Multi-DM-multi-player D&D campaign?

[BOZ]

Anyone ever thought of this? You know games like EQ and ultima online? And MUDS and such? Anyone ever tried running a D&D game in a similar manner? Like with a group of several DMs running their games in the same world, where the PCs from one group can affect and interact with each other and the same NPCs? Does this exist already? Does it sound like a good idea?

 

[Zigmutt]

yeah- extremely hard to try and integrate various groups-

the first house rule I have is "no benefit shall arise for your character while you DM"

so when you DM, you can't strip the other party of all their magic weaposna nd say your character grup found it. Or if you DM a campaign where the treasure is a +5 bastard sword knowing that no one has the proficiency to wield it, and so would sell it- and have your char be the NPC buyer...

stuff like that

be careful on how they might also react to your using their character names to do things that they would not otherwise do.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Hi BOZ,

your name reminds me of the first pre-amplifier I ever built, ie BOZ, aka Bride of Zen.

Find the schematics here if you are interested.

http://www.passdiy.com/

EDIT: Sorry for the hi-jack!

 

[Radiating Gnome]

It would seem like the real problem with this idea is that time is so fluid -- sometimes it's moving very slowly, and sometimes you move very fast. If you're in a dungeon and only in a dungeon that's one thing, but it's going to be tough to keep two games on the same timeline with two different DMs. It works better in a computerenvironment because combat goes by in real-time, and when you decide to rest you actually sit there idle for a few minutes, rather than having a DM say "okay, you sleep for 8 hours and no one disturbs your rest."

You'd have to really work together closely with the other DM just to keep things synchronized.


-rg

 

[BlackMoria]

Our group has done this for a number of years. The campaign world has four DMs, and each DM has a number of players (not necessarily the same players).

Salient points - Consistency, Communications and Record Keeping

Consistency - the rules have to be consistent and enforced. If rule 0 applies for whatever, rule 0 applies throughout the campaign word. If a given spell works this way, it applies throughout.

Communication - DMs have got to talk to each other and hammer out protocols with everything from NPCs to who is the bartender of the favorite waterhole for the PCs. If I use a NPC created by DM 'A', then I talk to DM 'A' about my intended use of said NPC. And any event or incident involving NPC 'A' becomes canon for all DMs. No NPC 'A' doing whatever to the party in under DM 'A' and then having DM 'B' change it.

Record Keeping - each DM had got to record salient events for the other DMs to review. If the PCs burn down the Blazing Griffon inn under DM 'A', then DM 'B' has got to know so that he doesn't have some event staged at the Blazing Griffon inn and having the PCs confused as to whether the Inn burned down or not.

For the four DM of our multi-DM campaign, we have divided the campaign world into areas which a each DM has sole jurisidiction in and we have shared areas in which any DM can run adventures in.

Otherwise, a multi-DM, multi-player campaign setting is alot of fun.

 

[BOZ]

black moria, that basically sounds like what i was talking about. i was wondering if there's anywhere that people do this online as well?

 

[BlackMoria]

There was a group doing this online with some campaign world. I came across them about a year ago and bookmarked the site. Then my computer hard drive khacked and needed replacing and I didn't do backups of the bookmarks, so they are gone.

What I remember of the group - they have a game world and you could either DM a campaign or play in a campaign. Events from the various campaigns formed the basis the history of the world.

I don't know if the various groups could interact with each other, but it looked interesting enough at the time to bookmark.

Wish I could find them again...

 

[BOZ]

me too, that does sound cool.