Many gaming groups switch DMs from time to time. The following sections describe situations that allow for multiple DMs and ways multiple DMs can add to the group’s fun.
Take a break from being the DM if you need to recharge your creative juices, plan out the next arc of your campaign, or finish up the adventure you’re working on. By taking a break, you create an opportunity for another player to assume the DM role for a session or two.
If not everyone can make it to a scheduled session, that can also be an opportunity for a different DM to run a short adventure.
Some groups don’t want a long campaign with sweeping plotlines; they prefer short, unconnected adventures. With that style of game, different players might take turns as DM for one to three sessions at a time, with each adventure standing as a self-contained story.
You and the other DMs in your group can take turns running adventures for a few weeks or months at a time, with your campaign on hold during another DM’s turn. Some groups play multiple times each week, with different DMs running their campaigns on different days.
Some groups take a large, established campaign setting and divide it up geographically so different DMs can run separate campaigns in the same setting. In theory, characters can travel from one DM’s region of the world to another’s, creating continuity in the campaign even as characters might be involved in several plotlines.
Rather than dividing a campaign geographically, you and the other DMs in your group could divide it thematically. Using the setting in chapter 5 of this book as an example, each DM could focus their campaign on one of the three overarching conflicts of that setting. This approach allows the same group of adventurers to sink their teeth into all three overarching conflicts while ensuring that each storyline feels distinct.
Two or more DMs can share the creation of a single campaign, working together to maintain continuity from session to session and making sure that each DM’s adventures advance the larger story of the world and the characters. When players who are also DMs are playing their characters, they shouldn’t let their knowledge of the campaign’s story influence their characters’ actions. Those characters step out of the action when their players take their turns as DM.
Joint DMs can also team up to run each session of a campaign, with each DM focusing on the aspects of the game they most enjoy or the DMs trading focus from session to session. One DM might run combat description and keep a battle moving while the other focuses on miniatures and music. The two DMs can play two different NPCs in a social interaction encounter. Between sessions, they can collaborate or divide up world-building, encounter creation, and other tasks.