My moment(s) of madness - and about Unreliable DMs and their groups

[MerricB]

A couple of months ago, I was running two D&D 4E campaigns and playing in a Star Wars Saga campaign. Each was fortnightly, with both D&D falling on the same week. Then I started playing in a Serenity RPG campaign. After a couple of sessions, due to the GM struggling, I offered my services as GM. The next session was one of the best I've ever run, so I thought "Yes, this is worth doing".

Last Saturday, I saw a group of friends coming into my FLGS to play D&D, only their DM was unavailable. So, as I happened to have the D&D Encounters adventure with me, I ran them through the first three encounters of those. Call it a massive catch-up session if you like.

Then I had my moment of madness: I said I'd DM them next week assuming their other totally unreliable DM didn't show. (They have two DMs. Both are unreliable).

This gives me the coming weekend like this:
Friday evening: D&D 4E, Greyhawk homebrew.
Saturday evening: D&D 4E, ????
Sunday afternoon: D&D 4E, Demon Queen's Enclave
Sunday evening: Serenity RPG, homebrew.

What have I done????

Anyway, it leaves me with needing to come up with an adventure for the FLGS group on Saturday. I give thanks to those who have created adventures and made them available for the rest of us. I don't want to DM this group on a weekly basis - apart from anything else, it'll put a big hole in my Saturday boardgaming schedule - but I want to see that they're provided for.

Given their situation, I'm thinking of running one of the Living Forgotten Realms adventures; in that way, if the group does end up with rotating DMs they might use the Living Forgotten Realms as a template for handling it. It's got all of these "My Realms" adventures that allow you to create your own adventure - or adapt another - so that might also help. And given that the current LFR has a complete minimum of paperwork, it shouldn't be so intrusive. (You need to write down the name of the adventure, how much gold and XP you got, and that's about it for each session. Compared to the sheaf of paperwork for Living Greyhawk, it's so approachable!)

Yes, it's not as good as having an ongoing campaign with one DM, but at least they'll be playing until they find someone who will be a regular DM. I don't think the characters will be totally LG legal, but it's effectively a home game rather than them participating with their characters anywhere, so it shouldn't be a hassle.

Any thoughts on the situation?

Cheers!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Any thoughts on the situation?

Cheers!

Lucky Aussie!

My nearest hobby shop is an hour away, and looking for role players in rural New York is like searching for water in a desert. It took me years to get my current 5-person group together, and still nobody wants to DM!

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm assuming your single...?

Or gonna be.

Yes, that is a heavy load, specially as it is all face to face. I run a ton of games, but most via Yahoo, which lets me fit my gaming in anytime or anywhere I have some free time. Blocks of time like that would cause me a lot of trouble.

But regarding DMS, yes, in university there were only three of us who ran D&D. With around 20 players, sometimes it was hard to make things work out well. I asked others to run, but the usual excuses abounded.

I have spent far more than 90% of my gaming life as a DM. Not that bad, but sometimes I would like to play a bit more.

 

[MerricB]

I'm assuming your single...?

Correctly.

Cheers!

 

[Fifth Element]

Any thoughts on the situation?

What are you doing posting here when you should be doing your DM prep work?

Oh, you're using 4E. No problem then.

 

[darjr]

When getting back into the hobby I found out about several home games, several in store games, and several RPGA things and on and on. I ended up DMing or would have for almost all of them. I had a lot of fun, but my wife eventually had to resort to 'kidnapping' me and taking me dancing to signal that enough was enough.

So I say go for it.

 

[darjr]

On a more serious note I would absolutely look into the campaign ark RPGA adventures, even the MINI since you might be able to break each individual one up.

The other thing is I'd encourage sticking to the character rules and looking at getting some participation in a local con or two.

Finally I'd also see about nudging a few of those into DMing as well, a very strong nudge. Not necessarily for you, mind, but public play tends to draw more players, as you've seen, and it would be cool if you could get that ball rolling. And other 'tables' going.

A pool of potential DM's on a public play night is a wonderful thing.

You could even maybe at some point take a 'break' and play without punking the night of gaming.

 

[Evilhalfling]

us marrieds have difference problems.
Negotiations in my first year of marriage resulted in 1 night of in-person gaming a week. 13 years and a daughter later, its still working.

This year my regular group cut back to every other week, so I go to LFR at a coffee shop on the off weeks. I have finally gotten to play some rather than DM, and while some of the games are good and some poor, leveling up is awesome in 4e.
Unfortunately a make-up session for the home game means I had to cancel my LFR game this week. It has been fun to play with a rotating group as well. My friend and I even convinced two of the more entertaining players to join our homegame, so its not a bad way to find compatible players.

GL

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Yep, it's official, you're crazy Merric!

On a slightly more serious note, I would be worried about burning out or at least not putting enough effort in to each game if I was running that many games at once.

Having said that, I currently only DM a game once a fortnight and even that is currently on a 4 month hiatus due to the birth of my second child (should be resuming shortly though), so take my comments with a pinch of salt.

Olaf the Stout