On being on the other side of the GM screen

For years I’ve been almost exclusively been in the GM seat, but recently I’ve actually had the chance to play in other people’s games. And I have to admit, I really enjoy being able to play just one character.

I guess I’ve been talking about the SF game I planned to run for ages now. But alas my preparations never reached the point that it would be finally playable. Luckily one of my players offered to run Deathwatch again, so instead of struggling to get the new game ready, I could lay back and just enjoy the show. 🙂

In Deathwatch I play Morgan, a Tactical Marine from the Storm Wardens, who recently joined the Deathwatch. My girlfriend takes the role of Skold, a Space Wolves Devastator Marine, who loves to put his Heavy Bolter to action. Last but not least we are accompanied by a Dark Angels Librarian called Xaphan, who is as mysterious as dangerous.

The three of us already freed a planet from a nasty Tyranid infestation, destroyed a Hive Ship almost on our own, and had some quarrels with a Tau army. This time we are sent to help with the reintegration of a lost colony into the Imperium of Man. On the way to this world we also stumbled upon the strange doings of a Tech Adept on board of a Rogue Trader ship. Not even travel to our mission objectives is ever boring and uneventful.

Deathwatch is definitely a bit more crunchy than the games I usually play, but it’s fun nevertheless. But I really hope that the coming adventure will be a bit more about investigations and diplomacy than just killing hordes of monsters. Don’t get me wrong, combat in Deathwatch is a lot of fun, but I want more out of my roleplaying games than just killing monsters and taking their stuff. And as Space Marines we don’t even loot.

I also play in a bi-monthly online game. We started with a Realms of Cthulhu adventure, but since one of the players couldn’t join us the last two times, we switched to the Traveller campaign which has been in the planning phase for far too long already. In this game I play Arlen Coronaar, a Solomonai ex-scout who just recently was recruited as engineer for the Far Trader Penthesilea. Last Tuesday the first two player characters where finally introduced to each other, and as soon as possible we’ll start with the “real” campaign.  By the way, we actually use Basic Roleplaying instead of the actual Traveller rules. We even talked about using Savage Worlds. This might seem a bit weird for some Traveller fans but for my GM and me the most interesting aspect of the Traveller game has always been the setting and not the rules.

I have to admit not being in the GM position is a welcome change of pace. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy being a GM, but it definitely puts more pressure on me than just being one of the players. And not having to run a game myself I have more free time to think about future campaigns. At the moment I am looking forward to converting my Fallout Fudged game to Fate Accelerated Edition. So don’t worry, I haven’t hung up the GM mantle yet. 😉