When worlds collide...

[Airwolf]

We have been doing this for years and it works great. I agree with La Bete let one DM be 'in charge'.

The way we got around favoritism is not to take our own characters through when we DM. Currenly our group is mostly 14-15th level, but Boaz (my character) and Raoul (other DMs character) are only 12th level.

Its great, I can bring in Raoul with the reason to set off onto another adventure.

As DMs we are careful to try and keep it balanced. We don't want to put something in our adventure that will really screw up other DM's campaign. We each run our own campaign, when the players finish one adventure in my campaign, they do one in his campaign.

Anyway, I hope it works out for you!

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Send them all to Forge! (Oathbound setting) Trust me, it can be handled. ( I would say Scarred Lands...but Oathbound might suit your various characters/players' needs.)

This is exactly what my group has done, and it is working very well.

We started out in Faerun(other guy) went to the Forge (me) and are now back in Faerun(other guy).

The other guy and I love it as we get to both play and DM. Plus we get to riff and rib on each others playing and DMing styles. I think the PCs would find it a little exasperating except they really like the role-playing afforded by travelling between such different worlds, this last transition was a hoot as we went from the Forge where noone bats an eye or eyestalk at any intelligent race much less a drow to Shadowdale where they felt differently about Zung our resident wizard.

The world transitions mean we rarely have to pay attention to each others' plot lines or NPCs when switching off and the rules can change as the world does. The Other guy is currently a little miffed about the magical items some of the players have, but then again who isn't miffed when someone shows up with a disrupting weapon at a Vampire fight.

In fact the only sharing of priveleged information we do is the occasional PC secret or big important piece of world information, but I fully trust this guy to be able to role-play not knowing it and not to reveal it to the rest of the players.

 

[Praeco]

I have played a fair amount of Ars Magica in the past, and that game is specifically designed to be run by multiple people with the same pool of characters, so I have some experience with that.

A good way to keep things internally consistent while allowing the change is to have a kind of 'base of operations' where all the characters congregate. At times events might take the characters out into the larger world, and the DM's character could easily be considered to be staying behind for any number of reasons. This way you aren't switching out characters without any logical reason.

A second advantage to this approach is that the base or community that the characters are centered around can provide adventure opportunity, as they have a stake in protecting their base.

As far as campaign secrets go, it takes a bit of willingness to let go of one's intellectual property and let next week's DM in on the big secret. It also takes a bit of maturity to keep that information from being used in-game. The idea to have one person in charge who has veto power is a good one, as arguments will be far fewer. Again though, it takes a bit of maturity as you always run the risk of having your idea shot down.

Overall though the effect is good, as it keeps things fresh since more than one person gets to contribute ideas, and it spreads out the GM workload a bit.