We’ve just started running with rotating GM duties.

We’ve just started running with rotating GM duties. Our plan is that the GM shifts after every score, and that everyone who plays GMs, but that it can shift from anyone to anyone.

We have players with multiple characters, as well, for when people are too busy recovering to go out on a score or for (in the past) when characters got lost in their vice (something I kind of miss, to be honest). To deal with this, we’ve gone with 2 free downtime actions per player (not per PC) and the end of session coin is also per player.

Anyway, to make GMing not feel like a punishment, we still give the GM-player a payout at the end of the session and access to downtime actions during the downtime phase. For me, as a former full-time GM, this really gives me a greater sense of the pressure and resource management side of things for everyone.

I’m big into spreadsheets. I’m that kind of dude. But I trashed my spreadsheet and we set down the rule of “only that which is established in the fiction (and written down on one of our many faction project clocks or campaign clocks) is real” — meaning every GM has the freedom to interpret things as they wish (sample faction clock below). After a score, the GM makes a fortune roll based on tier for the faction clocks that may have advanced. Some clocks fill up without any of us ever knowing what that faction was working on, beyond the scale (4/6/8 clock) — so that is open to interpretation. This really dovetails nicely with the play to find out ethos.

Do others have any experience with rotating GMing? Does anything here sound fishy to you? Comments or advice?

So far, I’m loving it.