So I’ve been invited to play in an online game where there are 5-6 players. None of us has GM’d a game, but all of us are open to the option of being the Game Master if we have to.
Anyway, I am wondering, has anyone else experienced this?
Does a rotating GM work?
We have thought about Gm’ing a personal story and then having the next GM pick up the tale and build upon it from there. I thought this might be harder than we think and propose another direction.
Each GM is randomly attached to a season via die roll. Using the seasons as a guide to order our quests, we come up with separate missions for each season that can be “finished” within the time frame of at least 2 GM turns. This way if we need to tie up loose-ends the GM can do so during his next turn.
My only real concern would be what happens to the GM’s character. Writing mice in and out would get tough after a while, and while I’ve never seen a GMPC in Mouse Guard, I’ve seen lots in other games and the fail rate is 100%.
Worry aside, your GM guidelines seem smart. Six GMs at two per season gives a nice spread without a huge burden on any one of you. Fresh ideas and styles are nice too.
You might think about geography; you may wind up crisscrossing the Territories constantly if every GM wants you someplace different. That seems to really work in this game if you want it to, but I think it bears discussing with the group to see if everybody likes that game feel.
Good point on the GM’s character being MIA. I wonder couldn’t we just follow the rules in the book for missing players?
My hope is that after a few sessions someone will really enjoy being GM and permanently hold the position. But, who knows this could be a whole new style of MG play and we are pioneers to a whole new frontier.
Shouldn’t be a problem really. The game is mission based. So, the GM’s mouse is just on leave, visiting home or friends, and the other mice get assigned the patrol.
I agree with James—the game already has rules to account for players missing a session. Play one mission per season and there shouldn’t be much loss of continuity. The only issue I see is how to handle the winter session, but an easy solution would be to play another mission instead of doing all the advancement stuff.
So we are off ad rolling on our first campaign! It is the prefabbed Grasslake missions from the book. We decided to run a few from an established source before trying to blaze new trails. Anyway, so far all is well, there is A LOT of RP just due to the fact of it being PBP and there being seven players. Though it’s sure been fun so far. Our current GM has really set the stage on the site and has added many avenues to keep things fresh and rolling. For example, my character likes to journal his adventures, so in keeping with that idea, DuskWolf (our GM and creator of this PBP group) added a thread for my journals! Also, I there are two tenderpaws in our group, I mentor one, and or Patrol Leader, mentors the other. And again, our GM added a thread for our respected duos to RP and tell a great story about how they met, what the mentors taught, and just in general give us something to do while waiting on the main story. It has been really great to RP with my group, and I’ve had quite a bit of fun so far and expect much more as we continue.