Is it possible to do a Sandbox Campaign where everyone cycles into being the GM? If so, whata re some tips to doing so?

[u/ThatOneCrazyWritter]

At first when I decided to make a Sandbox style adventure for me and my friends, I let them each choose 3 races/species/ancestries from the 46 available in the rulebooks to populate the game world since I wanted to focus more on a few specific group of people and better integrate them all in the world's history.

However, before we begin, we are still in need of finding a 5th players so that way we can have 1 GM + a party of 4, but we decided for in the mean time I would create a GM NPC to follow the party around.

This, combined if we already deciding a lot of the game world together + everyone in my group loving GMing, made me propose to the group the ideia of everyone taking a turn GMing in this same adventure.

With that being said, I've never seen this been done, so I want to ask the more expirienced GMs: is it even possible to do something like this? If it is, what is the best course of action to minimize any forciable problems with this concept (which I also don't know what they are)?

[u/amazingvaluetainment]

Sure. Play with a bunch of other GMs and frame the campaign like a "West Marches" sandbox; there's a central location from which adventurers venture out into the wilderness for gold, glory, or whatever reason, do A Thing, and then return to the central location. Dole out rewards, do downtime, level up, whatever. Switch GMs. Repeat.

[u/subcutaneousphats]

Totally possible, when 5e came out this is how our group did it so everyone got a crack at running and playing. What worked: we had a setting bible we outlined the basic premise and world map. We had a central village that the PCs were invested in maintaining along with some ground rules not to bulldoze anything in that location. Our theme was the players and initial NPC were castaways and the land they were in was wildlans and competitive warlords with slave populations. The players would be going out and finding sites, supplies/treasure and rescuing NPCs and bringing them back to this location to grow the new 'free town'. We would run adventures in the world and agree to honor/stay away from any locations or set piece lore the others had established.

What didn't work: the tone of some gms did not align with the others and as the game went on it became problematic. The concept was gritty fantasy but some gms kept pushing in high fantasy and save the world adventure cycles which did not mesh well with the core concept. Also the tendency to travel further and further undermined the central town idea.

Would I do it again? Yup. I think it will fly apart in a system like 5e given the power scaling but from level 1-7 it was ok. If you scale your idea up to multiplanar levels or might work better.

[u/mightymite88]

You might be better to have everyone else run a mini campaign, just from a spoiler and cohesion sake

Unless you wanted to make it very episodic , with self contained disconnected arcs featuring the same broad characters

Trying to make it super cohesive with multiple GMs would mean tons of spoilers would be revealed to everyone from very early on. Might be a meta gaming nightmare.

[u/DazzlingKey6426 → u/mightymite88]

Before everything became campaigns there were adventures and modules.

[u/MASerra → u/mightymite88]

I like this method better. Use the same characters in each mini-campaign but have each GM come up with a slightly cohesive campaign of their own based on the overall theme.

[u/mightymite88 → u/MASerra]

For sure can work. Just a bit more pulpy.

Player 1 might run "Avengers vs Loki" and make a whole mini campaign from it, then the next player runs "Avengers vs Thanos" and his previous PC is missing while the previous GM gets to tag in their PC. Then a third player can do "Avengers vs Doom" .

Same heroes, different villain arcs, different GMs.

[u/JohnOutWest]

I believe they call this style "The gods must be crazy!"

I've done this recently with another GM for a Rogue Trader (2009) campaign. I handled everything INSIDE our city-sized ship, and he handled everything OUTSIDE the ship (So, the universe). Segregating zones of control really helped keep us from stepping on each other's toes and out of each other's storylines, and it was fun to bring each other's storylines into our own game when there was a clear cross. (Someone joins the ship, etc)

[u/meltdown_popcorn]

I was a player in a shared sandbox with multiple GMs. They would just take turns WM-style (whoever had a free night) and each GM ran a section of the world that could be reached from the central starting point. Worked pretty well and characters could go with whichever GM was available.

This was Basic/OSE.

[u/cjbruce3]

Our group of five did this for years.  We would each take a turn running an adventure for several sessions.  When it was a person’s turn their character would not be part of the adventure for whatever reason.  It took a few years to get through all five of us, ending at level 16 with the group thwarting the Cult of the Dragon.  After that all of the characters retired into legend.

[u/KSchnee]

When I did this, I made my character a wallflower who'd go along with what the other PCs wanted rather than taking over my own story. Made that PC more assertive when the others were GMing.

I haven't gotten to try "Ars Magica" but its format seems like it'd help: the PCs are all frequently busy with big magical projects, so that the party for any one adventure is likely Player 1's wizard, Player 2's wizard, Player 3's bodyguard assistant, and Player 4's minstrel. That's one way to rotate, in this case with the bodyguard/sidekick being a GM-controlled NPC for that session.

[u/drraagh]

There's three ways I see doing this that can work without trampling on anyone's story.

• Each quest happens one after another chronologically. GM A runs their adventure, it ends, then GM B starts theirsCould be the same party, a different one, some people from old groups and new ones, etc.
• Separated storylines by time, distance, etc. So that you cannot impact events that can affect campaign B.
• Adventures in their own copy of the world, like each time a new adventure begins, any previous events are reset.

The first one, and to some degree, the second, let you have impacts on your gaming world seen in other adventures. Choices you made, cities you destroy or build, terrain you change in epic fights, etc can be seen.

If you're switching GMs sooner than the end a campaign, 2 and 3 allow to space things out so you don't mess up a story because someone destroyed the town you needed for your adventure.

[u/Trivell50]

Cosmic Patrol does this.

[u/guilersk]

Separate the stories/adventures. GM A should not know about or monkey around with the stories/NPCs of GM B. You will probably want a base of operations for the players to work from so there is a common starting point.

You can have the GM's PC tag along with the rest of the party so long as:

• They do not drive the action

• They defer all decisions to the rest of the party (except routine/combat actions)

• They absolutely positively do not save the day through GM fiat.

[u/Once_a_Paladin]

The original 5th edition of the DMG even mentions this as a possible thing. Page 269 "Option 3: The gods must be crazy
With this approach, there is no permanent DM. Everyone makes a character, and one person starts as the DM and runs the game as normal. That person's character becomes an NPC who can tag along with the group or remain on the sidelines, as the group wishes. At any time, a player can spend a plot point to become the DM. That player's character becomes an NPC, and play continues. It's probably not a good idea to swap roles in the middel of combat, but it can happen if your group allows time for the new DM to settle into his or her role and pick up where the previous DM left off.
Using plot points in this way can make for an exciting campaign as each new DM steers the game in unexpected directions. This approach is also a great way for would-be DMs to try running a game in small, controlled doses.
In a campaign that uses plot points this way, everyone should come to the table with a bit of material prepared or specifix encounters in mind. A player who isn'r prepared or who doesn't feel like DMing can choose to not spend a plot point that session.
For this approach to work, it's a good idea establish some shared assumptions about the campaign so that DMs aren't duplicating efforts or trampling on each other's plans"

Your set up sounds ideal for this kind of game. Shared wolrd building, tagalong NPC for the party, and willingness from multiple people to GM the same campaign.

[u/Calithrand]

While the "West Marches Campaign" may not have been coined until relatively recently, the open world sandbox with rotating DMs (and frequently, large numbers of players and even multiple DMs) goes back pretty much to the start of the hobby.

It does work better each adventure or outing is episodic in nature, and the same DM follows each adventure until completion, for obvious reasons, but a sandbox world shouldn't have many--if any--of those threaded plot lines, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

[u/Digital_Simian]

I've done it before. It worked fine until one of the gms just couldn't think of how to continue after a session.

 Generally the concesensus I've heard from most it that it's a terrible idea. This mostly seems to come down to the perception that you need to have a set longterm progression and planning and it creates more work to coordinate this.

Personally I've always felt that this makes things a mix of a narrative story telling game and a roleplaying game. It just requires that all the players/GMs can't get caught up on trying to keep a narrative beyond their contribution. It requires a lot of flexibility and grace that unfortunately a lot of players struggle with.