Quote from: PaladinCA;454020No 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.

I suspect there is just more risk with two people, just as there is more risk when you partner with another person on a project. Most of the risks have been laid out it seems. I can certainly see how things like personality conflict could become an issue.

What I've seen is when this does work, it works very well and can be highly rewarding. IMO worth a shot.

As I said the closest I came was having another person run one of my villains. But would love to try partnering up with another GM sometime just to see how it goes.

Quote from: PaladinCA;454020I'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.

To me is just a question of being a responsible, sociable individual, and if I'm fortunate to actually socialize mostly with people who are themselves responsible, sociable human beings, so be it.

Let me put it another way:

Co-GMing is an advanced GMing technique. It shouldn't be done "cold turkey" with people you don't know, and ideally is attempted once you feel comfortable with GMing 101.

GMing 101 includes the ability of the group to create a constructive game dynamic, which includes trust between each participant, where people collaborate with each other and are here to have fun together, rather than being a selfish social retard.

If someone at your game table is a selfish social retard, there are two options: don't play with that person, or make that person aware of the situation so he or she can correct the behavior. If the latter is not possible because of a poor personality, poor parental education or God knows what else, there is the problem. It's not related to gaming. It's related to that particular individual being a prick.

Quote from: Benoist;454024Co-GMing is an advanced GMing technique. It shouldn't be done "cold turkey" with people you don't know, and ideally is attempted once you feel comfortable with GMing 101.

Sensible. Usually someone had to have run some one-shot adventures or otherwise be vetted before getting to GM regularly.

My 4e D&D group currently runs our games with rotating GMs in the same game world.  It works well and we haven't had any issues.  As a GM, you can stake out your own area of the world to focus on, but you can also play in another GM's backyard if you like.  We have a private forum and any possible clash between GMs active in the same location communicate about possible clashes of plot lines and story arcs.

We used to do this all the time.

So I have played Amber games with 2 GMS each GM with a PC in the 'other side' of the game. Would rate it as excellent but the other GM and me had GMd together a lot and played together sionce we were 10 so ...
We played an extended Military campaign where 4 races were at war and before each batlte (using 2e battlesystem rules with some mods) we would run a game where one of the armies tried to get an advantage, so 3 goblin scouts had to assasinate the Elvish general. Woudl rate the concept as excellent and the overall effect, which was to create something as complex as Magician, as excellent, the individual adventures were varied.
We played a Vampire game where each GM ran a time period starting with a game in The Dark Ages, then the Rennaissance, then Victorian London, then Modern New York. This was really good but petered out towards the end because of real life.
Then we played the multiverse games. These were a unique thing we did each year on the aniversary of my uncle's death (he used to game with us). In these games we would resurect old heroes and have them summoned to a location and then put through an adventure with a hook at the end to bounce them to the next session. Each game the DM and the system changed and we adapted the characters. We would play 24 hours straight doing 3 adventures of 8 hours each time. We ran it for 3 years then people moved away and RL got in the way again but basically fantastic .

So I reckon it works pretty well....

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.

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.

You haven't said a lot about your experience, but from your earlier posts, I gather you made one attempt at this over 20 years ago.  It sounds like it went very badly, which you blame on the other GM.  

If we're going to discuss this, it might be useful to have details.  One thing that I'd like to know is this:  Do you think that a campaign with this other person as sole GM would have gone well?  

An inherent problem with collaboration might be if the GMs were fine on their own, but couldn't work together well.  However, GMs just being bad isn't anything new or unique to dual GMing.  I've played in plenty of traditional campaigns that crashed and burned with a lousy GM - but I don't blame those failures on having a single GM.  

Quote from: Benoist;454024To me is just a question of being a responsible, sociable individual, and if I'm fortunate to actually socialize mostly with people who are themselves responsible, sociable human beings, so be it.

Let me put it another way:

Co-GMing is an advanced GMing technique. It shouldn't be done "cold turkey" with people you don't know, and ideally is attempted once you feel comfortable with GMing 101.

I would disagree with this.  Yes, co-GMing will work better if both know the other person and have experience in GMing.  However, *everything* goes better if people know each other and have experience.  

I think that co-GMing can be a great introduction to GMing.  In several cases when I did it, the co-GMing was someone's first foray into GMing.  The co-GMing can be like someone apprenticing in the craft, and then move into solo GMing.  It can be a great way to get to know other people as well.  Yes, it can fail - but doing anything cold turkey with strangers can fail.

Quote from: jhkim;454155I think that co-GMing can be a great introduction to GMing.  In several cases when I did it, the co-GMing was someone's first foray into GMing.  The co-GMing can be like someone apprenticing in the craft, and then move into solo GMing.  It can be a great way to get to know other people as well.  Yes, it can fail - but doing anything cold turkey with strangers can fail.

Point taken. That's actually what I did with my wife when we co-GMed together: she had never run the game before. I just wanted to insist on the principle that if you don't trust the people you play with, then you might just want to avoid this type of technique altogether.

Quote from: Benoist;453991It 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.

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.

No, I'm just supposing they're not both Excellent.  Just average. Part of the argument, in fact, is that for this kind of thing to work it would require a higher level of capability than if you had only one GM.  An average GM will be able to run an average campaign alone, two average GMs (I think) would probably end up producing a worse-than-average joint-campaign, because they'd end up with all the weaknesses of both GMs and only some of the strengths of either.  

Shit, many of the things I suggested as potential pitfalls are things that professional writers have ended up having to worry about in trying to do shared-world settings like Thieves' World.  No matter how good you are at communicating, it can be very hard to really be able to explain your vision for an entire world, or to really effectively explain your ideas about the inner psychology of one of your NPCs, if that world or those NPCs have any kind of depth to them.  
Some very highly-skilled fantasy authors who certainly didn't suck had to make some strict rules to try to regulate problems while writing Thieves' World, and even then they only managed to put out three or four good books before the whole series turned to crap.

RPGPundit

EDIT: I see that later you essentially admit that co-GMing is an "advanced" technique; that is to say, that it requires that the GMs in question be above-average.  That's the essence of what I'm saying; I'm not suggesting that it can't possibly be a good experience or whatever, but that it requires that BOTH GMs be generally together and be excellent GMs individually.  Only someone who really doesn't give a fuck about emulation could possibly think otherwise; you know, Swine.

EDIT2: I see jhkim has already proven my last sentence there.

As to the experience/skill of the DMs required, just like with regular D&D you would want them to be good to excellent or why play?

What is most important is a spirit of cooperation and maturity.  In our 3 Hander campaign we each have a PC with the GM at the time running the PC like an NPC member of the party (fairly passive but contributes in combats).  Naturally a level of maturity is required to not load up your PC with choice items when you are the DM but that goes without saying.  As for issues with shared visions, a lot of that can be addressed by the overall premise of the game.  For instance, if you are running a planes/dimensional hopping campaign, each DM had pretty much open license to write/create what they want.

Our campaign premise is that the party were summoned by a powerful ghost sorcerer with a high level variant of a monster summoning spell (but instead he got a 1st level adventuring party).  Our characters are good but enslaved to this evil spellcaster and forced to do his bidding or face torture and death.  Each adventure he sends/teleports/gets demons to fly us to a different locale to retrive some item or ancient lore that might have gotten his interest (he would dearly like to return to life).

As we gain in power our natural goal is to overthrow master, while concealing that we have gained considerably in power (lest he kills us because he peceives us becomming a threat).  The premise works well with each mission being run by a different DM and in a different part of the world. Naturally we try and subvert his evil intentions while obeying his instructions to the letter but not the spirit.

Quote from: RPGPundit;4537511. Not having a single GM means you don't have a single vision of the world.

There are certainly drawbacks to having multiple GMs. What your analysis isn't factoring in, however, are the potential benefits.

(1) Shared prep creates more material for players to interact with. For example, I recently keyed 256 hexes for a fantasy campaign. It was a lot of work, but we're reaping the benefits of that prep in actual play. Being able to share that prep load with other GMs would be great.

(2) Shared continuity creates a deeper sense of reality. Benoist mentions the World of Darkness campaign shared between multiple GMs earlier in the thread. Monte Cook managed to achieve a similar effect as a solo GM by running multiple groups in Ptolus simultaneously; but not every GM is going to have the time to prep or run multiple campaigns by themselves.

(3) More opportunities to play. If GM 1 can run on Tuesdays and GM 2 can run on Thursdays and I can play in both sessions -- twice as many opportunities to play Turk the Barbarian!

(4) Communal GMing can result in more stable campaigns. Even if GM 2 quits, GM 1 can continue on. And maybe GM 1 brings GM 3 onboard. And then GM 1 leaves, but GM 3 carries on. Or, to take a less drastic scenario: GM 1 is getting married this summer and won't have as much time for gaming, so GM 2 can pick up his slack and keep the campaign active until GM 1 can come back.

(5) Different areas of expertise. Say I'm really good at designing dungeons and Bob is really good at running urban campaigns. Ta-da! Maybe Steve is really good at making props and I'm really good at painting miniatures. Two heads are better than one.

The question now is whether the potential drawbacks are worth the potential benefits. (Along with how you can organize things to minimize the drawbacks and maximize the benefits.)

Other than doing multiple GMs currently (4), we have done dual-GMs in the past.  Our longest RQ3 game was done by dual-GMs, and I worked another GM on my FR/RQ3 game.  Both instances worked well.  The co-GM was responsible for some of the preparation work like creating game statistics for encounters and NPCs.  We discussed possible plot twists and turns, and how the PCs might act and react to our plans before the game.  

At this time, we had large groups of players (6-12) and managing large groups and combats was challenging, but this is where the co-GM really shinned.  The co-GM would manage some NPCs during combat and encounters, and would organize the book-work end of running the encounters.  Also, at times the co-GM might simultaneously run a smaller group of PCs while the other GM continued with the main group of PCs.

In the end, these experiences worked well because there was a Lead GM in both instances, and the Assistant GM knew their part and role- and was cool with it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;454180EDIT: I see that later you essentially admit that co-GMing is an "advanced" technique; that is to say, that it requires that the GMs in question be above-average.  That's the essence of what I'm saying; I'm not suggesting that it can't possibly be a good experience or whatever, but that it requires that BOTH GMs be generally together and be excellent GMs individually.  Only someone who really doesn't give a fuck about emulation could possibly think otherwise; you know, Swine.

EDIT2: I see jhkim has already proven my last sentence there.

It is typical of swine like you, Pundit, to ignore what gamers actually do in favor of your own preconceptions.  The vast majority of responses on this thread have been that people tried multiple GMs and they enjoyed the results.  That doesn't mean there are never problems, but it also suggests that it isn't especially difficult.  

Sure, inconsistency between GM's is a potential problem, and communication and structure can help with that.  A lot of people have mentioned approaches to handle it.  In my Buffy campaign, we collaborated via a structured process of giving each other "pitches" for upcoming episodes.  

I'm just saying collaboration isn't a more "advanced" technique than solo creation - quite the opposite.  Writing in collaboration is often a beginner's approach, whereas solo writing your own series is advanced.  For example, television shows - even very long-lived ones like Doctor Who - are almost always written by multiple authors.  The same goes for comic series.  In books, big name authors write series solo - but it is fairly standard for second-string authors to write for someone else's series.  Collaboration doesn't take more skill - just slightly different skills and a willingness to work together.

The only time we've done this with my group (and we've done it a lot) is when we do our "Agency" games; kinda like "Mission Impossible" and the like, that we started way back in the 80's with Top Secret and still do from time to time to this day. Whoever comes up with a mission runs it for the rest, and we generally use the same characters and work with the same NPCs (if they survive) etc. Lends a nice continuity. In fact, my first character actually graduated to NPC status as head of one of the Departments a few years back - no more field work for her!

Quote from: RPGPundit;454180No, I'm just supposing they're not both Excellent.  Just average.

Me too, and average in my mind means "average", not "sucks". Co-GMing will work great with average GMs, able of cooperation and constructive socialization in their hobbies and their lives. It's not that rare, you know?

Quote from: Fiasco;454184As to the experience/skill of the DMs required, just like with regular D&D you would want them to be good to excellent or why play?

I would certainly agree in theory.  In practice, some groups may have to settle for "average".

RPGPundit