Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Rotating GMs, an Idea

We hit a stopping point in +Ken H's Monteport campaign.  We maneuvered to have Duncan become king without spilling one drop of blood.  We decided to take a break from that campaign and +Rob Conley volunteered to run his 5e version of his Majestic Wilderlands.

What I purposed was to have a shared world and each of us take turns GMing.  Why?  One, it sounds cool.  It reminds me of the Thieves World anthology where several authors shared the city of Sanctuary and the denizens within.  And the real reason is our group is getting larger.  All of us are GM capable.  And half the group hasn't had a chance to run anything.  +Chris C. has done a bit of GMing, but I defiantly want to see more, +Douglas Cole I only had the pleasure of him GMing me for a session, +Daniel McEntee and +Joshua Macy I haven't had a chance at all to have them GM.  And I've been chomping on the bit lately to run an adventure.

The general set up would be, GM develops a setting and an adventure.  The adventure lasts 1 to 3 sessions.  Second GM, rifts off the 1st GMs details of the setting, including groups, gods and whatever weird stuff that was introduced.  Run another adventure for 1 to 3 sessions.  Repeat. 

The difficult part is the starting.  Having seven folks agree on stuff can get tricky.  The good thing is we are seven guys who get along very well and have a great time.  I looking forward to the discussion and each one of us making our point for what we would like to see.

One of the first things we'll have to decide, is the genre.  We'll have to chose that first before we begin.  Before we pick a system.  Then there are several other large decisions to make.  We're planning a night to discuss all this. 

I'm curious to hear if anyone else has done this?  I've heard of it, but never seen it happen.  If you have done it before, tips on how to do it are welcome.

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great opportunity to play Microscope! http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/
    I don't own it, but plan to. Seems it would be ideal for creating a shared campaign world.

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  2. I think I missed this part of the conversation, between my AV issues and my early departure from the post-game bull session, but I think it's a cool idea. There might be some organizational issues to hash out, but I'm sure we could do it.

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  3. I've done that before and am ramping up to do it again. You've covered the obvious basics of creating a common world. Two questions to ask are (1) what do we do if one of us hands out the Wand of Orcus as a cracker jack prize? Nerf it like FLAILSNAILS or accept it as part of the campaign? (2) what happens to my character when I'm DMing? Not as big a question with 7 DMs as it would be with only 2.
    My suspicion, based on the number of DMs, several of whose blogs I follow, is that you're going to end up with a pretty gonzo campaign. Looking forward to reading about it.

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  4. I've done that before and am ramping up to do it again. You've covered the obvious basics of creating a common world. Two questions to ask are (1) what do we do if one of us hands out the Wand of Orcus as a cracker jack prize? Nerf it like FLAILSNAILS or accept it as part of the campaign? (2) what happens to my character when I'm DMing? Not as big a question with 7 DMs as it would be with only 2.
    My suspicion, based on the number of DMs, several of whose blogs I follow, is that you're going to end up with a pretty gonzo campaign. Looking forward to reading about it.

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  5. My High School group had two DMs, though I was the only one that did any particular "worldbuilding" with it.

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