Greetings one and all!
Our group has grown recently. Until now we have always run a rotating GM system, where each GM gets to lead the group through their campaign, then passes the baton to the next bright-eyed GM with fresh, new ideas.
Now, however, we have so many players that things are really slowing down, especially if even one player likes to roleplay or check the rules before making his move (sadly both were me last session...). By the time one round of turns is over, hardly anyone remembers what they were going to do next. Quite tedious to be sure.
At the same time, several of our members have expressed disappointment that there is no real threat of character death, as each new GM doesn't want to be too heavy-handed while they're getting their feet wet.
The current GM and I decided that the best way to speed things up is to break the group down into two groups working towards the same goal. As with any group, we have our Thieves and our combat focused characters, then we also have our Pilots and Spacers, so we decided to play to that tendency. The whole group will be approached by a (Rebel affiliated) contact to send a Ground team to infiltrate Fondor, exfiltrate a spy of theirs with plans for the Super Star Destroyer, and meet up outside the city at a predetermined rendezvous (chase scene en route, of course). Meanwhile, the Space group will create a distraction by attacking the orbital shipyard, then escort in the extraction transport to the rendezvous site.
All through this session, adversaries (yes, pun intended) will be toned up. The gloves are off, so to speak. If players aren't careful, they will die. If one party fails, it will directly affect the other party (no-show for the rendezvous, etc).
We are also introducing some morally gray decisions for both parties, just for funsies. The main draw of this session is to lower the group total Obligation, so why not introduce new ways for individuals to increase Obligation as well?
The session will start with the whole group being briefed by the contact, then we'll break off into our separate groups, but stay in the same room together so that the two GMs can pace their scenarios based of each other. We are both fairly experienced GMs at this point, so we are confident that we can pull this off in a way that our group will enjoy. We're actually rather excited about the whole thing. If everything turns out well, we may handle most of our sessions this way in the future. We're not overly-confident, so we'll meet up afterwards and discuss the night and how it could be improved, but it seems fun in theory (I feel like this statement may be the main hurdle...it seems like a fun challenge, but it may be tough to pull off...).
So what do you think? What might we be missing (because I'm sure we are missing something)? Or what should we watch out for?
Thanks in advance!
Edited by Cheek