Everyone has his or her roles laid out and knows what to work on. The team is working together well, and conflicts are kept to a minimum. As you get closer to your game, or try to have regular staff meetings, you'll realize there's one more set of roles that you need to respect. And these you can't assign.

I'm talking about personality temperaments. One of the most popular methods to sum up personality types is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, a thinker or a feeler, or a sensor or an intuitive will have some effect on how well you work together. I'll leave that to you to make a careful matrix of types. More important than any of these when working on a gestalt, I think, is the issue of perceiving versus judging.

The Keirsey site has a detailed write-up of these types. In short, though, it's an indication of spontaneity versus deliberation. Perceivers like to do things on the spur of the moment and Judges like to plan carefully in advance. The two types can drive each other insane normally, but a gestalt can magnify these problems.

Island Time (P)

"You've never even been to the Caribbean!"

Picture the long, golden beaches. Palm trees wave in the wind as the waves lap gently at the shore. You've got nothing more important to do than enjoy the day and maybe grab a meal when you get hungry. Anything else will wait; if it's really important, someone will come and get you.

Strong Perceivers feel this way all the time. In a normal situation, if they're going to run a game it will be on the spur of the moment. They'll decide they want to GM, call their friends, and start running when everyone gets there. Or later. Whatever. As long as everyone has a good time, who cares that the game didn't start until 11 pm on a weeknight?

A gestalt can't effectively run a game like this. Any game large enough to require a team of GMs is probably not one where the players can be assembled on short notice. If your game reaches into the numbers that need a dedicated space, even a week's notice probably isn't good enough.

Heavily spontaneous individuals have difficulty even showing up to work on time; coordinating a dozen or more other people is generally out of the question. A gestalt game that waits on Perceivers for scheduling will be lucky to ever have its first game, much less continue into a successful campaign.

The Railroad (J)

"Present me with the flag that you've captured so we can declare victory!"
"Actually, someone snuck down and stole both flags. We're not sure where they are or who did it."
"Huh. I guess... we can have the generals... joust one another to see which army wins?"

Picture a stack of paper. Each page has carefully documented outlines, with references to expanded descriptions. If the sequence is unclear, there's a flowchart to aid in comprehension. Every variable is accounted for and every possibility is considered.

This is how strong Judges work out their games. Hours of work are done in advance such that the actual game is just a question of which pre-planned results occur based on player actions. If the players stop the villain at the graveyard, they won't have to fight through a dozen zombies when they fight into his hideout. If they smash the evil altar, the villain will have no way to heal during the final confrontation.

Even on the small scale, this lacks something. What happens when the players actually just decide to set fire to the villain's base, accidentally burning down the city in the process? I know my players always choose that option. Maybe it's just me.

A strong Judge is sorely tempted to close off any player actions that are not already part of the Plan. Lame excuses or contrived situations prevent the players from doing anything that was not accounted for in advance. This is understandable in a computer game, but it tends to be incredibly frustrating in a GM-led game. As soon as the GM's planned options aren't the most fun option that the players can think of, the game in general ceases to be fun for them.

Now magnify your typical group by the number of players in a gestalt game. As the number of players increases, so does the probability that someone will cleverly figure out how to sabotage an obviously scripted event. You can't account for every possibility, and if you try to strong-arm a scenario back on track, you'll piss off a lot of people. A gestalt game that depends on Judges for plotting is highly likely to drive off any players that don't enjoy the fun that has been planned.

A Cruise Liner (P/J)

"Just make sure you let all the players know about the meeting of psionicists tonight. Other than that, do what you want."

At the risk of extending a metaphor way too far, the ideal is to combine the islands and the railroad into a cruise liner. On a cruise, there are scheduled stops and times of departure but in between these times patrons can relax and explore as they desire.

Figure out which members of your team are spontaneous and which are deliberate. Make the Js responsible for planning the game schedule. Let them figure out which variables absolutely have to happen, and set up a rough order or broad timetable. They love doing that. But, when it comes down to actual play, give your Ps the necessary leeway to improvise. When the city is burning and the schedulers are staring at their careful notes through bitter tears, the spontaneous folks are usually ready to shine.

And that's it for roles. Now that your team is a carefully crafted conglomerate, each cog in its conspicuous capacity (okay, I'll stop with the alliteration, I promise), there are a few more hazards to be wary of before you start to run your game. I'll outline the first, and greatest, of those next month: the almighty dollar.