D&D General Anyone Co-DM'd a Session?

[R_J_K75]

2 DMs at the same table at once. I've always wanted to run a game with another DM but never had the chance. It looks like in the near future another player in my group and myself may get to. Anyone have any advice, lessons or stories?

 

[Wolfram stout]

I did once, way back at the time they released 2nd edition, so our game was a bit of a hybrid. I was a player and we were about 10th level I think, and there were a ton of players (about 8 going to show up) and it was a military strike style adventure. The DM admitted he was a bit overwhelmed so I offered to sit out my character and help out. He ran the adventure, and I ran most of the monsters in combat after he gave the set up.

It worked well, I didn't question the adventure or the initial set up of forces, and he didn't get involved with my handling of the forces I ran. I also served as a rule checker between the 1st and 2nd edition PHBs as a couple of sticking points came up. Again, I just read the resources and let the real DM make the judgement calls.

It was only a one-off thing (as we never had that many show up before or after) but I remember it after all this time, so yeah, I would recommend it.

Advice based on the above: Decide before the game how you are splitting the duties. The last thing you want is either confusion or worse friction as co-DMs.

 

[Marc_C]

Not 2 DMs at once but we did a shared world between 3 DMs. I would do one module, the second DM did his and finally a third did his module. It was an interesting experiment but ended it after one rotation. Mainly because the other players didn't like playing the DM's character as an NPC.

It actually led to problems with the third DM who inserted magic items he wanted for his character in a TSR published adventure. We were able to tell because he had been whining to get them during the two previous modules. Let say we drifted apart after that.

Setting up ground rules before hand is very important.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I've seen it done, generally for larger groups (I've played in games with 14 people at the same time, or in varying rotations so... but not in a long time). Another way I could see it working is from where I am as a DM. I feel pretty confident improvising or even coming up with a game concept, but the crunch, by session 6, I'm like ugh. I've had friends say I have the Joss Whedon - start a show and leave by season two.

 

[R_J_K75]

I did once, way back at the time they released 2nd edition, so our game was a bit of a hybrid. I was a player and we were about 10th level I think, and there were a ton of players (about 8 going to show up) and it was a military strike style adventure. The DM admitted he was a bit overwhelmed so I offered to sit out my character and help out. He ran the adventure, and I ran most of the monsters in combat after he gave the set up.

It worked well, I didn't question the adventure or the initial set up of forces, and he didn't get involved with my handling of the forces I ran. I also served as a rule checker between the 1st and 2nd edition PHBs as a couple of sticking points came up. Again, I just read the resources and let the real DM make the judgement calls.

It was only a one-off thing (as we never had that many show up before or after) but I remember it after all this time, so yeah, I would recommend it.

Advice based on the above: Decide before the game how you are splitting the duties. The last thing you want is either confusion or worse friction as co-DMs.

Great advice. Ours is a shared world, (hopefully moving forward) as this is the first time Ive played in epochs. Im hoping we can get to a point to where we can make it happen. I agree about the splitting of the duties, this sides yours this sides mine.

 

[R_J_K75]

Not 2 DMs at once but we did a shared world between 3 DMs. I would do one module, the second DM did his and finally a third did his module. It was an interesting experiment but ended it after one rotation. Mainly because the other players didn't like playing the DM's character as an NPC.

It actually led to problems with the third DM who inserted magic items he wanted for his character in a TSR published adventure. We were able to tell because he had been winning to get them during the two previous modules. Let say we drifted apart after that.

Setting up ground rules before hand is very important.

We've already established no PC's as NPCs for exactly the reasons you stated. Regardless, whining about a magical item just seems ridiculous. If there's no chance in losing, what's the fun in winning?

 

[Umbran]

I've done 2 DMs before - and for Paranoia, 3 GMs at the same time for a large group of players.

As for advice on how to go about it, first a question - WHY have multiple GMs? What's the goal? What are you hoping to get out of it?

 

[Voadam]

I've done the shared world with two other DMs thing before and it worked fine. It gives you opportunities to play in addition to DMing when running parallel games in the world or to rotate DMing responsibilities.

I have offered to run monsters for a first time DM who wanted to focus on handling plots and not on running combat mechanics, but the game did not end up happening.

I have not co-dmed at the same time.

 

[R_J_K75]

I've done 2 DMs before - and for Paranoia, 3 GMs at the same time for a large group of players.

As for advice on how to go about it, first a question - WHY have multiple GMs? What's the goal? What are you hoping to get out of it?

Goal would be to let the players or GM to do more in one session than normal or explore a different style of play.

 

[Oofta]

I share a campaign world with my wife and we occasionally pinch-hit for each other (I'll DM her game and vice versa). We have done crossover events; we basically had two tables going and people could switch between tables for an encounter or get together to discuss strategy and whatnot. Splitting the party, for once, was par for the course.

We got the idea from public play "interactive" events where you can have several DMs with tables interacting with each other and crossing over. So for example, the parties may need to defend a castle, people decide what strategy makes sense, different DMs have assigned NPCs the players can talk to and so on.

The biggest issue is coordination. If running a published mod it's not a big deal. If running home campaigns like my wife and I do we have to establish ground rules and try to not overlap too much. When it comes to crossovers we discuss broad outline and motivations. While we don't have an issue 99% of the time there does have to be a final arbiter of what's acceptable.