Alternating DM's?

[StreamOfTheSky]

By "I talked with the other players (excluding Mark and Joey)" you mean "I talked to Steve"?

I got hung up on that at first, too. But in the OP he did mention briefly that there's other players, I think*. I guess these are the only four guys who DM.

Still again, not cool to leave those two out of a "group discussion."

*"Our sessions are quite erratic, and players fluctuate ( Me and Steve are always ready though.)"

 

[kitsune9]

Not sure who to really vote for

Hmmm....who to vote for, who to vote for....

I really don't know who I would vote for, but two people stand out who I wouldn't vote that would be Mark and Myself. I wouldn't vote for Mark because as stated, he knows the least of the rules. When I play under the DM, I have two expectations--1. Know the rules, 2. Prepare an adventure.

Here's my experiences as to why I feel this way:

For #1, I don't like playing under DM's because they tend to ban a lot of stuff, usually in midstream of a session. So Mark is out.

For #2, the DM's I've played with who wing it, they don't have consistent stories, their sessions tend to be boring role-playing of haggling prices for a suit of armor, magic item, whatever +2. The party often splits up where one player/group hogs all the time and the others just sit there for the next couple of hours watching the role playing session. This is particularly frustrating when I've paid $30-$40 to attend a convention and I get six to eight hours of this.

This is just my experience though. I know there are DM's who are into very rules-light or freeform role playing as well as DM's who can make up good adventures on the fly. I certainly don't think these styles are "wrong", just not for me.

As for the XP progression, I think it's a bit fast, but if you're getting in a lot of combat with higher than normal CR/Level creatures, then you'll be racking up the XP. If it's fun for your group, go for it. If you want to slow down your campaign progression and keep it around, then either set a XP budget similar to 4e or have a fix XP progression per session played, so something similar to that. That way, you know how long you'll be playing before reaching a campaign end.

Happy Gaming.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think the poll is a bit silly, so I won't be voting. I will say that you are rather fortunate to have so many in your group that like to run games. If every DM likes to run the whole show then run short rotating campaigns that perhaps some of the same characters can participate in.

 

[Findecano]

Wow , that cleared up a lot. Sorry for the poll, seems like a lot of people thought it was silly. Yeah, there are more than just the 4 of us in the group, and in the group discussion all the players said that they did prefer my campaign.

Someone pointed out that on-the-fly campaigns might have one player hogging all the time, and after pointing that out, I have come to realize the party's rogue definitely takes a lot of time when he leaves the group.
(Went online found some devious traps for those guys who go solo, managed to call in a rare 3rd sessions, and the problem is solved. He won't want to leave the party for a while unless it's for something he genuinely thinks is important.) So thanks for that, it significantly improved my campaign.

The XP guide kind of cleared up how fast we should be progressing. I think I'll slow it down a bit. My campaign will end as everyone reaches Lvl 25 (I do plan out significant events, its just that my party has a relative freedom of movement since they can do whatever they want in between sessions)

The decision to leave Mark out was made after I called everyone individually, and they agreed Mark could get angry quite quickly if something wasn't going his way.

Apart from that, everything is going well now, and D&D has become everything we had hoped it could be like. We all enjoy two great campaigns, and Joey, being crazy, is happy to design quests to help get the hysteria out our systems, if only for me to say at the end "Joey made that one.WIN.". I myself am running around on two worlds as a Swashbuckling,singing,spellcasting and eccentric party leader, and dashing into battle screaming like a maniac as a barbarian.

I can't thank you guys enough for the help I've received. Haven't been called a noob once.

Thanks again! You're awesome.