In the next couple of weeks, I'm about to embark on a new campaign. I DM primarily at a non-AL comic shop and we have about 3-4 games going at any time. One of the campaigns wrapped up recently, and we're doing a reshuffle of the groups. The group I've been interim-DMing is going back to their original DM, and I'm being reassigned to a co-DM a pool of 10 players. Since we have 2 DMs, the plan is to split the groups so that each player can get more attention than if we had one DM and 11 players. However, since our players really want to play together, our plan is to put the groups in the same world and have them meet up every few sessions so they can remix the groups. This way, they're playing together, even if they're not all at the same giant table.
We've managed to work out some of the kinks we're likely to encounter--the other DM and I need to synchronize XP each sprint so nobody gets ahead of the others, and we need to work together to manage magic item distribution (since the group is mostly teenagers, the plan is to have "sky-cookie day" every few levels and just hand everyone an item at once so nobody feels left out), and we're using onenote to synchronize NPCs and lore, but I'm wondering if other people have done anything similar, and if they have any suggestions on pitfalls we might not have thought of. I feel like this could be a really cool thing for us and the players, but I just want to make sure all our bases are covered as we go into this.
Make sure you guys are also syncing on controversial rules, DCs, and things like what effect a Stealth check has as well as any house rulings. It can break immersion if one DM does group stealth while next game in the same setting the clanky paladin alerts all the guards. Or if one DM allows climbing without a check in most cases, while the other has a DC 10 just to get up a ladder.
Other than that, co-DMing can be a lot of fun. Every DM has an area where they're better at something than another and working with someone else can show you a few new tricks you never thought of.
I co-dm a group of 8 players (not quite 10 but big enough) and the way we do it is one of us takes the session as primary narrator, and if the group decides to split up, or if rules/plot needs to be referenced then the secondary takes control of that in the background.
At first we thought two GMs would be overkill but it's worked out really nicely. One GM can focus on presenting while the support GM reminds them of plot points and cuts out the interruptions to game-flow.
In the next couple of weeks, I'm about to embark on a new campaign. I DM primarily at a non-AL comic shop and we have about 3-4 games going at any time. One of the campaigns wrapped up recently, and we're doing a reshuffle of the groups. The group I've been interim-DMing is going back to their original DM, and I'm being reassigned to a co-DM a pool of 10 players. Since we have 2 DMs, the plan is to split the groups so that each player can get more attention than if we had one DM and 11 players. However, since our players really want to play together, our plan is to put the groups in the same world and have them meet up every few sessions so they can remix the groups. This way, they're playing together, even if they're not all at the same giant table.
We've managed to work out some of the kinks we're likely to encounter--the other DM and I need to synchronize XP each sprint so nobody gets ahead of the others, and we need to work together to manage magic item distribution (since the group is mostly teenagers, the plan is to have "sky-cookie day" every few levels and just hand everyone an item at once so nobody feels left out), and we're using onenote to synchronize NPCs and lore, but I'm wondering if other people have done anything similar, and if they have any suggestions on pitfalls we might not have thought of. I feel like this could be a really cool thing for us and the players, but I just want to make sure all our bases are covered as we go into this.
Make sure you guys are also syncing on controversial rules, DCs, and things like what effect a Stealth check has as well as any house rulings. It can break immersion if one DM does group stealth while next game in the same setting the clanky paladin alerts all the guards. Or if one DM allows climbing without a check in most cases, while the other has a DC 10 just to get up a ladder.
Other than that, co-DMing can be a lot of fun. Every DM has an area where they're better at something than another and working with someone else can show you a few new tricks you never thought of.
I co-dm a group of 8 players (not quite 10 but big enough) and the way we do it is one of us takes the session as primary narrator, and if the group decides to split up, or if rules/plot needs to be referenced then the secondary takes control of that in the background.
At first we thought two GMs would be overkill but it's worked out really nicely. One GM can focus on presenting while the support GM reminds them of plot points and cuts out the interruptions to game-flow.
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