Rotating GM's?

[ha-gieden]

We have a fairly large and eclectic group, and we're all pretty omnivorous when it comes to RPG's. After a few bad gaming sessions, though, it has become clear to us that not every gaming style works well in every type of game. While all of us can adjust enough to play within the confines of virtually any system, not just anyone can run a really smashing game in a given system. So we have a set GM for each system that we play.

We have two people who are switching out as our D&D DM's. They're currently working together on a campaign.

We have one person who excels at Changeling and Werewolf.

One who only does Vampire.

I do Mage...and have been running a single game for about three years now.

And the list goes on.


How unusual is this? Is it common for RPG lovers to be so eclectic, or do most of us choose one kind of game and stick with it? Does your group have different GM's for different games?
Do your DM's ever team up?

Just wondering how strange we are

 

[Nikroecyst]

I've never heard of it before but I think it is an excellent idea. Its a testament to how well everyone in the group works together.

I have only had a few occasions of dm switching. Once when I ran a 2year vampire campaign a buddy of mine teamed up with me for a few sessions. It worked really well. He played the villians and npcs, fed the pcs the mystery and suspence, while i wrote the story. He was the director and I was the playwrite.
The other time was my best friend came to a short break in his campaign and wanted to run mutants and master minds for a while, i took over running his campaign world for a few sessions while he ran M&M.

Well I guess there was one other time a player in the group wanted to run her own campaign. I was short lived due to her work schedule but it was none the less exciting.

 

[Pbartender]

How unusual is this? Is it common for RPG lovers to be so eclectic, or do most of us choose one kind of game and stick with it? Does your group have different GM's for different games?

More or less. We usually run two games at a time on alternating weeks -- usually one D&D game and something else. Almost everyone in our group has DMed at one point or another.

Do your DM's ever team up?

Once, my wife teamed up with one of the players to tag-team DM a D&D campaign. It was a modest fiasco, since the other DM rarely did what she expected him to based on their joint planning sessions.

On the other hand, I've got a sort of campaign world that I started, and my wife recently took over the reigns and started a new campaign in it. That's worked much better... Trading off development of a campaign setting, rather than a campaign.

 

[Gwaihir]

For many years, we ran two campaigns side by side. the other DM would go for 2 weeks than I would go for two weeks. All using D&D though...

 

[Sound of Azure]

One of my old groups was like this.

We mostly stuck to D&D (One main dungeoncrawley game, plus two homebrews), but we also played BESM, L5R, and Alternity (we ran a Buck Rogers-esque space opera) from time to time. We had one person who ran Werewolf for two weeks, but they kinda sucked, and so we stopped playing.

It was good to do it like this to stave off DM burnout, as well as allowing all the players to try many different ideas without having to kill off their PCs.

 

[Kafkonia]

My current groups have only played D&D, but I'm hoping to get at least one group into a CoC game for October. There's been talk of GURPS, Star Wars, and Shadowrun, and we did plan on SAS d20 at one point, but nothing has come of those.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

My old group played only D&D, but I and another player switched DMing duties. We each ran a different campaign. I would run for several sessions until the end of the current adventure/story arc, then we would switch to his campaign for a few sessions. It worked well until the other players decided they liked my campaign better and the other DM decided he enjoyed playing more than DMing. I found it much harder to be prepared when I didn't get that longer break when I was only a player.

 

[Numion]

Do your DM's ever team up?

Isn't there the risk that if they prepare a campaign together and then one is also a player, that he can have, as a DM, NPCs hide treasures and then he can seek those out with his PC?

 

[takasi]

We have 12 players in our group and 5 DMs that rotate games on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays:

1 DM for Shackled City
1 DM for Savage Tide, a Homebrew and War of the Burning Sky Online (me)
1 DM for Call of Cthulu
1 DM for Spycraft
1 DM for Star Wars

 

[JRR_Talking]

we are currently rotating our DM's for a lowish magic D&D setting. A third GM is to do the next session, and the one after that will be a 4th GM.

We are all co-producing the main central village of about 80 buildings and working and adding to a very loose campaign area roiund the village.

Tend to leave the odd hook or two OR unexplained thing thing at the end of one persons scenario as something for the next GM to perhaps expand

Has worked pretty well so far. It is the first time we have done such a thing.

John