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View Full Version : DM Help Rotating GMs - Advice Wanted



C-Moon
2020-08-12, 01:45 PM
Hi, having GM burnout is common for post TTRPG groups. One solution I've thought is with Suzerain's many realms, just letting a player and the GM swap out and run a one-shot in a different realm.

Now lore-wise, it's sound, no worries there, it's more the technical side of passing on the 'GM hat' as it were.

Question: What's a good way to summerise and organise story elements/locations/characters etc. to be passed to another GM for a one-off session that can be within the same world but not directly affect the main campaign? Is it best to just give a list of "try not to kill these people and stay away from these areas if possible" or is that too limiting? is it best to do a flashback one-shot? or to keep everything but the characters the same?

Darth Credence
2020-08-12, 04:40 PM
While personally I doubt I could share my campaign with anyone else, I can see the benefit. I'd easily agree to do it with a campaign world someone else created, like Forgotten Realms.

If this was the plan from the beginning, then I would say that the best way is to do it like GRRM edited Wild Cards. Everyone had their own characters that others could use, but the only person that could kill or radically change a certain character is the creator. In a game, this could be extended to dungeons, regions, and so on. But I think that only works if it is a large world and everyone has a hand in it in the beginning. I could see that being a lot of fun, although I could also see it being easy to break down, if someone uses someone else's character then the party ends up killing them.

If the campaign is ongoing, and you are looking for a short relief, I think you almost have to do different characters. I would have a whole idea that flashbacks where the characters play favorite NPCs before they met the PC, but that locks the players into some things that may not be good. So ultimately, I'd say that the other DMs should be told about a different area of the campaign world where the players have not yet traveled that is also not really well defined, and have them set up whatever they like there. I'd also let the fill in DMs know that you are willing to work their NPCs, or even the temporary PCs as new NPCs, into the main game. That way if something turns out really well, you can bring them back in the future. I'd also be open to the possibility that those other NPCs or PCs could end up as new characters for any existing player death. If you keep it far enough away from the current action, and you trust the temp DM, I think you don't have to do a ton of summarizing. If an NPC you had planned on using dies, you make another similar one.

jjordan
2020-08-12, 05:29 PM
Didn't the early versions of Ars Magica have a mechanic (and guidelines) for doing this? Might be a good place to look.

Duff
2020-08-12, 08:56 PM
Ars Magic had the "Troupe System" which was more than just swapping GM's . It was having different types of characters. When I ran it I encouraged everyone to have a character that would go out into the world to fight and one who would go to diplomacy (because they were the sorts of stories I planned to run)

But if you're wanting to hand around GMing you can either do "Guest GMs" where a guest GM runs a fairly self contained adventure such as "Go on a boat trip to a fairly isolated island to do the thing" or you have a "Over GM" who coordinates the overarching plot and "SubGMs" who have specific areas such as "Interactions with the Fairy kingdom in the forest" or "The ongoing Peasent revolt"

gijoemike
2020-08-12, 10:47 PM
back in the early 2000's I was part of a large game group that did this. We actually had more players than could reasonably play at one table. So 2 people would be GMs and run adventures for the players. All the players had 1 character and we part of a local community. We had a cleric trying to set up a temple to her deity, a full plated soldier that was friends with the cleric, a wizard in the local town trying to pawn magical trinkets, a paranoid spy type who suspected everyone, a lawman of the same town, there was a small druid circle within 20 miles, a ranger was friends of the druids. all the pc's had met a few times.

The GM would say their adventure would take 1 to 3 game sessions to run. Then those players would stick with that GM until we all swapped out again. Everyone would run a small adventure that gave life to the setting. Only one GM was even attempting an overall theme/plot. He ran the most and the story had to be pieced together over months on play. The trick was don't step on the other dm toes by using their npc's in any meaning or permanent way without their permission.

So it is possible to switch out GMs with the same group of PCs. Just have 2 or 3 characters that are known to the group. Sometimes they are busy and cannot go on the adventure with you.



If you require the same setting but a different group of PCs that becomes way more paperwork for most of the players. I would set it 100's of miles away. Hear rumors of the big events the other party takes part in. But don't affect much cross party. Sometimes a cameo appearance of the other groups PCs can happen.

Zhorn
2020-08-12, 11:41 PM
I'd say if you're having multiple campaigns in the same world under different DMs, the best advice is to just have them running their games in different parts of the world.
Using forgotten realms as an illustration, say;
one DM is running an Underdark adventure
Another is focused on overland travel towards Icewind Dale
Another has a group focus on the Yawning Portal's entrance to Undermountain
Then there's a group doing a jungle survival in Chuult
While the final is dealing with an infiltration into Thay

All of then are far enough apart to have the details of one adventure not be connected to another, while at the same time are close enough that a PC could be retired from one campaign, and come into play in another.

aglondier
2020-08-13, 02:31 AM
We did something like that, everyone had a character, all centred around a small village and nobles keep. We took turns running adventures, and the gms character would be busy with their in town obligations, while the rest of the group adventured. As the regular gm, my wizard was also the Court Mage for the noble and often busy, but also a good plot device for introducing adventures. The other two who regularly gmed played a druid, who was often called away to tend the land or someones herdbeasts, and the other a witch, who did much the same for the villagers. As for overall plot, we have a private Discord that we chat on regularly.

hifidelity2
2020-08-13, 06:17 AM
If the PCs are a reasonably high(ish) level then
Agree a number of tasks that need to be done with the other DM's (just the result not how it is achieved - thats up to the other DM)
- Locate X (person / object)
- Destroy Y
- Scout Locations
- diplomatic missions
etc

All of these are "minor" tasks but the PCs don't have time to do them all as they are concentrating on the big plot

They will higher the new party (of a lower level) to do these mundane tasks
If they succeed then its a bonus for the main party
If they fail its a complication for the main party

Also if you ever kill any on the main party it can be a good in" for a new character as (s)he is someone from one of the other adventures

CharonsHelper
2020-08-13, 07:27 AM
My buddy and I did GM sharing for a single campaign. We did it a couple of ways.

1. We talked through overarching campaign arcs and ballpark what would happen, but none of the nitty gritty. And we had a gentleman's agreement that neither character would take the lead on campaign issues.

2. We shared a single character with multiplicity personality disorder. We made sure to have similar physical attributes, and then otherwise had very different builds (D&D 3.5). In fact, the other characters didn't know we were the same person, because my personality was blind and wore a helmet which covered his entire face. (The campaign started at 6, and I used the Combat Focus feats to have Blindsight 5ft, and Keen Listener made it easy to find foes on the battlefield.) The fluff was that my buddy's character was the original personality, and mine was blind as a protective mechanism when some bad stuff happened to him which he didn't want to see.

We largely traded off sessions, though I think that I did a few more. It was a fun campaign, and it was nice to be able to jump in periodically.

Amusingly, my own character died when I wasn't controlling him. But it was basically 1 session from the end of the campaign, so my buddy and I played wacky outsider characters who showed up as they each had scores to settle with one of the two campaign bosses. A bit goofy, but it made more sense than another level 14-15 character with multiplicity disorder appearing out of nowhere in a campaign where that was supposed to be freakishly powerful.

Vahnavoi
2020-08-13, 11:47 AM
The best way to do it is to have no a priori continuity between the games at all. If it takes place in the same world, then it's the other GM's interpretation of that world, with none of the prior campaign's events assumed to have happened, and none of the new game's events assumed to influence the past one. Players all make new characters.

This minimizes the hassle of passing notes (etc.) between GMs to the smallesr possible amount - none. Because that's where you want it to be if you want to give an already over-taxed GM a chance to load their batteries.

After the new game's over and you go back to the old one, the old game's GM can with benefit of hindsight decide whether to include the events of the new game as part of their continuity, if they feel like they want to. Simple as that.

BioCharge
2020-08-14, 01:35 AM
I'm in a group right now with three others wherre we rotate DMs. We don't really have an overarching plot. Each of our characters was from a different universe/dimention/world pulled into a sentient Demiplane that sends us on whatever mission the current DM has written up. Last DM, we went into, essentially, a planet-sized dungeon to find a Lich's phylactery. The one we just finished, we fought robots and killed an AI in the middle of ascending to godhood. We have a beach episode with the next DM.

It works fairly well with nothing really interconnected except for our characters themselves. Even the recurring point with the sentient demiplane has its own reasons for being inconsistent. It works out pretty well.

Glorthindel
2020-08-18, 08:20 AM
I can give you a perspective from an experience where it went horribly, horribly wrong (I wont get into the details, but it ended with me carrying out a bitter, cynical tpk, that I am still ashamed of to this day).

Above all, respect each others material.

If a DM kills a character, that character stays dead, no other DM has the right to ressurect that character (barring in any natural way the system allows). If a DM introduces an NPC, the other DM's keep their hands off, and doesn't use them for their own purposes. If a DM introduces a magic item or other reward, another DM has no rights to take it away, or change it to suit them. This may all seem unnessercery to say, but all it takes is one DM making what they think is a fairly innocuous, completely harmless retcon of another DM's material, and if that DM takes it as an insult of their ability or a questioning of their authority, and things can easily escalate into an unpleasant conflict between DM's.

Now, its entirely possible that I am overselling the danger here, and your group can happily mess with each others material without any hard feelings, but it is much safer to avoid the danger.

Jay R
2020-08-18, 07:46 PM
Let's assume that you come up with an answer -- a tool for the 2nd DM to run a game that does not affect the first DM's plot or world structure, leaves the relevant NPCs alone, and never changes the PCs' situation in any way that might affect the first DM's plot. In that case, you would have successfully decoupled the 2nd DM's game from the first one's game.

Then there would be no benefit to having them be in the same world, or even be the same characters.

So the easiest solution is for the players to have separate characters playing in separate worlds.

Duff
2020-08-18, 11:17 PM
I also ran a game where the PCs were an assassin's guild. It was almost monster-of-the-week-ish in that most adventures were basically a mission - Kill this "person". So it was easy for guest GMs to run a mission. Anything with little to link the adventures except the party itself works for this.
Shadowrun/cyberpunk could work well with this, as would any "heist" themed game (Blades in the dark maybe?)
Should you ever run a Cthulu campaign that would work well enough (though a campaign requires a lighter touch from the GM and/or players who are very good at avoiding the nasty consequences)
Any game where the party travel a lot is easy - New town, New GM. Just agree to a set of rules for recurring characters. I suggest "Ask before you use an NPC or a town someone else introduced, don't do anything which changes the nature of them without asking. If you feel another GM is mis-playing your NPC suck it up" might work.

Oh, and Re Gloranthol's experience above, that's why you need to agree and stick to a set of guidelines. It doesn't have to be that set, but it has to be something you can all agree on and keep with.

GrayDeath
2020-08-19, 06:48 PM
We did something akin to it, back in the late 2000s in a very wild Exalted Mashup Game.

We agreed beforehand that really switching DM`s without switching campaigns would lead to trouble, and so we let each of us come up with a major Problem of the World, that would be the "Problem of the Month" whenever that one would DM.

Given the massive Power of Exalted Characters, it didnt LAST very long, but while it lasted, it worked beautifully, as each had to integrate a part into the problem explaining why their specific Character would not really interact with it.

Fun times.

As a more general Tip, as our try to do so failed, dfo not try to make a combined Campaign where the active DM "develops" it. It wont work. let hte players decisions do it, that also makes switching the DM muche asier.