Was there only one DM at your table?

[Hussar]

Second verse, same as the first.

Around your gaming table, back in the 1e days, was there only one person who ever DM'd? Or, were you like me and your group included those who either DM'd in the same group or for other groups?

 

[Umbran]

Back in 1e days, we had only one GM. We changed that before 2e came along.

 

[Geoffrey]

I started gaming in late 1980. There were four of us in the core group, and each one of us regularly acted as DM. None of us had a distinct campaign world. Instead, we all simply ran adventures in what might be called "D&D land". There was little to no continuity between one adventure and the next. Sometimes as players we'd use player characters from previous games, but at least just as often we'd simply roll new characters. Whoever the DM was would say, "OK, bring characters of levels X to Y."

So in a way we all co-DMed an indistinct, generic D&D world (with no place names that lasted for more than a single session).

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I was in several goups over the 1E years, and all of them were mostly GMs.

 

[Glyfair]

During the AD&D days there were almost always at least two GMs at the table. With the exception of a long-running series of Champions games* the GMs usually outnumbered those who never GMed. Quite a number of games had no one who had never ran a game.

* For a number of years every Saturday afternoon was Champions day at the game club attached to the FLGS. Several of us ran Champions games for 1-3 tables of various players. Many of the players were younger (young teens) although that demographic changed over the years.

 

[Lanefan]

When I first started playing there was only one DM in our crew. I became the second after a few years, and a few others tried their hands at it briefly. To this day we still play in each others' games when they are running.

I find a big difference even now in running a game where there are DMs* as players as opposed to where there are not.
* - who have run the same system I'm using at the time.

Lanefan

 

[Jhaelen]

We didn't only have more than one DM, each of the DMs also had his own campaign using a different rpg system, several had even created their own systems (myself included)!

We clearly had too much time on our hands back then...

 

[Sound of Azure]

I didn't actually have 1e days, but in all my D&D gaming days there have been at least 2 rotating DMs in circulation, usually more.

It mainly worked out that way because of my early habit of co-designing worlds with my (then) best friend and we both wanted to have fun in said world.

 

[orsal]

I started gaming in late 1980. There were four of us in the core group, and each one of us regularly acted as DM. None of us had a distinct campaign world. Instead, we all simply ran adventures in what might be called "D&D land". There was little to no continuity between one adventure and the next. Sometimes as players we'd use player characters from previous games, but at least just as often we'd simply roll new characters. Whoever the DM was would say, "OK, bring characters of levels X to Y."

So in a way we all co-DMed an indistinct, generic D&D world (with no place names that lasted for more than a single session).

That was basically the way we did it too. Whoever had prepared an adventure would offer to run it, and we'd all take our characters from GM to GM. It meant no world-development, which I regretted, but I guess it was easier that way.

 

[an_idol_mind]

In any version of the D&D game, most of my friends were also DMs from time to time, which made the whole "players shouldn't have access to the DM's Guide" thing pretty pointless in my groups.