jgsugden
Legend
That is my preference as well, but I factor in the wishes of the table. In the end, I think a DM can find a way to slide into a game, have some fun, and not disrupt the plans of the existing DM too much.I wouldn't want to fill in for a DM in their campaign. If I was filling in, I would run my own short adventures/one shots with all new characters.
As an example of my approach, the last time I was asked to guest DM was for an estimated 4 months while the DM was giving birth and raising a baby (priorities, right?) I asked the DM what they would prefer I do, and they told me to ask the players. I asked the players and they wanted to continue the current PCs as they were close to some fun level advancement (which wasn't a great reason in my mind, but - again - I'm not the sole decision maker). I sat down with the DM and plotted out a side adventure, ran the treasure/benefits in it by the DM, and we decided that we'd keep the PC advancement to 3 levels over ~16 evening sessions.
Then, I wrote a Ravenloft based adventure and gave the DM a few hooks to toss into her game. The hooks brought a mystical artifact into their possession that seemed to be tying the group to the Shadowfell. When the DM went into labor a bit early (when the PCs were mid-combat between sessions), I stepped in and had them - mid-combat - be sucked into a Ravenloft domain. It was a dark Groundhog Day scenario where the PCs awoke in an inn and had until the stroke of Midnight to solve a mystery that could not possibly be solved in one day unless you took knowledge from each loop and figured out how to use it (like the T.I.M.E. Stories board game). Importantly, if a PC died in a loop, they returned the next morning ... but they'd pick up a curse that could not be broken while in the Ravenloft Domain - and that escalated with each successive death (the one PC that died did so three times and lost control of their shadow(s) - which would run off and do horrible things).
There was a Dread Lord that became aware of the PCs and began to manipulate the situation to stop their efforts. The goal of the adventure was to end the reign of the Dread Lord (which was actually something it could be convined to want). Eventually, they did something that limited the number of loops they had left. If they defeated the Dread Lord and saved the Domain, the area would be 'returned' to a part of the campaign world (in a place that had been empty on the DM's map, but was prime real estate) and provide them with valuable resources (There was a Mithril Mine). If they failed, they'd be returned to the Material Plane and the Dread Domain would go on. Either way, they'd return to the Prime in the instant that they had left it in the exact positions their PCs had been in and in the exact state they were in at that point of the Ravenloft adventure - which ended up being really messed up.
We ended up running a few extra weeks beyond the initial plan as the DM needed more time and their last few loops took much longer than I'd expected (they crammed a lot in as they tried to solve the big riddle and tried to gather valuable treasure, too), but my goals were met:
1.) I did not have to walk through the DM's world too much (although I asked a lot of questions of the DM so that the Domain felt like something from his campaigns past that had been sucked up and removed) ,
2.) The players got to play their characters in a self contained adventure (and they worried a lot over what was going on in the 'Real World' as they were stuck in the plane, especially when they realized they'd been through the loop thousands of times without remembering those loops),
3.) The adventure had real stakes (they 'reappeared' with their gear and curses from the other realm - and could have brought vast new resources to the area),
4.) The adventure was something new and fun for the players (I put a Jenga tower on the table when I run Ravenloft games and PCs have to pull from it when they roll a 1 or they decide they made an error - and something really bad happens if it falls), and
5.) I wasn't going to kill the PCs no matter what (although one died as the 'paused' combat continued).
(I also recorded the sessions and sent the recordings to the DM - she listened to some, but not all).