I've done it a few times when the group gets a bit too large and hard to manage.
The main thing is to work out what the co-DMs will be responsible for. For the most part, one is the storyteller and rules person (the 'main' DM), the other is the NPCs and monsters.
This opens up a lot of different RP opportunities, especially when the 'main' DM can also RP monsters and NPCs. It's not easy for one person to portray four or five very different persona's in a single encounter. This makes it much easier to accomplish and more believable, too.
In the off time, the DMs can collaborate. Having 5 days to generate a plethora of deep, interesting NPCs, while the 'main' DM is writing the story, can really breathe a lot of life into the story.
In my experiences, it seems to help keep the group focused and on track.
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Not Pathfinder, but I'm currently co-gming a Shadowrun game using Strands of Fate. The way it's worked at the moment is we plotted the general arcs and NPCs together, my co GM has been running the game to start with as he's much happier with the rules than I am and is trying a few experiments on adding in things as we go along (such as we just did a meeting with the Yakuza which he ran as a social combat), whilst I've been playing a PC (and will do for a little longer before the plot changes things).
Once we're both focused on being the GMs the idea is that I'll take over running the game, whilst he deals with rules to get everything running smoothly. We're also going to take advantage of having two GMs when we do a shift of 4-5 years in game to do things like newscasts with two anchormen, have various NPCs square off against each other in argument that the PCs will be able to be part of, and also have one focus on plot whilst the other does flavour stuff. Got a couple of very cool ideas that wouldn't be possible without spoiling the plot for a player, but work very nicely with two of us to run things.
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I'm co-GMing a Legacy of Fire game. I take the rules stuff and most of the combats, she handles the RP and general storyline things. She's better at story as a GM and I'm better at numbers, so it works well. So long as you both have your niches, it's fine. It also helps in running a combat with a large number of enemies, or RP encounters with more than one NPC who may not be on the same side.
I'm co-GMing a Legacy of Fire game. I take the rules stuff and most of the combats, she handles the RP and general storyline things. She's better at story as a GM and I'm better at numbers, so it works well. So long as you both have your niches, it's fine. It also helps in running a combat with a large number of enemies, or RP encounters with more than one NPC who may not be on the same side.
Very like a buddy and I having done the co-DM thing. He is great at putting a story together from fragmented concepts. I am good at fragmented concepts. He is good at prep work. I am good at presentation. It worked well.
Another time, a buddy and myself tried a dual shadowrun night. We had two teams working at cross purposes. Each group was at a different end of the store ( we played afterhours, manager and former manager were in the game ) The other GM and I wore headsets and kept each other informed of where we were and what was going on. It failed miserably as we failed to take into consideration the player mix. Character mix was great, but all the "problem" players ended up in his group. Someday I would like to try this again.
Greg
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I'm co-GMing a Legacy of Fire game. I take the rules stuff and most of the combats, she handles the RP and general storyline things.
My experience is similar to this, though we don't call it co-DMing. When it's my turn to DM, I make sure I have the story/module down and one of our players kindly helps out with the rules.
Me: "Okay the baddie is going to charge you...How does that work again?"
We started Second Darkness campaing not long ago. We have 5 players and 3 of us have experience of GM:ng. I am myself leading the main story, second GM did run a prologue module (and another story arc in future) and third GM has prepared to run the Set Piece(s).
While at casino, I gave one of the non-GM plaeyrs a job to run the Bounder game and plan to let him run one non-story related combat encounter in close future. Campaign has witnessed 3 sessions so far, and I am quite excited about it. This way everyone is able to have PC and shared responsibilities when it comes to organicing the session.
This style wont work, unless ye know there is people motivated enough to do their part. Also having such experienced players helps a lot.
I've heard of the concept mentioned a few times but have never played in a group that has done this. How does co-GMing a campaign actually work in practice?
I've done a few times. In ecounters I ran some of the monsters. I ran some of the NPCs. When a player or players wanted solo a scene like sneaking into a place where the other lacked the stealth to do so I'd take them to another table an run that scene while the rest of the group continued with main DM.
In all the games I've done it the group was usually around 9-11 players. So splitting up with group happened quite often and having 2 DMs really helps.
There are 2 ways I have seen this done. One is like the cases mentioned above, 2 dms working in tandem. It can work really well but in my experience isnt overly fufilling for the 'co-dm' the one not telling the story. For me at least that has always been the fun part of being behind the screen. Its more of a dms assistant then a geniune co-dm.
What i have also seen and been a part of is when dms take turns and interwieve their story together. So one dm runs a couple sessions, and then the other dm runs a couple sessions building on what the previous dm built on. Each dm has a dmnpc and essentially a player when the other dm is running the adventure.
I have seen this work well, and work badly. I think it depends on the dms communicating properly and working off eachothers ideas. I also think its important to understand that it needs to be a seat of your pants kind of plotline. Long drawn out plots are near impossible if you are working with another dm and not sharing notes. Eventually you'll step on eachother's secret plans.
Ofcourse you can share notes which is probably the best method. Work together to build the story and then take turns telling it. It prevents dm burnout by sharing the workload, and it will also mean its easier to have more frequent games. But it also means 2 people at the table know the whole story and thus lose out on the player experience of discovering and interacting with it. So I guess there is always a trade off.
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We did the co-DM thing for City of the Spider Queen a few years back. He had never run a game before, and the group was fairly large already, so I put on the GM hat and helped out. I ran the combats and did the numerical stuff and rules lawyering, and he got all of the descriptive stuff. I like to think it worked out...the game finished, but I think we got pretty jaded with 15-17th level at the end of it, since some people were really adept at power gaming and others weren't, and City of the Spider Queen was really a power gaming module at heart.
A common side effect of co-GMing is more player death. Why? Because the co-GM that isn't GMing usually plays the monsters. Unlike the GM, you now have one dedicated "player" the co-GM who is doing nothing but sitting there thinking monster strategy and generally doesnt pull any punches. I find when I run the monsters I play them less like a GM would (pulling punches occasionally, "accidentally" forgetting a second attack if the fight gets hard, etc). I've been DM/GMing for 34 years and have co-DMed several times. The monsters just do better when they have a dedicated player. So be ready for that. You may find encounters that should be fine just seem a bit harder for the PCs. Its likely the result of this phenomenon. So I'm not saying dont do it, I'm saying be careful and keep an eye out for this.
You really also need to both be evenly yolked with work. Set clear parameters on who is doing what.
A GREAT way to co-DM is to have two story lines. I did this once real successfully. You swap DMs when the story swaps. In my case I had real two real clear stories. Party 1 was 100 year before in my world and they eventually were to forge a magic item to stop a big bad guy and they did. But the big bad guy returns 100 years later and a new party is on a quest to find the now lost magic item and defeat the big bad again. So literally, the players each had 2 PCs from the 2 different time frames. My co DM and I would end our sessions in mid combat and switch each session so there was always something fun to come back to. By the way it also lets you do some real cool stuff. The "old" party defeated the big bad, but all died in the process. The players were more ok with that since they had the new pcs going at the same time. Well, when the new pcs got to the fight with the big bad, i let the ghosts of the dead old pcs help, so they got to play both pcs in the final fight. It was epic.
In that co-GM situation though my co-GM and I each had a PC in the other's part of the story. That makes it more fun, since "running the monsters" is not always that fun for the whole session and can be boring. That is the other downfall of co-DMing.
I am about to run a story where the players are going to try and prevent the Korvosan navy from defecting to Magimar. The regular GM is running the the Magimarian Ambassador and his body guards and I am running the "environment" any other surprises that happen along the way.
The Regular GM only knows what the Ambassador knows, I have given him a list of goals and motivations and a bit of a background story and stat block.
An interesting thing I experimented with once was troop play (this is a lot of fun for social games)... you make one character the focus and give all the other players NPCs to play and get them interact with the character. I learned that you really have to explain clearly what you are trying to achieve and be very clear in NPCs roles and backgrounds. The other players then are free to role play as they wish and it makes for an intensive RP heavy session and a player gets a long time in the spotlight.