Multiple DMs?

[jasper]

Round robin DMing leaves me screaming depending on how you do it.
1. Jasper dms his adventure until finish. This is okay until Jasper has mega adventure, or real life crashes. Draw back is you may have to wait a few months to dm.
2. Chair passes every 2 etc weeks. Dm has own adventure/universe no pc jumping from campaign. Sucks. Took me about year to finish a published module as dm. Sucks worse once the kids get into band camp, so game time is cut.
3. Greenfield has to be a demon of our imagination. Disbelieve disbelieve. (anyone want to earn 2 pence by kidnapping him) I bow to you sir. Now I go cry as I never had players will to do that.

 

[the Jester]

Ick.

I prefer an actual campaign with some coherence.

Round robin is fine for "there's no other game in town" situations, maybe.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'll echo others who have stated how good round robin DMing can be. I've done it one campaign since 1985.

I also know how bad it can be.

My favorite form of round robin DMing is atypical, though, and I stumbled onto it by accident back in 1991. I was in a large gaming group in which everyone was an experienced gamer. Unfortunately, several guys in the group also had jobs that could call them away at any moment...including up-to or DURING the weekly session.

Quite frustrating.

So I suggested we round robin in the group. Nobody wanted to share their campaign worlds with other GMs, though. (Given the variety of styles, this was VERY understandable.). So I suggested that we still do it...but with EVERYONE running their own campaign, and each week, there would be the primary game and the backup- just in case the DM for the primary got called away. Two guys were prepped torun each week, and we all brought our books & PCs for those games.

For the next 3 years, it worked great. We missed no sessions due to RW issues, and we played games in something like 30 different systems! (Some of the GMs were a bit mercurial in their game preferences...) I personally ran 2 different campaigns in that time, including my best one ever: a Supers game using HERO set in 1900 in setting created for Space:1889 (based on Jules Verne & H.G. Wells and other sources). We even did a couple of playtests.

It was fun, and I learned a lot about playing on both sides of the screen.

 

[Greenfield]

I've posted another chapter from our campaign stories over in the Story Hour forum, if anyone cares.

This one was handled by a different DM, and the difference in style might be visible in the stories. It also shows how the world can be a bit discontinuous from one Dm to the next, without disrupting the main story line.

The original setting was supposed to be circa 500 a.d, but this Dm jumped to Renaissance Italy for his, a leap of about a thousand years. No time travel involved, just the rough seam between his view of the game world and some of the other DM's.

So far, the sections are, in order:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/322229-curse-darkness-prologue.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/322230-curse-darkness-olympic-games.html
and most recently http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/322408-curse-darkness-florentine-affair.html

 

[Greenfield]

Please Delete - Double Post

 

[Dordledum]

something we're going to try is not really round robin DM-ing, but similar nevertheless.

We have a single DM for the entire campaign (planning to go from lvl1-epic, now at lvl 6). From time to time someone else among us is going to DM a sidequest. The only rule is that it should be non-invasive to the main campaign. (no killing the king or such).

Should work fine me thinks.

 

[GhostBear]

Ick.

I prefer an actual campaign with some coherence.

It's quite easy to have coherence in a campaign with round-robin DMs. Everyone agrees on a general story arc / goal for the party before hand. You can also discuss the general direction after each DM is finished with his piece of the story to keep things on track. All it takes is a little communication and things are fine.

I have found round-robin DM to be a great way to help new people become comfortable with running games, too. If a more experienced DM takes the first session, then the less experienced DM can be fed story hooks to use and whatnot. It reduces the "what do I do with my game" paralysis that I've seen on occasion.

something we're going to try is not really round robin DM-ing, but similar nevertheless.

We have a single DM for the entire campaign (planning to go from lvl1-epic, now at lvl 6). From time to time someone else among us is going to DM a sidequest. The only rule is that it should be non-invasive to the main campaign. (no killing the king or such).

This sounds like a wonderful idea as well.

 

[Gundark]

I'll echo others who have stated how good round robin DMing can be. I've done it one campaign since 1985.

I also know how bad it can be.

My favorite form of round robin DMing is atypical, though, and I stumbled onto it by accident back in 1991. I was in a large gaming group in which everyone was an experienced gamer. Unfortunately, several guys in the group also had jobs that could call them away at any moment...including up-to or DURING the weekly session.

Quite frustrating.

So I suggested we round robin in the group. Nobody wanted to share their campaign worlds with other GMs, though. (Given the variety of styles, this was VERY understandable.). So I suggested that we still do it...but with EVERYONE running their own campaign, and each week, there would be the primary game and the backup- just in case the DM for the primary got called away. Two guys were prepped torun each week, and we all brought our books & PCs for those games.

For the next 3 years, it worked great. We missed no sessions due to RW issues, and we played games in something like 30 different systems! (Some of the GMs were a bit mercurial in their game preferences...) I personally ran 2 different campaigns in that time, including my best one ever: a Supers game using HERO set in 1900 in setting created for Space:1889 (based on Jules Verne & H.G. Wells and other sources). We even did a couple of playtests.

It was fun, and I learned a lot about playing on both sides of the screen.

So what are the bad experiences?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So what are the bad experiences?

It varies, but it boils down to one main problem: DMs not on the same page.

One example: I was co-DMing a RIFTS campaign, and didn't let the other DM in on the secret that the SAMAS suit I had given one PC had an active homing chip- essentially making it a "bait car" for the Coalition.

The problem was that the other guy had been running us pretty lean on the awards, so the SAMAS stood out a bi; it was disruptive. Things went downhill.

And it was my fault. I should have trusted him as an experienced gamer not to act on secret knowledge- as I had in other groups- but I hadnt been in that group as king as I had in other groups in which this shared DMing actually did work.

 

[Greenfield]

As a note, I've posted another adventure from our round-robin game, albeit a short one, over on the Story Hour forum.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/322841-curse-darkness-iii-italian-interlude.html