Separate DMing: story/adjudication and Team Monster?

[TuggyNE]

I'm curious how many Playgrounders have tried something like this arrangement: one DM is in charge of moving the plot forward, another one is in charge of running the enemies in battle, one or both of them creates the challenges, and one or the other handles most on-the-spot rulings about this or that.

This seems like it would probably be best under something like the following conditions:

The DMs have limited areas of expertise
The game is heavily player-vs-DM (an attitude I normally dislike, mind you)
There are a lot of players
The game is extremely high-op/high-tier, and therefore requires a lot of preparation


Thoughts?

[shadow_archmagi]

I've had games where I collaborated with another DM. We didn't have a strict division of labor, and I'm not sure that that'd really help- My experience is that all DMs learn all parts of DMing, and while some people may be better at things, they can both always contribute.

[Fyermind]

I am very interested in this because I too often get stuck as DM because I know the rules well.

My imagination is not always the greatest, so I'd very much like to have someone else handle that part so I can do what I love most: max/min monsters all day and run combat encounters in simulation a few dozen times.

I'd also use this sort of thing as a mentorship opportunity so I can rear new DMs to take my place (and unleash the inner player in me).

[Flickerdart]

It's tough enough getting one DM. How do you plan to get three?

[Ranting Fool]

I have done "Guest DM's" for when someone wanted to try out being a DM but weren't sure (so I'd sort out the main plot and they'd fill in the blanks)

Mostly for small sidequests / one off games. :smallsmile:
It often is one player from the group does a little side quest for the rest, and tries a hand at DM'ing, then goes "oh that took sooooo long to sort out before hand for such a small amount of game time" then I look smug and they go back to being a player and complain less

[The Crash Man]

Co-op DMs can work, but if you have creative differences that arise without one party telling the other things can become a tangled mess really quickly. Personally, though, I'd say its better to learn a bit of everything rather than rely on somebody else to fill the gaps. If they miss one session the whole thing could end up being stalled.

[TuggyNE]

I've had games where I collaborated with another DM. We didn't have a strict division of labor, and I'm not sure that that'd really help- My experience is that all DMs learn all parts of DMing, and while some people may be better at things, they can both always contribute.

This is true, and I wasn't really aiming at strict division as such -- more of a "you generally run the monsters, I'll generally figure out where we're going" sort of a deal


It's tough enough getting one DM. How do you plan to get three?

Three? I only count two. :smallconfused:


Co-op DMs can work, but if you have creative differences that arise without one party telling the other things can become a tangled mess really quickly. Personally, though, I'd say its better to learn a bit of everything rather than rely on somebody else to fill the gaps. If they miss one session the whole thing could end up being stalled.

Indeed. Any specific experiences you've had with this sort of tangling?

[Amphetryon]

I seem to recall a suggestion on these lines back in the days of the Red Box Set, where there was a listed role of DM, and a listed role of Referee. DM's job was running the story and Team Monster, whilst the Referee was there for rules adjudication. Naturally, this made the Referee's job generally un-fun, since his only role was in disputes. It's one thing to have a Rules Lawyer at the table, it's another when Rules Lawyer is the extent of his involvement in the game.

[Feytalist]

The Penny Arcane guys have mentioned occasionally that they co-DM, with Tycho handling the general storytelling bits and Gabe handling the encounters and combat and so on. Seems like it works quite well for them.


I've never played with two DMs in one game, but we occasionally ran two games at a time (two groups, one DM each) when we still played Living Greyhawk. The two DMs sometimes handled disputes for the other group. It probably worked because the modules we ran were official published material, and both were familiar with the material, obviously.