This is something I do a lot with my gaming groups, everybody takes turns dming an episodic quest (and we also roleplay the downtime) in between sessions. It's really fun and it allows everyone to play without too much pressure (and the dms get to play as well).
I find that there are problems to this format however, and while not all dms are prone to it, there are a few..repeat offenders. Sometimes it's shameless and transparent (thus easily fixed) like one time, a dm made a quest in which his player character (which he plays when other people are dming) became an npc and was given a bunch of soldiers by another npc. The other dms talked it out and we agreed to retcon it (much to his displeasure)
Sometimes though, it's quite..subtle. People would try and manipulate other players in indirect ways, like, there was this love triangle between character A, B and C. Player C dmd a quest in which an NPC talked to A and tried to convince her to leave B for C. Unlike the first example, this one is somewhat legal because it doesn't really break any rules of the game, but is it ethical?
I think dms should always be fair and try to focus on the story, letting the players do what they want instead of trying to shape things to their design, but the line often blurs, especially when you're both a DM AND a Player.
Have you guys ever tried this format? Do you think it's possible to do it without ever having bias?
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I think the problem may be with having too much rotation... basically, with everyone being both player and GM on a fairly regular basis they can get invested in the game on both sides of the equation. As player they feel they should be able to control the direction of their character. As GM they feel they should be able to control the direction of the campaign. Some overlap between the two may be inevitable.
An alternate option that I have used many times would be for one person to be the 'primary GM' and others occasionally step in to run a session or quick side quest. When one person runs more sessions than all the others combined it remains clear that it is THEIR campaign to direct and you can have players pre-clear anything major they intend to change. A lot of times when I did this I would also take over playing the character of the person running the session... which was fun to see how close to the personality I could keep and demonstrated the kind of mutual trust required for this sort of thing. Other times I'd say things like, 'Hey, I want to bring in a small military force for a few upcoming sessions that will involve mass combat... anyone want to put together a session for how that happens?'
Maybe the round robin format could work with the right group, but it is definitely a gamble and could blow up rather spectacularly. Even the guest GM format has some risks, but so long as one person maintains ultimate control of the campaign I've never seen it go very far afield.
Have you guys ever tried this format? Do you think it's possible to do it without ever having bias?
Yes, and I think it can work quite well.
The old Ars Magica campaign was designed to work with this framework as part of their "Troupe system."
The easiest way to deal with bias that I've found is to appoint a single GM (the term I've usually seen is Alpha GM) who is responsible for the overall direction of the campaign and who has the authority to overrule individual episodic adventures. We codified it as, basically, the Alpha GM is the one who can and will say ".... and then you all woke up" and turn any session or adventure into a dream sequence.
It also helps for players to have multiple characters so that they don't get too attached to any one character. Instead of, for example, being six different people, they're playing the entire crew of the Pugwash, so there's no harm or shame in being left out of any particular adventure ("I don't think the ship's pilot would be involved in this particular adventure, so I'll play Buxom Bill.")
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I've done this many times, however all of the players were on the same page. Most of the time we tried our best to insert a story hook as to why your character had to take off for a day or so and how he would show up at the end of the quest. We ran a 5e GM/week game that ended up starting an ongoing joke of "What's in the box?!?" During the game I GM'd I started the players chasing after a large crate that had been stolen from an important group of NPCs (at least I think they were important). At the end of the first scenario, the players followed their leads to the expected location only to find that the thieves were still about a day ahead and had already left, but they left evidence behind as to their new destination. I then handed it off to the next GM, announcing that I honestly hadn't decided what was in the box. Nobody wanted to decide what was actually in the crate, so each scenario became a new interesting leg of the chase that never resulted in catching the thieves. When the GM baton finally got back to me, I decided I should finish what I started and end the chase. A year later or so we decided to do another GM/week game, and we kept joking that the theme would be "What's in the box?!?"
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Have you guys ever tried this format? Do you think it's possible to do it without ever having bias?
My old group in Philly did this. We only had time to play for a few hours once each Thursday, so we started these short, one or two shot adventures. Early on, by popular agreement, we gave the group a stronghold (which I had done the map for on CC3). Whomever was the DM, that character stayed home.
We didn't have any problems. In fact, we got pretty decent at using bits of a previous DMs adventure to springboard another. All in all, it was lots of fun. I miss it.
Our Rune Lords game has two GMs(A and B). Both use GMpcs without issues. GM A likes to run the game fast and to the point without tangents. There are several areas in the game where he will gloss over because he sees no reason for us to deal with them. He will tell us about them later and I will have to agree that he is right about them.
GM B on the other hand LOVES the tangents. A few weeks ago GM A had wandering monsters (Hags) which we took care of. At the end of the night the group said they wanted to go to the Hag cave for treasure. GM A said that B could deal with that.
Instead of going straight to the hag cave, GM B inserted a group of Ogre-kin for us to fight. This took us 3 hours to deal with and it never had to happen. B is known for throwing stuff in that is not part of the game.
If GM A runs our game night, it ends early. If GM B runs it, it ends late. The guys run things very differently.
There are (normally) two good ways to go about this:
1) Troupe style of play (as mentioned, this is the standard for Ars Magica). Every member of the group creates 2-3 characters that are part of the same organization or community; when a scenario is about to start, the non-GM members each select one of their characters to participate, while the characters that don't participate are assumed to do other stuff (the Downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign can be a good way for characters to do "useful stuff" when not adventuring). A "no GM-PCs" agreement helps limit abuse, too.
2) Shared world, different regions. The GMs each pick a separate area of the setting to control/develop; each area can have a separate adventuring party, the GMs can "hand off" their character to the previous GM when running adventures as the party moves between regions, or when a GM takes over their character is replaced by another character. The separate adventuring parties is the easiest to manage, and allows for more thematic unity for specific campaign arcs set in each region; it also can be used to set up "cross over" situations where multiple teams interact (good for those "global threat" plots or creating "dream teams" that mix and match the "stars" of each party). The "hand off" can work but can also cause hard feelings among GMs (if the new GM tailors events and treasure for their "old" character, the character may not be one the old GM wants to play, or if the character gets killed). The replacement character sidesteps many of the potential problems of the "hand off," but can cause issues with campaign continuity ("Where did this new character come from? Why are they joining the group? What is the old character doing and why did they leave?").
I've had different levels of success with this, in different groups; the ones that worked best did have a "main" GM, with veto over developments run by the others.
While I don't think it's actually possible to have NO bias, it is possible to keep the bias to a minimum.
And giving the main GM regular breaks from having to ride herd on the herd of cats that are most gaming groups seems to have a salutory effect on the game as a whole, in my experience.
We've done that before. We generally had the DMs PC 'off camera' doing downtime stuff, rather than being present in the DM's adventure.
The closest I've been to this was when we had two separate groups, and I would visit the other ST's (this was WoD) game, and he would visit my game. Eventually we began rotating his game, but by complete story arcs, thus assuring each of us could tell the story we wanted.
I would not go for any kind of "every other session" or "every three games" approach. At that point, I'd say pick one person to run and be done with it.
It can work; sometimes the DM wants to play too so we end up alternating whose character is going to be an inert background NPC while the "actives" go off and adventure with the DM of the week in the campaign.