Playing in a game I'm going half the time?

[Rfkannen]

Howdy!

So my and a friend were talking about co running a campaign, with us switching off with the sessions, so we would each be running around half the sessions, and playing in the others game.
The game is going to be episodic, hopefully a fair amount of role playing and character development, but each session is another adventure.

I think it sounds really cool and im exited for it, but the main thing Im worried about is playing my character. My main worries would be about not being in the game half the time, and about favoring myself. For example, if I play a half orc named Gorig, giving a magic item out in one of my sessions that can only be used by half orcs whose names start and end with g. Thats an extreme example but you get my idea. But My main worry is actualyl making a character who works with the party dynamic, but its okay they are not there half the time.

Any tips? Have you done this before? How did it work out?

[Kane0]

Cop out answer: The two of you share a character with a personality disorder. A variant of this is twin characters or the like.

My group once did a DM hotseat game where we make a megadungeon and each of us DMed one layer of it. Turned out pretty good, 5e is nice in that it doesn't require any particular class setup within any given party. If you're worried make a support or 5th wheel sort of character thats good to have but not one that the party will be dependant on like 'the frontliner' or 'the face'.

[Rynjin]

Discipline, my good sir.

It's often more perception than actual favoritism toward your own character anyway. Try to just actively police yourself and objectively look at whether a disproportionate number of items are good for your character (and not others).

If you want ways to remove the temptation altogether, consider generating random loot before the campaign starts, or dealing purely in raw treasure and letting the PCs magic mart everything they like. Or the simplest, have your character be absent the sessions you GM. Say he has his own business to take care of off screen and he level up as the rest of the party does. Basically, do like Gandalf do.