Relay Campaigns: Multiple GMs, One Story - Running RPGs

[@arjunchoong8012]

Senate: OK, Caesar, that game set in Gaul was a great session; let someone else be the GM now. Caesar: No, I don't think I will. See you all next session... 15th of March? Senate: Yea... we'll see you alright...

[@Tony-dh7mz]

lol

[@bedeodempsey5007]

Damn those Ides...

[@juddgoswick2024]

Et tu, PC?

[@ryancampbell2192]

Yup, but by that time *the die is cast* 🙄

[@juddgoswick2024]

@@ryancampbell2192 Just don't cross Ruby Khan. I hear she doesn't like that.

[@davewire87]

The villain used to look like John Travolta... until you took his face... off.

[@billstephens396]

- slowly eats a peach -

[@Nosmo90]

@@billstephens396 *sets a timer for 2+ hours*

[@--enyo--]

Nice

[@jamesillenberg133]

My wife and I just ran a 3 year long DnD campaign like this for our kids where we passed off GMing and playing. Worked very well.

[@paulh3892]

Aw that's the dream! That's so great that your whole family can enjoy a collaborative, imaginative game together!

[@oz_jones]

Wholesome

[@hamsters7760]

It's kinda cool that Jack let his sidekick do a full video, but it loses something without the star...

[@larsdahl5528]

Yeah, where did the others go? Could be interesting to see the personality changes in Jack depending at who was the GM...

[@PaulGaither]

Seth, great DM, author and content creator. Also Seth: BOMBSHELL.

[@nicknumber1512]

TFW the baton in the relay campaign turns out to be a grenade.

[@DualKeys]

When the GM’s character needs to step aside, that’s a perfect time to run a kidnapping scenario. The GM can have their own character kidnapped, and the other players can try to rescue them. You could even tie the next clue into the kidnapping by having the kidnapped character overhear something while they’re in captivity.

[@NefariousKoel]

Good point!

[@larsdahl5528]

I think it could be used once or maybe twice during a campaign. But... If there are always one kidnapped, then... I think that require a very specific story idea.

[@piemaniac9410]

@@larsdahl5528 have the GM's PC be the ringleader, the very first session is just trying to get your commander out of prison, then every time after that they step away to do some reconnaissance and collect information on the big bad.

[@DualKeys]

@@larsdahl5528 I just meant it was an ideal time to do a kidnapping scenario. Of course you're right, doing it multiple times would get old fast, but it would be a fun thing to try for one session.

[@Mr.Beauregarde]

See how Jack never showed up? Now we know who John Travolta is

[@billstephens396]

Jack : "I can assure you that I was not groomed since birth to have some cushy job. While you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained to conquer [ insert setting appropriate place here ]! And to do anything less is a disgrace to my entire family line."

[@gnaskar]

We ran a middle ground between a Hub Campaign and a Relay Campaign in a planet of the week Rogue Trader campaign. Sort of by accident. It started as an extended one-shot (we had a small group that would meet weekly to try out new systems, practice GMing, or otherwise experiment), that we decided we wanted to spin out into a full campaign. The original GM didn't want to take the full load, so three of us agreed to trade GMing duties. We brought in a couple more players, picked another weekday to preserve our existing weekly engagement, and set off running what was originally supposed to be unrelated adventures. It started as a hub campaign except that there was no real hub as such (maybe our ship: the 5km long survey cruiser called Pioneer was the closest we had). One GM ran plots about the interior politics among our crew of 10k (evenly split between pressganged navy veterans, puritan fanatics who'd signed up for a crusade, and a independent tech priest fifedom who held our life support hostage in exchange for nutrients). Another sent us up against aliens amid ancient ruins (cybernetically enhanced crystaline centipedes, if memory serves). A third introduced a rival rogue trader with a small fleet. Then I ran a plot involving the centipedes and a shadowy group of heretechs, the politics guy ran a high society intrigue plot involving the rival rogue trader, the centipede guy ran a combat heavy plot involving the heretech faction I'd introduced, and we all just kind off built off each other. Some plot lines were dropped, others led on to other things as they were built upon. It was chaotic, and probably not completely self consistent, as subtleties in the concepts got lost as they were handed between GMs. But if felt like we were the heroes of an action TV show with writers trading off on running each episode. It ended a bit like a cancelled tv show, too. Summer came, and a couple of our players left town, having finished university. Between that and some growing issues we had with the system, the campaign just fizzled out.

[@TheWarpGhost]

* Makes a surruptitious note about the independent tech prist fiefdom for his own game *

[@richmcgee434]

Sigh. Sounds like the kind of RT campaign I always wanted and never got.

[@dichloro_arsine542]

this model sounds almost exactly like the kind i've used for a few Cyberpunk games now and it's worked really well, i've taken to calling it the "gta model" because the flow of it reminds me of the grand theft auto games a lot, with free roaming early on eventually building into doing story missions.

[@CRESELEG]

Closest I ever came is where myself and two other DM's ran campaigns set in the same world. We DM'a met after every session and compared notes. Rumors began to reach the various groups about the others. We crossed paths and ran large group sessions a few times. We ended up with a crazy dynamic world. It was really fun, but a ton of work.

[@thenicktrickles1700]

Hey Seth would you consider doing a look through of your collection of rpg books, similar to the old style where you looked through your miniatures?

[@ncrtrooper1782]

That sounds like a good filler video. I think he should save it when he has an ambitious project that might take more time than normal.

[@smilo_don]

I agree.

[@richmcgee434]

@@danielgoldberg5357 If you're looking for some vintage RPG vids in the interim, you might enjoy Captcorajus' channel: kzbin.info/door/DY38N7kqibfYXX7jSbJNsg Questing Beast has a nice selection of OSR vids as well, if you want some new stuff with an old-school feel: kzbin.info/door/vYwePdbWSEwUa-Pk02u3Zw

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

We did something similar when our current game master had to quit due to cancer but he still played. We still play and will try something different soon.

[@RPGmodsFan]

I am sorry to hear about your friend. Can I ask, what type of cancer? For most cancers, I would suggest to your friend to eat lots of Apricot Seeds (about 30+ throughout the day). They contain Amygdalin which fights cancer. As a preventative measure, I myself eat at least 12+ Seeds a day.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

RPGmodsFan testicular. He’s had two surgeries and he is doing well now. Thank you

[@chrisfranks400]

@Motoko Ouch I saw what ya did there

[@TARMHeLL]

I feel like Rose at the end of Titanic, Lost without Jack.

[@larsdahl5528]

Yeah, could have been interesting to see how Jack changed depending at who GM-ed...

[@chazblank2717]

I really enjoyed the visual aides you included to explain the different ways of running multi-GM campaigns… it makes me wonder if there are (as yet only theoretical) hybrid systems you could extrapolate from this… One to several hubs with meandering interweaving side-quests all building to a major confrontation with a fleshed out planned villain by a primary GM.

[@euansmith3699]

John Travolta is a ploymorphed, two-head, silver dragon? That explains a lot.

[@dungeontime9859]

This sounds like it could help some of my players learn to respect the work and attention that goes into DMing a game.

[@larsdahl5528]

Yes, as I say: A healthy "recommended nutrient intake" for role play go something like: 20 % - 25 % GM 75 % - 80 % PC Getting too much of one of the components lead to "malnutrition".

[@machetas]

A year ago we started a campaign that ended this march. Four of us created a character each and took turns DMing. DM's character would go on some sort of solo mission, so he or she can stay on the same experience level. There was some rules: campaign stayed in one region, DM switches every session, so you need to prepare an one-shot. We had so much fun.

[@christianketterling7590]

My friends and I did that for a starwars homebrew of D&D 5e. We called it a round robin campaign(or at least I did). We would do a an arc and then whoever was next to him would talk in the background about the transition. And it's worked pretty well so far for about a year and a half.

[@Javalar]

Player: Maybe we should try something new. GM: How about a R'lyeh campaign? Players:

[@michaelvought4433]

This video literally couldn't have gone up at a better time for our group as we were just talking about the idea at work!

[@larsdahl5528]

A good thing with such is that everyone get to see things from both the GM side and from the PC side. That help a lot on improving play in both positions!

[@MrMaxBoivin]

It is an "exquisite cadaver" campaign.

[@kchgamer1788]

FINALLY, someone covers this. This is the campaign that I’m about to start gming(as a secondary) and it’s so interesting. There are about 3 of us overall and it’s been going on for like 3 years. I’ve just joined in for about a year and it’s kinda crazy. It is honestly more like an extended universe campaign and because of that we have sooo many characters. Honestly it’s gone down pretty well overall and is very long running(as I said 3 years). If anyone for some reason has questions I’ll gladly answer them, especially as it’s the only one I’ve known.

[@brandtthebrent7227]

I was part of a group that did a 5e dnd campaign that traded DMs every session, and it ran for a little under two years. The premise was that there was a time traveling library, and its keeper was in a competition with other powerful immortal beings(such as the first phoenix to ever hatch, an eldritch monster, the oldest elemental to exist, and twin sphinxes) to see who could collect the most objects of interest. The library's keeper picks out some heroes from across time, and we're off to the races. The intent was for an episodic time traveling campaign of one shots where the party would be tasked with going to a specific time or event in the fictional world and retrieving an item of interest, often finding themselves in a race with parties formed by these other immortal beings. It should be noted that each DM controlled a different enemy faction. The campaign started to shift after about four times around with each DM (there were four) and both players and DMs were starting to itch for something more substantial than going on a different four hour adventure every week. Eventually, one of the DMs proposed that there should be another larger than life being, who's not part of the collecting competition, that's interested in exploiting the parties and competition for their own ends in order to give the campaign a more solid throughline . This seemed like a good compromise to everyone because it meant nobody's villain faction was suddenly the big bad. That is, everyone but one person, who I'll call Stormy for the sake of distinguishing between people. Stormy had their heart set on their villain being the primary villain, and even accused the DM that proposed the outside entity of trying to seize control of the campaign. Conversely, Stormy also tried to forcefully take control of the campaign later by having their villain actively attack and invade the main library hub to try to force the players into regarding him as the main villain. Stormy also used their villain for the sake of power trips at times, most notably using an attack from him in a forced encounter to roll all the D4s in his collection for a massive AoE attack with a nearly impossible save DC (25 or so) to knock out the entire party, arguing that he'd always wanted to try a "forced loss". This gets more complicated considering Stormy had previously complained about an encounter run by a different DM that had a high AC, where he claimed battles where players were likely to lose was unfun. As part of his crusade to make his villain the main villain, Stormy was also actively terrible about communicating with other DMs. He wouldn't mention any plans he had, and refused to respond when other DMs would try to discuss their plans for their villains or the potential 5th grander villain. Stormy would also later accuse both me and the DM that originally proposed the 5th villain compromise of being poor communicators, and rather baselessly accused that DM of having severe main character syndrome as well. That campaign was legendary for my friend group and we'll never forget it, and the word 'library' in any ttrpg has been ruined for all of us because it's so ingrained in our memories of that campaign. That campaign was also an uncontrolled disaster with nobody in charge of it to stop Stormy from his problematic behavior. I'm not friends with Stormy anymore, for reasons beyond just that campaign, but that was the first time I saw the kind of person he actually was - a gaslighting hypocrite that refused to discuss anything that wasn't exactly what he wanted and would attempt to put down people around him to make himself feel better than them.

[@BSE1320]

Just so you know Seth, there are guys on the official Cyberpunk 2077 facebook page commenting that they'll be sorely disappointed if Scott Brown is not in the game. xD

[@ajardoor]

You could replace the shadowy Keyser Soze bad guy with a massive hidden treasure the party wants to find. The details on what the treasure is, where it is, and the history of the treasure can be worked just like Rumors and Clues. The players are chasing leads on the treasure, trying to beat out rival fortune hunters.

[@benkernow280]

I can see this working really well with Star Trek Adventures.

[@michelemichienzi934]

Ryan Johnson and J J Abrams needed this video years ago

[@danielpucher3367]

This reminds me of how the EU Star Wars novels were being written near the end

[@williamherman778]

Same with the cthulhu mythos, Lovecraft welcomed it frequently :)

[@larsdahl5528]

... or the kids game where a sheet of paper is folded, then a person is drawn, first person draws the head, second draws the upper body, and so on...!

[@nickwilliams8302]

In a "traditional" TTRPG like D&D, I could see a relay campaign being run even looser. The classic D&D campaign takes beginner heroes to local heroes, those local heroes become "Heroes of the Realm", then the heroes step up and save the world. I could definitely see a campaign where a separate GM runs each phase, perhaps building on the threat of the previous phase (say, a necromancer being revealed as merely one member of a death-cult that threatens the whole kingdom, which is then revealed to be an attempt to do Very Bad Things to the whole world) or completely separate arcs connected only by the participation of the party. In something like Cyberpunk ... yeah, more difficult. You don't have that default framework to fall back on. So yeah, you'd have to set something up like you guys did.

[@piemaniac9410]

you could easily do an escalating threat in cyberpunk, though most of the adventure is going to be discovering more information about your enemy rather than just getting strong enough to take out the Big Bad. Something like trying to take down a high ranking executive of a megacorp would be a good example of a growing threat cyberpunk game.

[@nickwilliams8302]

@@piemaniac9410 Oh, definitely. But I was talking about a "pass the baton" campaign where there is little to no collaboration between the successive GMs. So the first DM might have a dastardly necromancer as the BBEG of their stage of the campaign whose evil evilness threatens a barony. The next DM might run with that and decide the necromancer was just an underling of an even bigger BBEG, maybe a death cult recruiting decadent nobles in the capital. Or they might go for something completely unrelated, like stopping/starting/winning a war with another kingdom.

[@SkullDixon]

THe Magical Land of Yeld is a game where, by RAW, the players switch out the Gm position every session or two. Some of what you point out in this video are in the rule sof that game , but I think you've expanded upon those ideas and I think this helps a lot. Great advice.

[@jak2767]

Good timing on this video! Me and some of my DMing buddies started a "Relay campaign" Shadowrun game a few weeks ago. Each DM runs a campaign that's roughly a year long before the next GM takes over

[@zsheets7483]

Yaaay! A new Seth video! A great way to start off the week. Also, this is quite topical, because the group I've been playing L5R 5E with for the past year or so have been talking about doing exactly this kind of game instead of moving on to another system or campaign.

[@billthecanuck]

the group i play with ran dungeon of the mad mage in that way, we had two DM's and every floor the DM's would swap, each DM had a PC in the game that would join the party when they were playing and be on the sidelines when they weren't. went pretty well, we smashed through DMM in about a year and was alot of fun

[@blackwoodknight4913]

This was actually VERY helpful Seth, thank you so much, me and a friend are making a campaign and want to make a new world and co-op the GM position, we're still building but this was helpful to me to get an idea of sharing the GM position as well as character management. My character is a double agent now so he will drop in and out frequently, and my friend made a doctor who will need to tend to his job every other session.

[@fernandopires981]

Hello Seth. Great video! I'm going to try to pass this idea to my friends. It can be fun also to teach someone else how to GM. Watched a lot of your videos and loved the content. I'm about to introduce a campaign that uses those ideas of backpack organization and critical and fumble tables.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Happy to help. Just remember that if you find something you don't like about them, or might work better, make it your own and have fun.

[@Drakus_VII]

We started something similar. Our GM couldn't find the time to run our Shadowrun game anymore. So we decided to take turns running games even though we've never run one before and basically just started playing at all. We started with a simple system(don't even know the name) and now we switched to call of Cthulhu. The GMs character usually just goes on vacation or whatever else gets him out of the Story.

[@jameysmoot5669]

Played a relay campaign back in high school, was one of the best games I was every a part of. Worked a little differently though, instead of chasing down rumors/hints, There was a group of macguffins (13 crystal shards) that we were trying to gather. Every DM could go after one of the shards, or go off in their own direction. Having a number of goals that the secondary DM could go after helped give cohesion, and the choice to ignore them helped flesh out the world.

[@alexbarrett3832]

I've done campaigns of that sort a few times, they can work really well, and are a great way to helping new GMs to run games for the first time. At some point we're going to be doing an Immortals game, where we start in prehistory, and then each game master picks up a few hundred years later, expanding on the world and stories introduced by those who came before!

[@dichloro_arsine542]

i've run multi-gm games a few times, the method i find works best is what i call the "GTA model", where each gm can come up with their own sort of self-contained story and lead the players down each at different times by tying the story encounters into easy landmarks like bases, or by just weaving them into random encounters. each session usually starts with a little bit of "free roam" stuff as each player takes a few turns taking care of whatever errands or side tasks they want to do, and then usually they set out to either continue the story directly, or just to explore and the gm can loop them back into whatever over-arching quest they want through creative encounter building. that model has resulted in a couple of the most enjoyable games i've ran and played in.

[@Tboysupreme]

We ran a sliders Type Game years ago with gurps. Characters from different Timelines and professions thrown into an interdimensional Portal forced to complete a specific task before they can move on. One character would always miss a portal slide as he was the GM. Sadly it only lasted 3 or so sessions. Ist was fun though.

[@AzraelThanatos]

You also have the organized play type, where you might swap out DMs every so often by who wants to do it. I'd also point out that with a lot of things, you really don't need to have all of the adventures point towards the main villain. Some things can easily be done as more of a break adventure, pulling from other parts of it to make things open up. Giving them other options later on rather than having every adventure directly tie into the main villain often helps quite a bit if a few DMs want to do things, some might be more tied to specific characters in the party.

[@larshoffmann7]

Great idea!! Its as if the Marvel Cinematic Universe films were created this way. "In a parallel universe, the ultimate bad guy has plans that impact the earth and the heroes..."

[@karatos]

I did this last/earlier-this year. I was the second DM. When I took over my part of the tag team/relay we had just taken down a troop of brigands after capturing two in the hopes of hunting down either an evil necromancer or his possible high society patron. The clues that were left were a hidden room in a necromancer's dungeon that hinted at unnatural experiments, a case of vials containing creatures that were blends of leeches and worms basically indicating he made progress to finally combine them (foreshadowing), as well as a book of notes that needed deciphered and that could also be used to track his location perhaps. I needed to hide off my character and introduce a new one for the now playing old DM and I needed a way to tie it all together with the story so I had the local sheriff (who was already established as feckless at best) rush the request for compensation for the bounties to the capital which found that this group of unauthorized adventurers was trying to collect a bounty without permission to operate in the kingdom nor with even a valid tax certificate. Yes... I brought tax into D&D and it is a super big deal for my leg of the campaign. Just you wait. This let me do a few things, one was to put the game in a slightly new setting with higher scale, before we basically jumped back and forth between two backwoods towns to solve a problem with grander implications and this was a chance to show the impact. Second, it gave an opportunity to switch out rogues. For this, since I was already rather uncertain about what to do with my character (he didn't feel right, you know?) I figured out he could not go to the capital because he was living on the lam under an assumed name because he had a price on his head in Suzail. But why would the party get another person to add? Because they need a license and they need four to become an official adventuring party at that tier of license (yes, it had tiers, and yes, it mattered, and it got up to six in the party soon anyway). So I had my character give a lame excuse about why he could not go to the capital, let the players know it was suspicious, and he gave the party a letter heavily laden with thieves' cant and advised them to go to a place (dockside tavern obviously) to give the note to the bartender who was known to introduce people to those looking for certain unsavory types of work. The note basically just outlined how naive and profitable the group was, which was a pointless thing to write since it was from me, the DM, to the previous DM, but still, it was true, they were easy marks and I stand by it. So the group then dove head first into the whole bloated body of bureaucracy for the kingdom, (imagine the majority of a session done basically of a trip to the DMV), learning such things as recent tax hikes, protests about grain shortages, and rumours that the siege across the sea was not going as well as claimed. The new rogue showed them the ropes and used some of their scant party treasure for bribes, literally when they met with the crown prince who functioned as the city's administrator (he was required by law to personally sign every letter of marque basically) he was posing for a portrait of him holding scales with a piece of paper on one side meant to symbolize the law outweighing the other dish which was overflowing with coin and gems, and he was taking a bribe while posing for that picture to emphasize just how bad things were. But they got their papers and claimed their bounties and were flush with coin. Then I had to actually give them something to do so I gave them a return hit from left field: the necromancer stuck his wand where it ought not to be and suddenly dark terrors from the shadow realm invaded the kingdom from a crack between the planes. They did not know what had caused this, of course, merely that something bad was going on. I took this opportunity to do my usual over the top dark imagery, used shadows to cause absolute terror. At one point they went to one of the smaller towns that was completely empty except the desecrated husks of about a dozen people huddled in the center of the church, one still clutching his holy symbol, and when they went to a town to the north of that they met the priest there who was aiding the refugees from some of the smaller towns and mentioned he feared something terrible had happened to his brother who ran the church further south. They gave him his brother's holy symbol and told him his brother was brave and kept himself between the darkness and his flock. Touching stuff. The party also met former soldiers turned farmers turned militia as local lawmen were either killed or lost or ran away, but repeatedly people wondered where the army was. Anyway, they learned about the necromancer getting on some super bad dude's hit list and sealed the door between the worlds, knowing it could be opened again if they did not stop the necromancer, so they needed to find him ASAP. For this they headed to the wizard's keep to the west, going through the capital again, at which time I introduced another NPC, this dwarf loan shark named Dakahm Rockforge that was moving up in the world and running a restaurant just off the promenade road south of the royal court which he claimed from someone who could not pay back what they owed. He knew the DM's character and knew the party had been doing stuff so he propositioned the DM's character for information, and in asking for information he shared his own, giving some exposition as well. Turns out, the reason the army did not show up is because they were ordered to stay close to the capital instead of help the people in the smaller towns. Also, a secret known only to those in the highest and lowest places was that the King had fled the kingdom when the danger approached and had yet to return. With the majority of the navy and army sieging West Gate to the south across the lake and the King gone and the country unprotected and the people beginning to low key riot over rising taxes and grain prices, the seemingly disjointed plans of the necromancer (with the possible backing of someone in the aristocracy) were starting to come into focus: it was a coup. Dak was trying to get Celestron, AKA "Selly", the old DM's character, to figure out who was behind the coup attempt so that they could either A) turn them over to the existing king for big reward or B) help with the coup to get a big reward from the new king. What followed were some adventures of tracking down monsters that the previous DM had used, namely starting from the owlbear, then adding in a chimera to keep with the combined creatures theme (remember the gross worm things?), and these beasts led to the backup laboratory for the necromancer (we already destroyed the first one in the first quest of the first DM's run, the second one being the bandits). Well.. I say led... the lab is in old silver mines in the stormhorn mountains, which they were literally just climbing into when we finished our last session... then the lockdown went into effect and the game is on hold indefinitely. Maybe next year. They have already found clues about an ancient battleground to the north with thousands of corpses to raise, including the remains of three blue dragons, and I intended to leave more clues in the lab that would hopefully make the plan clear (up to next DM to decide if that is the plan at all), and basically a white board with 'raise undead army, march army to city, ??????, profit' and then when they returned to town I would have them see the loan shark character outside of the party house calling out a name they do not know, then reveal my character had stolen from him (not really.. I mean.. yeah.. but... also no) and I was lying about everything and that the party now owed him or they can hand me over. At which point I was going to pass the torch either back to the original DM or to another player and make the begging of my life for them to help me. Maybe one day. It would leave the necromancer free, the mastermind (if there is one) unknown, the risk of dangers from the plane of shadow, the risk of civil unrest, and the risk of invasion by an outside army either in alliance with West Gate with whom the kingdom is already at war or just an opportunistic war taking advantage of obvious weaknesses. Surely, this is fertile land for adventure.

[@karatos]

If anyone read all that, wow, thank you. Hope you liked it. That is a short summary of 6 months of weekly play, leaving out a lot as I hope you can imagine. And since you read that, you might like this. Ebanar W. Measurfoote (pronounced Mess-er-foot) was not his real name. The Measurfoote name is a sub-clan delineation given to descendants of a particular halfling line in which their feet were deemed so unchanging that they are used as the basis of measurement in most exclusive halfling societies. That is all well and good except anyone with even a glancing knowledge of halfling metrology would know this man's use of this name was false on its face since the stable foot genes are mitochondrial in nature, hence the titled name can only be passed from mother to daughter. Not that it matters, but his mother was a real and true Measurfoote. He was born Ezekiel Wildfire, his mother not giving him a clan name as he was born into a non-traditional family unit and his mother could not give him her name. He was known on the streets as Zeke, or more often Little Zeke, only thing faster than his fingers is his wit, and he did whatever he could to survive, often recovering payment from people that owed Dak, usually without them knowing it. One day he was hired by Dak to sneak into a ship at port and return the contents of a particular chest. This was not entirely unusual, Dak got a lot of inside information, and while he had never been asked to slip on board an occupied ship to rob it before there is a first time for everything and they pay was decent. Zeke found that this was apparently a transport that contained a chest of items to be auctioned. These were wonderful and powerful and insanely valuable things to Zeke, all the more reason to be very careful, taking every precaution while taking every item. He was surprised to find among these treasures a single gold coin of a minting he did not recognize which was of a beautiful woman in profile on either side without dates or markings. He had no idea why but he wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his entire life. Surely, Dak will be satisfied with the twenty to thirty or so treasures he was turning over and he will not even know about a single little coin, much less miss it. Except.. little did little Zeke know, Dak had a partner: the Auctioneer. The items had been appraised and were being delivered by a private security company that insured the safety of the items. In this way, the auctioneer would be able to seize a substantial deposit from a mercenary company to give to the owners of the items, the company that was a thorn in Dak's smuggling business (remember, grain prices are skyrocketing in the kingdom because of taxes and the food being sent to the warfront) taking a substantial hit to coffers and reputation, and as if that was not enough Dak and the auctioneer would be able to fence the spoils on the black market, minus the substantial sum the auctioneer already owed Dak. The problem? The auctioneer had an inventory of what was 'missing' from the ship, and Dak was the kind of fellow that enjoyed picking the crumbs from his beard. This put a price on Zeke's head and drove him out of town where the party found him hiding in an abandoned building (I missed the first two sessions). What was the coin, asked nobody? A character driven excuse to multiclass Mastermind Rogue and Knowledge Domain Cleric! Why? I have no idea, but it feels right so I am going with it.

[@RT-to4wm]

This format would address the issues in a campaign that my boyfriend (and regular dm) and I were talking out! First, everyone in the group we were considering at the time had different ideas about where it could go and what it would be about and wanted to run a similar game themselves. Second, we each have slightly different skillsets (on a micro-level, I tend to thrive in diplomacy and character heavy games both running and playing, and boyfriend tends to lean more into combat), and the biggest issue was a concern that the "big bad" would be too predictable and not have a big enough build up if any one of us made it, but if we collaborated pre-game, then where's the mystery. I'm so excited about this. Thank you, Seth. Looks like we're getting the band back together!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Happy to help. Good luck. Hope you all have a blast with it.

[@dbensdrawinvids8390]

My group calls that Round Robin gaming, after the Round Robin storytelling game slash creative writing exercise.

[@originaluddite]

And in such a model it might not have a primary GM at all, except in the sense that the first GM to take a turn would be setting the scene and tone for the entire thing, but not periodically course-correcting as suggested by Seth.

[@ericsmith1508]

My cousin and I "co-dungeon mastered" a homebrew setting back in AD&D 2nd Edition that continued into 3rd edition. But it was two different parties. We would always try to build on whatever world building the other DM had established in their sessions.

[@JohnSmithAprilMay]

We're in the middle of something like this in Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play 4e. It's my go behind the screen for the next few months, and I'm the second GM for this campaign. The WFRP retirement rule* turned the last guy's story into a premise for my own without any pressure to continue his because most of the characters were new. The old GM's arc was a sort of action-packed fantasy western, but mine is more Lucio Fulci's Murder, She Wrote. We're all working toward the same fuzzy story goals, but we're going to get there in unique ways. It's an RPG exquisite corpse. I love it. *A new character begins with half your last character's XP, so you're incentivized to allow your character to ride into the sunset. We houseruled it where the outgoing GM gets half the XP from the incoming GM's last character.

[@matthill5426]

Hmm, this will be an interesting topic. Ars Magica is partially built around this idea, where it can be played with lots of people taking turns GM'ing, and ways to do that.

[@witchdoctor1394]

I was about to comment about Ars Magica. Awesome game & I loved playing and running it.

[@jeffchristena9369]

I once played and a relay campaign. It was a world jumper and every time we switched worlds we switched Game Masters. The campaign lasted a year-and-a-half. If your group would like to run a game like this, it's probably best you all agree on a universal game mechanic system.

[@juddgoswick2024]

Great video and solid advice, as always! My group ran a D6 Star Wars game this way and had a blast with similar rules to the ones you laid out. Any game that is episodic has a better chance of working out. Also, Ars Magica is the best example of what you called a "Hub Game".

[@thomasford9513]

This is great! A group I'm a part of started doing this about 4 months ago, and I sent the video to all of them because there's a lot of great ideas to expand on and consider, so thank you! We didn't know this was something a lot of people did, so its good to get some tips and ideas

[@VickyTheVickname]

There's been a game some of us in my main group has been talking about but we've never started involving something like this- this video has been a very good summation of that type of game! I'm gonna take it to the others and see what they think

[@SSkorkowsky]

Happy to help. Have fun with whatever method you use to try it.

[@charlesgray6385]

Just finished a 3 year campaign switching between 3 DMs, with a final DM doing a session or two somewhere in there. It was a bizarre battle for none of us to metagame, and we had to hide the potential future plots from other DMs, meaning we were setting up plot after plot, whilst wing-manning other DM's plots all the while. DM A and myself did the two halves of the 1st and 2nd year. DM B and myself did a half each of the final year, with myself DM'ing the finale, and DM B about to do the Epilogue session to the campaign. Utterly insane that it managed to work out as well as it did, but all of us were experienced DMs, with some extra players joining and leaving in the first and second year respectively, meaning we gave every player minor retconning abilities to smooth the world building over. Events talked about in the world on the spot, or characters, places, etc etc became canon. And in the end, every session was a little like having 1 main DM, then 3\4 little DMs.

[@Giant_O]

I will definitly bring the up in my current playing group, as there are 2 people who have GM experience and one who is interested in it, and this could make for a great longer running campaign O.o Love your content

[@willburr5929]

My group used to rotate gm regularly while keeping the same group of characters. Once, on the session before the one in which I was slated to begin my turn as gm, the current gm passed my pc (a gnomish thief) some cursed coins in the loot distribution, which caused him to gradually change alignment. When I began the new adventure as gm, my thief became an npc secretly hostile to the party. Part of the new adventure involved extracting the coins and rehabbing their thief while he attempted to pick their pockets of everything they had won in the previous campaign.

[@MrVotiga]

Some friends and I did something like this for a Marvel Superheroes campaign. It ended up working out well for the overall story of the campaign because each of us had different strengths: One GM knew everything about the comics, so his sessions were filled with all the canon characters One GM loved traps, and made a great HYDRA complex that we had to sneak through One GM had big ideas, so in their sessions we had big fights I had the most experience running dnd campaigns, so my sessions were filled with character development and adventure hooks All together a great experience, but it did require some patience

[@TheWarpGhost]

Well, this video is starting some thoughts running through my mind I'd never had before. I'd heard about multiple GM campaigns but never really stopped to consider what that might mean until now.

[@larsdahl5528]

There are several versions of the concept. "Hub Campaign", "Sidequests" and "Relay Campaign" are just 3 possibilities. So others that I have seen in action are: "Oneshot Campaign", here we gather at our regular play day, and someone GM a single session scenario. "Revolver Campaign", here each GM in turn. One such campaign, I have seen, had that each GM had a section of the world map surrounded by water, so a session started with the group arriving by ship, and ending by embarking the ship again. Each "island" was the home of one of the characters, the GM's, thus that PC was not a part of the group, but busy managing home affairs instead. "Multiple campaigns": Each player run a campaign, just that all campaigns play at the same day, in a round robin fashion.

[@nokomarie1963]

Sounds very cool. Also sounds like something my lot will never do. I've suggested standing aside, but they all say they do not want to learn how to do the work. Since it's a weekly game, I really don't need to have my hands on the reins every second. Somebody could try it for a week, provide dinner too. I could be an elf in mushroom land and they could be a foot in a boot, just as long as they drew the map, cooked the dinner, and adjudicated the consequences, it would all be good.

[@SergioLeRoux]

I tried a rotating campaign of D&D, there was always one player trying to talk everybody into not playing the other DM's games and turn his into a full campaign, and finding ways to force all the character permanent decisions (leveling up) to be based on his part of the world (like, "if you don't have one of my specific deities in your PC sheet you don't get any temple healing"). Some people just hate collaboration.

[@larsdahl5528]

Yeah, that is a weak-spot in the revolver-campaign concept: it only take one DM (Disaster Master) to ruin the entire campaign.

[@SergioLeRoux]

@@larsdahl5528 Yeah he actually killed two PCs because he misread the statblock of a monster and then refused to allow raising because "they don't follow my deities."

[@TheNoobRapter]

This gives me an idea for call of Cthulhu. Each rotation of gms are one age. first age is bronze age, second age is medevil ages, third age is Victorian, fourth age is modern (or something like that). Each game could be a one shot or a four to five session campaign in how the party is trying to ether stop the apocalypse or just push it back, or actively try and cause it.

[@SteveSwannJr]

Runeslinger did something very similar with an all for one campaign. Person one would DM for three players. Then someone would do a solo adventure for that GM period that would allow his character to get to the same experience that the other characters were at. Player 2 would then GM for the other two players and the GM's newly leveled character. If this is clear as mud, you can listen to their actual play on runeslingers channel.

[@karlos4566]

Thank you so much for this video! My friends and I were waiting for it!

[@HeckleJeckle87]

I WISH I had a reliable enough group to pull this off because it sounds like a lot of fun.

[@Caitlin_TheGreat]

So, my original group tried doing something similar. It was a World of Darkness (Mage The Awakening) game that I ran. Only the second game I ever ran, but boy oh boy did I learn some lessons form my first (utter failure) game. So this one turned out to be one of the group's favorite games. It was a combination of a story I wrote after high school about a small town and a girl moving out on her own and discovering there was a dark secret in this town she'd moved to, combined with a lot of stuff from the first 3 Silent Hill games and a little bit of Lovecraft. These were somewhat disparate elements but I carefully intertwined them, completely removed the main characters from my original story and then ran with it. It was pretty heavy on the investigative side of things, and I had _everything_ tie into the main plot/theme of corruption while also bringing in stuff from each character's backstory. It was set in a fictional Oregon coastal town about an hour outside of Portland. And the final bit to have everything come together was I had a "Northwest Council" of Mages who were overseeing the characters somewhat loosely. And of course, Mage: The Awakening's main caveat was that the characters keep their actual abilities and nature completely secret from the regular folk. The main story played out, over about 10 sessions, I think. The characters discovered there was an island town off the coast that had essentially disappeared from everyone's memories, and was being used to birth some aberration of a god (this is where a lot of the Silent Hill stuff fit in) and the distortions of all this stuff was bleeding out of that now hidden/erased island town (connected to the mainland by a bridge that regular people no long saw) and that was how the players found out what was causing the strange things going on in their territory. The story concluded, but everyone enjoyed it so much -- the story, setting, and the system -- that they asked for another chapter. At this point I really wanted to be a player, so I asked one of my players, a guy who ran both WoD and D&D, if he would want to take over to do a second chapter. He said yeah. I made a character, gave him all the notes I'd had from the first chapter (points of interest, factions, various NPCs, etc, etc) and told him to have at it. The one thread I hadn't wrapped up was that there were some Fey who had taken an interest in the Mages and their Sanctum, and the game concluded with a Fey character greeting them when they returned from -silent hill- the other town, giving an ambiguous sort of warning about other _powers_ at work. It was a mix of threat and cheery meeting that left all the players uncertain, which was exactly how I had wanted to end things. So, my friend picked up the game and went for a more political-based approach rather than horror and small town focuses. He had the North West Council (the one that oversaw Mage operations between Washing, Oregon, and Northern California) being the main faction this time rather than a background one and some Werewolf tribe in another neighboring town. It lasted about 3 sessions and then he said "I messed something up... I don't think I can fix it... we'll have to call it and do something else." This wasn't the first time he ended a game that way, too often in fact he'd tell us he'd made a mistake with the narrative or the NPCs and because of that there was no way to continue. He still runs games and after many, many conversations I think he's gotten better about realizing the players don't know what he "messed up" and so there's always a way to salvage a game as long as he doesn't reveal his narrative fumble behind the screen. But for the purposes of that game, no one else wanted to try their hand at it and I was a bit too frustrated at not getting to play my character more (I could alter time and space, as a Mage, how awesome is that?! I sent a Werewolf ahead in time about 5 minutes so we could get away at one point, that was awesome!!) so I wasn't in the mood to pick it back up. As a result, we never returned to that setting again. Also, as a side note, I've come to realize he and I have very, very different ways of interpreting and running Fey in games. I try to hew closely to folklore interpretations and have them be mercurial and foreign (as in not human) where I've seen that he likes to run them as Machiavellian political schemers with strategic goals... which just feels so _off_ to me. I think that'd fit vampires quite well (and he does that sort of villain/NPC quite well, better than I can, for sure) but not Fey.

[@gothmissstress]

Our group is very special in terms of there are 5 of us and each of us is both a player and a GM at their time. We usually play campaigns which are 3-5 months long, then the next GM makes a go, and it all goes around the table. Which has its own advantage like, for example, we get to play many many different games, some of which are very niche like Chronicles of Darkness, and play under different GMing styles, which always keeps our excitement up. But the disadvantage to that is it make sometimes take more than a year until your next turn to GM. And yes we do one shots, but those are not frequent and since we play only 2h a week, you barely get to have a fun with it. I wonder if the guys would agree for a relay campaign next... I think it'd be fun for all of us.

[@Daredhnu]

A group of mine did something similar once for an "evil" campaign where each of us ran an adventure and we discussed with our follow-up DM where they wanted us to end the adventure, we didn't have it codified the way you have done here, we just sort of winged it and there wasn't necessarily an overarching plot between the game masters.

[@SkullDixon]

I wonder with the BBG and how every GM is able to add either something true or false about the BBG - if before the Relay campaign starts, everyone helps make a D100 or even a D1000 table of possible Background information. Then when they run the game and every time something new about the BBG is revealed, the GM at the time rolls on the random table they made and also rolls a D6 to see if its true or false information, 1-3 true, 4-6 false. Just a fun idea.

[@piemaniac9410]

I think this would work great for a planet/continent hopping type game where every time the players reach a new destination a new GM steps in, plus it makes writing in a new character easy since the party might need a guide for this new land they entered.

[@9768236]

While our group don't have the exact same setup, we do have a rotation on game masters. Once I'm done, someone else runs their own campaign, and then the next one and so forth. Every single person in the group do game master and honestly, it's probably what a lot of us are most looking forward to doing. We all want to be the GM, but we need to wait our turn. Due to this dynamic of changing out our game master every about 6-8 sessions, our stories also become rather intertwined. For example I started with Vampire the Masquerade, the next guy had Werewolf the Apocalypse and both of these shared setting, location and had common characters and references. It was more or less a continuation story with different characters. That doesn't mean the stories need to be interconnected or share setting though. There's no rules or encouragement to use the same setting, but it naturally happens sometimes. So it isn't the exact same as these "relay campaigns". Personally I find this way of rotating the GMs to be working magnificently. We all look forward to GMing, we don't have the "forever GM", we get to naturally experience different settings and systems, and we know very well how it is to be the player and how to be the GM.

[@richmcgee434]

Never managed to get this to work out in practice. Closest I've gotten was toggling back and forth between two GMs, with a third guy who ran a couple of sidequest/delve one-shots tucked in here and there. Just haven't been lucky enough to hit a group with 3+ people who actually wanted to GM regularly.

[@PsychicSoldierPro]

definitely a interesting concept. Although would love to hear your thoughts on homebrew content for any TTRPG, whether its homebrew rules for systems, classes/occupations for things like d&d, COC, etc and so on

[@larsdahl5528]

Now... You got me thinking: When do we use the word "homebrew"? For example I do use my own extended mythos for CoC, but we do not call that homebrew, instead we say that it is worldbuilding. Sometimes we make minor extensions/changes to the RPG we are using, but we call that houserules. Seems we have to get so far as to say: We are so displeased with the RPG system we are using, that we are making major changes. -> Then we use the word homebrew. At least I reach the conclusion that the word homebrew indicate that we are trying to mend something that is so broken that we would be better off by scrap the RPG system entirely and select another RPG system instead! And... now I think about it, then homebrewing have two main categories: Rules are too simplistic / unrealistic thus we extend the rules so we can get it more believable / realistic. Rules are too complex / extensive that they break the immersion thus we simplify them so we spend less time on the rules and thus have more time for role play. ... and those two categories are opposite to each other! I think I can see it in RPG systems: What is it that causes the next edition to be made? Often that the existing edition have become too complex due to all the extra added stuff, thus a new edition is a more 'clean' version... Until it get so many extra rules added, it call for the next edition to be made... (Not to ignore that the printers love this jumping between "too complex" and "too simple", as it give more stuff to sell...)

[@goodluckyoureonyourown3684]

Did a relay with a buddy of mine when Legend of the Five Rings was still in it's first edition. Probably some of the best games I was ever part of. The original L5R was very good about great cannon NPCs. So we would run a game session and afterwards go into some details about what was going on with the NPCs with the other GM.

[@jackmalin2528]

Game: Song of ice and fire Game master: G.R.R Martin Secondary game masters: Dumb & Dumber Yeah that worked out fantastic.....

[@aattrpg3199]

I hear that G.R.R. Martin doesn't use dice in his games. He just flips a coin. Heads, your character dies immediately. Tails, your character dies later in the adventure.

[@Ralndrath]

That campaign sounded awesome Seth! Love the idea with the bad guy's crew.

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

Great to see you cover this. Got into an argument over the finer points with a coworker. Thanks for your suggestions about convincing my DM to allow my Lawful Evil PC! Konrad Darnatti has been a big hit at the table and the DM’s enjoying how I roleplay with the group! Пока!

[@lehannaallen]

I call this method "Exquisite Corpse", like the illustration or writing game.

[@sergentharker7182]

A group I'd been a part of tried doing something kind of like this for star trek adventures, where we called it the directors chair, each player had the option to run a session or two because it was meant to be pretty episodic. There were a few issues with this, firstly only a couple of us had books for it, so we were not super familiar with the system, and one of the other players had like every book but isn't a very involved player who wouldn't run anything. The biggest problem was the DM kind of dropped it on us during session one, so nobody had any real prep time, so unsurprisingly enough, the game died pretty quick.

[@amylinscatalyst3458]

This sounds like how I've taught some of my friends with anxiety how to GM. I'd build and run my settings for an arc and then let them take over until they felt overwhelmed.

[@delbertogrady6824]

Hi Seth, really enjoy all of your articles. Lots of great suggestions and advice, some of which we used almost 40 years ago and some are like a light bulb switching on and a "damn, why didn't I think of that?" moment. Anyways, I have a suggestion/request for a topic that you could cover. How to Spice Up Combat Descriptions. I've noticed that in many of the games I've viewed online, and I know I'm guilty of it too, that very often the GM is so busy juggling character requests, hit dice, what the NPCs and monsters are doing, dice rolling etc that you very often find that descriptions of fights go something like this; PC "I roll to hit. Fifteen, plus one for my sword makes sixteen. GM "That's a hit, your sword bites deep into the monsters side." GM "The monsters turn, it rolls a sixteen." PC "Ouch, that's a hit." GM "The monsters claws bite deep into your side" And so on. Ok, I'm exaggerating somewhat but you get the picture. I've done some spicing up in the past but find that especially when things get hectic I end up reverting to a few stock phrases. I think what I'm going to try and do is write out a crib sheet of more exciting descriptions and utilise them from time to time. What do you do in these circumstances, do you revert to a few stock phrases or do you have some sort of method by which you and your PCs can describe more memorable fights? One thing I may try is sometimes throwing it back to the PCs. If they get a particularly good or bad roll, get them to describe what happens. Cheers, Del.

[@delmonte4426]

As always, excellent content. Thank you!

[@Axoltolion]

Good video as always Seth

[@winkbrace]

Recently I came up with the idea to implement this in a pirate campaign. You keep encountering new ships with new captains. Each player could create a ship encounter.

[@telemarkaeology]

Currently doing this in "Starfinder". It's awesome. 😎

[@DoctorCataclysm]

My friends and I did this for a Marvel superhero game a long while ago. It was fun as a novelty but I typically make large plotlines. On the hand off plotlines were abandoned or ignored.

[@jajsem1109]

Now I want to play such adventure... very interesting idea :)

[@kylenetherwood8734]

"You wake up. All the previous adventures were a dream."

[@paulh3892]

I still have my +1 sword right???

[@euansmith3699]

@@paulh3892 Yeah, but the bad guys have got laser pistols.

[@ajardoor]

"Okay, I walk into the shower and tell Patrick Duffy all about it."

[@dozi3r]

we're trying this right now through tales of yawning portal. My first time DMing but alot of fun

[@spensirmclife6549]

Sounds like a great idea I want to do something like that in the future

[@unforseenconsequense]

Sounds like a tomb raider plot, go where Dr Croft was last headed, find a clue to the next place, find a clue to the next after that etc, until the plot concludes with a reveal and an epic finale

[@jameskerr3258]

This concept is fascinating...

[@Gebohq]

Sounds like a tasty club sandwich, with the "primary" GM as the bread slices!

[@nathanmichael167]

Wow, talk about needing to have documented an idea. I wrote up rules for this (I called it Round Robin Gaming) about 10 years ago. It's s o much fun. THere was once a moment where a dm got the baton and designed this room with 13 doors and we all had fun using them

[@larsdahl5528]

Sound more like 0:30 "Hub Campaign"; the room, with doors, is the Hub.

[@Talkshowhorse_Echna]

We do something close to that. We are running a big fantasy campaign wher two GM's try to work together for one major plot. We have an unknown bad guy too who is unknown but we GM's know what he is up to. Everything that he and his underlings do must in some way hurt one specific Kingdome, that has the most control over everything in that world. He is also very oportunistic and uses everything you could imagine, so it could be anything from artifacts, hired arms, trade influence to political conspiriaies. We both create Underlings with their own plans wich can be stoped during smaller sub campaigns, giving the players new informations to come closer to the big bad guy. We usually play one sub campaign and switch GM after it is done. This allows both of us to create ne clues points and underlings the other one does not know. Our own Characters allways find a reason to be missing when we need to GM, so we have no chance to use them during our own sub campaing.

[@--enyo--]

I’d love to try this sometime.

[@lashwrithe01]

Currently relaying a Star Wars Savage Worlds game. So far 4-8 games in and only 2 GMs but a TON of fun!

[@Orcbrother13]

This video is genius. Im going to see if I can get my players to do a kingdom hearts style campaign useing this idea. Thanks!

[@AxelLeJeff]

The Cypher game I'm playing in now is basically built around this concept, new GM new recursion/setting, same characters.

[@quillogist2875]

Cypher/The Strange is one of my favorite games!

[@MissAnimegrl]

It's not a relay campaign per se, but more of a Shared Universe/Continuation. In our original campaign, a big group of us were faced with Kalarel the Vile, Servant of Orcus. Of course, Kalarel often returns because he serves a god of Undeath, so he prophesied that he would be reborn and Reap the World. Fast forward to a completely different campaign, small group of players. They came upon a ritual that was attempting to summon Kalarel's soul into a potential vessel for reincarnation. They stopped it... sort of. The intended 'mother' of Kalarel's new vessel was saved, but the NPC follower-wife to one of my players was made the carrier instead. When the party realized this was happening, the cleric in the party asked their goddess why this was happening. The goddess revealed that the pantheon, for the most part, wants to stop Orcus from reaping the souls of the world, and since they can't stop Kalarel from rebirth eternally, they decided to have him be reborn, but in a child who could be taught love and kindness so he won't turn evil. The party accepted this and now will protect their friend as she carries the baby to term, all while adventuring. And fastforward to a new game-- my friend's game in Waterdeep. I'm a player in it, and play a former circus performer who ran away from the circus when he learned that he'd been kidnapped as a child because of his deformity. He has no memories of his childhood at first, but slowly starts gaining some back as he adventures with his friends and as his death powers grow (homebrew sorcerer build). If you're paying attention, then you've guessed: I am playing Kalarel's reincarnation. He IS kind and sweet, but struggles with hating his appearance, as well as having abandonment issues. My friend loves this, and has woven in so much of whag was built in earlier to this. Hopefully one day my Sorcerer can have an internal battle with the part of him that is the evil servant of a demonic god, and the part that is just a silly, sweet boy.

[@0x777]

Am I the only one who listened to how the two game masters overthrow each others plot and was reminded of JJ Abrams and Ryan Johnson passing Star Wars between them?

[@willhouston4487]

This sounds like a blast!

[@maximoran9863]

Wish I had a squad to try this, would love to run a Cyberpunk campaign with some modifications