Co-DMing?

[Grod_The_Giant]

How, exactly, does this work? I have a friend who's sort of interested in running a campaign, but also sort of busy. I usually have some spare time to spend on D&D stuff (despite running my own group), but really want a chance to play a PC as well.

[Ursus the Grim]

Depends on how you mean it. Alternating DMs just kind of take turns when the other is burnt out, or on a schedule, and generally run two different campaigns, or two stories in the same setting.

Co-DMs, as in two DMs running one campaign would require a lot of patience, understanding, and ability to avoid metagaming from both DMs if they are taking turns playing and DMing.

If they're running it simultaneously, I can only imagine a headache. The best way would be to split it up and have them each handle a different aspect, ie certain monsters in a large battle or number crunching and fluff.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I guess the idea/hope was that he'd run every game, and I'd play every game, but that I'd help out with out of game prep work?

[Swooper]

I'm a co-DM in one of the games I'm in. The main DM is not so hot on mechanics, so I get to stat most things out, but I'm not in on any of the plot except on a need-to-know basis (like, if I get told to stat up a necromancer I'll need to know that we'll be fighting one soon). Doing it this way works fine, I have minimal meta-game knowledge and can usually just avoid using it by letting the other characters make the decisions.

[Trekkin]

If they're running it simultaneously, I can only imagine a headache. The best way would be to split it up and have them each handle a different aspect, ie certain monsters in a large battle or number crunching and fluff.

This is accurate, but having tried number crunching and fluff, I will say that there are titanic pitfalls to be avoided, especially where fluff and number crunching run against each other. I've had more success with one GM running the main thrust of the game and the other one shuttling notes around and resolving individual subplots, especially in intrigue games and so forth, but the best place for multiple GMs is in planning. For a while, I basically wrote adventure modules for my friend to run the party through, and having someone who knows the party but can examine future events without worrying about spoilers is amazingly helpful for refining ideas.

If anything, it's a problem of noise, in that most games work best when there's one person to which the party directs their roll results and queries and everything else. If there's a fluff GM and a crunch GM, it can get weird having to talk to two different people, having them confer, and then both have a response, and it slows things down. Then, too, they can conflict, and having the tenets of the universe bickered over in real time, while amusing, is no good for the players.

Ultimately, it's a difficult thing to try at best.

[Ziegander]

I think Co-DMing could work well as long as one DM handles only non-combat arbitration and the other DM handles only combat arbitration. Both of them can cooperate and coordinate with each other to create the story and to arrange overall adventures and campaigns, but at the game table one does only non-combat and the other does only combat. Seems like that could work really well actually.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I guess the idea/hope was that he'd run every game, and I'd play every game, but that I'd help out with out of game prep work?

This is problematic for the reason of Spoilers.

If you are working behind the scenes then you'll have inside information on every adventure you're on. Yes, even if you just design stat blocks or write flavor text. You can try to keep your OOC knowledge away from the game but I can guarantee that it will be less fun for you to try to play in such a situation.

* * * *

The standard way to co-DM is to split the workload and have one person run a given game at a time. Sometimes, for large groups, you can actually have the DMs running at the same time, but for different collections of PCs or places. So, if some party members want to go scouting, DM B takes them aside while DM A referees the PCs who are interrogating the prisoners.

I've never heard of a situation where a "co-DM" is also a Player, and I don't think it would work particularly well.

[shawnhcorey]

I make the distinction between alternating GMs and co-GMs. Alternating GMs is when each run his own adventure, even if it's in the same campaign. Co-GMs is when they write or run the same adventure. Usually with co-GMs, one runs the adventure and the other plays NPCs. Also it let's the party split into two groups. This is especially useful when there are two separate combats. Indeed, co-GMs often write adventures where the party has to split to be successful.

[Volos]

I've been in a very interesting Co-DMing situation before. A friend of mine came up with an amazing Campaign concept one day. He really wanted to run with it, but had next to no knowledge of how to run a game. I'm, in the opinion of my players, an amazing DM whose mastery of crunch is second to none and whose ability to bring NPCs to life is on par with the greatest of bards. (Personally I think I'm just an average DM who can make a few memorable sessions by acting out characters well. My players... well they just love me) The only problem was that this friend with the amazing game idea would have nothing to do during sessions if I was running the crunch and playing out the characters. He was new to the idea of tabletop roleplay but was a great writer. So I allowed him to run as a PC in the game without telling the other players. He gave me direction on the plot, campaign world, and all the of the fluff while I confered with him with each bit of crunch so that he understood what capabilites we were giving to the NPCs, Monsters, and BBEG. It turned out to be one of the longest lived and most memorable games I have ever done. At the end we told the players who was the real bard behind the epic tale, and they almost couldn't believe it. My friend was very shy and took many months to warm up to his character much less the gaming system. I moved away from said friend and players but they may still be playing to this day for all I know. What I think made it work was how well we communicated between sessions along with giving the other Co-DM something to do while the game was going on. It very well could have worked in reverse. He could have done all of the roleplaying while I pretended to be simply a player who was well versed in the system. He could turn to myself or other players for any questions on how to make the crunch work mid-session.