I need an alternate way to DM

[Dankus Memakus]

I've been DMing for my group for months and nobody else can do it, I've attempted to teach others in my group and they either hate doing it, can't grasp it, or they can't keep the groups attention. I really love playing D&d but I never get to play. However there are apparently games with a mechanic where nobody DM's. I was curious to see if anyone has adapted this to D&d or has any ideas on how the game can because I really want to play some of my character concepts. (I know that some people may scold me on this so please just keep your scolding to yourself because i will ignore it i'm just looking for a good time.)

[collinburns]

Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to the dilemma, but I am interested in seeing other responses. I am experiencing the same issue with my play group.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've been DMing for my group for months and nobody else can do it, I've attempted to teach others in my group and they either hate doing it, can't grasp it, or they can't keep the groups attention. I really love playing D&d but I never get to play. However there are apparently games with a mechanic where nobody DM's. I was curious to see if anyone has adapted this to D&d or has any ideas on how the game can because I really want to play some of my character concepts. (I know that some people may scold me on this so please just keep your scolding to yourself because i will ignore it i'm just looking for a good time.)
I have an alternate solution for you. About every fourth week, simply don't run the game and go to any local meet up/D&D game (you can find them on line if you do just a bit of searching, on face book, on google, on twitter, on d20, etc) and play where someone else is a DM. Anyone else.

This does three things.

Gives you a break
Lets you play
Expands your circle of friends who like to game, potentially.

If you are not already on roll20, you may want to peek at that and see if you can join games there ... but you have no idea whom you are meeting so a given game may be good, and a given game may be not so good.

[Beastrolami]

I have been in one (maybe 2) no DM games that worked. Neither of them were DnD, but I don't necessarily think that is necessary.

The things that worked:

1. Random roll tables - make random roll tables for EVERYTHING. Roll every time you enter a building to see which faction controls it, roll before you enter a city to see which factions are in the city. Develop a narrative as a group based off the random rolls, because otherwise it will be a bunch of players starting tavern fights and arguing over who has the biggest sword.

2. Synergize - Make sure all the players work together well/have the same goal. There is no room for arguing whether or not to take a quest, or splitting the party in a no DM game, because if you do that, you are just wasting time, and there is no DM to put the train back on the rails. You need to make sure everyone is on the same page, hop on the tracks, and then turn on the random number generator.

3. If no one is DM, everyone is DM - This is probably going to be the hardest for your group. When there is no-one to adjudicate the rules, everyone must be in agreement as to what the rules are. If there is an argument, bring it to a vote, and after the vote is done, don't argue.

Minor things:

Someone has to rp the npcs, so you will probably have to go around that table rp-ing npcs. Remember to randomly roll how helpful the npcs will be. If you have players who are extremely attached to their players and want to take all the glory, this isn't the game for them, as they will have to play as npcs, and give in to the group consensus for the game to work.

It can't last. The most memorable no-DM game I played was a one shot. Afterwards a new dm wanted to run a homebrew campaign, and we decided to use our same characters. It was a disaster, and we never went back. One other thing to note, is because of all the rng, our one shot campain had no overarching plot or story. We were literally murdurous hobos with a sense of justice that rolled random antagonists, and then used everything in our power to hunt them down and kill them (randomly rolling obstacles for ourselves along the way).

That's what worked for me and 1 friends, I can barely imagine it working with a full party of 4, and I know some people will read this, and think it sounds really boring, and pointless.


p.s. Just remembered the 2nd nodm game we ran, and we literally randomly generated a dungeon on donjon, and just tried to beat it as a party. It ran like a video game without the computer to work the AI. It was very slow, and clunky, but we had cool character concepts which kept us interested (also, it was a homebrew based off Danmachi).

[Everstar]

1. Random roll tables - make random roll tables for EVERYTHING. Roll every time you enter a building to see which faction controls it, roll before you enter a city to see which factions are in the city. Develop a narrative as a group based off the random rolls, because otherwise it will be a bunch of players starting tavern fights and arguing over who has the biggest sword.

Excessive rolling will slow the game down to a halt. Down that path lies boredom...

[Dankus Memakus]

I have an alternate solution for you. About every fourth week, simply don't run the game and go to any local meet up/D&D game (you can find them on line if you do just a bit of searching, on face book, on google, on twitter, on d20, etc) and play where someone else is a DM. Anyone else.

This does three things.

Gives you a break
Lets you play
Expands your circle of friends who like to game, potentially.

If you are not already on roll20, you may want to peek at that and see if you can join games there ... but you have no idea whom you are meeting so a given game may be good, and a given game may be not so good.

The problem for this is i live in the middle of nowhere so i cant meet up sadly. Im an hour drive from the nearest store that even sells dice so gaming isn't really big here and i am not quite sure how d20 works but if it requires internet that i cant do on my phone i cannot participate in it. I do like the idea of rolling for everything but I dont know if the vast majority of my players could handle that

[clash]

Yep solutions I have used to try out character concepts while dming.
1. Build the villains from your character concepts. This gives you a chance to try them out in combat at least and see how they pay.
2. Create a dmpc. This is an NPC character that you control that journeys with the party and helps them out. You don't get the decision making of the other party members or it doesn't work well but you get to play a character both in and out of combat and it allows for some easy plot hooks if you need.

[2D8HP]

Maybe a board game like RuneWars would "scratch the itch"?

[nickl_2000]

Maybe a board game like RuneWars would "scratch the itch"?

Mice and Mystic may also be another decent choice if you are going this method.

[Beelzebubba]

There are plenty of fun indie games that have a dynamic like that. Each player takes turns to own their character's actions and then narrate something about the larger world into existence.

Fiasco, Dread, Polaris (and a lot more)... they're all optimized for one-shots rather than campaigns, so it might be a fun way to break it up every few weeks.

[Dankus Memakus]

There are plenty of fun indie games that have a dynamic like that. Each player takes turns to own their character's actions and then narrate something about the larger world into existence.

Fiasco, Dread, Polaris (and a lot more)... they're all optimized for one-shots rather than campaigns, so it might be a fun way to break it up every few weeks.

So people just trade off periodically as the dm or how exactly does this work?

[Bloodcloud]

Shadow of Brimstone might also scratch that itch... It's a Cthulhu style western TTRPG with no DM. But theres not really any roleplay, it's a dungeon crawler.

[Pr6i6e6st]

I've been DMing for my group for months and nobody else can do it, I've attempted to teach others in my group and they either hate doing it, can't grasp it, or they can't keep the groups attention. I really love playing D&d but I never get to play. However there are apparently games with a mechanic where nobody DM's. I was curious to see if anyone has adapted this to D&d or has any ideas on how the game can because I really want to play some of my character concepts. (I know that some people may scold me on this so please just keep your scolding to yourself because i will ignore it i'm just looking for a good time.)

There's an option called "the gods must be mad" I think, in the DMG where everyone trades off and takes turn as the DM. It's supposed to be quite the chaotic sort of events. There's also the option to give your players a DM token, so they can use those to make their own DM calls. Both of these methods are quite unpredictable, but if things are feeling stagnant, and you can't get anyone else to DM, these are what I suggest.

[Dankus Memakus]

There's an option called "the gods must be mad" I think, in the DMG where everyone trades off and takes turn as the DM. It's supposed to be quite the chaotic sort of events. There's also the option to give your players a DM token, so they can use those to make their own DM calls. Both of these methods are quite unpredictable, but if things are feeling stagnant, and you can't get anyone else to DM, these are what I suggest.

I read through this and it is exactly what i want. Im extremely excited to try this out. It sounds like a perfect way to harness the randomness of my group

[coredump]

Go to DM Guild and grab a few Adventure League adventures.
Those are short (2-4 hour) modules. It's a great entry for new DMs.

[Sir cryosin]

Is it RP concepts or class mechanics you want to try out. Because if it's just class mechanics you can just make encounters were the NPC are using class mechanics. Or you can take all your ideas your itching to try and make a DM party were you have them go after the same thing the party is after. turn the DM party into a encounter of some sort.

[Marvnmartian]

Personally ive been running a 'no dm' game for awhile but how ive been doing it is a west marches/fairy tale kind of game where the group is apart of an adventuring guild and people bring quests with different ratings of how hard they are. basically I go to dmsguild look up pre created one shot adventures and read the overview to see what the cr's are of the monsters and only the crs that way I cant meta game and know that 12 skeletons are down the hallway yada yada

this way i can put them all into a folder and label them as cr 1-x then give a personal star rating to let everyone know how dangerous these quests might be then i will pick out an assortment on the day of the game usually 5 2 under our level 1 at our level 1 a level above us and 1 3 levels above us with a large reward which usually gets the rogues attention for the monetary gain.

At the start it was a bit to put together but now i have 40-50 one shots saved and can run a new group into the world as easy as calling them a new band of adventures that join the guild.

this of course doesn't allow for personal touches of quests, but I've had a good time doing it and if I ever get the idea of an adventure that i want the group to run through i usually create a reason my character cant be with the party then allow anyone else who wants to play pick up a character or if they have played in my guild before they just play their old character. This has allowed me to scare my players quite handily whenever I have a spare player in the other room and im going through dialogue as my character and introduce a story element as in 'whats that sound up stairs' etc and having the group 'find' the new player who has been attacked, snuck in, drunk and shambling about because of his woes... which generally are the hook of the adventure then I slide up out of my chair to go to my dm screen in a corner and have the new player come in and take my spot.

honestly it has changed the way I dm. I still have a world i still have a long arching narrative that can be plucked upon at any time and sometimes these one shots allow me to introduce story elements by sneaking in a paragraph or two into these stories that interacts with the world. But it also adds a bit of fun and spice because honestly i might be the DM but i have no idea what is on the next page of the print out and it could end in a TPK so i have to think on my feet just as any other player does.

[RazorChain]

I've been DMing for my group for months and nobody else can do it, I've attempted to teach others in my group and they either hate doing it, can't grasp it, or they can't keep the groups attention. I really love playing D&d but I never get to play. However there are apparently games with a mechanic where nobody DM's. I was curious to see if anyone has adapted this to D&d or has any ideas on how the game can because I really want to play some of my character concepts. (I know that some people may scold me on this so please just keep your scolding to yourself because i will ignore it i'm just looking for a good time.)

Welcome to the dark side, forever it will dominate your destiny. Now the DMs chair is forever yours.

[Laserlight]

Two Hour Wargames has some soloable/cooperative games that you might borrow concepts for. It's been some years since I've read them but IIRC the concept is that you make up a roster of encounters, put a few "Unidentified Encounter" markers on the map, and move them around as they patrol, your group makes noise, etc. When you make contact, you roll to see which encounter you've found. Might be something atmospheric ("there is a brief earthquake--dust falls from the ceilings"), a potentially helpful NPC, a fighting encounter, loot, or nothinig at all--depends on what you put on the encounter table. You could do wave attacks by marking the first encounter "roll 1d6 for each turn; if a 6, an additional encounter occurs immediately". You could also split up the "prepare an encounter" duty so nobody knows the whole list of what monsters might be encountered. 2HW has some free downloads if you want to get more into it.