Question for groups who rotate DM's

[Arrowhawk]

I'd be interested in hearing feedback from those of you who play in a group in which at least two of the players regularly rotate as the DM within the same campaign. Greenfield, I recall your group does this.

1. Do you all play by the same rules?

2. If yes, how do you decide what gets Rule 0'd? Is there a formal process or just talk about it until people agree?

3. How many players DM within a campaign?

4. What happens when you have a new situation and some of the player/DM's disagree? Do you let the current DM dictate until later or do you just resolve it right then and there?

5. At what intervals do you switch DM's?

6. Do you as DM keep your character in the campaign and if so, do you guys impose restrictions on the character in an fashion e.g. it can't get magic items, it can't die, another player gets to control it, etc?

Anything else you think would be helpful to other groups trying this out?

 

[Hassassin]

We have done this in the past with at least a couple of campaigns.

1) Yes, the rules were decided early on by everyone.

2) The current DM has the final word, as long as he is the DM.

3) In one campaign most had a turn or two of DMing, so we had I think four of five different DMs, most more than once. This campaign lasted several years, though it was on hold occasionally - technically still is. The other "shared" campaign had two DMs, but it was more like a side quest or two by another DM.

4) As 2, current DM decides. This resulted in some retconning later, so it could have been handled better.

5) Each usually had a specific quest or plot arc that they prepared. We didn't have a regular schedule, just "my adventure ends in two or three sessions". However, there were also switches when someone grew tired of DMing or couldn't make it to the table for a "long" time.

6) Normally the DM's PC took some downtime from adventuring and wasn't affected by anything that happened in the game. Sometimes they became NPCs who could be asked for spellcasting or whatever help. One PC was the BBEG for a plot arc when he became a necromancer or something.

As for other advice, I think it's important to let the current DM have free reign over the game. If someone is a stickler about retconning there should probably be some ground rules about how that sort of thing is handled. It's also a good idea for the next DM to give the current one some hints to drop for plot events to come.

 

[Greenfield]

My table currently has six people at it, five of whom DM in rotation. Our normal complement is eight, but we lost a couple to the vagueries of life. When we had eight, seven of us DMd. (We have one player, a very nice lady, who just doesn't like to DM. It isn't her thing.)

Our format is that we lay out a long term campaign goal, the McGuffin of the world, if you will. Each player makes up their character, and the part of the world they come from. This is the part that they run as a DM.

Unclaimed areas exist, of course, and are free for anyone to mess with, but it would be bad form for one DM to destroy a town of kill off a major NPC that some other DM had long term plans for.

In laying out our world this way, we also agree on the house rules. The person who comes up with the campaign concept usually proposes those rules, but everybody gets to add their input, and it's all agreed upon before the game begins.

When any one person has the DM's chair, they get to decide on how Rule Zero is applied. As a safety net, however, at the end of a DM's story arc the rest of the group may choose to vote that it simply never happened. It was a dream. We've only had to do that twice in the last 15 years or so, but it's there just in case.

One player (new to the group) decided that in his land there were robots, laser rifles, and a Death Star floating over the major city. His land was also so remote that it took over a year to get there from anyplace else, across a wide, nearly impassible desert. And no, Teleport and the like was impossible into or out of his realm.

We cast a group Dispel BS on that one preemptively. The player didn't stick around long after that. It turns out he was trying to terminate the campaign before it got started so we'd play something else.

Our common house rules are:

Casters get ability bonus to zero levels spell slots to equal their 1st level bonus.

Characters die when their hit points reach the negative of their CON, instead of always at -10.

Cure spells don't always use D8. Instead they use the hit dice size of the target creature.

We often nerf Teleport and Greater Teleport, because we prefer not to have overland encounters removed from the game at higher levels.

In our last two campaigns, Raise Dead and it's bigger brothers were removed from the game. Instead, to raise someone you had to go to "The Land of the Dead", find their spirit and return to the mortal world. Shadow Walk and Plane Shift work for this, and it makes bringing someone back an adventure in and of itself.

Currently we're experimenting with an alternative progression for iterative attacks. Instead of happening every 5 BAB ranks, extra attacks occur every 4 BAB, with a -4 cumulative penalty instead of the usual -5. The idea was to give a subtle bump to combat classes, to help counter the power runaway of the spell casters as levels progress. It seems to be working out pretty well, with essentially no entangling complications. (i.e. it doesn't seem to be breaking anything.)

 

[Arrowhawk]

One player (new to the group) decided that in his land there were robots, laser rifles, and a Death Star floating over the major city. His land was also so remote that it took over a year to get there from anyplace else, across a wide, nearly impassible desert. And no, Teleport and the like was impossible into or out of his realm.

We cast a group Dispel BS on that one preemptively.

Effing high-larious.

EDIT: In retrospect, you should have gone with it. It would have made for everlasting conversation material as you forced this guy to make good on his setting.

Characters die when their hit points reach the negative of their CON, instead of always at -10.

I like that one.

 

[xigbar]

1. Yes.

2. We don't house rule anything in my group. We try to limit homebrew, but beyond that we allow basically with the exception of Pun-Pun and Planar Shepherd, which didn't really take any discussion.

3. We had 4, the more experienced half of the group. When the group expanded past that, we simply divided the players up, and each DM got their own group.

4. The current DM's word is law.

5. We would have characters level up after a dungeon to cut down on book keeping. There would generally be a switch off then, not in any order, though. There were exceptions, if a DM had a story idea that sounded particularly interesting to expand upon.

6. Our characters, as part of their backstory, had to have something that they would be "busy" with during a dungeons the player was DMing. We didn't want DMs insight impacting the character's actions.

 

[Herzog]

I have one campaign with rotating DM's. We refer to it as the Time Campaign. Most of the 'problems' you could encounter are bypassed by effectively re-starting at every DM switch: each DM runs in a different era, all set on historical Earth, every time at least two generations further into the future. (although we recently decided we could skip back too if a new DM actually wanted to play in an earlier era). Characters are re-incarnations of their former selfs, regaining previous memories has been a story part in several of those.

We even recently switched game-systems from D&D 3.5 to GURPS because we decided to go from low-magic to no-magic and wanted to use a system that was better suited for a non-magic campaign world.

most of the answers are as given by Hassassin, with the addendum that some DM's have taken as most as 10 sessions to run their story arc, while one in particuallar took around 70-100 (we lost count) sessions to complete his DM run.....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1. Do you all play by the same rules?

Within a campaign, yes. Across campaigns, no.

2. If yes, how do you decide what gets Rule 0'd? Is there a formal process or just talk about it until people agree?

DM's decision. If there are multiple DMs within a campaign, they decide between themselves.

3. How many players DM within a campaign?

So far, 1-3, with 1 covering 99% of the campaigns run thus far. Out of our extended gaming group, at least 7 guys have run or co-run a campaign.

4. What happens when you have a new situation and some of the player/DM's disagree? Do you let the current DM dictate until later or do you just resolve it right then and there?

The guy behind the screen is in charge UNLESS the decision would screw up something for his co-GM. Then it's time for a pow-wow.

5. At what intervals do you switch DM's?

Within a campaign, switching occurs every story arc. Between campaigns or RPGs, it is as needed. We have an active 3.5Ed game that has been on hiatus for about a year or so because the DM needed a break after several years, which has let "the new guy" run 4Ed over that time.

6. Do you as DM keep your character in the campaign and if so, do you guys impose restrictions on the character in an fashion e.g. it can't get magic items, it can't die, another player gets to control it, etc?

It depends. In a small campaign where not everyone is involved, the DM's PC is still active, but plays a less central role...almost like a trusted NPC. In a campaign where almost everyone is playing, the DM's PC will be inactive, and will level artificially.

 

[am181d]

I ran a game for a number of years called "Generation of Heroes." Each adventure took place a year after the last and the heroes went up a level between each adventure. Most adventures ran 2-3 sessions. I ran adventures 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20, and the rest of the players divided up the other adventures. (I also ran a few "side treks" between adventures that helped flesh things out.)

There were 8 of us who played through at least one adventure. Everybody who played through the entire thing (5 of us) ran at least one adventure.

I established the world, provided some broad restrictions on what they could or couldn't do, and placed certain NPCs on a "banned/restricted" list. But otherwise folks were able to create new locations, new villains, new sub-plots, etc. The rest of us would then work to wrap those new elements into the larger story.

(One of the other players ran the d20 module "NeMoren's Vault," which wound up being pretty crucial to the way everything shook out in Year 20.)

Generally, whoever was running the game had latitude to rule as they saw fit. This was during a period when we were big on "mini-systems," so if someone wanted to introduce a bunch of one-off rules for a particular situation, they were welcome to.

(A mini-system is a set of idiosyncratic rules that cover a particular situation, generally a set piece in an adventure, such as hang gliding over an oncoming army, running through the desert on stilts or dueling on the back of a flying dragon. We did a lot of crazy stuff in that campaign...)

Occasionally, one of the less experience DMs would make a mistake. Either put us up against an enemy whose CR is WAY too high or not account for a core class ability, etc. In those cases we gently encouraged the current DM to improvise and/or stick to the raw as appropriate. In a couple of cases they were first time DMs, so they generally appreciated the feedback. We didn't run into this problem with the more experienced DMs. (Or maybe we just trusted them more to make everything work in the end?)

When we were running games, we'd sometimes run our own characters and sometimes not, generally based on preference and where folks were in the world. (If we didn't run our own characters they were just off somewhere else doing something else.) Everybody got a set amount of gold for buying treasure between levels, so treasure IN ADVENTURE was deprioritized.

I think DM's characters actually died MORE often that other folks, because we tended to be sympathetic to the other players and more likely to kill our own characters to show off what a badass our villains were. My character died fairly early on fighting a clockwork version of himself, well before we had access to resurrection magic, and had to be reincarnated as a bear, which lead to YEARS of mockery.

In summary: It was one of the highlights of my gaming experience, and I certainly recommend it to everyone. It definitely helps to have one person "anchor" the game, to establish a tone and a framework. But it's also good to stay flexible. Building off of what others have done is one of the real joys of this format. Find ways to provide support for the less experienced DMs and give the really good DMs as much latitude as possible.

Good luck!

 

[LiL KiNG]

1. Do you all play by the same rules?

Yes, we have 3 DM's now (had 4 at one point) that rotate, and we all abide by the same rulings.

2. If yes, how do you decide what gets Rule 0'd? Is there a formal process or just talk about it until people agree?

Typically we refer to the books (it's funny because at least a couple times a night we run into the "I wanna do this!" situation, they everyone grabs their PHBs to figure out how the rules work for lol), or our 3 rotating DM's come to an agreement, majority rules but unanimous preferred.

3. How many players DM within a campaign?

Right now we have 5 players, 3 of which rotate DM'ing.

4. What happens when you have a new situation and some of the player/DM's disagree? Do you let the current DM dictate until later or do you just resolve it right then and there?

Current DM handles it, but depending on the situation a quick DM discussion may take place to find an agreeable solution.

5. At what intervals do you switch DM's?

We try to switch it up by adventure, or module or whatever. Sometimes this will run over the course of several gaming sessions - right now our group can only get together every other weekend, sometimes longer, so running one adventure may take 2-3 different nights to complete.

6. Do you as DM keep your character in the campaign and if so, do you guys impose restrictions on the character in an fashion e.g. it can't get magic items, it can't die, another player gets to control it, etc?

We decided early on when we all met and started playing that each of us liked to be a player and no one wanted to be a full-time DM, so yes we keep our PC in game during our turn to DM, however they are treated more as an NPC or cohort during this time; the DM's PC should and will do things normal of them, but they don't usually act as the party 'face' or run tactics unless asked by the other party members specifically and only for things that would make sense for that character to do.

 

[am181d]

Typically we refer to the books (it's funny because at least a couple times a night we run into the "I wanna do this!" situation, they everyone grabs their PHBs to figure out how the rules work for lol), or our 3 rotating DM's come to an agreement, majority rules but anonymous preferred.

I'm sure you mean "unanimous" but an anonymous decision would be interesting. "Two of us said you miss, but we can't say which two."