So I've got all the books together I need, and I'm gonna have a party to play with soon (still have lots of reading to do) but ikm just a little worried about getting stuck being a GM all the time and if I do get to create a character won't it be underleveled by the time I start it?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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It's possible, but if you're a new GM (and I get the feeling you are), I would suggest you NOT try to run a Character while you run the game.
Don't worry about it for now. Just run the game.
If you do end up switching off GMing with someone else in the future, you won't have to start with a level 1 character. You can build your character at whatever level the rest of the group is at. (Or if you're playing PFS, you'll be gaining levels by GMing anyway).
I recommend that you and your group agree to do some sort of round-robin GMing, or to have at least one or two other people agree to take turns, sometimes. When the other GM has his/her turn, the whole group of players gets to roll new characters at level 1, because the two (or more) GMs each run their own campaign or one-shots.
This is the way my group does it. We have a group of 4, and we each GM when it is our turn. Last summer, I finished a 2.5 month round as GM for book 1 of Rise of the Runelords. When I was done, our group picked up with our Kingmaker campaign where we had left off, at level 6 (end of book 2, beginning of book 3 at the time; we've almost completely finished book 3 now). Recently, we turned to another guy, who ran us a one-shot game as an interlude before our next campaign, which is currently a homebrew game leading up to book 1 of Skulls & Shackles, being run by the 4th guy in our group.
It gives us each a chance to play quite a bit, and it's fun to roll new characters from time to time (especially since one of our GMs seems more interested in running unrelated one-shots when it is his turn).
I hope this helps.
It's possible, but if you're a new GM (and I get the feeling you are), I would suggest you NOT try to run a Character while you run the game.
Don't worry about it for now. Just run the game.
If you do end up switching off GMing with someone else in the future, you won't have to start with a level 1 character. You can build your character at whatever level the rest of the group is at. (Or if you're playing PFS, you'll be gaining levels by GMing anyway).
+1 to this. There are rules for building a PC at a level higher than 1. I enjoy using them when the occasion arises (see: death of my previous PC...).
Yes, this puts me at ease. And I'm new to table-top gaming all-together but it's an exciting new experience. Thanks for the info guys!
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Well I don't know if you would consider it easy, but I would suggest running your own character in the storyline with the other characters from the start. I primarily GM the campaigns I'm in (though not exclusively), and due to small party size I've had to have my own character in there as one of the main four for the party - in all respects he really is a PC, so if my buddy takes over the campaign for an adventure or two, I just sit on the other side of the table and play my guy :)
In order to make it true to form though, he's fully fleshed out like any other PC, and I keep his character sheet on a separate table with my player dice there to roll openly for whatever he needs to do. He gets full XP share, treasure share (though I tend to make him go last in choices), has to pay his share of costs, and is just as pivotal (but not any more so) as the rest of the PC's in terms of arc story and plot lines.
Probably the biggest concern I had (and you'd have to deal with I expect) is to make sure that your PC's opinions do not reflect the 'right' or 'inside' answer to party questions and issues, so your players realize that's not a tell or gimme whenever you role-play the opinion of your character during the session. Once they know there's a distinction there between GM and your character it should be fine (I mean even go so far as to make him flat-out wrong on an opinion or puzzle guess if you think they're leaning on his opinion for the inside answer).
I will say it's still not as much fun with your character as being on the other side of the table of course, since you limit your role-playing in lieu of other NPC's and GM'ing the story, not to mention that you "know" what's going on and don't get the thrill of the unknowns. At least you have a character that's integral to the campaign and then is ready to go when you get that chance for someone else to take over GM'ing for a spell.
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To go with Vorduvai's advice - if you have any ideas for dumb or silent characters, that mostly do combat, that would be the time to play them. You definitely don't want to have the GM's character be the party face - any social interaction becomes pure narcissism. The walking encyclopedia character is ok, though, since you end up feeding the characters their knowledge checks anyway.
Just as a suggestion, rather than forcing a round robin system, find out if anybody else has any ideas for campaigns they'd like to run. In my group every person has a chance to DM, and we usually got 2-3 weeks with each campaign before changing. It has its challenges, but it gives everyone plenty of time for their sessions. It helps that each campaign is a different system (Vampire, Traveler, Shadowrun and 3 Pathfinder games, two of which are not active). We're not all experienced DMs, but each of us has had that moment of excitement about a story we'd like to tell or a world we'd like to run.
I agree with Nightstalker, if your a new GM I think your biggest concern should be getting in the habit of not railroading your players. Its the biggest problem I've seen among new GM's who have "The most awesome thing ever planned, but my stupid players want to do something else". I am not saying this is you, its just a problem that seems to come up often enough and I have been guilty of it myself.