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Fighting DM Burn-Out
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<blockquote data-quote="scrubkai" data-source="post: 2164321" data-attributes="member: 9766"><p><strong>Round Robbin DM</strong></p><p></p><p>I ran into DM burnout about a year ago...</p><p></p><p>I had just about 4 years worth of campaigns as well as having a few stressful changes in my life (Got married, had a kid, changed jobs... The whole nine yards) and I was just exhausted from the weekly grind of having to get ready for the weeks game session.</p><p></p><p>So I went to my players and told them I needed a break. We all talked about it and decided that we would try something. We all decided to try Round Robin DMing. What's that you ask? One of us took it on himself to design One little portion of a world, and dropped the rest of our characters into the world for a short (3-5 session) adventure. Then he was done and the next one of us took over and ran the characters for another 3 to 4 session adventure that built on what the first guy had done. It then switched to a third person who picked up the plot threads from the first two DMs and continued the story.... This continued until it got back to the original DM who then built on to what others had done.</p><p></p><p>We did have a few rules:</p><p>1) Once you are done with your session, all NPCs groups and locations get turned over to the Note pool and any DM can do what they will with them.</p><p>2) You must leave at least one plot thread open for the next guy to work on.</p><p>3) Each person has a character... If it's your turn to DM it's up to you to either write your character out of the story OR to run him as an NPC. (characters written out of the story go off and do something else that gains them about the same amount of xp and treasure as the rest of the group.)</p><p>4) You may hint at some deep dark secret plot, anything not revealed to the group by the end of your session is free for others to work with. So for example: The players may discover during my session that one of thieves guilds in the kingdom's capital city has quietly been assassinating low level nobles in the city. Even if I planned on saying that the assignations where an attempt by the rival assassins guild to frame the thieves guild, if the players don't discover that fact, the next DM can use that thread any way he wants.</p><p></p><p>How did it turn out? We all love it. It gives each of us a chance to play as well as DM and nobody really knows where the story is going to end. </p><p></p><p>The group is five people, three of us are good experienced DMs and two are players who are just learning how to DM. The short sessions are a good chance for the new players to learn how to DM, and the more experienced DMs are having fun experimenting with new things.</p><p></p><p>It's also been very interesting to watch week by week the differences in DMing styles. One of the new DMs tried his first dungeon a few months ago, and it turned into a two week hack and slash dungeon crawl... While I normally lose interest in that kind of thing very quickly, after spending the previously four weeks in heavy role-playing and almost no combat, it was a very nice change of pace. And then we were off onto my section where I decided to experiment with some of of the concepts from Librum Mortus.</p><p></p><p>If you have a couple good DMs in your group and want to try something different, I highly recomend trying this... I was supprised how much everyone is enjoying this format.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="scrubkai, post: 2164321, member: 9766"] [b]Round Robbin DM[/b] I ran into DM burnout about a year ago... I had just about 4 years worth of campaigns as well as having a few stressful changes in my life (Got married, had a kid, changed jobs... The whole nine yards) and I was just exhausted from the weekly grind of having to get ready for the weeks game session. So I went to my players and told them I needed a break. We all talked about it and decided that we would try something. We all decided to try Round Robin DMing. What's that you ask? One of us took it on himself to design One little portion of a world, and dropped the rest of our characters into the world for a short (3-5 session) adventure. Then he was done and the next one of us took over and ran the characters for another 3 to 4 session adventure that built on what the first guy had done. It then switched to a third person who picked up the plot threads from the first two DMs and continued the story.... This continued until it got back to the original DM who then built on to what others had done. We did have a few rules: 1) Once you are done with your session, all NPCs groups and locations get turned over to the Note pool and any DM can do what they will with them. 2) You must leave at least one plot thread open for the next guy to work on. 3) Each person has a character... If it's your turn to DM it's up to you to either write your character out of the story OR to run him as an NPC. (characters written out of the story go off and do something else that gains them about the same amount of xp and treasure as the rest of the group.) 4) You may hint at some deep dark secret plot, anything not revealed to the group by the end of your session is free for others to work with. So for example: The players may discover during my session that one of thieves guilds in the kingdom's capital city has quietly been assassinating low level nobles in the city. Even if I planned on saying that the assignations where an attempt by the rival assassins guild to frame the thieves guild, if the players don't discover that fact, the next DM can use that thread any way he wants. How did it turn out? We all love it. It gives each of us a chance to play as well as DM and nobody really knows where the story is going to end. The group is five people, three of us are good experienced DMs and two are players who are just learning how to DM. The short sessions are a good chance for the new players to learn how to DM, and the more experienced DMs are having fun experimenting with new things. It's also been very interesting to watch week by week the differences in DMing styles. One of the new DMs tried his first dungeon a few months ago, and it turned into a two week hack and slash dungeon crawl... While I normally lose interest in that kind of thing very quickly, after spending the previously four weeks in heavy role-playing and almost no combat, it was a very nice change of pace. And then we were off onto my section where I decided to experiment with some of of the concepts from Librum Mortus. If you have a couple good DMs in your group and want to try something different, I highly recomend trying this... I was supprised how much everyone is enjoying this format. [/QUOTE]
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