Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.misc (
More info?)
> I have a friend who wanted to run a tri-GM campaign once. [...]
> I can show him your post and ask him if he wants to write a
> "report"
Thank you, that would be very interesting.
> One big problem, which I foresee [...] was that time would
> inavoidably go out of synch, between the tables
I contacted one of the organisators of the game I was talking
about. He reported that this was his second try at a game
that big and that he indeed had to be creative to compensate
the lack of synchro the first time.
For the second, the scenario was specially planned so the
rythme was coherent for each team (he worked with one
table per team and not one per location), with synchronising
events regularely spaced and a clock in the program giving
them a in-game time. It went smoothly from there.
We chated more and I can give you his own report (this will
be a translation as we talked in french):
> There are two main difficulties with this kind of game. The
> first is the rythme: you have to get sure no team is
> waiting for the others without anything to do or on the
> contrary taking too much advance. In our case, we also
> also to ensure the game would roughly last a given length.
>
> We did it with the scenario: it was sliced in scenes to help
> synchronising the teams and alterning action parts ( that
> are more directive than the others but generaly short)
> and quieter temporized breaks (letting the players freelly
> explorate, studie what they learned or seek more infos,
> do funny unproductive things before being caught back
> by the events).
>
> The second is to select your GMs well as they have to
> work in team. If one gets carried away, he can easylly
> blow the whole scenario for everyone else and it's very
> difficult to get back on tracks. Experience shows that
> someone who is an excellent GM in solo may bad as a
> team member.
>
> Well, that's about it: beside you'll get everything you
> usually experience with players (just some parts are
> exagerated by this way of playing, like the tendencie to
> compete instead of cooperating), there will always be
> huge plot-holes you didn't noticed however hard you
> worked on the scenario... and any chaos is multiplied
> by the number of GM.
>
> It's very tiering, you need to have regular breaks to
> refill the GMs with coffee and hurriedly rewrite details
> of the story so it keeps working and it's a good idea
> to have geeks who are not puzzled by the program
> and can concentrate on roleplaying.
>
> I wouldn't advise it to a begginner GM, and I'm glad
> I only organise this once every year, but it's quite
> an experience. It definitely worths the effort.
I asked him how it went last time too:
> *laughs* It was hellish. I was in stress the whole week
> before... and ended in the hospital the morning after (
> nothing to do with it, but we joked a lot about how
> devastating is mastering for one's health).
>
> More seriously: it was the second time, with twice the
> number of players as before and a new program. We
> didn't came with no experience, but there was still
> plenty to learn.
>
> In order to get the best out of it and progress for the
> next year, I got very experimental on the scenario.
> New structure, some good some bad, a difficult one
> with risky bits (for us GMs) needing a perfect team
> work.
>
> It... didn't went too bad, but it was (as expected) a
> rodeo. We learned a lot and, most importantly, the
> players didn't managed to make the whole thing
> collapse and had a lot of fun trying.
>
> In character, they didn't succede. The end was
> very catastrophic, but actually they enjoyed that
> too and took praise in how well they blowed it.
Laure.
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