I'm fiending for some FTC gaming, now.

For a while our group had three campaigns running concurrently--a weekly game on Wednesdays and two biweekly games played every other Sunday, with different GMs running them.

One of the biggest boons for the biweekly games was that if the GM for the game scheduled to run one week couldn't make it to gaming night, the other GM could step in and run his game. So generally we always got to play each week. The advantages for the GMs was that they got to be both a player and a GM and they had more time to prepare their game in between sessions.

Eventually real life made us pare down to the biweekly gaming night and then we pared that down to one campaign at a time because we found that playing every other week the campaigns progressed very slowly.

Regarding geeks and their vitriol, to parse something Dan mentioned while geeks do gripe about the hobby they love in a general sense, they're usually griping about something specific that they hate. Wayne isn't griping about Superman (who he loves), he's griping about Grant Morrison's brooding Superman (who he [understandably] hates). It's a small distinction to Dan's "griping about stuff we love" observation.

I agree with Pat and I think the point he was getting at is that you see the griping most often surrounding something creative that has already been established. The fan has an expectation of their passion based on the original (or whatever they see as the original) and it's the new take that gets fired up. A book is made into a movie, a new edition of an RPG is released, or a band records a new album.

That's probably an accurate way of looking at it. I think what I was noticing is our proclivity for bitching about (to borrow some of your phrasing) the things we hate about the things we love. Sure, a Rams fan may bitch about their bad plays, but they still wear pro-Rams shirts and cheer the team. I've never seen a sports fan wearing the equivalent of "Han Shot First" or "It Only Does 80710a06". The few times I've seen anti-sports-team messages, it's being worn by fans of the opposing team.

Once again, I realize sports fans aren't the only example. I've seen fans and hobbyists all over the place, yet none of them love to bitch about how much they hate what they love quite like a nerd.

Regarding running the same campaign or adventure for multiple groups, I have two words for you: Lady Blackbird. http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/

It's the same five pregen characters, starting in the same situation, with the same initial goals and motivations every time, and no two games are ever the same.

Also, it has ridiculously light rules that still work well and do a good job of focusing the player's attention on their character's motivations. It's zero prep, suitable for one-shot con gaming or short campaigns. Oh, and did I mention that it's completely free?

It the game designed to run games the way Chad runs games (I think).

Love that freaking game.

The Shab Al Hiri Roach has a similar setup. Same characters, but different outcome every time based on players decisions during the story.

-- Ben

This was a great episode.

The banter topic segment is really enjoyable to me, I like how it has developed and grown. Was really fun this week.

On the rpg topic, I have played in two weekly games simultaneously. It was great fun, but the mistake we made was it was the same game, 4th edition D&D (yep) and we burned out pretty quickly on it.

Like Pat and others said, I think if I were to do that again I'd mix it up. Like one Sci-Fi and one Fantasy. Two different games with different systems.

Thanks for the podcast, it is one of the highlights of my week.

Jeff

PS I can't figure out how to change my username. I'd like it to be JeffM if possible if an admin reads this. Thanks!

on the note of sports geeks and hate:http://www.lordkat.com/congratulations-7-9-seattle-seahawks.html

Knitters are INCREDIBLY geeky. And man, get a group started on how to knit socks sometime. You'll find that EVERYONE knows the One True Way to do it, and everyone else is evil and wrong. You have to start/finish at the toe, no other way is right. You have to use a single circular needle/two circular needles/double-pointed needles. You have to do both at once/one at a time. The short row/Turkish/block/princess toe is the only way to do it. You have to use THIS cast-on, and THIS bind-off. You have to use this method of turning the heel. And that's before we ever get into fibre selection, yarn weight, patterning, extra shaping or not...

Re: Superman, Wayne, you have to READ it before you trash it. Plus I'm sure there will be 5 other Superman titles that come out on a yearly basis that will have your classic Superman. But jeeze, let ONE issue come out before you get your nuts twisted around.

Re: multiple campaigns, my group consists of 6 players. Each week we have a different makeup of the group. So instead of sidelining characters, we made new ones that we could run depending on who showed up that week. Our rotating DM schedule required everyone to have at least one session prepped so they could DM depending on the player configuration. This didn't work. People didn't want to DM or weren't ready or what not. So the consistent DMs ended up running mini-episodes or one-and-dones while the main campaign continued when we had everyone showed up.

To maintain coherent plots and a consistent world, I keep an on-line campaign journal. During the sessions I take notes and a post-session activity is compiling those notes into a brief narrative. I identify: PCs, NPCs, Plot Summary, Encounters, and Achievements. But this didn't work out as well either because no one in the group reads it. But as the primary DM, it helps me to no end keep everything sorted.

To pile more on top of it, I've joined another group that meets monthly. I'm a player in this group so I can get to be on both sides of the DM screen. And I established a journal for that group as well. Everything is in the same world setting but in a different location, and the campaigns between the 2 groups are completely different. It's the journals that help me keep things separated.

What seems to me to be the greatest advantage to having multiple games going at once, and one I didn't hear mentioned in the show, is that it allows a GM to also be a player part of the time.

For once, a game I'm running has lasted for more than a month,. I am itching for one of my players to offer to run something too, so that I can be on the less stressful side of the story for a while.