Rotating DMs?

[Jester David]

It might work well if you can set down some ground rules. So one DM isn’t handing out too much magic and so no one takes revenge for a bad previous session.

And maybe also have an idea for why the party is always changing. Maybe a task force that it sent on missions by a king or royal advisor, and so the needed team members shift. Or a mercenary company like the Superfriends, where only certain people are there.

If not everyone is a great DM or adventure writer, using Adventure’s League modules is a good way or getting quick, compact stories.

 

[schnee]

One variation of sharing GM responsibilities I read about recently, and is detailed here:

http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

I tried that with two other DMs, and it crashed and burned.

First, the play style implies that the players will drive the narrative by what they want to do, and that's actually quite rare. They didn't want to drive a series of expeditions, they wanted to be swept along in an over-arching plot that presented with meaningful choices, and the idea of them going after 'adventure seeds' lost steam after 4-5 sessions, even when they are related to a larger plot.

Second, we all agreed to be collaborative, and each DM would take turns 'painting in' the world lore via their adventures, like a team working together on a big mural. But, one of the DMs was extremely collaborative, and the other one thought they could hang that at the very start but then proceeded to do their own thing entirely, even retroactively rewriting things the other DMs were proud of without really understanding it was a problem. So, that DM left to run their own campaign, and it ended up splintering the gaming group. (Not bitter, I still play in their game, and they play in mine.)

I think it's a lot like the way quirky things from Gary's game, like Paladins having strict RP rules to control overwhelmingly powerful mechanics, didn't survive encounters with the rest of the world. Those things arose from within a certain set of circumstances - a game store with a central meeting place that was big enough to support a huge group, a critical mass of self-motivated players, and a large enough core of players with extensive wargaming experience that served to 'mentor' the new players in the culture it took to make it work. You're not going to have that with 8-10 people that know each other through work that play 'every 3-4 weeks, when they can spend time away from the kids'.

Tread carefully.

 

[jasper]

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[Satyrn]

I'd like to play more often, so I'm going to pitch my group a campaign with "rotating DMs", where several of us take turns DMing sometimes and playing at other times.

Has anyone tried something like this? How did it go? Any pitfalls?

We had a stretch where we tagged in a different DM after each adventure (about every three sessions). The current DM's PC sit out, simply fading into the background to be replaced by the outgoing DM's character without spending any game time worrying about it.

We had no special discussions about how to do it, no rules or guidelines beyond "keep to the spirit of what came before." It proved to be great fun, with another DM adding clever fun twists on top of what I had introduced, while I found great inspiration in what the DMs had laid down before me.

 

[Slit518]

I'd like to play more often, so I'm going to pitch my group a campaign with "rotating DMs", where several of us take turns DMing sometimes and playing at other times.

Has anyone tried something like this? How did it go? Any pitfalls?

A few friends and I have tried something like this.

It went good, we rolled at the end to see who the next DM was, previous DM excluded.

Pitfalls included on if there is a non-reliable player who doesn't really want to DM but says they will, and holds the game up.

One player quit when it became his turn to DM (we were using Roll20 and he wasn't great at buildings maps or doing extra things with the toolset, also we didn't require maps, but he wanted to make them).
Another player joined, played, and when we rolled DM for the next session it landed on him, and he never made his game (unfortunately we haven't played since, but we plan on going back and just not including that player).

When we DM, we still have our character active, but we don't give our character any special treatment. We allow other characters to move the plot along, the DM's character is there just to assist in combat or if anybody requests help from them for a roll.

If you're doing this type of game, it is good to make your game one session long. Don't plan something large, something nice and small, and leave enough of a hook for the next DM to build a game.

What we did was start at level 0 for a session or two, that way we got used to each other and their characters, and we had our most experienced DM run the first session.

As a session ends, we would roll a die to determine who the next DM was, this roll excluded the person who just DMed. This also gave the new DM a heads up that they would be running a game, and everyone knew who to expect to run the game next time.

All-in-all, it was an enjoyable experience, and got to boasts everyone's creativity.

Just remember these rules however -
1) Yes and...
2) Yes but...
Don't step on the fun of the other DMs/players.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'd like to play more often, so I'm going to pitch my group a campaign with "rotating DMs", where several of us take turns DMing sometimes and playing at other times.

Has anyone tried something like this? How did it go? Any pitfalls?

If all DMs are fine with shared worldbuilding, I don't think there are pitfalls, assuming of course they run different adventures (otherwise those who DM would not have much fun knowing stuff in advance). Just make sure that the DM who wants to use dinosaurs and multiclassing is fine with the other DM wanting to use spaceships and katanas, and viceversa.