Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: CalibanX9 on <07-13-12/0234:45>
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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
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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 :D
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 ;D
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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.
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So, any other pitfalls to avoid with rotating GMs?
Dizziness! :o
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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 ;D
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
This.
And one must consider how subjective, rather than objective, the label you used is.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So, every day of my life I have seen the sun come up, but since I don't have evidence that it will not rise tomorrow, I have to assume that it will rise tomorrow. I don't have evidence that it won't, so it will. The onus is on someone else to prove otherwise.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So, every day of my life I have seen the sun come up, but since I don't have evidence that it will not rise tomorrow, I have to assume that it will rise tomorrow. I don't have evidence that it won't, so it will. The onus is on someone else to prove otherwise.
No it isn't. Even in the case you mentioned, the end of the world could theoretically come tonight, in which case even that assumption would be proven false. (Yes i know it's silly and unlikely, but no more silly than using the sun rising to try and prove a gross generalization of a group of people labelled with a very subjective term.)
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So, every day of my life I have seen the sun come up, but since I don't have evidence that it will not rise tomorrow, I have to assume that it will rise tomorrow. I don't have evidence that it won't, so it will. The onus is on someone else to prove otherwise.
No it isn't. Even in the case you mentioned, the end of the world could theoretically come tonight, in which case even that assumption would be proven false. (Yes i know it's silly and unlikely, but no more silly than using the sun rising to try and prove a gross generalization of a group of people labelled with a very subjective term.)
Ok, let me use something a little less silly and then I will use something probably even more silly. Never in my life have I ever tasted liver and liked it. Therefore, liver must taste awful. Until someone proves to me otherwise, liver will always taste awful. There is no evidence that liver tastes good, therefore it does not.
Now for the silly argument. The statement "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." is the same argument that religious folk use to prove the existance of god. "you can't prove he doesn't exist, so he must."
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So, every day of my life I have seen the sun come up, but since I don't have evidence that it will not rise tomorrow, I have to assume that it will rise tomorrow. I don't have evidence that it won't, so it will. The onus is on someone else to prove otherwise.
No it isn't. Even in the case you mentioned, the end of the world could theoretically come tonight, in which case even that assumption would be proven false. (Yes i know it's silly and unlikely, but no more silly than using the sun rising to try and prove a gross generalization of a group of people labelled with a very subjective term.)
Ok, let me use something a little less silly and then I will use something probably even more silly. Never in my life have I ever tasted liver and liked it. Therefore, liver must taste awful. Until someone proves to me otherwise, liver will always taste awful. There is no evidence that liver tastes good, therefore it does not.
Now for the silly argument. The statement "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." is the same argument that religious folk use to prove the existance of god. "you can't prove he doesn't exist, so he must."
If you'd said 'most' instead of making it a blanket generalization, I wouldn't have had as much of a problem, dude. Especially with--as I've said several times already--how subjective the term used as the descriptor for the group of people is.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So, every day of my life I have seen the sun come up, but since I don't have evidence that it will not rise tomorrow, I have to assume that it will rise tomorrow. I don't have evidence that it won't, so it will. The onus is on someone else to prove otherwise.
No it isn't. Even in the case you mentioned, the end of the world could theoretically come tonight, in which case even that assumption would be proven false. (Yes i know it's silly and unlikely, but no more silly than using the sun rising to try and prove a gross generalization of a group of people labelled with a very subjective term.)
Ok, let me use something a little less silly and then I will use something probably even more silly. Never in my life have I ever tasted liver and liked it. Therefore, liver must taste awful. Until someone proves to me otherwise, liver will always taste awful. There is no evidence that liver tastes good, therefore it does not.
Now for the silly argument. The statement "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." is the same argument that religious folk use to prove the existance of god. "you can't prove he doesn't exist, so he must."
If you'd said 'most' instead of making it a blanket generalization, I wouldn't have had as much of a problem, dude. Especially with--as I've said several times already--how subjective the term used as the descriptor for the group of people is.
True, my perception of a munchkin may be different from the next.
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I love how quoting the first rule you learn in every university science course ended got replies about how unscientific it was, in so many words.
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Well, close after "plagiarism is bad and wear goggles, shit explodes in here."
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I love how quoting the first rule you learn in every university science course ended got replies about how unscientific it was, in so many words.
Is this the same university you learned english? :P
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I love how quoting the first rule you learn in every university science course ended got replies about how unscientific it was, in so many words.
Is this the same university you learned english? :P
Sorry, that was harsh.
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When I'm posting from my phone I tend to not proofread well. You may also notice that I sometimes have to go back to edit for typo because I replaced spaces with "." or "b".
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I've seen no evidence to convince me that my statement is not accurate.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I love how quoting the first rule you learn in every university science course ended got replies about how unscientific it was, in so many words.
And I love how people, deliberately or not, will twist the meaning of other people's words just so they can fit a pithy saying into their rebuttals.
Now, personally, one of the first things I learned in science class is that if repeated trials support a hypotheses, that hypotheses can be treated as true until new evidence disproves it... and consistent results, whether through experimentation or empirical observation, generally get categorized as "evidence".
Glor's empirical observations (apparently) support a theory that players that fall into a group he has labeled "munchkins" make poor GMs and will try to skew play in favor of their own characters if given the chance. Lack of anything contraindicating that theory is not an "absence of evidence." It's an "absence of contradictory evidence"... which is an entirely different kettle of fish.
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I've seen no evidence to convince me that my statement is not accurate.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I love how quoting the first rule you learn in every university science course ended got replies about how unscientific it was, in so many words.
And I love how people, deliberately or not, will twist the meaning of other people's words just so they can fit a pithy saying into their rebuttals.
Now, personally, one of the first things I learned in science class is that if repeated trials support a hypotheses, that hypotheses can be treated as true until new evidence disproves it... and consistent results, whether through experimentation or empirical observation, generally get categorized as "evidence".
Glor's empirical observations (apparently) support a theory that players that fall into a group he has labeled "munchkins" make poor GMs and will try to skew play in favor of their own characters if given the chance. Lack of anything contraindicating that theory is not an "absence of evidence." It's an "absence of contradictory evidence"... which is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Thanks for putting it that way JustA. You've worded it far more effectively than I could have managed.
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I wasnt attempting a pithy rebuttal so much as expressing surprise. Could have worded that better. But you also can't make that an extremely broad generalization like that, as it was discussed we may not all have a standardized idea of "munckining". And YMMV, but as I've said elsewhere some of my players make me wanna take a crowbar to the face til the headache ceases, but have proven to be pretty good GMs (forever-to-take-his-turn guy was my example, I think).
In my experience, players GMing sometimes dont allow the very shenanigans that makes them annoying players. Or, in the case of super min-maxers and munckins, they know how to handle it because its what they do:
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/9441792.jpg
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In my experience, players GMing sometimes dont allow the very shenanigans that makes them annoying players. Or, in the case of super min-maxers and munckins, they know how to handle it because its what they do
Yes, I found this to be the case in my experience as well. You can also learn how better to GM them by observing how they respond to you using their own tricks on them.
When I hear the term munchkin what automatically pops into my mind is something like a combination powerplayer/retard, likely with some cheater thrown in. However, if you look up a definition, you'll often find it's a term applied to powerplayers. This is why it's a dangerous term to use. Even if you don't intend to insult a large number of SR players, you probaly are by accident, more so in a forum that sees lots of SR players of many different stripes.
There was a time that I'd have simply lumped all powerplayer types as munchkins, but I've had to gain some tolerance and understanding in order to keep a decent sized group together.
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I've only called one guy a munchkin to his face; he deliberately derailed every plot of every game we've ever been in together, but wasnt much of a powergamer. He just gets his kicks trying to avoid story advancement.
He was my first GM though, and I respect his skills in that regard.
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I've only called one guy a munchkin to his face; he deliberately derailed every plot of every game we've ever been in together, but wasnt much of a powergamer. He just gets his kicks trying to avoid story advancement.
I wouldn't likely call them any thing to their face, but I think "asshole" might be a good moniker in that case. ::)
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Every player has their quirks. One guy takes 10 minuted every IP, one guy wants a storyless sandbox, or you've got a power gamer extraordinaire, or my great arch nemesis, the ex-White Wolf player *shudder*
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Every player has their quirks. One guy takes 10 minuted every IP, one guy wants a storyless sandbox, or you've got a power gamer extraordinaire, or my great arch nemesis, the ex-White Wolf player *shudder*
Are you using the last one to describe the player-type that just basically wants a 'soap opera'-like game that's almost like walking into a high school drama class and has pretty much no combat (or really dice rolls at all)?
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Pretty much. Especially common with young female gamers.
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In my experience, players GMing sometimes dont allow the very shenanigans that makes them annoying players. Or, in the case of super min-maxers and munckins, they know how to handle it because its what they do:
The best GM I've ever played with turned out to be the worst player I've every GM'd for. He was a major shit disturber as a player, but, as a GM, his stories and adventures were of epic proportions.
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Every player has their quirks. One guy takes 10 minuted every IP, one guy wants a storyless sandbox, or you've got a power gamer extraordinaire, or my great arch nemesis, the ex-White Wolf player *shudder*
Are you using the last one to describe the player-type that just basically wants a 'soap opera'-like game that's almost like walking into a high school drama class and has pretty much no combat (or really dice rolls at all)?
Pretty much. Especially common with young female gamers.
Just remember, that's not all people who started out with World of Darkness! My first RPG was oWoD Vampire, and my table was nothing like that.
I played a Brujah that was a cross between an IRA Guerrilla and a Viking raider... hell, my table really resembled what I now know to be a good Runner team. Brujah "Heavy Weapons Troll", Gangrel "Melee Adept", Toreador "Face", Nosferatu "Hacker", and Malkavian "CanRay".
The one time someone (the Toreador) wanted to waste time on existential wangst, his character got dangled by her throat, off the roof of a skyscraper, until he/she (female character, male player) agreed to can it. I got regular doses of extra XP for "acting In-Character" because of stunts like that. ;)
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Anyway... back on topic...
I, personally, find the best way to handle rotating the GM is to have each one do a separate campaign... in a separate system, if possible... and just share the same time-slot.
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I've also seen different GMs for different aspects of the same game. I know 2 friends of mine did an Eclipse Phase game where one was the GM in civilzation (where social maneuvers mattered) and another was GM in hostile environments (loves him some survivalist suspense)