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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrNilesCrane" data-source="post: 1907908" data-attributes="member: 7652">I've organized, played, and DM'd several round robin campaigns during and after college that were generally very successful.  Usually we (as a group) started by creating a general framework.  For example, one successful 2nd edition campaign began with all of the characters being brought together to repay the debts (in the form of favors rather than coins) of a recent deceased noble in order to help is daughter gain his title and holdings.  Each series of adventures involved the characters repaying a debt on behalf of the dead noble, so we could travel alot (based in the Forgotten Realms) and have a wide variety of adventures (i.e. "I'll consider Bob's debt to me repaid if your group can stop these giants from destroying our village!").We also maintained a "master folder" (pre-web days here) where all the DMs would put their adventures in, but could exclude and designate some things as off limits from other DMs so that they could continue plot threads when they DM'd next.  As players, if so and so was DMing, you might come to expect that the adventure could involve a certain adversary or situation, but that wasn't too big of a deal--small price to pay for the chance to play on occasion (I'm always DMing unless it's a round robin situation).  Each DM usually ran for 2 to 6-8 adventures rather than a one shot.  We had 2 to 4 "core" DMs who ran a lot and most others dove in with smaller adventures between.  DMs got full experience for their character (who generally wasn't directly involved in the adventure) but no loot although the group was generally a little more generous with those characters so they didn't fall behind.Overall it worked really well, with few rare exceptions.  I think a round-robin group needs a fairly good group of mature or like-minded players: if you have one that really doesn't fit, it can break down.  Also, I think keeping a list of what rules are allowed, how to generate characters, what players are let in the group (can anyone just drop in?) etc. is critical to prevent any disputes later on ("DM X said I could have this +5 vorpal sword --what's the problem?!").  A good night of pre-campaign planning as a group with everyone getting a chance to share their input can really make this go much more smoothly in the long run, in my experience.</blockquote>

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