[Prodigy]

I ran a VTM campaign for two years jointly. I had to kill off (albeit epically) my character because I became the main GM.  but it must be done. As a GM you MUST focus the campaign on the players.

[All4BigGuns]

I ran a VTM campaign for two years jointly. I had to kill off (albeit epically) my character because I became the main GM.  but it must be done. As a GM you MUST focus the campaign on the players.

You may have chosen to do it, but no, you did NOT in fact have to. The character wouldn't have had as much focus as before, but there would have been ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with it remaining present.

[RHat]

Or there's always the "drops into the background" option, which leaves them conveniently available to pull out whenever you need them - after all, you haven't established what they've been doing.

[All4BigGuns]

Or there's always the "drops into the background" option, which leaves them conveniently available to pull out whenever you need them - after all, you haven't established what they've been doing.

A possibility, but not even that is necessary. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the GM having a character with the party.

[RHat]

Or there's always the "drops into the background" option, which leaves them conveniently available to pull out whenever you need them - after all, you haven't established what they've been doing.

A possibility, but not even that is necessary. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the GM having a character with the party.

Notionally, no.  But some people really don't like GMPC's, because when they're handled wrong it can be an issue.  Done right, they're just fine.

[All4BigGuns]

Or there's always the "drops into the background" option, which leaves them conveniently available to pull out whenever you need them - after all, you haven't established what they've been doing.

A possibility, but not even that is necessary. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the GM having a character with the party.

Notionally, no.  But some people really don't like GMPC's, because when they're handled wrong it can be an issue.  Done right, they're just fine.

I just know that in three different groups, I've never seen one become a problem. We don't always have one, but we do more often than not.

[RHat]

Nor have I, but I've certainly heard some horror stories.

[GiraffeShaman]

Nor have I, but I've certainly heard some horror stories.

Yes, I've lived some of those horror stories. NPCs can be poorly used as well and take the spotlight from the players. But players tend to take it more personally when the favored son is actually the GM's character. The GM's popularity drops down to Wall Street golden parachute guy levels. It's sort of like the infamous favored GM's girlfriend character

[Michael Chandra]

Yeah, I had trouble with managing my own NPC that was based on my player concept. There's a reason I turned him into support in Silver Platter, where the Black Knights and PCs assaulted the compound and the snipers merely covered the area.

[farothel]

Kinda tried a variation of this last night.  One of my players didn't have his character, so he got to play the bad guys.  Went really well, and he was much more ruthless heh I would have been.  Great game, made my life so much easier and he had lots of fun despite his various thugs getting killed by the other players.

It's a bit like in the old Wraith RPG, where you best had another co-GM to play the shadows (dark side) of the PCs.

As for the two GM characters, give them both the day-job quality.  That gives a convenient excuse for them to be away.  Another option is to use them as NPC, but not in the group itself.  Have them do some legwork that takes a long time and has to be done somewhere else, and you can use them to feed some information to the other PCs if they are stuck.  That way their absence is explained and you can use them to advance the plot.  Although be careful not to overdo it.

As for the karma and money awards, that's a bit trickier.  We have the same problem in a Scion campaign, as we use that if not everybody can show up for the regular campaign.  Our GM let the differences build up and from time to time (when we gain a new point of legend) he bumps everybody to the highest XP level at that point.  Maybe not fair, but you can't keep the characters too far apart before it's not fun anymore.  And always remember, we're here just to have fun, not to nitpick over a couple of karma points.    Consider the karma the GM PC gets while the GM is GMing an award for the time the GM puts in the story. 

[emsquared]

I would second (or third or fourth, whatever it is now) the notion that its a mistake to deprive the GMPCs of all advancement while not in action. You're shortly gonna arrive at a power disparity, which will make you more inclined to throw your or the other GM PC a bone, which is what you want to avoid.

Either have them in the back ground or off on another Run completely (I'd recommend the second), but reward them the same. If the point of co-op is so you don't burn out, then you need to have fun too as a PC.

[Warmachinez]

Either have them in the back ground or off on another Run completely (I'd recommend the second), but reward them the same. If the point of co-op is so you don't burn out, then you need to have fun too as a PC.

This is exactly what we will do, we will give our charcetrs the same amount of cash and Karma as the rest of the players. We also discussed this with them and they have no issues with iit. Also, when my players miss a game I give them the cash and exp/karma award, since I actually play them as NPC's and provide some support to the team.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

Either have them in the back ground or off on another Run completely (I'd recommend the second), but reward them the same. If the point of co-op is so you don't burn out, then you need to have fun too as a PC.

This is exactly what we will do, we will give our charcetrs the same amount of cash and Karma as the rest of the players. We also discussed this with them and they have no issues with iit. Also, when my players miss a game I give them the cash and exp/karma award, since I actually play them as NPC's and provide some support to the team.

We do exactly the same.  Miss a week?  We send a pm to the group saying what the nuyen and karma rewards were along with a short rundown of the mission.  Missing the game is punishment enough, it just gets compounded if you also become weaker than the rest of the team.

[WSN0W]

On the subject of GM PC's getting rewards (Karma and some cash) while they are running and behind the scenes, it's not like the GM is 'missing the game' or the like and getting stuff 'for free.'

Could draft up a chart for 'down time rewards' which could even have some hitches or negatives applied (Rough month behind the scene, go 10k in debt due to replacement gear, bribes to Lone Star to avoid the slammer, etc) so there is some fluctuation of fortune.

Given the nature of Shadowrun it's not hard to envision of a few members of a team either having some other gigs or teams they work with so they aren't always available every time the fixer throws a run their way.

Something else to consider is to have 2 locations (seperate cities) where one GM runs one and plays in the other and have 2 campaign metaplots going that are roughly worked out between the GMs, but the specifics in each city are left to the one handling the place. The core PCs either bounce between them for some established reason for work or even have 2 PC's themselves but the action of one group can have ripples in the other location.

A friend of mine plays in a Skype Aberrant game where the GM runs three separate groups that are different affiliations and the whole nine. When plot events warrant it, sometimes players will do guest appearances in the other groups (like cross over issues of comics) and it works super well for them. Of course that example is 1 GM running three tied groups rather than 2 GM's running for 1 group but can be similarly applied. Would cut out all the 'how to advance GM characters fairly without them being left in the dust' nicely as well if there are two sets of characters in play.

[Ghoulfodder]

I tried Co-op GMing in 2nd Ed D&D (I think) it was a bit of a disaster really. But then neither of us were really experienced (or particularly good for that matter) at GMing back then. I've since tried a few games rotating GM more recently, which was ok for something fairly knockabout. In that the GM's character was off elsewhere and it worked fine.

In my experience GM characters (and even just accompanying NPCs) are a nightmare to handle whilst GMing. GMs have enough to do to without maintaining a character in the party. All that happens in my experience is that everyone frequently forgets they're there and then occasionally they're remembered, usually just to save someone or move on the plot a bit.

Particularly in Shadowrun, where the party is essentially mercenaries, it's easy to explain an absence of someone for a while. Or alternatively, have them off running a separate part of the mission. Say a distraction, infiltration, hack, sniping cover, overwatch, get-away driver etc. That way if everything goes to hell you can call them in to prevent something like a TPK without it being a huge deal.

Good luck with the co-oping