Round robin DM

[Desdichado]

We're going to be doing some round-robin DMing within the single campaign, which I find very difficult. I'm up next (as the second) DM, but I've never done anything like this, and making short adventures that end after a single session (or even planning things for later sessions) is not my forte, and I struggle to see how I can leave a cliffhanger that makes sense for someone else to pick up and run with.

So, are there any suggestions on how to keep big story arcs in the background so I can advance them when I DM, or any other suggestions on how to integrate a "campaign" style DM into a round-robin system?

Post them here! Or, if you like, post them in my story hour; link in my sig file.

 

[Eternalknight]

A friend and I co-DM in my campaign. He makes his own adventures; I use pre written ones, modified to fit my world. You could always do what I do; use a pre written adventure, leave some threads hanging for my friend to pick up in his adventure.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, it's just hard for me to get my mind around the concept. As a DM, I really like to create the seeds of plots that are more than one "episode" if you will. I guess I'm just not really a "villain of the week" type of guy.

I prefer my TV shows that way too, although it throws you up if you miss an episide or two...

 

[Tcheb]

50-50

I've been in a few multi-GM games, and half work, half don't. The half that don't are the ones like you're talking about.

The half that do always have a primary GM who controls the overall plot. This PGM approves all other guest GM's session ideas, and especially approves the use of important NPCs. I run a game like this now, where I'm the PGM. Works fine, but I usually have to pipe up and tell the guest GM that X event can't happen that way. My players (and the guest GMs) are almost always cool about it, and it just heightens interest with the players about why. (What do you mean the bar is closed? It's never closed in 20 years? Ooo, I can't wait to find out what's up with that in the next session! Boring example, but you get the idea.) Best part is that since I don't give away plot information to the guest GM, when they're playing as a PC next time, they're just as much in the dark as every other player.

 

[Griswold]

A group I used to game with did this once. We would each DM for a night, the next week the next person in the rotation would take over Dm Duties. This was fun in the sence that you never really knew what was next as player or DM. I found it to be alot like those games where somebody starts a story and others add to it in turn.

It's tough though, because you don't have a story line laid out more then a week in advance, so it was challenging in the week before your night to come up with something that was cool, continued the existing plot while making sense, and was fun.


Griz.

 

[kingpaul]

So, are there any suggestions on how to keep big story arcs in the background so I can advance them when I DM, or any other suggestions on how to integrate a "campaign" style DM into a round-robin system?

My current group does this. We have 6 folks in our group, and are in our 6th adventure. I ran the 1st and 3rd, another ran 2nd and 4th, and 5th and 6th were done by different folks. The others have come to me about overall arcs they'd like to try. For the most part, I've laid down the law for only a couple of areas, as they are my creation...I've let the other guys do what they want. The world's cosmology is building rather nicely because of this.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, we don't have a "head" DM. I think the idea is, if I leave a cliff-hanger and don't explain things that are happening, that's fair game for the next DM to pick up on and have his own reason why it happened!

I'm not sure exactly how it'll work out, but it sounds worth a shot. Still, for my money, I'd probably rather just DM like normal. What really gets tough is when you're DMing, what does your character do?

My thought (and I don't know if the others think this or not) is just to fudge experience anyway: have arbitrary game advancements, so everyone advances at the same time regardless of how much (or how little) they contributed to the story. Depending on how sessions end, PCs that are run by DMs can just not be in the story when that DM is up. However, this really only works if you make discrete, self-contained single-DM "adventures," not if you just swap DMs every time you play. Personally, I think letting a single DM go until his "adventure" is done and then passing the torch really makes everything simpler, but maybe it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

 

[kingpaul]

What really gets tough is when you're DMing, what does your character do?

During the 1st 4 adventures, the DMs ran their own characters. During the 5th and current 6th, the DMs had the characters leave the group. During the 5th, the character was kidnapped by gnome zombies (don't ask). This one, the character just disappeared, which actually fit in his character.

 

[Desdichado]

We might do something similar to that: the first DM didn't have a character, and nobody really designed their character for long-term playability because we didn't know if this was going to be long-term (or even if we'd enjoy gaming with each other, for that matter.) Most likely, my character will be replaced, because he's really redundant with someone else (see my story hour linked in the sig file to see why plug, plug) so I may not even have one for this weekend. If I do have one, I'll try and talk my wife into running that PC and then I'll take over unless she decides she wants to stick with it.

 

[0-hr]

It might help to sit down and hash out a coherent back story before you all get started. I think that most problems can be avoided if you simply design the campaign to work around them.

For example, suppose you have 5 players and everyone is going to take turns as DM. Well, you could set it up so that the players are working for a cabal of wizards. These wizards send the group out to do their bidding but are also involved in plots and intrique amongst themselves. With little coordination between members of the cabal, the heroes are bound to be sent on unorganized errands; and could certainly be interrupted at any time by a different member of the cabal with a more important agenda.

So anyway, one week, Nucknum the Necromancer sends the group out on his own little quest. But next week, Wukkawa the Warlock takes charge and whisks them off to the other side of the continent. If the cabal's power is based around an ancient Portal Stone, they could use this to bodily teleport their minions (the players) wherever they are most needed. And of course, each wizard has his favorite students and servants, so the makeup of the group is bound to change without warning as well.

I guess my idea is that you should try to put a story mechanism in place to account for the chaos, plot interruption, and character swapping that you expect to take place. For low level characters at least, this should no be too difficult. The mechanism would be there regardless of who was DMing, and would provide at least a little continuity to the campaign.