I have used this technique a few times, sometimes sucessfully, sometimes not. You have to know the person you turn your campaign over to very well. Years ago I ran a very low-fantasy medieval type world, and let a friend ref it for a few sessions. Before I could do much about it, we had beavers on tropical islands, floating castles, and vampires from space. The other players were most upset. I had to take the campaign back and arrange a lot of mass destruction to cover the wierdness.
Back in college, we played Runequest and adapted it for space, (calling it "Spacequest", of course.) That led to a time/space jumping campaign, where we switched refs every week. We had housewife, a berkely cop, a caveman, and a WWI flying ace as characters. We wrote an article describing how it worked for Different Worlds, but I don't remember which one. Authors are Pam Carlson and Rodney Sauer.
Just last year, David Dunham and I ran a joint campain set in Glorantha just after the Dragonkill. We both had ideas about the rebuilding of Holay, so we alternated adventures and ran our characters as part time NPC's, as you did. Unfortunately, we found that I had plans to have the characters wander about and solving the world's problems, like in old westerns, but David got everybody married and settled into a small town on the fringes of nowhere. (Must be all that Pendragon influence.) Anyway, we had fun with characters from all over Genertela. You can read all about the quirky lot on David Dunham's website.
Switching refs is a good thing to do if everyone wants to both ref and play, but you don't want to switch campaigns all the time.
Since David has already been plugging his site, (where you can also read all about the upcoming Glorantha Con in Victoria), I will add that now you can find there another charming Theya Two-Mothers story.
Come read how good Orlanthi children learn to maintain bloodfeuds!
http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha/todp/korol10.html
Pam
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