Pathfinder 1E How many DM's in a group is a good / bad thing?

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[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION]

My current gaming group has 7 people in it, 2 of whom DM. Of the other 5 people, I'm not sure if any of them have ever DM'ed before.

Having 2 DM's works well for our group. I was the DM for our group exclusively for the first 8 years, but have been a player for the past 18 months.

We play fortnightly. Back in about 2008, one of the players in the group started up another campaign that played on the alternate week to my campaign (unfortunately I've got too much on to play weekly, so I couldn't play in that game). There was some overlap in players between the 2 groups, but there were a couple of players that were in 1 game, but not the other. Plus his game was 4E, while mine was 3.5E.

That worked pretty well for all of us as it allowed those who wanted to play more frequently to do so. However, the other campaign ended after a couple of years as that DM started studying again, so went back to just being a player in my game again.

About 18 months ago my wife and I had a third child, so I took a break from DM'ing and instead of our group going on hiatus, the other DM started running a 3.5E campaign. After a 6 month baby break I joined the game again, but as a player. The campaign has been running smootly ever since.

Our group only has 1 campaign running at a time though. If the other DM is unavailable we reschedule the game for another day.

Game-wise, having 2 DM's in the one group hasn't been an issue. Neither of us tries to take over the other's game for them. If anything, both of us give the other DM extra leeway and try and help pull the party to where the DM is trying to take us as we both know how hard it can be to run a game. Plus I'm really enjoying getting the chance to play, rather than run a game, for the first time in about 13+ years.

Basically we go by the rule that the DM of the game decides what goes. In our current game the DM has made some decisions that I definitely would have done differently if I was running the game. However, it's his game, so I think he should have the right to run the game as he sees fit.

Personally I think the number of DM's in a group depends on the players. I've DM'ed for a player that normally was a DM. He kept pestering me about introducing house rules that he had in his game and would constantly bemoan rules he didn't like (for example, he thought that PC's should be able to make critical hits, but monsters/baddies should not). That was not fun to deal with.

It is good, however, to know that if the current DM is too busy, suffering from burnout or whatever and wants to take a break from running the game, that there is someone else available to take over.

Our table has 6 people, and we swap GM chairs between 3 GMs, usually every 1 to 3 months, though 2 of the GMs seldom run more than a month long each - I do most of the GMing probably half the year, with me alone. We generally keep to the same setting, usually doing our own side quests within the same setting. Sometimes a little collaboration between GMs out of game just to make sure whatever a given GM does, doesn't screw up an existing storyline.

It can be good or bad having multiple DMs in a group from my experience. It just depends on the person. A lot of DMs seem to hog the spotlight once they become a player. It can take some adjustment to get back into the role of a player. On the other hand, DMs have a good understanding of the game and can be beneficial to a group due to the way they may approach the game.

If the group tends to swap out DMs every so often, then of course it is good to have multiple DMs. I pretty much do nothing but DM for our group. I like to run long ongoing campaigns rather than short games where players create new PCs over and over. This means that I don't get to play as a player much at all because everyone wants to keep playing the same campaign that I run. I do have a player who DMs another group. There's no issues with having him as a player. He is very easy going to game with.

Oryan77 said:

It can be good or bad having multiple DMs in a group from my experience. It just depends on the person. A lot of DMs seem to hog the spotlight once they become a player. It can take some adjustment to get back into the role of a player. On the other hand, DMs have a good understanding of the game and can be beneficial to a group due to the way they may approach the game.

If the group tends to swap out DMs every so often, then of course it is good to have multiple DMs. I pretty much do nothing but DM for our group. I like to run long ongoing campaigns rather than short games where players create new PCs over and over. This means that I don't get to play as a player much at all because everyone wants to keep playing the same campaign that I run. I do have a player who DMs another group. There's no issues with having him as a player. He is very easy going to game with.

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All 3 GMs at our table, when switching GM chairs don't change the setting, campaign or require new characters, just the individual PCs of each GM leaves the group temporarily, only returning once we are players once again. All the non-GM PCs remain the same no matter who is GMing the table. We switch out GMs to prevent burn-out, or to accommodate a player that wants a chance at GMing - we don't see that as a reason to create new characters for a new game, we simply change referees, and the game continues as if nothing changed, except one of the PCs is back in the group again. The one player in our group that likes to hog the spot-light isn't allowed to GM (he tried once in utter failure and near game collapse, because of his attitude not his GMing skills or lack thereof). We barely tolerate him as a player.

When a player becomes a GM, and his PC leaves the group, we pretend that that PC is adventuring elsewhere, so that if 2 levels go by while GMing, when becoming a player once again that PC isn't 2 levels behind the rest of the party, as we just say that he was adventuring elsewhere and why his level matches the rest of the party once returned to the group. Its our work-around to that issue.

gamerprinter said:

All 3 GMs at our table, when switching GM chairs don't change the setting, campaign or require new characters, just the individual PCs of each GM leaves the group temporarily, only returning once we are players once again.

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Ah yeah, I forgot about that style of gaming. I've heard groups doing that here, maybe you are one of them that I've seen mention it before. It's an interesting approach. One thing I have wondered though is that if you all DM, do you only stop DMing when you have finished running a particular plotline? I'm just wondering how you guys keep secret information secret? Like, if you used a BBEG that has information that the players should not know yet, does the next DM just not use that NPC when it is his turn?

Oryan77 said:

Ah yeah, I forgot about that style of gaming. I've heard groups doing that here, maybe you are one of them that I've seen mention it before. It's an interesting approach. One thing I have wondered though is that if you all DM, do you only stop DMing when you have finished running a particular plotline? I'm just wondering how you guys keep secret information secret? Like, if you used a BBEG that has information that the players should not know yet, does the next DM just not use that NPC when it is his turn?

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Yes, generally each sitting GM finishes a given plotline, before switching GM seats. Our campaigns tend to have organizations as the opposing force, and not a single BBEG, the BBEG is part of that opposing force, so any GM secrets pertaining to a given BBEG is not revealed to other GMs, they simply pick a new BBEG from the other members of the opposition party and that NPC (usually a lieutenant) becomes the villain that the new GM is working with. It almost becomes extended side quests that take a month or more of playing to complete.

Thanks for the mention Dandu.

Our group has eight people, and our campaign style is designed for multiple DMS.

We lay out an over all campaign goal that will give a framework for any DMs to work with.

Each player makes up a character, and the part of the world they come from. If/when they decide they have a story they want to add to the campaign, it takes place in that part of the world they made up, or some unclaimed territory. This way there's little to no chance of their story arc killing off a key NPC that someone else was counting on as a foil in their upcoming adventure.

For example, at one point we had a copule of players who hadn't played 3rd edition, and were a bit unsure of the conversion. We were just starting a new campaign, so we took that into account in the world layout.

We called that campaign "Lost Secrets". The premise was a world in which many spells, feats, prestige classes etc had been lost or forgotten. The secret rituals of some secret societies had been closely guarded secrets, for example. Over time, one of two things tends to happen to such secrets: They leak out and are no longer secret, or the keepers of those secrets die off and take the knowledge with them.

So, in this world, the Feats needed to enchant permanent magic items had been lost. All 9th level spells were gone. A great many Prestige Classes were out, etc.

The gods were actually pretty much okay with this. It was kind of nice not to have to deal with Epic level heroes with all custom made gear challenging and shaking the foundations of heaven every few years. But they foresaw that there were dark days coming, and that mortals would once again need these lost arts, even the evil necromantic ones, and so they sent word, via their Clerics, that each nation should send a representative or champion to join a group who would seek out the lost tomes, ancient sites, the rare repositories or the few living people who held these secrets. Their mission was to gather all the knowledge, art and artifice they could, and share it equally with all the nations.

With this framework, any DM could pick any Feat, Prestige Class or whatever that hadn't yet been seen or used, and make up an adventure about it.

Permanent magic items would be few and far between, at least until we learned how to make them, since officially nobody knew how to make them.

And it was okay for the party to include characters who didn't like or trust each other, or who represented nations that were traditional rivals and/or enemies. Two of the PCs were from nations that had an on-again/off-again state of war, always simmering. This gave us huge opportunities for character interaction, which could and did provide a lot of story material.

Some of the things we uncovered, such as the dark rituals for using hum(oid) sacrifice to provide the EXP needed to craft magic, we included in our ever growing Codex Majika, but we put them in with black borders, at the back of the book. And while we did distribute copies of what we had found, as our charter demanded, that section was usually "distributed" by leaving a copy filed in the back shelves of a royal or guild library, without fanfare.

We ran that campaign, with six of our eight players taking the DM's seat at various times. We ran from 1st through 20th level and had a rollicking good time with it.

My old group (currently on hiatus) has four members, two of which are DMs. We mostly play Dungeon World, though we started with Dogs in the Vineyard (and a slightly different set of people). Since both of the likes-to-DM guys get the itch to play and to DM often, we alternate weekly between their games, a fantasy setting and a pulpy, not-strictly-scifi space setting. The only flaw has been that we're always antsy to play both campaigns!