Xibalba
First Post
I played in a D&D group that used a rotating DM for about 6 months. At first we had everyone in the group take turns DMing. A lot of this has already been said, but here's what we learned from the experience:
1. Some people are not good at DMing and/or do not like to DM. After a while, only some of the players took turns being DM.
2. Different DMs had different ideas about what is appropriate in terms of challenge and treasure. You must get on the same page.
3. The campaign arc did not build as well as it could. Have you ever played the story-telling game in which a group of people sit in a circle and make up a story, where each person can only contribute one sentence (or one word) at a time? Everyone tries to pull the story in their direction. This is what it is like with multiple DMs. Else, as a previous poster pointed out, the campaign can seem like a series of disconnected adventures. To overcome this, our group came up with a couple meta-rules: First if a DM introduced an NPC, a later DM could use the NPC, but only with the first DM's permission (in case he had later plans for him). Second, each DM, as he was planning his adventure, would collaborate with the next DM to connect the adventures together. For example, the following DM may request that the group find a certain item (like a map), meet a certain NPC, find a certain location, etc. While the campaign did not build up to a nice climax like others I've been in, at least it was not as disconnected as it was when we first started playing.
1. Some people are not good at DMing and/or do not like to DM. After a while, only some of the players took turns being DM.
2. Different DMs had different ideas about what is appropriate in terms of challenge and treasure. You must get on the same page.
3. The campaign arc did not build as well as it could. Have you ever played the story-telling game in which a group of people sit in a circle and make up a story, where each person can only contribute one sentence (or one word) at a time? Everyone tries to pull the story in their direction. This is what it is like with multiple DMs. Else, as a previous poster pointed out, the campaign can seem like a series of disconnected adventures. To overcome this, our group came up with a couple meta-rules: First if a DM introduced an NPC, a later DM could use the NPC, but only with the first DM's permission (in case he had later plans for him). Second, each DM, as he was planning his adventure, would collaborate with the next DM to connect the adventures together. For example, the following DM may request that the group find a certain item (like a map), meet a certain NPC, find a certain location, etc. While the campaign did not build up to a nice climax like others I've been in, at least it was not as disconnected as it was when we first started playing.