Having the DM's cake and eating it too

[Gelare]

I have a D&D (3.5) group of about 7-8 people - kind of large by most standards, I'd say. Of this group, about half have knowledge of the rules approximating what is necessary to DM. The three of us who are competent at the job tend to rotate each adventure, but really, we just want to play PCs. Two of us competent DMs have been wanting to work together to run an adventure - double your processing power, double your fun, double the nefariousness of the forces out to kill the players - but this puts us in the position of neither of us being able to run PCs, which is really a shame.

While I'd expect the answer to be "no", I figured I'd ask around and see if any of you have thoughts on how two DMs can run an adventure together while still each having a central character like a PC who can role-play and overcome obstacles and so forth. I also wouldn't mind hearing about some of the games where this is more commonplace such as, as I understand it, Arkham Horror and the like. Thanks all.

[Elennsar]

Well, you could have a "GMPC" which would be like all the other PCs but played by (a) DM.

Assuming your group doesn't have visions of SCC (Storyteller Compensator Characters - the kind of GMPCs that give GMPCs a bad name), that could work just fine.

Not sure how easy it would be to play one and run a campaign, but that doesn't sound unworkable.

[Talisman]

Perhaps you could GM alternating "scenes?" Say, you run the "meet the old man in the tavern" scene, then your friend runs the "bandit assault on the trail" scene, etc. This would require a fairly linear storyline, though...

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Having 2 Dms allows you the opportunity to roleplay 2 NPCs talking to each other without looking as weird. It also allows combat to go faster and be better because each DM can control a monster and concentrate more on their tactics

[Anguirus]

Are you trying to DM at the same time as in you are both sitting behind the DM screen and narrating events and what not, or as in you both take turns running a story arc, adventure, session or scene. What I mean is, do you want to co-DM literally at the same time or take turns? If its the former I don't have any idea what that would even look like or what would happen if you two disagreed on ANYTHING at all. If its the latter then just take turns from adventure to adventure and have PCs that for any number of reasons cannot be in the same place at the same time but are both party members. You could have really cool interconnected characters with a really cool back story to explain why they can never be adventuring together.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Co-DMing can work.

DMPCs can work.

But probably, you want a rotating DM system. You DM one week, they DM the next week. Rulings stand for the week (if the other DM hates it, allow change). The two of you agree on a character to play (background, general goals), and swap out that character. Usually a fairly generic character is good for this ("my drow ranger takes TWF!") or a fairly flexible character is good for this ("sorry, my wizard prepared different spells today").

[Gelare]

Assuming that we wanted to do the rotating-by-week system, what of the fact that both DMs probably have some knowledge of where the storyline is supposed to go, or even challenges planned in advance?

[Roy]

Assuming that we wanted to do the rotating-by-week system, what of the fact that both DMs probably have some knowledge of where the storyline is supposed to go, or even challenges planned in advance?

I would recommend you do not rotate by the week for precisely that reason. Continuity becomes difficult. Instead rotate by the adventure arc, which likely takes more than 1 session. There will still be loose ends and such, but it is far easier to manage.

[Crissa]

My current DM runs a character, but he never lets the character make story-based decisions. It's just a foil for us to have bad things happen to ^-^

-Crissa

[Anguirus]

Co-DMing can work.

DMPCs can work.

But probably, you want a rotating DM system. You DM one week, they DM the next week. Rulings stand for the week (if the other DM hates it, allow change). The two of you agree on a character to play (background, general goals), and swap out that character. Usually a fairly generic character is good for this ("my drow ranger takes TWF!") or a fairly flexible character is good for this ("sorry, my wizard prepared different spells today").

I can see problems here if the two players play styles are completely different and also I can see DMs not wanting to kill or injure their shared character because they are going to be the ones dealing with that shit next week. Also, magic items and such and character customization. I would instead have each DM have a PC and then make it so that they can not be adventuring at the same time (and also that they gain xp at the same rate) so that when one person is DMing you get one PC and when another is DMing you get the other PC. It could be any number of sweet little fluff reasons that they can't be together.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I tend to do 1x/week 7-hour-ish sessions, so one adventure arc is fairly indistinguishable from 1 session. However, I see your point, per-adventure arc is better. This also facillitates the 'different characters' idea. The character that isn't there is helping somewhere in the background.

[Amra]

I've actually done this, and quite successfully too, albeit back in 2nd Edition days. Myself and a friend ran a campaign in a similarly-sized group to yours which involved us each responsible for a different Crime Lord (TM).

In fact, the scene was set in a city where two powerful and ancient vampires were vying for supremacy; his bad guy was a nigh-level cleric, mine a high-level arcane spellcaster. We definitely co-DM'd (house rules all agreed for consistency, each of us in full accord about how to adjudicate actions) but we were playing against each other as much as running a game for the characters.

Now, I'm not saying that anything here is a universally good idea, but in this instance we all knew each other well, had played together for years and everybody was right behind the notion so it worked fabulously. Because we'd segmented the city into "territories", it was agreed that when the PC's went from one domain to the next we'd hand over as fast as possible to whichever of us 'owned' that bit of the city.

The trick, which everyone tells us we pulled off successfully, was not getting as invested in our major NPC's (who actually played very minor walk-on roles because the object of the exercise for the PC's wasn't to defeat them but to deprive them of the macguffin they each needed to win) as we would in real characters, and to utterly acknowledge the correctness of the other when they were in the DM's chair. A bit like the Catholic Church, we each considered the other to be speaking ex cathedra when they were in charge.

Agree the limits, accept that the PC's are going to frustrate some of your best-laid plans for coordinated mayhem or dramatic scenes and don't try to railroad them into stuff just because the two of you have something good in your back pocket.

That said, what I'm talking about is more like a big game of Diplomacy than "getting to run a character" from the point of view of the DM's. Whether or not you can pull off having an actual character in the group with aplomb as well as run a coordinated game will very much depend on individual skill and temperament.

If I've got a practical tip, it's this: have a really, REALLY detailed and well-documented set of locations, ongoing plotlines and NPC's so you can seamlessly shift between DM's without interminable discussions that keep the players waiting. Get as much as you can thoroughly mapped out in advance and make copious notes during play so there's no room for misunderstanding. When I did it, it was hellish hard work but extremely rewarding and a lot of fun, but I believe that if we hadn't put the preparation in that we did the whole thing could have fallen apart really quickly!