Cyclic GMing

[The Hive Custodian]

So I had this idea for a new type of GMing scheme. It's probably a crackpot scheme, but here it goes anyway. Right now I only have it worked out for solo campaigns, although I might try to generalize it more later. Essentially, all the players in the game play one character and GM for one other person. This means that there will be one or more cycles in which each person GMs for the next person in the cycle. Here's how I envision it working:

Core Principles
I've tried to design this scheme according to the following principles, in descending order of importance.


Do not force anybody to play.
Do not force anybody to stop playing.
Provide everybody with a game.


Waiting Lists
There are two waiting lists: a GM waiting list and a player waiting list. Anybody who wants to be in the game but doesn't have anybody to GM for is on the GM waiting list. Likewise, anybody who wants to be in the game but doesn't have someone GMing for them is on the player waiting list. Each person must be willing to GM for exactly one person and to play exactly one character.

Gaming
Initially, everyone is on both waiting lists. At any time, any person on the GM waiting list and any person on the player waiting list can decide to have the former GM for the latter. At this point they leave their respective waiting lists and begin a chapter of gaming. When the chapter ends, they can start a new chapter immediately and continue going if both of them wish to do so. However, if one or both wishes to GM/be GMed by a different person, they are both returned to their respective waiting lists, at which point they can each form a new GM-player pair with a new person. If things are going really badly, or if a GM-player pair wants to provide more opportunities to the people on the waiting list, they may choose to end a chapter prematurely. Example:

1. Everyone starts on the waiting lists.
GM Waiting List: A,B,C,D
Player Waiting List: A,B,C,D

2. A decides to GM for C:

GM Waiting List: B,C,D
Player Waiting List: A,B,D

A->C

3. C decides to GM for D. B decides to GM for A. D decides to DM for B.

A->C
^ |
| v
B<-D

4. E and F join the game. They decide to GM for each other:

A->C F
^ | ^ |
| v | v
B<-D E

5. E and F finish a chapter, where E is GMing, as do C and D. They decide to switch partners:
A->C--->F
^ |
| v
B<-D<---E


Absences
If a person should disappear for a period of time, the GM of that person can step in and GM for that person's player until that person returns. If the person does not return before the end of the chapter, then neither the GM nor the player is obligated to return the person's spot. If they do not return the person's spot, the person is put on the waiting list(s). An example:

1. A GMs for B GMs for C.
...A->B->C...

2. B becomes absent.
...A C...

3. A steps in and GMs for C until B returns.
...A---->C...

4. If B does not return by the end of the chapter, A and C are not obligated to return B's spot. If they do not, B is put on the waiting list(s).


GM Powers
Each GM is allowed to alter the state of the game world largely as they wish, much as a traditional GM would. Any additions or changes likely to affect other people in the game should be posted to a common forum to notify them. All such alterations take effect unless someone objects, in which case the two parties will have to work an agreement out.

Organizer
Of course, someone has to start the whole thing off. An organizer initiates the game, "seeds" the game world, and lays down the ground rules for the game (system, starting conditions for characters, posting conventions, and so forth). The organizer is also the final arbiter in disputes that cannot be otherwise resolved. Apart from this, the organizer has no special authority or responsibility to the game. However, the organizer can also participate as a player and GM.

[BigRedRod]

I like it, for such a simple idea I'm surprised that nobody has brought it up on the site before. The solo campaign is a hefty limiting factor though , it really hurts interaction between specific players. Even if for every given encounter between two players one of the DMs differs (which seems like the obvious solution), the results are fairly poor as it means that a DM can quite easily be both playing in a scene which he is also in change of running.

Ages and ages ago, a few site members decided they just wanted to play a bit of straight forward classic D&D (that is to say social interaction taking a backseat to stabbing dragons). The problem was that DMing such a game isn't very rewarding, and everybody (as so often happens) was hankering to play. The result was that everybody made a character and we took turns to DM, with the current DM's character being mysteriously absent during his own adventures. Needless to say it collapsed in a big mess of discontentment. So that is another idea which couldn't really work.

The problem is that a DM shouldn't even be DMing for himself, so he has to either keep his own character arbitrarily away (possibly resulting in the one game becoming a pair of games with one set of players DMing for the other). Just relying on statistics to see us through we'd need a massive game for this to work.

And now I've realised I've just been rambling, the result is that I'm not sure you can unsatisfactorily extend this to allowing scenes which contain multiple players, but if it can be done then it would be rather a special new way of running a game.

[LuneMoonshadow]

While an interesting idea, I don't think it's very feasible. GMs are typically harder to find than players, so I think the imbalance comes with doing a 1:1 kind of thing. GMs (in my own limited experience) tend to prefer their own creations/worlds also, so having one universal end-all be-all kind of place might not be the ultimate example of the GMs skill. They just may not find it to be very enjoyable DMing a single person in a world they are essentially placed in to.

So I suppose my only concern is the balance of GMs to players. If you force a player to GM to participate you might end up with a crappy GM as well. Then again I might be very confused about the whole idea...

[The Hive Custodian]

To tell you the truth, I came up with this idea while sitting in Computer Science lecture as my professor was going over graph theory. (Funny how my Computer Science lectures influence the things that I design... after taking a data structures class I came up with a tree-like system for representing the abilities of characters. But I digress.)

Regarding the solo restriction:
The reason I stipulated that everyone GMs for and plays exactly one character is that it made this scheme easier to design. Both of you bring up excellent points about the limitations of a solo campaign, and I would really like to design a scheme that would allow a GM to GM for multiple people without losing the advantages of the solo scheme, such as insurance against people disappearing suddenly, which I notice happens all the time here. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if a non-overly complicated way of achieving this is possible. Also, I've not had much free time in the past few months (hence why I am in zero games at the moment), so it may be a while before I can really make an effort at expanding this.

Regarding GMs preferring their own creations:
This actually poses quite a dilemma in my view. Let me start off by saying that I think what you're saying is true. It's a lot more likely for a GM to get excited about something they created themselves rather than about something created by someone else. Unfortunately, at the same time, building a campaign can be a massive project, and I can't help but wonder if this task might be better approached if more people were in on it, rather than putting the bulk of the work on a single GM's shoulders. One of my hopes for this scheme was that by spreading the authority and responsibility across several GMs instead of one, more people would be able and willing to contribute to the construction of the game world, although I don't know how well it achieves this. Certainly it's possible that all of the GMs will assume someone else will take care of it, or nobody will have enough interest, or many disagreements on how the world should look will arise between the different GMs.

[nightinverse]

Ages and ages ago, a few site members decided they just wanted to play a bit of straight forward classic D&D (that is to say social interaction taking a backseat to stabbing dragons). The problem was that DMing such a game isn't very rewarding, and everybody (as so often happens) was hankering to play. The result was that everybody made a character and we took turns to DM, with the current DM's character being mysteriously absent during his own adventures. Needless to say it collapsed in a big mess of discontentment. So that is another idea which couldn't really work.


This is something THC and I are both quite familiar with. I may erect a thread about it specifically at a later date.

Extrapolating from the original post, you could have multiple characters and multiple campaigns in this model, for example...

Player A runs game I, has characters a2, a3 and a4.
Player B runs game II, has characters b1, b3 and b4.
Player C runs game III, has characters c1, c2 and c4.
Player D runs game IV, has characters d1, d2 and d3.

This makes four games with three players each, each player running one character in each of the games he is not GMing.

Of course, this merely inflates the issue and accompanying headaches. Everybody has to do much more, but if you could maintain it...