Round-Robin Campaign

[Fedifensor]

After the death of my Forgotten Realms home campaign back in February, my gaming group is interested in trying something different. So, I proposed a "round-robin" style game set in Eberron. For those unfamiliar with the concept, each person basically takes turns running an adventure - becoming the DM of the week. It allows people who haven't done much DMing to get their feet wet, and keeps me from getting "DM burnout".

I plan to start things up with a 'flashback' scenario set at the end of the Last War, ending with the group reuniting after the war's end. Once that is over, the next person in line would either write an adventure for the group, buy an adventure to run (such as Shadows of the Last War), or opt to skip their turn and let the next in line run. No one is required to DM...it's just a way for people who don't normally run a game to get their feet wet without the pressure of an entire campaign.

Has anyone tried this with D&D? I've only done this once before, it was over 10 years ago, and we used Champions instead of D&D. I'd love to hear any ideas on how to make this work well.

 

[EricNoah]

I've proposed it many times to my group and have had no takers. I love the idea in theory and would like to hear how it works out in play.

 

[IronWolf]

I have not done it but it sounds like an interesting concept. In an upcoming pen and paper D&D game starting next month there are a couple of people who are also interested in trying their hand at DM'ing. Might be a nice way to let them do so while maintaining somewhat of an ongoing campaign feel.

 

[nakia]

I have tried this (with varying success) a few times. It usually only lasted a couple of months. I think it can be done, will prevent DM burnout, and provide new DM's a chance to get their feet wet. That being said, a couple of things to think about:

1. A "mission based" game. The characters have a home or base, then are sent out to solve problems, take care of bad guys, or run some errand (taking an important message to a neighboring town). They then return home at the end of each adventure. This limits things geographically, but makes the starting point for each DM consistent. It prevents DM #1 from ending things in the desert, while DM #2 wanted to run a module set in a swamp. A variant of this is to have the "base" be mobile -- like a ship. Ship stops on island X, characters adventure on island, then return to the ship.

2. Consistency in awards/treasure. You just want to be sure everyone is on the same page as far as handing stuff out. If DM #2 gives out an item that will make DM #3's BBEG a pushover, problems could result.

3. What will your PC do while you run the game? Will he/she stay at the "base" or be an NPC? One idea I had was to have each PC have a secret that no one else knew. When that PC's player was DM, she/he would use his or her adventure to reveal parts of the PC's secret.

Just some thoughts. Good luck!

 

[kenobi65]

Our D&D campaign has been a "shared world" for 20+ years now.

It's a fairly loose-knit campaign; rather than a long serial storyline, it's more episodic. A particular DM might run a one-shot adventure that lasts an evening, or an entire series of adventures over the course of many sessions -- it all depends on what the DM's whims are.

We've always encouraged people to try their hand at DMing; some try it once and say "never again", some never want to try it, and some become part of the "regular rotation". I started out as just a player in this group; I then started to DM occasionally, and am now the group's primary DM.

We've always had one DM who was the "core" DM; that's the person who tends to set the standards for treasure, XP awards, etc. However, that "control" has never been terribly formal.

Most players have more than one character, at a variety of levels. When we go to play an adventure, the DM will tell the players what levels are appropriate for the adventure, and maybe other information (i.e., "you really want to make sure you have a ranger"). It's then up to the players to decide which of their characters they'll play, so they have something like a balanced party.

 

[Fenes]

We are currently trying out a variant of round robin style campaigning. We switch DMs in mid-session, according to what scene it is. The characters of the party are trying to build up their powerbase in a big city, and are separated a lot, so while I might DM the cleric facing a ghost, the player of the cleric might right afterward DM my character gathering information in a festhall, and then I am back DMing how the sorcerer gets to know his roommate at the academy, until they both end up in the festhall, where the cleric player DMs again. That way we switch DMs several times during a session.

Works well so far.

 

[shadowlight]

I've been in campaigns like this several times. They remind me of an old party game (not RPG related) where everyone sits in a circle, one person starts telling a story and where they leave off, the next person picks up and continues it - adding their own twists (am I the only one who played that a bunch in college in huge groups? Maybe it's an artifact of going to BYU ).

Anyway, what I mean is that we have a goup of players who all have characters. Each session, one person is the DM (and one of the other players play his/her character). The session would usually run like a regular adventure and also introduce some new villans, hooks, and plot lines. The next DM would make up the next section of the story (at the next session).

We also would give bonuses to people who brought campaign extras (like maps, or a document about the languages of the campaign setting, etc.)

The really cool thing about this was that even when you were DMing, you would have no idea whether some helpful NPC you introduced would later betray the party, or if something trivial one of the players did would come back to haunt the group (you get the idea).

The stories would sort of evolve on their own, with no one really knowing what would happen next. I really had a lot of fun with games of this type, but we had really competent (rules and story-wise) and mature players. I could definitely see it being a disaster in some groups.

 

[Talmun]

My group has tried to rotate DMs in the past, but no one else is really interested in doing it, so it always falls to me anyway. To get my playing fix, I joined another group.

Long ago, another DM (who isn't with the group anymore) and I did jointly create and run a homebrew area of Greyhawk, that was lots of fun, but he more or less burnt out, and it fell to me to carry on. While it was working, it worked really well and was, as I said, lots of fun.

 

[The Grackle]

I played a rotating GMs campaign for a about a year. It worked out ok, but not great. There were ALOT of loose threads, b/c every new GM would ignore the parts of the prior week's game that didn't interest him, so it was hard to keep a coherent storyline going. There was a constant parade of new NPCs and new settings as everybody wrote new adventures. Our group had some very different personalities in it, and that's the real reason it didn't work out for us.

I recommend doing very episodic adventures, at the end of which the party returns back to home base. Instead of splitting it up by week have each adventure last as long as needs to. Our problem was that no one could plan in advance, b/c we'd have no idea where the party would be at the end of the session. All your ideas could get scrapped if the party ends up getting on a boat and heading to another continent.

 

[Fedifensor]

I'm planning a pretty conservative version of a round-robin campaign, to ease the group into the idea. I'll run the first adventure, my wife will run the second adventure (which will probably be the one in the back of the Eberron sourcebook). Once the rotation starts, people will take turns an adventure at a time (even if it spans multiple sessions).

I suspect that both of the published Eberron adventures will be run by the group. This should help with treasure consistency, since WotC modules are reasonably balanced in how they dole out gold and magic. For XP, we've agreed on a flat rate of 1000 XP per 4-hour game session, with leveling to occur between modules. This keeps novice DM's from having to calculate the XP of each foe, lets us get through the first few levels quickly, and keeps us from hitting the high levels too early.

From what I have heard of the published adventures, they all feature the same NPC giving you missions, and start in the same place (Sharn). So Sharn will probably be the group's base of operations, with the group returning there after each adventure.

The person running has the option of either having their character on autopilot in the back of the group, or off doing something else during the adventure. Regardless of whether the person is DMing or playing, they get the same XP for their character. Still working on how to compensate players who sideline their character while DMing - if they're getting XP but no gold, it puts things out of balance. There may be a set gold award per adventure for when you DM, based on character level.

Character creation is a 30-point buy, with any race, base class, skill, feat, or spell from the PHB or Eberron sourcebook automatically allows. If a player wants to use something from another WotC sourcebook, it requires a majority vote of the group. If someone wants to use a non-WotC product (like Arcana Unearthed), it requires a unanimous vote from the group. Prestige classes always require a majority vote, regardless of source.

Still working out the details (we won't start until after the holidays), but the suggestions are definately helping. Thanks!