It is very much a thing. How well it works will depend on the people and how you do it. Usually for your case, where you might want to just try it out, I’d suggest talking to your group about running a 1-shot (maybe even a 3-shot). New characters different setting, just make it your own thing. A little break for your current DM.
If you and everyone else like it, another fairly common thing is to take turns by campaign. Rotating DMs this way can be really nice and give everyone a chance to both DM and play.
I was once in a campaign where we tried swapping between 2 DMs every few sessions across a single campaign. That got pretty unwieldy and fell apart. Although that had a lot to do with one of the DMs not being very good. However, this way is really hard to pull off. It requires a lot of coordination in how the story will move, you end up with the the DM’s PC just sitting at camp while that person DMs, if one of them makes a ruling, they kind of both need to agree to it, one might give too much treasure for what the next has planned, or not enough treasure. Lots can go wrong. I would not recommend it.
I did co-DMing in the past, it can be really fun as you can maximize everyone's strenght for more creative or rules-savy kind and bounce off ideas etc...
Curious if co-DMing is a thing? Do people share DM duties with a second person at al, or is that impractical?
By co-DMing, do you mean rotating DMs, or two people DMing at once?
Both are things that happen, but can be tricky to run because of the need for the different DMs to coordinate their actions. It works best if each of them has a fairly distinct sandbox they're managing. It's probably not something I'd recommend as a way to learn DMing, though. The easiest is running an independent one-shot. It's possible to run a one-shot for an existing campaign, but in that case you should generally start with a discussion with the regular DM about where a suitable open space is, what appropriate rewards are, what NPCs you can use and abuse, and so on.
Yeah I was definitely thinking more DMing in parallel, leaning into respective strengths, rather than taking turns. I’ve still only been playing for about a year, so I definitely don’t quite feel I could be equally deep in all the different areas. My DMs are pretty creative. A one-shot to start is a good idea.
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Curious if co-DMing is a thing? Do people share DM duties with a second person at al, or is that impractical?
Thinking about trying hand at DMing, but feel way more ready in some areas than others. Thx!
It is very much a thing. How well it works will depend on the people and how you do it.
Usually for your case, where you might want to just try it out, I’d suggest talking to your group about running a 1-shot (maybe even a 3-shot). New characters different setting, just make it your own thing. A little break for your current DM.
If you and everyone else like it, another fairly common thing is to take turns by campaign. Rotating DMs this way can be really nice and give everyone a chance to both DM and play.
I was once in a campaign where we tried swapping between 2 DMs every few sessions across a single campaign. That got pretty unwieldy and fell apart. Although that had a lot to do with one of the DMs not being very good. However, this way is really hard to pull off. It requires a lot of coordination in how the story will move, you end up with the the DM’s PC just sitting at camp while that person DMs, if one of them makes a ruling, they kind of both need to agree to it, one might give too much treasure for what the next has planned, or not enough treasure. Lots can go wrong. I would not recommend it.
I did co-DMing in the past, it can be really fun as you can maximize everyone's strenght for more creative or rules-savy kind and bounce off ideas etc...
By co-DMing, do you mean rotating DMs, or two people DMing at once?
Both are things that happen, but can be tricky to run because of the need for the different DMs to coordinate their actions. It works best if each of them has a fairly distinct sandbox they're managing. It's probably not something I'd recommend as a way to learn DMing, though. The easiest is running an independent one-shot. It's possible to run a one-shot for an existing campaign, but in that case you should generally start with a discussion with the regular DM about where a suitable open space is, what appropriate rewards are, what NPCs you can use and abuse, and so on.
Thanks all. Good input.
Yeah I was definitely thinking more DMing in parallel, leaning into respective strengths, rather than taking turns. I’ve still only been playing for about a year, so I definitely don’t quite feel I could be equally deep in all the different areas. My DMs are pretty creative. A one-shot to start is a good idea.