I participate in a Sunday group that alternates games. We pretty much follow the 1-2-1-2 model (with a few exceptions).

Most of my observations are “me-too,” but here they are:

1. It enables players that can only do “every-other-week” to fully participate in a campaign.

2. There’s less stress and more reflection time for a GM with two weeks to prep, and that GM gets “play time” in the other campaign if he so chooses.

3. Campaigns stay fresher. A two-session adventure now takes a month instead of two weeks, eliminating a lot of filler or quick character advancement (thus prolonging the “sweet spot” and keeping a campaign focus tight).

4. While having two games (or more) going on means that different genres can be explored at once (e.g. superheroes one week, fantasy the next), it also enables players to opt out of one game without hurting feelings (“I’m not really into Star Wars, so I’m only going to play in the Pirate campaign” sounds much better than “I’d rather play in Laura’s D&D game than Stan’s D&D game”).

5. Dovetailing from point 4, the group no longer needs to retire a popular GM in order for another GM to take over.

Walt

I’m a big fan of it– in fact, right now I’m prepping for D&D to fit in between the Shadowrun we’re currently playing.

An interesting point related to you point about the mix changing, Martin, is that we’ll sometimes ease out a less popular game that way. If a GM is getting tired of running, or players are finding new characters more exiting, the other game can get hit more often, until the first game goes on indefinite hiatus.

(Sien) Funnily, in the very near future my group will start alternating games(for the first time ever) so this is very useful for me. Somehow the blog posts always seem to be relevant.

Glad to hear it! I’d like to think that that’s because TT posts are system-neutral, which forces me to write about stuff that I think will be useful to a broad spectrum of GMs — but it could just be that I’m getting so general after two years of doing this that in another six months the posts will all just be “GMing is a lot of work, but it’s fun.”

a) Have a turn to play, even if it wasn’t in d20, and:
b) HAve some time to read the modules over a few more times, as well as take a breather as a GM.

We almost started playing Mongooses “OGL Wild West”, despite some major rules problems, because everyone in our group but my little brother (Who will play anything) was on a cowboy kick.

It never picked up, which is too bad.

When STAP finishes up (I figure around May for us, just in time for 4e!) I’m going to insist that we switch to a multi-game format, even if I run a game maybe 75% of the time.

I say one-off, because that’s always seemed easier for a starting GM. Say your group is playing AD&D and there’s going to be a missing session. Well, try a demo of a game. Call of Cthulhu’s free adventure, or a Paranoia adventure or something.

Lots of the normal ‘GM craft’ is minimized here. Long term NPC interactions? Uh, no. Detailed setting? No. Maps? Not really. The newbie GM can then focus on the key bit – keeping things moving. Not much rules debate is going to ensue – no one’s been obsessing over this particular set of rules. (Or, in the case of Cthulhu or Paranoia, there might be the implicit rule ‘everyone dies!) So… nothing long-term is affected.

Other than nudging a player out of their comfort-zone.

It actually started as a compromise because the other DM needed some time for his family, but didn’t want to miss my game, so we decided on 1, 2, X, 2 as the pattern (X being the time off), but I thought that really sucked because it meant I’d only get to play once a month (I like DMing, but I barely ever get to play). So I came up with the idea of a three week rotation, and I like it.

I’ve found, however, that weekly alternations just don’t work well. We use monthly, for the most part, and just spend a little extra time at the beginning of each month recapping.

I did just spend an entire blog comment talking about my characters, didn’t I? *facepalm* OMG, I’ve become a cliché…

I really like Phil’s “two GMs” reasons for an alternating game, especially now that my commitments are catching up with my available time.

Having the games be sufficiently different (whether genre, style, or ruleset) helps me keep them mentally separated. But having to know the ins-and-outs of two different systems can be difficult. And a really complex storyline can get tangled up pretty easily.

How would you try to get experienced players give GMing a shot? I know they’ve never expressed serious interest in the GMing craft.

We are a group of “maturing” gamers, all of us professionals, with wives and some of us with children. That said we came to the agreement a few years ago, that it was not going to be possible for one GM to prepare something weekly.

So we started the GM rotation. We started with two GM’s, but now have folded in a third. We run mostly in true alternating style, unless something happens in the schedule to juggle a few dates.

We keep the rotation organized by using a monthly email where our Calendar-Master lays out the rotation, and confirms with all players, from all games that the schedule is fine. If not, we make some adjustments. When the schedule is done, it is entered into our Google Calendar, so that there is never any confusion about who’s game is when.

One thing we have found, with three games running, is that Recaps are key before each session. In our typical rotation, there is three weeks between session of a campaign, and a lot happens during those weeks. So every game has a recap. In my game (Iron Heroes), I do the recap myself, in the others the GM’s in the past, have had the players do the recaps. Either way, recaps are essential when you are not playing weekly.

The other thing we have found as a challenge is a canceled session. Since all the GM’s are on a writing schedule, it is sometimes hard to find one who can jump in, at the last minute to fill in a canceled session. Worst, if we do not re-schedule the game, then up to 6 weeks will pass between sessions. For an established game, that is no problem, but for a new campaign, that can kill any and all momentum.

I will say, that Alternating GM’s has been a great way for a bunch of us “old guys” to be able to game weekly, without it crashing into any of our other responsibilities.