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Another_Poet
2008-11-12, 03:41 PM
I was wondering how many people have heard/read about the idea of a DM Run Club (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/39/run-club/), and if anyone has actually been part of one. Basically it's a club with w weekly gaming session, and everyone rotates into the DM chair, no exceptions. The sessions do not have to be part of a single plot (in fact, it's better if they're not). It's a series of one-shots with fun as the main purpose and honing your DM skills as the secondary purpose.

Tell you the truth I'm thinking it'd be a fun thing to do with fellow GitP DM's, but I'm not sure how many people would be interested or how well it would work online.

The idea would be that anyone can join, as long as they can keep up with the One Big Rule: you must take your turn running a 1 to 3 session game.

I was thinking it would work something like this:

1) All games will be played by chat on an internet play-by-chat platform. MapTools is probably the best one, but whatever people prefer.

2) The members would need to agree on a default gaming system that most/all games are run in (my preference would be D&D 3.5 with the Pathfinder rules, but again, group decision).

3) Each member would have only two or three characters of varying levels, and the same characters would generally be reused from session to session, even though the adventures may not share a single plot. This would require some member consensus on wealth-by-level adherence and what source books can be used.

4) There's a set time and day once per week when everyone logs in and plays. A single member can DM up to three sessions in a row; if their adventure takes longer than that to complete they're doing something wrong. No member can pass their turn to DM; everyone has to take a turn running a game.

What do you guys think? Would this sort of think work online? Would it be fun?

Townopolis
2008-11-12, 04:07 PM
I'd be quite interested in this.

Thoughts on advancement:
We could just do it normally, with each DM handing out rewards as they see fit. This might cause problems though, if one DM hands out skimpy rewards, their character will actually end up slightly ahead. If another DM runs 3 sessions, his characters will end up behind.

One way to fix this is to just say that all characters receive xp for every adventure, even if they weren't there. After the session, the DM figures out the base XP reward for the session (special rewards aside) and that's given to any character not present. They could also do the same for material rewards.

Another option would be to remove rewards entirely from the games themselves, and just have everyone reach a consensus on when everyone levels up. Say, we play through 5 sessions then decide everyone's antsy for the characters to level up, then everyone does so and reselects gear using their new WBL.

I'm mostly interested in D&D, either of the last 2 editions, or Pathfinder.

[Edit]: Another thought. If we're to have multiple characters, we could divide them by game or variant. i.e. everyone has 1 pathfinder character, 1 gestalt character, and 1 regular character (or 1 4e character).

Another_Poet
2008-11-12, 04:10 PM
Yeah I agree. I think we could leave XP out altogether and level up by consensus like you said.

For wealth/items I do think it's fun to have material rewards in-game, with the caveat that any DM can veto an item during his/her adventure. "Guys, let's use our 8th Level characters but pretend you don't have that Ring of Planeshift Anytime that Poet gave you."

valadil
2008-11-12, 04:15 PM
I did one of these in real life about 6 months ago. It was wonderful and I can't wait to try it again.

We did a couple things differently than what you suggest though. The big difference is that each GM had 2-4 sessions to work with rather than just one. More time to tell a story that way. We also leveled after each rotation, but that wouldn't work if GMs were limited to one session.

While we tried to keep the game episodic, we made sure that certain plot threads were left open for other people to pick up and use. I might introduce a BBEG, but not kill him off and let one of the other players use that BBEG later. It took us a full rotation (meaning each one GMed once) before we got to the point where we left plot open on purpose, but once we got there it was great.

Another_Poet
2008-11-12, 04:27 PM
Valadil, sorry if I was unclear, DMs woudl get 1-3 sessions apiece, not be be limited strictly to one.

Sounds like you guys had fun - do you think it's something you would try online? Would it work as well?

Dublock
2008-11-12, 05:29 PM
that would be cool, sounds like a great concept :smallbiggrin:

DownwardSpiral
2008-11-12, 06:33 PM
That actually does sound really good. I have a horrible habit of making one character, thinking it's awesome, then getting bored with it a session or two later.

And as much as I'd say I would join, I would be a horrible, horrible dm.

That said, it would be cool if you linked the thread so people could follow along with it.

Another_Poet
2008-11-13, 10:21 AM
@Downward: hey, horrible DMs are welcome too. It's a chance to improve your skills. As said in the article that gave me the idea (see first post), one of the biggest DMing problems is not DMing - often a hastily thrown-together game with loose plot, a few inconsistencies and a lot of long rules debates is super fun. Certainly more fun than not running a game at all.

The main worry I have right now is the time commitment of another game, even on the weeks I'm not DMing.