ideas. It's a pretty flexible concept.

[Durzan]

I've got a friend who knows the rules for 3.5e in and out (effectively he's a rules lawyer... mostly the good kind, though at times he does get a little annoying), and has reasonable experience as a DM. He's sort of an unofficial Co-DM for any group he participates in with me as DM. whenever I am stuck, whatever the problem is, he is willing to offer a suggestion.

He helps me with my homebrew as well, and in fact, some of his material served as inspiration for other bits of homebrew. He and I work together a lot.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder:
Two years dead, and still it won't lie
Why won't this thread just up and die?

:smallbiggrin: