Multiple DMs

[Regitnui]

This is a variant style of play that I've had a bit of success with online, and I've participated in a gaming group where the DM rotated for short adventure 'breaks' between campaign adventures, but what's the Playground's experience with sharing DM duties between two or more members?

[Joxeta]

I've never tried to play or run a single game with multiple GMs, but I've tried playing in multiple different games at the same time.

To me, it was a bit of a mess. I was having a hard time keeping my characters differentiated and would have my thoughts get disorganized in one game when thinking about stuff in the other.

But, that's just my 2cp.

I've always wanted to try a game where the GM rotates based on some sort of criteria, just to see what sort of oddness would happen. Kind of like a game of "Telephone."

[Trum4n1208]

Me and a buddy of mine are running a game right now, where one of us runs 4-5 sessions and then the other takes over runs another 4-5 sessions. The character of the current DM helps out with combat and kind of lets the DM talk to the other characters within reason, but otherwise takes a backseat. Mostly it's good. The only issue I'm running into is his sessions tend to be a bit goofier than mine, so the difference in tone can be jarring. Heavy communication is required, but it's doable.

[EscherEnigma]

Back in college, when life was good and love was easy and everyone had no problem sitting down for lunch on a Sunday and staying till dinner playing D&D, my group did the rotating GM thing all in the same "campaign". There were two of us that ran most sessions (normally we'd run a session or two then swap) but everyone else took stabs at it. Most of the time our PC would find an excuse to wander off while we were the GM. It got pretty weird at times (especially when we tried to "run" each other's NPCs without knowing what their story was. Some very OOC moments happened) but that was our great whacky campaign that included everything and the kitchen sink. Lots of fond memories.

Currently I'm "swapping" with another GM (one of my college buddies, actually), but different campaigns. The two campaigns are very different in setting, tone and theme, so I don't think there's too much of an issue with confused players.

[Basch]

Our table has had decent luck with it. Generally we run more episodic stuff. Usually someone comes up with the adventure they want to run, and their character takes a backseat except for combat and using their skills and spells when the group asks for it. This goes on for however many sessions the adventure lasts then we switch. Haven't had any issues other than the occassional headache from running a PC and the rest of the stuff at the same time.

[BurgerBeast]

I'm currently in a campaign with three different DMs. We wanted a regular game night, and we wanted the game to run regardless of which players could make it, and without punishing those players that miss the session. (All players level at the same rate regardless of who attends.)

In the end we laid down some guidelines. Every session is limited to 4 hours, and the DM has to end the session with complete resolution, back at "headquarters" so that if anyone shows up for the next session, it makes a bit of sense. This means that DMs often have to hand wave particular things, and pacing often interferes with player/character desires, but we have all bought in, and are willing to make concessions in order to maintain the structure. Also, as DM, once you finish a session, you hand over complete control to the next DM. He or she has complete control over NPCs and storylines.

We decided to model the campaign loosely as a television drama, with each episode being a discrete story on its own, but potential for recurring plots to resurface and villains to reappear, etc.

We decided to use Forgotten Realms as the setting, specifically the Society of Stalwart Adventurers based in Suzail, Cormyr. We use google docs to keep the three DMs informed about the session logs, NPCs, and potential hooks. So far most of us agree that it's been a great experience and can't understand why we didn't figure it out earlier.

[unwise]

I'm actually in a The One Ring game at the moment where another guy and I both have 2 characters each and we take turns DMing for the 2npc +2pc party. We run short adventures and we each have areas of the world where the other one does not do any world building. We gloss over travels through the Beorning lands when I am DMing and gloss over Lake-Town whene he is DMing.

So far it works really well, as the DM knows how to run the NPCs well, since they are their own characters. We are both mature enough not to Mary Sue while DMing, in fact we tend to fade the NPCs into the background each time, giving them important other stuff to do, or just saying "Beorneg is busy fighting the Uruk Hai over near the stairs" etc.

My suggestion is that each DM dibs a few villages, inns, orders and NPCs to be theirs. For instance, the Flaming Fist never seems to turn up much if Bob is not DMing, as his major plot involves them. The Half Way Inn, is always quiet when Jane is not DMing, as she loves to fill it with characters and quest hooks.

[Regitnui]

A friend of mine advocates the sharing of DM duties; one person does the antagonizing (monsters, villains, traps, stalker NPCs), and the other does the assisting (friendly NPCs, villages, boons, hot NPC love interests). The storytelling duties are shared between each one, or one takes control.

Personally? I like the idea of having less work, but not so much less control of the story...

[raspin]

Someone I know, who plays on roll20, has himself take control of the technical stuff, rolls, combat, ability checks and writing the plot while a Co - dm deals with npc interactions, dialogue and flavourful discriptions. I've not tried it, not keen to farm out either part of dming as it will take some of the fun for me, but he likes it.

Regarding rotating dms, I sort of do this but two of us have separate campaigns that we switch between every 8 weeks or so to allow the other dm to build some path ahead of the players. The campaigns are semi-sandbox as the players decide where they want to go, which regions they want to head to, what threads they want to follow and what they generally want to see go on at the end of each 8 session phase. We've kind of agreed they can go anywhere and do anything but with notice for major jaunts off piste so the world and places they go have more detail. It works well esp as I already have a full time job and a young son so can't dedicate endless amounts of time to prep.