Co- or Double-DMing: Best Practices?

[Marius Delphus]

Coming up soon in my little world will be an opportunity to run as many as 12 players through a one-shot adventure of my own design. I'm a little concerned the logistics will overwhelm me, as in one game some time past when I ran 10 players. (I think *they* had fun, but *I* was frantic and felt harried and out of my depth.)

Cue the Co-DM. A buddy of mine has agreed to share DM duties with me in exchange for being let in on the plot and helping to brainstorm all the oppressively dreadful combat scenes the adventure needs. (I'm freely tossing together OGL Steampunk, Steam and Steel, Libris (-er) Mortis, and Ravenloft for this game in a concerted attempt to remind the players, most of whom constituted my college group, why they like, but their characters fear and loathe, my style. "Undead treants with chainsaws" is only one of the encounters. )

So I am opening a thread for the first time ever to ask for tips, tricks, and anecdotes: specifically, what works with a Co-DM, what doesn't, what is a good division of duties, and is this really the most effective way to go about it? TIA all.

 

[Pasus Nauran]

Make sure you know and trust your Co-DM. Of the last three campaigns I've been in with a close group of friends, the first two had a co-DM (though in the second campaign, the co-DM became a player about halfway through). The first campaign came to an abupt end when the co-DM felt she wasn't welcome due to a misunderstanding. She got into an arguement with the DM who had created the campaign world (quite intricately as he always does) as to who held rights to the game world (as she was looking to write a book based upon it), and the campaign was cancelled.

The second campaign went quite well with a closer friend of the DM acting as co-DM. He typically played NPCs and kept track of initiative and such, while the DM handled storytelling and combat.

 

[John Morrow]

So I am opening a thread for the first time ever to ask for tips, tricks, and anecdotes: specifically, what works with a Co-DM, what doesn't, what is a good division of duties, and is this really the most effective way to go about it? TIA all.

My group has run quite a few successful co-GMed games in various combinations. These suggestions assume that the GMs will do some running seperately and won't always know what the other GM is saying or doing:

First, make sure that you are willing to defer to another GM. If you are a micromanager who needs control over every decision, it's not going to work well. If you both are, it will be a disaster. You need to let the other GM do their thing. Second, assign someone to handle continuity and big decisions about the setting so they will always be the final word if there is a disagreement at game time. Third, don't be afraid to stop the game to have a quick conference to share data, syncronize, or ask options but keep them quick. Fourth, avoid running each other's NPCs as much as possible because they won't necessarily remember what they said or did while the other GM was running them and that will confuse the players. Fifth, it can work well with two GMs with different strengths and styles so long as they stick to their strengths and styles and divide the duties.

 

[Jdvn1]

First time I co-DM'd, we split the responsibilities. Worked out well. One would take the storytelling, the other would do some rolling/paper/stats stuff and we'd switch every once in a while. Takes a bit of prep time, though. Write everything out beforehand so you both know what page you're on.

 

[barsoomcore]

The advice here is all good stuff. I ran a very long-term (8 years) campaign with my best friend through high school and university (ie, in the Pleistocene) and we not only had a great time, ran a great game that players loved, we ended up better friends than we'd been at the start.

So first of all, before and beyond anything else, make sure you trust your co-DM. A campaign is a precious treasure for most DMs, and NOBODY will ever have exactly the same vision of it as you do, but if you trust your co-DM's vision and are willing to let them guide things their way, it can be tremendously rewarding.

We didn't do huge amounts of planning. But we fell naturally into roles as big combats erupted -- one of us handling organizational details while the other keeps the big picture going. We had up to sixteen players at a time and things went pretty briskly. Other gamers used to come hang out just to watch us run games (we played in a lounge at the university) because it was, apparently, quite a sight.

What I remember most is how in sync he and I were through nearly all of it. We didn't come up with detailed policies or divisions of responsibilities, we just seemed to fall naturally into doing whatever needed to be done.

It was stupidly fun.

Good luck!

 

[Umbran]

Having done this numerous times with success, my honest first suggestion is - don't do it.

Why? Because it is darned difficult to do well. For most purposes, you are better off restructuring your 12 person group into 2 six-person groups, and running two separate sessions.

If, however, you really want to tun with 12 at once, and use a second GM, there are some tricks...

1)Separation of duties - in some way, shape, or form, separate the duties of the two GMs. Exactly how you divvy things up depends upon the structure of your session, and can vary from scene to scene. In the middle of a tavern, having one deal with social interactions and another deal with other mechanics might make sense. In a combat, having one detail the monster's actions while another ajudicate the PCs actions might work for you.

2)Both GMs must be thoroughly familiar with the material. Plan so that either one of you be prepared enough to run the game alone, if need be.

3)Even given (2), be prepared for one of you to forget vital information.

4) Expect and plan for the right hand to not know what the left hand is doing. If you cannot operate mostly independently, you gain nothing from having the extra body there.

 

[Timeboxer]

Here's something from improv theater: Never ever contradict what your fellow GM says. In improv, the wrong thing to do is to deny what someone has done to establish a scene in order to set up a cheap laugh -- in gaming, the rough analogue is contradicting someone because you think you have a cooler idea. If your co-GM says that something is true, then go with it -- improvise from there. Not doing so undermines the sense of cohesion that you would otherwise have with two people working in this way.

 

[Jdvn1]

Here's something from improv theater: Never ever contradict what your fellow GM says. In improv, the wrong thing to do is to deny what someone has done to establish a scene in order to set up a cheap laugh -- in gaming, the rough analogue is contradicting someone because you think you have a cooler idea. If your co-GM says that something is true, then go with it -- improvise from there. Not doing so undermines the sense of cohesion that you would otherwise have with two people working in this way.

Nu-uh, my way's cooler.



Yeah, when GMs contradict each other, the flow of the story seems to get choppy.

 

[barsoomcore]

Expect and plan for the right hand to not know what the left hand is doing. If you cannot operate mostly independently, you gain nothing from having the extra body there.

Good advice, there. I'd go even further (and this ties into Amy's advice):

Expect and plan for the right hand to take actions in direct contradiction to what the left expects. No matter how much agreement you and your co-DM have, at some point along they way they're going to say something or do something that's just going to make you go "Huh? WTF?"

Graceful recoveries in those instances go a long way towards making your game compelling.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

There's been good advice so far. In college, I played in a game where the DM had a co-DM, and it worked out pretty well.

I've seen people assisting the DM taking the job as being "how do I most efficiently kill the PC's" when the job is really "how do I play these NPC's undertaking actions that make sense based on their goals." Most DM's know this already, but it bears repeating.