Possible to host a game and also play?

[roundkickkid]

So hosting a game soon and was wondering is it possible to host a game with missions and still be able to play? I will have a few friends being mods that will mingle with the squads and help them out with any problem and while I did start the event and will be making all the missions and story line I still want to enjoy myself and play rather than sit down and be HQ. One idea I had in mind is I give out missions in time intervals were the squads have that long to complete a mission and just try and survive till the time interval is up. During the interval I would be out on the field playing and a few minutes before the time interval is up I would go back to the mission return post.

What are some other options?

[Vigilante]

You could rotate out the "main mods" with the other mods. That everyone in your mod team, and yourself, can play and also experience being a head mod.

[roundkickkid]

That was one idea I had in mind but I am not so sure what my mods would think about it. I mean no one is going to want to sit down at HQ while everyone else is having fun surviving.

[TheGrandKababi]

Unfortunately there really isn't a good way around having somebody sit out and watch over HQ.

The method we use here is have a group of Mods run one game and another group run the next. There is some overlap since some people just want to run the game all the time (those people rock) but they can be shuffled into NPC roles to keep them from being burned out by always running HQ or handling the complaints/problems.

[bedmano]

Combat based NPC for a mission or two. Even work it into your storyline.

Our fall game we had one of the admins as a combat NPC we all had to go acquire. Mission went funny, but that's not the point. He got to stand in a field and shoot zombies and humans.

Our most recent game we had a mission where we had both combat and non-combat NPCs. I played a communications officer with a terrible fear of zombies. I got someone killed (the group focused forward, and a zombie tagged one of the guys in the back of the group) and I annoyed a lot of people (turns out people don't like constant whining.)

Then darkynight and I ran the final mission because we could.

[Vigilante]

That was one idea I had in mind but I am not so sure what my mods would think about it. I mean no one is going to want to sit down at HQ while everyone else is having fun surviving.

Yeah but if all the mods play the main mod at HQ, then that guarantees all your mods will play right? Tell them to stop being so damn selfish.

Well, you get the point right?

[Sixth Kira]

Play as Combat NPCs. A fun mission for your playerbase is to escort an armed mod (I recall the excuse in the last game I went to was that he was an experimental super-soldier carrying the cure who was ridiculously powerful, but mentally unstable) from point A to point B, and that mod is able to defend themselves. Then, because the humans were winning too much, the mod went and charged the horde in an effort to increase zombie numbers, since the humans had to follow him or fail the mission. Thusly, he integrated both major roles into one (he directed the course of the game and still played like a badass).

I've got to say, since I was leading the charge at that stage, the looks on the humans' faces as they realised their NPC was sprinting off on them were hilarious. And there were many noms had by all, although not as many as the mod had hoped (the Army Reserve unit and the Cadets laid down a crap-ton of covering fire for the newbies who rushed in and hauled the mod back, so we only got half a dozen instead of half the human force).

[trpthero]

At my school we have always had playing moderators/administrators. Being one of them, I can say that it's definitely a unique balancing act. We have actually started to move towards a system where a group of the moderators sit out playing and just moderate and run the mission. Who sits out to run the mission rotates. We have a requirement of moderating at least one mission per game to make sure that it's fair for all of the moderators, otherwise it's picked by whoever volunteers to be the moderators. Those who don't have to run the mission are allowed to play on whichever side they're currently on. I know that there are a few flaws with the system but with our small player base the system seems to work fine. We haven't had a problem with it yet.

[Raist]

We actually outright prevent mods from playing. We had too many problems with it a couple years ago, so now we just try to rotate around who runs the game. It's resulted in a lot less angry people.

I would also assume that whoever the Head Mod is running the game, is likely to be too busy to go play. If it's your first time running a game, you might want to not play to see how much free time you're actually going to have.