DM Delegation

many hands make light work


I recently came across a comment about how some Game Masters assigned administrative duties to their players. At times it becomes necessary to delegate. It may be because of the particular game system or part of the characteristics of the gaming group.

We used to assign a Technical GM or Tech GM for particularly rules heavy game systems. We would also assign at least one where there was an unusually large number of players present. The Tech GM's duty was primarily in combat. He tracked initiative orders, looked up bonuses and penalties, located spell descriptions and did all the things that would slow down the game if we let the GM do the task.

For less rules heavy systems like BESM. there was less need for the Tech GM. Instead, other duties were farmed out to volunteers. One would be Music Tech. Because BESM is cinematic, we felt the need to incorporate as much sensory cues as possible. Music is one of them. Armed with our CD's and MP3's,  the Music Tech played the appropriate music during the game. He could choose which music to play, much like how the music director would define the soundtrack of a movie.