Quote from: RPGPundit;453751Because this style of running a game is not the standard style, and one would logically suppose there are very good reasons why it is not.  It is likely to be a sub-par experience for those reasons, otherwise we'd all be doing it.

Just because something isn't popular doesn't mean its sub-par.  Diceless gaming (like Amber), for example, is rare but not sub-par.  Science fiction and historical games are much less popular than medieval fantasy.  Heck, D&D is vastly less popular than World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs.  It's an uncommon taste, but it works well for those who are into it.  

Quote from: RPGPundit;453751Reasons include:
1. Not having a single GM means you don't have a single vision of the world.  This is very likely to hamper emulation.

I think that world-building and other prep is actually a strength of multiple GMs.  Collaboration on world-building means that you can get a lot more prep - more than double.  There's a lot of prep work from GMing, and it can help a lot not just to have multiple hands, but to have someone to bounce ideas off of.  

I think there's good reason to think that more input helps.  Gygax was great, but I think that Weseley and Arneson were strong and useful influences on D&D for example.  Fritz Lieber, say, created Lankhmar with the help of his friend Harry Otto Fischer.  Heck, even Gary Gygax wrote about his early Greyhawk campaign in a Q&A, "I enlisted Rob as co-DM for my campaign too, as it took two of us to manage the large player groups, and also to run all the game sessions demanded by smaller parties. Often times there were two long sessions a day in 1974 and 1975. I had to write material, so Rob ran many of them."  

As for instability...  In my experience, the most common cause of campaign death is GM burnout - i.e. not random loss of interest, but being overwhelmed by the work and responsibility, and wanting a break.  I found that having a co-GM helped with that, and we ran fine for two years.

Quote from: RPGPundit;453751It is likely to be a sub-par experience for those reasons, otherwise we'd all be doing it.

So you at once assume it's sub-par and are optimistic about it? Do you understand what those terms mean?

The biggest hole in your logic is that we could say anything that's not popular is automatically bad and it's a demonstrably untrue idea. For example, diceless roleplaying is bad because comparatively, very, very few people play diceless games.

Of course, we know that diceless games can actually be good games and not at all sub-par. Whether a person uses them and considers them to be good or not is a matter of personal taste.

Multiple GMs is the same way. Some people have tried it and like it. Others haven't tried it, but think positively about the idea. Some people have tried it and didn't like it. Some people haven't tried it and don't want to do so.

As with the standard paradigm, it has its benefits and drawbacks.

And it's likely more people haven't tried it or are unsure about it because very few games use that model.

Seanchai

We have done it for a while, in an episodic location-centred campaign. It worked all right since the adventures were not too strongly connected, and there was not much of an incentive to revisit them. After a while, we settled with a permanent GM (me), and it was preferable, although in a club setup with a rotating cast of participants, it could be better than the permanent group model.

Not done it personally, but have been in two such campaigns. One had really bad communication (as in we players didn't even know one GM was a GM until it was his turn and meanwhile he'd been involved in campaign planning and had some to full knowledge of events!) and uber GM PCs and use of multiple NPCs by the same GM to badger pcs. It went well in spite of the multiple GMs and even then had very bad spots. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I'd not suffer through the shite again even if meant having the amazing moments. Playing a game is just not worth that mess!

The other (a later iteration of the earlier campaign's backdrop) was more episodic and with technically GM PCs but they were more reigned in. Something still seemed off with it and I don't think there was any more fun for the effort and change in play between GM changes really.

I personally prefer a main and sub-GM(s). Good communication (between GMs and between GMs and players) and getting along well are essential in any case. If there are distinct chapters so to speak that'd likely help.

Quote from: boulet;453792Pundit: How often do you play? I mean not being the GM but just a regular player. I've got the impression that it's not often and/or not for long periods of time. Is it one reason why rotating GMs isn't your cup of tea? Because it means you'd have to play PCs every now and then?

Its no secret that I almost exclusively GM; but I don't think that this skepticism is due to any aversion to playing.  I think that as a player I'd feel as dubious of a multiple-GMs scenario (as much one where I was a GM as one where I wasn't GMing at all) as I would as a GM.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Seanchai;453804So you at once assume it's sub-par and are optimistic about it? Do you understand what those terms mean?

The biggest hole in your logic is that we could say anything that's not popular is automatically bad and it's a demonstrably untrue idea. For example, diceless roleplaying is bad because comparatively, very, very few people play diceless games.

Ok, so both you and JHKim have attacked that particular point.  Let's put it aside for the moment; do either you, or him, or anyone else have any particular rebuttal to the rest of my points?

One of the people on here who has admitted to actually playing in a multi-GM campaign seems to have said that my analysis of the potential pitfalls was in fact experientially spot-on.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;453921Its no secret that I almost exclusively GM; but I don't think that this skepticism is due to any aversion to playing.  I think that as a player I'd feel as dubious of a multiple-GMs scenario (as much one where I was a GM as one where I wasn't GMing at all) as I would as a GM.

RPGPundit

I was dubious but i gave it a shot and it was ok....of course i should of stated that it was a con game where the gm's rotated through out the groups and didn't play at all.  The gm's had meetings before and after each game to go over things and if needs be they had conferences during the game.

give it a chance if all else fails make the gm's do a shoeless walk of shame down a hall with the floor covered in D4's

Quote from: RPGPundit;453922Ok, so both you and JHKim have attacked that particular point.  Let's put it aside for the moment; do either you, or him, or anyone else have any particular rebuttal to the rest of my points?

Sure: "As with the standard paradigm, it has its benefits and drawbacks."

Seanchai

1. Not having a single GM means you don't have a single vision of the world.  This is very likely to hamper emulation.

False. It may happen if the GMs are somehow inept, do not discuss about the world or have no idea how to cooperate with each other. If otherwise they have good communication with each other, if they created the world together, or the world has been played with a single DM prior to their collaboration for some time and they both know it well (i.e. Gygax and Kuntz), or they use a published setting as reference, both of them knowing the material well enough (my experience with WoD), then there is already a basis to build upon. Then from there, it's a matter of keeping communications channels open, sharing information, and so on. It's something that normal people (read: people with actual normal social skills, not antisocial, immature, ego-tripping pricks) can do very easily.

2. Unless the GM's are very good at communicating and understanding each other, it could be very easy for there to be misunderstandings between the two, about a character, a place, or some detail of the world.  Suddenly you have "Myron the rogue" brutally stabbing someone in their sleep by GM2, when GM1, who created him, imagined him to be a happy go-lucky fellow with a heart of gold.  It would be very hard to have both GMs having the same mental perception of characters and their personalities.

Wrong. See above. It's not "very hard". It's actually very easy. If your basic assumption is that most GMs are basically antisocial, immature, ego-tripping idiots, that's your problem. That's just not the case IME.

3.  One possible solution to this would be to create rules of separation, of certain areas that only GM1 can go and others for GM2, or certain characters only one GM can use, and not the other. But this can create artificial limitations that confuse the "sandbox" functionality of the game.  What happens if GM2 is running the game, and the PCs say "You know who we need to help us here? Myron the rogue!" and then GM2 has to make him inaccessible not because it makes sense that he would be, but because that's GM1's character.

This is indeed a possibility amongst others (see my own examples in the first few posts of the thread, and the notions I layed out in this one, above). It does not have to lead to the problems you are supposing, however, as examplified with the multiple "by Night" world of darkness I talked about earlier.

4. All of the above is still assuming good faith on the part of the GMs.  What happens if there's not good faith on the part of one or both GMs? If GM1 kills off one of GM2's characters, or does a world-changing event, just because he has some issue with what GM2 has been doing?  This sort of thing could quickly de-evolve into a clusterfuck.

It seems to me you're assuming the GMs are inept, unable to communicate with each other, and basically individuals with very poor social skills from the start. Your WHOLE series of arguments/caveats is predicated on this notion so far. The bottom line if that if the GMs suck, they suck. The game will fail. If they're normal, decent people with moderate planning skills, moderate improvisational skills, share information between themselves as is obvious in this type of situation, and adjust accordingly as they run the game, it's perfectly fine.

5. I would assume that while a given GM is not the Gm-de-jour, he would be playing, right?  So how is that handled? Is GM1's PC only around when GM2 is GMing? Is he run as an NPC when GM1 is GMing? If so, how do you avoid the "GM's PC" syndrome? It doubles the chances that one or both GMs' characters will be the "star" of the show while the other PCs (those that belong to players who are not GMs) will not get to see the limelight.

The way we did it with my wife was that her character was off screen while she was running the game, and I was playing a new PC with the group (a devil that had been summoned to wipe out the party and turned out to end up partially mind-wiped and free to break his bounds from the Nine Hells. From there he adventured with the party, wanting to discover what freedom of choice was about, leading to all sorts of crazy situations, like the other PCs explaining him it's wrong to decapitate your dead opponents to eat their brains after the fight, not kill envoys sent to the party to negotiate outright, these sorts of things LOL). When I resumed DMing, the devil in question remained as a henchman for the group, with the group basically controlling the character and making rolls for him.

As for one of the GM's character being the "star" or whatnot, that just didn't happen with us. Let's assume that the GMs actually know about the pitfalls of these sorts of things (which are like GMing 101 honestly) instead of assuming they suck yet again, okay?

6.  Finally, it increases the likely instability of the campaign.  With two GMs you double the chance that one of them will get bored, or leave, or die, or convert to a religion that doesn't let him roleplay, or whatever else that causes him to stop running the game.  Granted, you could theoretically then keep going with just the one GM that's left, but at that point you've defeated the purpose of the campaign, and the "surviving GM" is left with a game he has to salvage that was initially only half-his, possibly with a bunch of characters he never knew before, and plot threads he wasn't privy to that he now has to try to fill in the blanks for, or awkwardly excise from the setting.

Likewise, it may actually revitalize the campaign periodically by keeping things fresh, shuffling things around every once in a while, allows everyone to play the game from a different perspective, insures that there's not "one GM uber alles", which is a good thing because if you respect the role of the GM as a referee and final authority at the game table as I do, then it emphasizes the fact this is the role the person assumes at the game table that should be respected for the game to run properly, and not an person-specific thing.

So, to me, all your "arguments" are really not arguments in the first place. They are suppositions based on one thing, and one thing only: that the GMs suck, that they don't know what they're doing, that they don't know about the pitfalls of things like players hugging the spotlight, don't communicate with each other, plan nothing together, can't adapt to an evolving campaign milieu once the rubber hits the road, and so on, so forth.

ALL your stuff boils down to the question: "What if the GMs suck?"
Well, if they suck, they suck. The game will suck.
Solution? Don't suck.

One thing I must point out Benoist. It only takes one of the two GMs to start acting like a dick in order for the game to fail. One GM can be perfectly open to mutual input, collaboration, and negotiation. But if the other one starts being a dick.... then Pundit's theoretical points are pretty well stated. That's been my experience.

I can see it being great when both GMs are on the same page, willing to work out differences, and have give and take. But it will be epic fail when one half of the effort turns it into a trainwreck.

And that's the biggest problem I have with doing shared GM's duties. I can always count on myself when I GM. I can't always count on the other guy to do his part.

Quote from: PaladinCA;453993One thing I must point out Benoist. It only takes one of the two GMs to start acting like a dick in order for the game to fail.

It is true, but in all the multiple DMs experiences I've had, this has not happened.

I'm kind of tired personally to have the basic assumption of every single discussion of GMing techniques be that the person in question is a selfish immature idiot who doesn't know the first things about GMing or is somehow unable to learn like every single individual does. These people do exist, and they will keep on existing no matter what we're talking about here.

These games will fail because these people are assholes. Nothing's going to change that.

That will not stop me, however, from enjoying role playing games with people I actually do like, can collaborate with, people who happen to be my friends, with decent social skills and intelligence. I hope you have people like this in your gaming circles. If you don't, then there is your problem. No amount of advice or techniques is going to solve your problem from there, and that certainly doesn't make these techniques and play styles "wrong" for people who actually happen to be socially competent.

Quote from: PaladinCA;453993And that's the biggest problem I have with doing shared GM's duties. I can always count on myself when I GM. I can't always count on the other guy to do his part.

If you don't count on the other guy to do his part then don't run games that way. Period. Problem solved.

These types of games should be predicated on the notion that both GMs trust each other and are able to collaborate with each other as decent human beings who want to have fun with each other with a game can. If any of the two or more individuals can't do that, whether they are GMs OR NOT, for that matter, then your game is going to suck. That's it. The end.

That's RPGs 101 to me.

Quote from: Benoist;453995That will not stop me, however, from enjoying role playing games with people I actually do like, can collaborate with, people who happen to be my friends, with decent social skills and intelligence. I hope you have people like this in your gaming circles. If you don't, then there is your problem. No amount of advice or techniques is going to solve your problem from there, and that certainly doesn't make these techniques and play styles "wrong" for people who actually happen to be socially competent.

No one is trying to stop you here.

I never said a dual GM game was "wrong." I said in my experience it failed miserably. It failed miserably in large part due to the issues that Pundit feels would be potential pitfalls in such a setup.

Does that mean these potential pitfalls happen for everyone or in every situation? Of course not.

I'm glad it works for you. You must run co-GM games with people that do hold up their end of the bargain. How fortunate.

Quote from: Benoist;453999If you don't count on the other guy to do his part then don't run games that way. Period. Problem solved.

It was an experience of not being able to count on the other guy. I didn't choose to not count on him. I did count on him and he failed to follow through on his end.

The experience was bad enough that I don't run games that way any more.

You're right. Not doing this has solved my problems with multiple GMs running the same game. The letdown or failure of the other GM ruining the campaign isn't possible when there is only one guy running it. Better safe than sorry in my book.

It is nice to see that it worked out for someone somewhere though.

Quote from: PaladinCA;454020I never said a dual GM game was "wrong." I said in my experience it failed miserably. It failed miserably in large part due to the issues that Pundit feels would be potential pitfalls in such a setup.

Does that mean these potential pitfalls happen for everyone or in every situation? Of course not.

No setup is flawless and I think overall you guys have looked at some of the things players should me looking out for and keeping in mind to keep a team of GMs working out. Meanwhile, from my experience there are advantages to a group with several GMs working on the same campaign and it's possible to make it work, and not just ameliorate the hazards but also benefit the game overall. It requires a certain level of adult behavior, yes, but if we could make it work in high school - well, I don't think we were really that wise beyond out years.