Re: Co-refereeing?

Several references.  I hope at least one is helpful.

(1) Our very-deviant traveller game is split into two region of space.
The founding GM shows up here occaisionally, Cap'n Paul GAZIS.  The original
campaign has the higher tech level of the two, but is still several levels
below normal Imperial games.  And is currently having a minor war fought over
a planet near the "border" (Zoo region) of the Scarp, the backwater in which
the TL 9-11 game is set.  This is very low interaction co-development.

(2) the grand old MIT game Eastern Isles has not only had multiple GMs for
the main game, as the refs graduated, but has split into parallel regions,
with a Ref per island.  (Not traveller, and not D&D; a unique FRPG rulset,
which is classified -- only the Ref's have been formally briefed as to what
the rules are.)  They've also had a sub-GM for character generation.

(3) My wife and I are coGMing a GURPS Fantasy campaign.  I handle mechanics,
she handles characterization, we share plotting.  This works failry well.
Advice about not arguing in front of the players previously given is very
good.  Conspiring in advance about likely plot occurences is wise!
   We synergize well because my wife is a storyteller, and the world we
game in is her invention, but she has no experience in GMing and no desire
to learn any rulessystem well enough to have it intrude in her relationship
with the fantasy.  Her training is comparative mythology and anthropology,
mine in math/analytical skills.  So I figure out how to make climatolgically
sound continents and a sound local economy, and figure out how to make her
ideas of magic fit into a playable game.   She invents characers and plots
with which to tantalize the players.

(5) Lee & Barry Gold (publishers of Alurums & Excursions, an RPG APAzine)
coGM everything they play, almost.  When Lee GMs, she has Barry play key
NPCs; she briefs him in advance or slips him notes etc as necc.  When Barry
ran a Chivalry and Sorcery game (ghods, I'm dating them!), Lee would spin
off a dozen or more possible plot twists that she could conceive of as
extensions of the last play session before the other players showed up.
He would pick one or embroider between on his own as GM, while she played
as a normal player, happily mystified as to which he was using.
    (This is paraphrased from a recent note of Lee's in either A&E, her mag,
or The Wild Hunt, the east coast (amiable) "competition", whose address
has been given here before.)  Lee's address available on request to
anyone who wants to send her a few bucks for a sample issue...

(5) A couple we know, Dan & Nancy, (who also play in the deviant traveller),
(not so) recently ran an INteractive Literature weekend game together.  I'm
not sure how they divided the work; but I gather IL games usuaully require
multiple referees, since a dozen or more players are interacting in knots
throughout the hotel.

(6) Can someone at Princeton get a Princecon GM to report on how they
have multiple GMs of their Fantasy RPG system running threads or sub-quests
of one plot?  (Princecon is a weekend long RPG con with all games inter-
related.  Foolcon was similar while it lasted, but smaller.  Both are
like IL or Mystery Weekend games, but of the sit-around-the-table RPG
variety, rather than the wander-around-the-hotel-dressed-funny (IL/MW)
variety.




- ---
bill ricker
[email removed] a/k/a [email removed]
*** Warning: This account not authorized to express opinions ***