I'm still noting a lot of confusion and misrepresentation of 1:1 style gaming. So I thought I'd autisically explain how it all works using the original trilogy of Star Wars films as an example.

So imagine you are a GM. You got this idea for a cool space based campaign with a hex grid. Like most GMs you want to give the illusion of players being in a living world. But then you read the AD&D 1ed rulebook and read the advice given in the DMG. It's pretty cool. Instead of giving the illusion of a living world, you can have a living world in a similar fashion to how MMOs nowadays work. With players dropping in and out into this world that persists after every game. Even when you aren't playing your characters and everyone else's characters are doing something. Lets say for argument's sake you decide to go for a heavily homebrewed version of DnD. It adds a lot of science fiction whilst keeping many fantasy elements. You make this cool monk/paladin hybrid with magic and weapon skills. And write out the lore. These are the Jedi. They are warriors of peace and justice. Enforcing that in the Galactic Republic. Vague but you can work out the details later.

You put a lot of work into this. But oh dear, the usual group of three players you run with have other obligations in the long term. They can't keep to a set schedule. But no worries.

You later find out about the concept of Patron players. These can be Kings, famous wizards, players with large amounts of assets, power, and maybe even a whole empire. They don't have to turn up every session. They will scheme and do things on their own time. And often create lore themselves for their own domain. As long as you the GM is informed. This could be through discord or facebook messages, phone calls, hand written letters. Whatever. The great thing about Patron players is instead of the various NPC factions being static until the GM decides what to do with them. They react in dynamic ways to the PCs. They also have control over their own lore within their domain. Which offloads some of the work. Your three regulars who don't have much time on their hands are ideal for these kinds of Patron players.

As GM you decide to discuss with your three patron players what characters they want to make. They're high level characters with a lot of assets and possibly a whole kingdom to run. One of the three Patron players asks to be the king of the major space kingdom. This player then creates his character. The Evil Emperor Palpatine. He decided that the empire he runs is an evil fascist one. After hearing about you talking about the Galactic Republic. He suggests that as Emperor he schemed for many years to twist the Republic into this evil regime run by him. Great. With no prompting you have an arch villain. A goal for the player characters in overthrowing this person and restoring the Republic. And a dynamic villain who will react to the PCs foiling his schemes. Cool. But how do you figure the Jedi into this. You say worked hard on that lore and you'd like one patron to represent that as a powerful jedi. The second of three patrons speaks up.

"Okay, so what if you had one of these Jedi who turned evil. Like an anti-paladin or something."

You ask this player to elaborate. You are intrigued.

"So like I have this idea for a character who was a jedi. A great and famous warrior. Lawful and shit. But he was manipulated by this guy...Palprotein or whatever into going Chaotic and helping overthrow the Republic."

Palpatine adds

"Yeah, that's cool and what if I was one of the Chaotic Jedi people with wizard spells. And my whole scheme was to exterminate the Jedi with my friend here. He's my chief second in command now."

The other player goes

"Awesome but what if I was secretly resentful and craved power of my own so plot to overthrow you."

And thus, this patron has created Darth Vader. You now have two competing factions within one kingdom with their own interests that can clash with the PCs. Great stuff.

Now, Some GMs might see this as a campaign going off the rails and the players making op characters. But for one these are meant to be powerful. And in practice whilst they will affect great change everything still needs to be passed by you first. You can still refuse a lot. You already made a list of spells both players can cast. And made sure those spells aren't too gamebreaking compared to your usual wizard affair. Things like a Lightning bolt, choke on touch and so on.

You chime in.

"Okay, I think what you two said is great. But here's the deal. This is going to be in space. We don't have Law and Chaos in this game. I'm thinking we spin this as just a good side of the power the Jedi wield and a bad side you guys wield."

"Oh yeah. So you have the Jedi. And these other guys who are ancient rivals." Suggests Palpatine.

You make a strange sneezing noise due to your allergies which Darth Vader hears as something different.

"Yo, Sith. That's a cool name. We'll use that." Suggests Darth Vader.

Yes, you absolutely meant for that to happen. You are a genius.

Throughout all of this the third patron player has been quiet. She's always been a little nervous so you ask her if she has any suggestions for Patron players.

"Well um, you got these two evil guys. In an empire. Um... what if there was a good faction that opposed them. I don't like playing evil characters to be honest."

That makes sense. You say that as the Empire has taken over the galaxy perhaps some kind of Guerilla army fights to oppose them with few resources. A real underdog.

"Yeah I can be a politician working to restore democracy and I'm secretly in charge of these rebellious guys."

A Rebel Alliance if you will you suggest to her.

We now have Mon Mothma. Charismatic and moral leader of the Rebel Alliance. 

This is the beauty of Patron players. Before we even roll up the PCs we now have three patron players who are scheming and working against one another. You tell them all to roll up sheets and run them by me in their own time. You tell them to take their time as finding players might take a while. Meanwhile you message them a list of assets and territory they own. And resources they posses. They message you every once in a while with troop deployments, schemes and so on. The Emperor watched a lot of TOS messages  and tells you that he was inspired by the Planet Killer to make a massive planet destroying space station. It's been built secretly since the foundation of the Empire and now it's nearly ready. You make a note of this. You could just say no. But this place could serve as the first dungeon for the PCs.

Separately Mon Mothma has consulted the massive hex star map I made. She's sent rebel agents to uncover any intel on the Empire. A lightbulb goes off in your head. You ask her to roll for the intel she receives. She rolls a nat 20. So you say one of her agents has heard rumours of a massive build up of resources. That just so happens to be on the planet Palpatine is storing his plans for the Death Star. I don't tell her that the Death Star plans are there. Just that there is crucial info she might need. She sends her best spy/mercenary. One player has expressed interest in the game. He makes a cool new character called Kyle Katarn. Rebel agent and merc. Kyle is going to play him for a solo session where he steals the Death Star plans. He hasn't got a lot of free time. But that's not an issue with a drop in, drop out system. He's obviously far less powerful than Mon. Still a level 1 Ranger. He's not OP at all. He's going to use Kyle every once in a while to help aid the rebel players. He gets his orders direct from Mon Mothma. Again, this is on a drop in, drop out basis. IRL Kyle is very busy with his job. So I can only squeeze one session out of him this time. I ask him when he's next free. he's got a weekend break coming up. So we say Kyle "spawns" on the rebel base and in 7 days of real time travel Kyle will arrive at the Imperial base to steal the plans. Right when Kyle has free time to play.

A common misconception with 1:1 time is that EVERYTHING is 1:1. 1:1 time primarily happens during player downtime. The time players are not playing. Depending on your rules you might measure the exact amount of time has passed during play. But you absolutely can abstract that.  Using 1:1 timescale is ideal for those who don't have a set amount of free time. You just discuss with the relevant people when they are free. They make sure they are traveling, training, or doing something during downtime. The responsibility is on the players to schedule their sessions. Play only happens when players and their PCs are free to play. They must take responsibility for that. If a player decides a character wants to train for two weeks that character can not be used for that amount of REAL time. At worse that player either doesn't play or makes a new character. But for the most part players will discuss with the GM and other players the best time for them to drop in and out.   It is not a rigid schedule. The GM just referees everything. Katarn only has 1 day free. And may not have free time for another while. So we consult the star map and pick a planet that just so happens to have a travel time close to when he's free. You did not fudge this. This is the time it would take as per the Star Map I constructed.

The session goes great and Kyle hands off the plans to a ship that will take them to Mothma. Kyle goes back to his regular job IRL. He tells me every once in a while what his character is doing during downtime. He wants to spec into a new class. The Jedi homebrew you made. You say due to the great power of this class and lack of teachers this will take a long time. Let's say two months IRL. Kyle says that's no problem as work is really fucking him up the ass with his hours. And he doesn't know when he'll be back next. Worst case scenario he'll roll up a new character if he gets free time before his character's training is up.

You go to inform The Emperor of what happens. He is livid at Mon Mothma for outfoxing him. However a critical fail on Kyle's part meant he didn't spot the tracking device on the Death Star plans. So Palpatine knows where that ship is. He orders Vader to pursue the ship. Which Mothma suggested was called the Tantive IV. Just as two new players say they want to join.

So before we even begin a true session 1, we have lore, we have players dynamically affecting the world and messing with the patrons, and we have the patrons reacting. We already have a story, a plot hook for the first adventure. And a potential first dungeon. And as GM I didn't have to make any of that up myself. It was all my patron players and PCs shaping everything through play.  And now the real game begins.

Fuck me I wrote a lot. I'm going to leave a to be continued here and write more later. If people have questions I will answer them later.

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 26, 2022, 09:21:56 AMWhatever. The great thing about Patron players is instead of the various NPC factions being static until the GM decides what to do with them. They react in dynamic ways to the PCs.

This is where your argument falls apart. How can players react in "dynamic ways" but the DM cannot? Not only does the DM have to communicate the current situation to the patron players, which generally happens between session, but these players won't have all the necessary setting information that the DM has. I just can't see how another player can react in any way as well as a DM who is right there at the table.

I never said anything about the GM not reacting. Did you read what I wrote? I offload some of the lore writing to the patrons. The patrons do something and notify me. I then notify the players or the patrons notify the players.  Sometimes I ask for a role.The same applies for patrons. I even gave an example of this with the death star plans. Something a player does affects a patron. The patron then reacts. Everything either side does is run by me. The players might not know exactly what Palpatine does at all times. But they will feel his actions. And I as GM have to decide how that's going to play out.

You didn't read what I wrote at all. It's all explained through gameplay WITH examples.

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 26, 2022, 12:23:25 PMYou didn't read what I wrote at all. It's all explained through gameplay WITH examples.

The question isn't "how" this works but "why". What is the point of creating three super-NPCs to control various in-game factions when the DM can just control these factions himself?

Your example has so many problems. Why do the regular players get less of a say in how the campaign works than these part-time super players? What happens the Kyle Katarn's player doesn't want to be the lackey of another player but instead just wants to play Han Solo and fly around having adventures?

In a normal DM-run game, the DM can easily adapt and change the focus of the campaign. But if you have some players acting as the main story drivers, this forces all the other players to play along whether they want to or not.

Your example seems like the DM is running two entirely different types of games that may occasionally interact with one another. That's a significant amount of extra work, so it is important to first establish what the benefit is for running a game like this. IOW, what is the problem that you are trying to solve by adding patron players?


[Note that none of this applies to characters who earn their power and influence through actual play. These characters are known to the other players, most likely having a relationship with many of them. Plus, because they have been playing for a long time, they already know the themes and style of the campaign. And, as they are also normal character, they can be played as such if their patron-level aspects are ignored by other players. ]

Are there elements here, outside of 1:1 time from the DMG, that are specific to a Gygax game? One thing you set out to do was clear things up (and I can tell you put a lot of effort into it). I think one aspect working against this conversation is there is a little game of telephone going on because of the other thread.

In the other thread, the Professor DM video references a piece from Ben Milton in one breath, shows Original D&D books the next, and also references West Marshes. He talks about a lost rule?? Now I am a subscriber of his channel and a fan of his work, but it was all over the place. Some of these elements may have some overlapping areas, but wide differences in other areas. West Marches, for example, is in no way a synonym for 1:1 campaign time from the 1e DMG.

I need to watch the inappropriate characters episode, but three hours plus my reluctance to take something called the "BrOSR" seriously has placed it on the backlog. The 1:1 campaign section spills over two pages in the DMG, but is less than a full page of text. It is also very clear to understand. When talk of West Marshes (ProfDM) and patrons (here/BrOSR??) are introduced, it starts to get muddy.

To quote Pundit, if you "talk to me like I'm Venger", is this really an explanation of how patrons work in the BrOSR?

Regardless, I'm interested in learning more about the approach.

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 26, 2022, 09:21:56 AM
I'm still noting a lot of confusion and misrepresentation of 1:1 style gaming. So I thought I'd autisically explain how it all works using the original trilogy of Star Wars films as an example.

So imagine you are a GM. You got this idea for a cool space based campaign with a hex grid. Like most GMs you want to give the illusion of players being in a living world. But then you read the AD&D 1ed rulebook and read the advice given in the DMG.

Gross Conceptual Error

If you are going to do a space based campign, why would you want to use a fantasy game to do so? Even back during the days when the AD&D 1e DMG was king, there were better games out there to do a space based campaign than D&D.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 26, 2022, 01:05:13 PM

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 26, 2022, 12:23:25 PMYou didn't read what I wrote at all. It's all explained through gameplay WITH examples.

The question isn't "how" this works but "why". What is the point of creating three super-NPCs to control various in-game factions when the DM can just control these factions himself?

Your example has so many problems. Why do the regular players get less of a say in how the campaign works than these part-time super players? What happens the Kyle Katarn's player doesn't want to be the lackey of another player but instead just wants to play Han Solo and fly around having adventures?

In a normal DM-run game, the DM can easily adapt and change the focus of the campaign. But if you have some players acting as the main story drivers, this forces all the other players to play along whether they want to or not.

Your example seems like the DM is running two entirely different types of games that may occasionally interact with one another. That's a significant amount of extra work, so it is important to first establish what the benefit is for running a game like this. IOW, what is the problem that you are trying to solve by adding patron players?


[Note that none of this applies to characters who earn their power and influence through actual play. These characters are known to the other players, most likely having a relationship with many of them. Plus, because they have been playing for a long time, they already know the themes and style of the campaign. And, as they are also normal character, they can be played as such if their patron-level aspects are ignored by other players. ]

The thing you're solving, is that those players are people who don't have time to play anyway normally -- they just wouldn't be in a traditional game because they can't show up to sessions, or they show up once every four months.

So you basically are doing a play by post game with them on the side to let them still do stuff, and using it as game fuel for the rest of the campaign.

The bonus is the people here bring the same ingenuity to the NPCs that players normally do, so you get them thinking and reacting more organically than if it was just you. It adds some fun to the GM's side of things too since you get to be surprised by their plans. It's more like you're just refereeing their big plans.

This is for patron play, that is.

1:1 time just enhances it, but you could have 1:1 time without it.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 26, 2022, 08:38:09 PM

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 26, 2022, 09:21:56 AM
I'm still noting a lot of confusion and misrepresentation of 1:1 style gaming. So I thought I'd autisically explain how it all works using the original trilogy of Star Wars films as an example.

So imagine you are a GM. You got this idea for a cool space based campaign with a hex grid. Like most GMs you want to give the illusion of players being in a living world. But then you read the AD&D 1ed rulebook and read the advice given in the DMG.

Gross Conceptual Error

If you are going to do a space based campign, why would you want to use a fantasy game to do so? Even back during the days when the AD&D 1e DMG was king, there were better games out there to do a space based campaign than D&D.

I was originally going to use Traveller but then thought analogys to Law And Chaos wouldn't fit as well. Plus I wanted to use DnD terms the vast majority of people would be familiar with. If this were an actual game I'd happily break out Traveller, FASA Trek, D6, etc.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on April 26, 2022, 08:55:06 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 26, 2022, 01:05:13 PM

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 26, 2022, 12:23:25 PMYou didn't read what I wrote at all. It's all explained through gameplay WITH examples.

The question isn't "how" this works but "why". What is the point of creating three super-NPCs to control various in-game factions when the DM can just control these factions himself?

Your example has so many problems. Why do the regular players get less of a say in how the campaign works than these part-time super players? What happens the Kyle Katarn's player doesn't want to be the lackey of another player but instead just wants to play Han Solo and fly around having adventures?

In a normal DM-run game, the DM can easily adapt and change the focus of the campaign. But if you have some players acting as the main story drivers, this forces all the other players to play along whether they want to or not.

Your example seems like the DM is running two entirely different types of games that may occasionally interact with one another. That's a significant amount of extra work, so it is important to first establish what the benefit is for running a game like this. IOW, what is the problem that you are trying to solve by adding patron players?


[Note that none of this applies to characters who earn their power and influence through actual play. These characters are known to the other players, most likely having a relationship with many of them. Plus, because they have been playing for a long time, they already know the themes and style of the campaign. And, as they are also normal character, they can be played as such if their patron-level aspects are ignored by other players. ]

The thing you're solving, is that those players are people who don't have time to play anyway normally -- they just wouldn't be in a traditional game because they can't show up to sessions, or they show up once every four months.

So you basically are doing a play by post game with them on the side to let them still do stuff, and using it as game fuel for the rest of the campaign.

The bonus is the people here bring the same ingenuity to the NPCs that players normally do, so you get them thinking and reacting more organically than if it was just you. It adds some fun to the GM's side of things too since you get to be surprised by their plans. It's more like you're just refereeing their big plans.

This is for patron play, that is.

1:1 time just enhances it, but you could have 1:1 time without it.

I was literally just writing something similar to what you posted. I actually thought I explained the whole scheduling thing. But I must not have been clear and for that I appologize.

I'll put a TLDR here instead of my usual waffle

1:1 play is good because it allows a flexible and uneven schedule for players and patrons. It takes the onus off the GM to organize the timetable of sessions and makes it purely a player responsibility. The players decide to travel for two weeks because that's when most of them have time. They then have the responsibility to turn up at that time. If not they must at least declare what their PC is doing instead.

I'm going to write the second part of this tomorrow. With a greater explanation of how I understand Patron play to be. I do appologize again if I didn't make it clear what the benefits of patron play are. I thought if I just gave examples that would show the cool things they could do. That would explain it. But I was wrong.

1:1 time and open table is basically the answer to "my group can't ever get together to play!" or "I have too many players and I don't want to kick my friends out" or "My friend wants to play but they're too busy to ever play really". The game is not about a particular group but just everyone doing their own thing that intersects, sometimes as groups, other times not. If they don't show up nothing is riding on them and nothing is lost.

The other thing I like is it makes you feel the passage of time. My other 5e games have everyone going from level 1 to 8 and we look back and realize it's only been 3 months in-game.

Now here's one thing I thought of, that's come up with me, but hasn't been addressed:

If the players don't show up or don't have time you just keep ticking the clock forward.

But what if the DM himself doesn't have time?

Do you just advance time anyway? Isn't that punishing the players with missing out on their chances to do stuff as time steps forward when it's not their fault? What happens then?

So I've had the chance to listen to the livestream. I am legitimately interested to hear more about it...between all of the flame wars, name calling, and ridiculous chat worship, very little substance was covered over three hours.

Patron is a BrOSR concept, and really should be separated from Gygax and 1e. There is nothing in the DMG, and I do not interpret page 7 of the PHB to mean that patrons were implied. Jeffro would be better off telling me about his cool toast versus trying to convince me that Jesus' face is on it. Just own the mechanic and provide real examples of how it has worked along side the rules.

Having said that, and I think all of the shit talking is brilliant trolling, it is an interesting idea and I look forward to hearing more.

The OP pre-campaign communal creation of the setting and its patron PCs seems very un-Gygaxian to me. Very New School Dramatist play, in fact. I thought the idea was that patron characters emerged in play as low level PCs reached high level.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on April 26, 2022, 10:16:40 PM
Now here's one thing I thought of, that's come up with me, but hasn't been addressed:

If the players don't show up or don't have time you just keep ticking the clock forward.

But what if the DM himself doesn't have time?

Do you just advance time anyway? Isn't that punishing the players with missing out on their chances to do stuff as time steps forward when it's not their fault? What happens then?

The solution I have seen from reading the Trollopolous blog is Patron players can GM games with permission from the GM and as long as the GM is notified of what happened. This would most likely only be done for games directly in the Patron's domain.

An example would be The Death Star. Let's say as GM you can't make it. You gave Palpatine the Death Star. He says it would be better if he gave it to Vader because he's plotting a scheme with it to make Vader look bad. Cool. You okay him to give the Death Star to Darth Vader as part of his domain. The Emperor assigns an NPC, Grand Moff Tarkin to watch Vader. Meaning you as GM now have to occasionally roll for Tarkin to see if he picks up any intel on Vader's schemes. Things I as GM already know but can't say because the Emperor is not omnipresent. But I can reveal to the Emperor as intel on successful roles. With detail dependent on how good the roll was.  The PCs are going to the Death Star and will be there in 3 days. Oh no, the wife called and needs you to look after the kids on that day. Bugger. So Darth Vader offers to volunteer to GM that game himself. As the Death Star is part of his domain, he already came up with a dungeon map. Cool beans.  Now for this to work it is crucial that you trust your patron players. It's a big deal to be one. And should only be given to people you as the GM can trust to not abuse it. Whilst they will work towards their schemes they should be able to GM as fairly as you would.  If you don't have that trust in a person do not give them patron status. It is not to be given to strangers you just met online. It is to be given to friends you've gamed with for many years and know the personality of. A bad patron can absolutely ruin a game. So I can see why some GMs wouldn't want them at all. The idea of giving up even a little control is scary. So mitigate the risk by giving it to a friend. Bear in mind, every single thing a Patron does is declared by them and okayed by you. You should never not know what your patron's are doing. Every thing they do is done with your permission and thus is your responsibility. However, the rewards are great. Instead of an illusion of a dynamic world. You have an actual dynamic world you as GM don't need to fuss over. As long as you have good time keeping and aren't a door mat. You will be fine.

Quote from: King Tyranno on April 27, 2022, 07:52:56 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on April 26, 2022, 10:16:40 PM
Now here's one thing I thought of, that's come up with me, but hasn't been addressed:

If the players don't show up or don't have time you just keep ticking the clock forward.

But what if the DM himself doesn't have time?

Do you just advance time anyway? Isn't that punishing the players with missing out on their chances to do stuff as time steps forward when it's not their fault? What happens then?

The solution I have seen from reading the Trollopolous blog is Patron players can GM games with permission from the GM and as long as the GM is notified of what happened. This would most likely only be done for games directly in the Patron's domain.

An example would be The Death Star. Let's say as GM you can't make it. You gave Palpatine the Death Star. He says it would be better if he gave it to Vader because he's plotting a scheme with it to make Vader look bad. Cool. You okay him to give the Death Star to Darth Vader as part of his domain. The Emperor assigns an NPC, Grand Moff Tarkin to watch Vader. Meaning you as GM now have to occasionally roll for Tarkin to see if he picks up any intel on Vader's schemes. Things I as GM already know but can't say because the Emperor is not omnipresent. But I can reveal to the Emperor as intel on successful roles. With detail dependent on how good the roll was.  The PCs are going to the Death Star and will be there in 3 days. Oh no, the wife called and needs you to look after the kids on that day. Bugger. So Darth Vader offers to volunteer to GM that game himself. As the Death Star is part of his domain, he already came up with a dungeon map. Cool beans.  Now for this to work it is crucial that you trust your patron players. It's a big deal to be one. And should only be given to people you as the GM can trust to not abuse it. Whilst they will work towards their schemes they should be able to GM as fairly as you would.  If you don't have that trust in a person do not give them patron status. It is not to be given to strangers you just met online. It is to be given to friends you've gamed with for many years and know the personality of. A bad patron can absolutely ruin a game. So I can see why some GMs wouldn't want them at all. The idea of giving up even a little control is scary. So mitigate the risk by giving it to a friend. Bear in mind, every single thing a Patron does is declared by them and okayed by you. You should never not know what your patron's are doing. Every thing they do is done with your permission and thus is your responsibility. However, the rewards are great. Instead of an illusion of a dynamic world. You have an actual dynamic world you as GM don't need to fuss over. As long as you have good time keeping and aren't a door mat. You will be fine.

Ah... that's actually what I do for my open table games. It doesn't even need to be a patron. You can just have a bunch of lieutenant DMs that run their own dungeons.

It just doesn't work if the players want to tackle a specific problem and that problem is the one under the DM's purview who is busy. If it was another DM's dungeon it's one thing, but if they want to tackle my dungeon, the Dungeon Of Infinite Doom, and I'm on vacation for three weeks.... then....

I guess if it's a dungeon they can run it's one thing, but often so much of a dungeon and its plot is in the DMs head specifically and not something you can just impart. Especially if that patron is also playing regular PCs that delve that dungeon normally because they don't know the information.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on April 26, 2022, 10:16:40 PM
Now here's one thing I thought of, that's come up with me, but hasn't been addressed:

If the players don't show up or don't have time you just keep ticking the clock forward.

But what if the DM himself doesn't have time?

Do you just advance time anyway? Isn't that punishing the players with missing out on their chances to do stuff as time steps forward when it's not their fault? What happens then?

While BroSR was stretching interpretations the 1E rules to justify Patron play as "BtB", I was twisting and stretching Appendix A to say the rules justify GMless/GMfull play as being "BtB."

What we've been doing is, everyone is solo gaming using Appendix A (random dungeon), B (random wilderness), and C (random encounters) and I (dungeon dressing), but we're all doing it on the same map. We can team up, split up, cooperate, compete, etc.

Since each player is their own DM, the game can always go on. And as long as you track time carefully, you can even play solo throughout the week if you want. You're not limited to just the weekly scheduled gathering.