And yet another gaming post. This amusement never ends.

One of the biggest meta-gaming problems I run into (both as a GM and as a player) is pacing, in terms of how often one's character is in the spotlight, vs. not. This problem is most significant in systems that enable PCs to wander off on their lonesome -- Nobilis and ADRPG being good examples.

One approach is to use a timer. People (or groups) get 20 minutes. Or 10 minutes, if you're trying to wrap things up quickly. Ding! Move on to the next.

There are a couple of problems with that approach. First, it assumes that since all players are equally important, all character activity is equally important. Not always a valid assumption.

Secondly, it's more often honored in the breach. I've been in games where more time was spent outside of timer time than inside of it. That's sometimes because of rampant digression (not in and of itself a bad thing, we must remember), and sometimes because of ...

Thirdly, stories just don't break that way. It would be like saying each chapter of a book needs to be X words or Y pages. You could do it, but you'd trade off good pacing. So while timer time is rarely shrunk ("I yield the rest of my time to the Cleric from Arodnel") (and this hearkens back to the Firstly), it often has to be expanded until a "good" break point is reached.

Fourthly, how do you handle folks who are together. It's a cheat to give a group as much time as an individual (esp. if you want to incent group play), but giving them double the time seems problematic, too, especially as other players wander in or out of the scene.

An article in the 20x20' Room addresses the issue of pacing (the N-body problem). It doesn't solve it, but any means, but it comes up with some interesting suggestions, from a Nobilis perspective, notably:

The first method discussed is The Ecological Approach: Use even amounts of time, but force each player to zero on in things going on that are important, not just time sinks. E.g., rather than ask "What are you doing now?" ask "What's the most important thing that should happen to your character right now?"

I'm not sure how well that would work (though changing the question might come up with some interesting answers). One problem is that what's "important" may not be known to the player (or character), and "important" things may come about serendipitously by the mundane choices of the players hitting a chord in the GM's brain.

Secondly, not all players have something important to do right at this moment. That's something that, as a GM, I struggle with (see "Firstly" above). If Jim is in the middle of the Big Scam, and Willy is just sitting in the panel truck keeping the engine warm for a quick get-away, should I come up with interesting make-work things to be happening with Willy, or focus on the key scene with Jim?

Still, as I said, serendipity has generated some of the most interesting (or entertaining) scenes I've run -- including (not coincidentally) some ad hoc video footage for Margie in the "Willy" role last game.

Another approach is Free Market Reform. Rather than Soviet-style allocation of time and pacing, give each player points to bid on the spotlight during the course of the session.

This approach leaves out what (or how long) a bid is good for. It does, on the other hand, let someone opt out of playing for a while, or focus all their attention on one key scene. Still, it's not clear that, with the same amount of money (bidding points) and the same scarce resource (GM focus), you end up with anything different from "centralized planning."

(On the other hand, you could incent PCs grouping together by giving a bonus to bids in groups. If, that is, you want to manipulate the players that way.)

The article also discusses Co-GMing. That adds some interesting new logistics. Do you co-plot? Do you let a co-GM also play a character? Is there enough to do for a co-GM? How do you deal with plot security issues, but not have the co-GM become merely The Guy Who Rolls for NPCs? How do you deal with everyone being back in the same room?

And, most importantly, with the folks who GM jonesing to play, how do you get more than one of them in a room at a time to wear a GM hat?

No magic answers here, but some interesting discussion.

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SO much to talk about here. Obviously I'll be posting some thoughts of my own as well at some point.

One approach is to use a timer.

Most frustrating thing about this is that Randy uses this tool very well in Cry Havoc. I have seen it in play, decided I liked the result, tried it, hated it.

Sorry. Hate. Present tense. Still doing it, but don't like it.

Plus, unlike Randy, I do it badly -- I'm outside the clock as much as inside, as you mentioned, which is mostly because the scenes aren't framed to 20 minute intervals usually and partly because I secretly resent the nasssty clockeses. The number of times I overrun the clock because I'm not done with a scene yet or find myself at the end of a scene with five minutes still on the timer and nothing else to do... ugh. Happens too often. I think that I should just try switching when the scene logically ends.

I don't think I really did anything like a time in TiHE (the last big 'solo character' game I ran) other than vaguely watch the clock, and I know I left people out in the cold with that game as well, but with it being a weekly game, I allowed myself some leniency in that regard, since I always had a chance to fix things fairly soon thereafter.

The first method discussed forces each player to zero on in things going on that are important, not just time sinks. E.g., rather than ask “What are you doing now?” ask “What’s the most important thing that should happen to your character right now?”

I like this idea, though not really the wording. "Tell me something important you want this scene to be involved in"... eh. Maybe. That's the gist of it, certainly, but again I don't care for the wording. Helps if the players know you're going to be asking that -- you've wrapped up a scene with them, and say "Okay, I'm done with this bit, so when I come back to you, I'm going to want to know something important to you that we'll be moving onto. Be thinking about it."

Not all players have something important to do right at this moment.

My biggest problems as a GM lie with passive players. With so much else to juggle and a limited time frame, I just don't have the mental resources available (or that I'm willing to invest) to keep NPCs plying them with instructions and tasks.

Co-GMing. That adds some interesting new logistics. Do you co-plot? Do you let a co-GM also play a character? Is there enough to do for a co-GM? How do you deal with plot security issues, but not have the co-GM become merely The Guy Who Rolls for NPCs? How do you deal with everyone being back in the same room?

I've given though to trading off GMing duties in the IDC campaign (if only to give you time to play), but that's not really co-GMing in the sense of two simultaneous GMs. Certainly, with a second GM you can do more with player participation, but I see a lot of problems with it given my own style of GMing.

Situation: I work with two PCs in one scene. Co-GM takes two other players to another room to roleplay through a negotiation with NPCs for some trading of favors and support in the future. My scene finishes, other scene finishes. Group comes back into same room and I and co-GM duck into another room to bring each other back up to speed (because I know I would want to know what happened). We return and play resumes...

Did we save any time? Did we save enough to make it worthwhile? What is the log-keeper going to do to handle this? What does the co-GM do once everyone's back together.

One nobilis-supplied solution is to facilitate more player-play of NPCs. This has been marginally successful up to this point (enough so that I'm encouraged by the scenes that have resulted and encouraged to keep developing that practice) -- One thing that might help would be a 'brief' card I can hand to players for an NPC I plan to have show up.

"You are Edward, the Power of Doors. You are, in general, a messenger to all Nobilis by virtue of your natural Gating abilities -- by virtue of this service, you are welcome in almost every Chancel, and thus you keep your finger solidly on the pulse of the World. You have been charged by Lord Entropy to bring this message to the Power of Death in Chancel Storyville..."

Etc. A little more prep-time required, but makes it that much more feasible to player-play NPCs... even those with GM-related info to impart.

I do like the Nobilis "play an NPC" idea -- especially, yes, if there were a briefing card --

- Standard description -- name, appearance, mannerisms, someone to model it off to.
- History/relationship with the PC in question (if not already well known; might even include some non-public information).
- Current agenda.

The first part could be done ahead of time (an expansion of what you have with your NPC pages). The second two parts could either be prepped beforehand, or take a 2-5 minute briefing offline.

Problem: do you want a given NPC played by the same person (better depth) or by whomever needs more spotlight time (better player management).

You could even, if the circumstances warrented, have such NPC/PC encounters run in parallel to other activities. That gets into some of the problems you mention in the co-GM note above, though.

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The Co-GMing thought you mention (more like "Alternate-GMing") works well in a module-based campaign (ahem), where there are discrete begin/end points. It would gloss over some campaign bits (unless the GMing player put on his GM hat for a second); by the same token, it might provide some inspiration for some new ones. (Or, for that matter the "guest PC" could be part of the campaign metastory. And should be.)

Once IDC gets going a bit more regularly, I may take you up on that. And ditto for anything you're doing. The Spycraft thing is a bit easier to insert a PC ("Dylan is ... spending some quality time with his wife this weekend. Kate here will be filling in for him this mission") than a D&D campaign, but either are workable.

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I think I've tried the timer once or twice (during my old Amber campaign) and decided I didn't like it, for much the same reasons as you mention.

Re: co-GMing
I've seen it done magnificently at ACNW. 3 GMs, 6 or 7 players, big room (and outside, occasionally) great coordination and awareness of each other as players split up, recombine, fizz around... Evil Hat kicks ass.

As for replicating it in a campaign... Maybe. In a monthly. With one hell of a lot of work from all the GMs. For a while.

Re: timers
I have no choice. I suck at clock-awareness. Ask Stan. Doesn't matter if the sucker is big, glowing and just over the focus character of the moment's shoulder. Suckola. So, for me, the timer is my friend. Embrace the timer. Enjoy the metagaming aspects -- Trumping another PC three minutes before your turn ends, etc.

Just a thought on an alternate use of timers...

This is for those who want a little time-pressure to keep things moving along, but who don't want to cut scenes unnaturally. Rather than playing a set amount of time, use the timer to measure the amount of time spent on a scene. Keep a running total of the amount of time used by each player, updated at the end of each scene. Whichever player has used the least time gets the next scene. If a player doesn't want the next scene, move on up the list until you find someone who does.

This gives an incentive to wrap up scenes in a timely fashion (if you take an hour, it'll be ages before you get another scene), but doesn't limit you to 20 minute blocks.

Your choice of formula for allocating time from group scenes!

(I've never tried this, BTW. I just thought I'd throw it out there.)

Interesting idea. More bookkeeping, though. Hmmmm.

No more than Free Market Reform.