I now pronounce you GM and Wife.

I have been asked to talk a little about what it is like to be a GM for your spouse. I have been married since March 5th of this year, but I have been with my wife, Alicia, for about 6 years.

Thinking about it, I have decided that the most troublesome part of GM for a spouse is the shift in power structure that needs to happen for the game to go on smoothly. In a marriage, or at least a good one, the spouses need to share control and work together in a open an honest manner. It is only with this sort of equality that any marriage can succeed, but such equality would be the kiss of death for a game.

To run a successful game, a GM needs to be able to remove himself from the players somewhat, and it is crucial that he be in charge. One of the primary responsibilities of a GM is to be final arbitrator for the game, something that cannot really occur with the sort of impartiality that it needs, if the GM is sharing that power with a spouse. As a side note, this is my main problem with any sort of shared GMing, particularly on homebrewed worlds. Game Mastering is definitely one of those situations in which too many cooks can spoil the broth.

Now the biggest trick to this, is how to create that change in power structure during the game. And I must admit that I have not always been completely successful in this, as it is a very hard thing to do. For a GM to be good, he must attempt to be as impartial as possible and he must be able to keep secrets from his players. Understandably this is a very odd thing to get used to, both for the GM and for their playing spouse.

For example, It is difficult for me to be working on things for an adventure with my wife home, simply because it is something that I cannot talk to her about or have her know about, if I am to be fair to the other players.

Second in difficulty, I think, is the odd place it puts the GM during any attempt at conflict resolution. A wife expects her husband to support her and back her plays, rightly so, but a GM must think of what is best for the game before the desires of any one player. I think this expectation makes it much harder for the GM to do his job, in certain circumstances. As a GM, I find myself so focused on not showing my wife any preferential treatment, that, at times, I have been somewhat discriminatory against her just to keep the appearance that I am not siding with her because she is my wife. The problem is, that this is just as problematic as siding with a spouse on every call.

In conclusion, I would say that GMing for a spouse requires a great deal of diplomacy, introspection and the ability to shift your understanding of your relationship in different context; as well as a thick skin for when the spouse gets their feelings bruised if they cannot also make that shift. That being said, I couldn't imagine not gaming with Alicia. Gaming is a huge part of my life, and it would be tragic if I were not able to share that with the woman I love.