Idea: Quid pro Quo, GM for your GM? Options

[Fuchs]

I GM exclusively in my pen and paper Shadowrun campaign, and I think there are a few more like me on these forums who are looking forward to play as well even though we could run games.

Further, given the workload running a game requires, and given how many people want to play, it’s a „GM’s market“, so to speak. This can lead to people playing what „class“ is needed by a group, which, together with the campaign theme, style and rules itself, may not be what they really want to play if they were in a perfect world.

Now, here’s an idea to answer this. It’s not perfect, not by far, and may not suit everyone, but it might be what some seek:

Quid pro Quo, or „GM for your GM“.

The basic idea is that two people team up, and each runs a single-player campaign for the other, parallel. Ideally, for each post as a player, there would be one as a GM as well. While this means that if one player can’t post for a bit two campaigns are frozen, it also may result in a faster gameplay (only one player to coordinate with/ask details from, two chances to find the motivation to post) and may also see campaigns that are tailored to the player in question (As in (hypothetical example) „You run a „Gritty Seattle Ork Underground“ campaign for me, I run a „Corporate Court Trouble Consultant 005“ for you“).

What do you think?

[WinterRat1]

FYI - This has basically been done already. LITS was built around this concept (among others) and has been doing it for the last four years.

Every GM also has a PC (if they choose to), GMed for them by another GM. Since the flexibility is there to create nearly any kind of character that you want (background wise at least, we still have limits on the numbers, to prevent people from doing things like creating dracoforms as PCs), you pretty much have the potential for nearly any kind of game.

A quick perusal of our PCs and their storylines will reveal we've run the gamut of character types and campaign 'themes', particularly since we emphasize the one-to-one GM-player interaction, for the most part.

If you are interested in how it works feel free to take a look. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tabula Rasa]

I like this idea, but I’ve seen lots of pitfalls before in games with low player counts (one or two players). Stuff like GMs juggling too many finely detailed NPCs because they wanted to have the players run with a “full� group which they supplemented with their own NPCs, or just an inability to break away from the standard run scenario and tailor it instead to one or two individuals.

How would you do this game? Would you GM with the typical mission based objectives or do something more character driven since there is only one PC to pay attention to?

@WinterRat1: What is LITS?

[WinterRat1]

LITS = Living in the Shadows. Our threads are all over the Welcome to the Shadows forums. You can’t miss us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[WinterRat1]

LITS = Living in the Shadows. Our threads are all over the Welcome to the Shadows forums. You can’t miss us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Fuchs]

Well, from what I understand, LitS is a shared world, with set rules for all characters. This proposal is more about getting the campaign (not just the character) you want to play in, in exchange of providing the campaign your GM wants to play in. The campaigns would not have to be set in the same world, or use the same optional/house rules, or same BP level at all.

While I would expect that the games would have mostly the same premises as LitS - character-focused, less mission, more life based, and so on - just from the set up of 1-1, the theme, power level and flavor is not limited by anything but the willingness of a GM to run it for you - from gritty street punk to dragon PC, from black as it can get to screaming neon pink mohawk, from drama to sitcom.

[Tabula Rasa]

I think this is a pretty cool idea, and definitely something I'd be interested in pursuing. If you are interested in discussing this further feel free to let me know. This is the sort of thing that I would think requires a lot of discussion before it starts and it'd go a bit faster through email (gotta love instant mobile email notification). If you are interested drop me a PM, or I guess if you prefer we could continue on the forum.

[crizh]

Dang, that was some outage...

Right now I'd do just about anything for a decent game of SR....

I haven't GM'd SR since Queen Euphoria was published tho' so my skills may be a bit rusty.

[That was the best scenario I ever had the pleasure of running btw, blew my mind, but I was exhausted by the time I was done.]

I looked at LIT's myself a few weeks ago, on the surface it seems to be just what I was looking for, particularly playing every day even when you ain't on a run.

However, correct me if I'm wrong, in 4 years they've managed about three weeks of gameplay. Not being an IE I don't think I have time for that....

Chaos Theory looks like it could be fun. Building a character that could operate without backup is certainly a challenge.

Anyway, I'm willing to break out the GM'ing hat for a chance to play something fun. It would be nice to be able to use all the SR4 sourcebooks to build a character, for example....

[Tabula Rasa]

Well, I'd definitely be interested in getting this going. Considering I'm doing pbp because of my schedule restrictions and also as practice for my writing skills, I'd love to have a game where there'd be more posting and quicker play.

Let me just make sure I got this straight. Each player comes up with a type of campaign (theme, powerlevels, campaign focus, etc...) they'd like to play in and designs their pc accordingly. Each GM obliges the player and designs a campaign world tailored around the respective player's wishes.

There'd perhaps be a little back-and-forth discussion to settle on house-rules, or any points of contention.

Then when the game starts, each time you post, you post one post for the game in which you are a player and one post in the game you are a GM.

Does that sum it up?

[crizh]

Well, I'd definitely be interested in getting this going. Considering I'm doing pbp because of my schedule restrictions and also as practice for my writing skills, I'd love to have a game where there'd be more posting and quicker play.

Ditto. I'm starting to wear out this refresh button...

[Tabula Rasa]

Since there are three of us interested, maybe the idea could be reworked for 3 players/gms. Too much work right now to suggest good setups for it right now though. Maybe in a couple hours when I'm in class...

[Fuchs]

The advantage a 1-1 set up has is that it's a true "quid pro quo". In a 3 way set up, you're depending on X to provide your campaign while GMing for Y who is GMing for X. I think 1-1 would work better.

[BlackHat]

This goes a little against the original idea, but with 3 people, you could arrange something where you each get to make two characters.

So, you are simultaneously GMing for X & Y, and also getting to play under X & Y (giving you twice as much play time, for your GMing effort)... of course, then no game would be custom-tailored to the interests of any one player - which was one of the things I think was core to the idea of a quid-pro-quo game.

[crizh]

Or X could GM for Y and Z while Y GM's for X and Z and Z for X and Y.

Lots of work perhaps. On the other hand I'm doing at least that much refreshing this board every five minutes waiting for Abbandon to resurface....

edit: Ninja'd. Or with a fourth several rotating 1 on 1's would be possible..

[BlackHat]

Ha, beat you to the idea by microseconds!

[Tabula Rasa]

It's like we are in math class. I'd be down with any variation really. But it does seem that you want to keep the GM/Player thing one on one. Maybe if we have three and one person has more time than others they could play with two of the players in separate games.

GM/Player:

P1/P2
P2/P1

and

P2/P3
P3/P2

[Fuchs]

Yes.

[Tabula Rasa]

So the question becomes, if we want to keep it a 2 person game (GM and player), do we have a fourth interested person, or can one of us three participate in two games?

[crizh]

I'll participate in as many games as you like....

[Tabula Rasa]

Kinky.

[Fuchs]

So, then, what kind of campaigns do you want?

[Tabula Rasa]

I'm going to have to give this a little bit of thought. So many ideas... mostly from books.

[crizh]

It's hard to say. I'm fine with normal BP's and the Rules as Written. I don't think there is anything in the rules I've seen that really annoys me so much I would ask for it to be house-ruled. What's good for the Goose etc.

I really like the idea of playing out every day even when you're not running. I think that would be a much more satisfying experience narratively speaking. Too often I think people alter the rules to achieve a 'balance' that doesn't exist in Real Life ™. While that has a place in a multi-player game it destroys the realism of the thing for me. I like the way the 'rules' cause certain tactics to be very effective and the evolution of tactic and counter-tactic that can spawn in a long running game.

Have you ever read 'Hardwired'? I really enjoy that element of the story, how Cowboy is the last of the original 'jocks' railing against the newer, more effective, smuggling tactics that just aren't as 'pure' in his mind as the 'old fashioned' way.

When you really think about it the possibilities of the sixth world are incredible, there are so many things you could do with magic or nanotech, or both...

Actually, now that I think about it there is one thing that really bugs me. Mana Static. WTF, just cast a spell and jack the background count up? Back in the day background count was something special, now it just gets wheeled out by everybody and their dog at the drop of a hat. Not that I'm saying I would necessarily ask for that spell to be removed, just that I really don't like the flavour, like the teleporting in the SR CRPG....

I suppose I've seen Magic hit with the Nerf-bat so many times since SR1 that I'm a bit grumpy about the whole thing...

The proliferation of Background Counts, Wards, Focus addiction, random encounters with psychotic spirits, etc, etc, just to prevent Mages using the spells in the Grimoire strikes me as ridiculous. If certain spells are problematic, remove or nerf the spell in question. Increase Reflexes has been an SR spell since the very first printing and yet it has barely changed at all despite the repeated rewrites of the entire magic system to prevent mages from having the temerity to acually use it.

[/rant]

Sorry, off-topic, what was I talking about?

[Cthulhudreams]

I'm tempted to offer to run something, maybe, depending on what a willing participant would like to do?

[Tabula Rasa]

A solo game I could see wanting to play would be a story like Snow Crash. Not so much in the specific content of it. More the way the story progresses and the protagonist.

Basically have a big story that catches the PC seemingly by chance and takes the character to different cities around the world, meeting all kinds of interesting characters and end up saving the world. Erm... or something like that. Not sure how possible that seems though.