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Sometimes, we need a break from something we like to do. However, it’s not always best to just let things go completely, and let what you enjoy be forgotten. So it’s often better to let someone else take of the reigns. The busiest of blogs will often have some sort of guest writer from time to time. For the sake of D&D, it would make sense to have someone guest DM for a while.

A Single, One-Shot Adventure
If you just need a brief break from the task of DMing, have one of your players come up with an adventure and run it themselves. Perhaps you have players already who have had some sort of idea simmering in their minds for a while, but the focus had been on the main campaign for the whole time. This can let players finally use their ideas, and also to see what it’s like to DM. And if they like it, they’ll have a reason to come up with more stuff, as they’ll be able to use their new ideas in the future.

A New Campaign
Sometimes, we need a break that’s a bit longer. Or perhaps you get sick of constantly DMing one campaign, and want to PC for a while in another campaign. This goes a bit in hand with the One-Shot Adventure idea above, except that the new DM would be running an entire campaign, rather than just one adventure. Also, this makes it much easier if you and/or your players prefer to switch between campaigns every once in a while, just so you all don’t get bored. However, be wary, as you probably don’t want your own campaign to fall into neglect and eventually be forgotten. Trying to pick back up on a campaign after too long is difficult, as not everyone can remember what happened the last time a session was held for it.

Take Over
Another possibility would be to let someone take over the task of DMing of the campaign you’re already running. This can be great for players, as they can continue playing their characters, rather than having to create new ones each time a new person DMs. At least, it’ll be good for players who don’t like going through the character creation process on a frequent basis. At this point, you have the option of either completely breaking yourself off from D&D for a little while, or you can create your own character and play in the campaign yourself. One thing that could be cool to do is take your favorite NPC, and actually play him/her as a PC. This can make bringing that character in easier, as the players would have already met the character.

But of course, make sure to take back the reigns of DMing for your campaign at some point, especially if you have a specific plot you had started, as the guest DM can totally derail that. However, you do have the option of filling in the guest DM with all the needed details of the campaign plot. However, if the guest DM is one of your players, this could be a potential problem. This is only worse if your players are prone to metagaming.

Now, speaking of having guests do some of the work for you, I’m beginning to think that I should maybe bring in a guest writer or two for this blog. Posting just one thing a week just isn’t going to cut it, especially if I want to have enough content to bring in traffic. I’m sure those of you who are already keeping tabs on this blog on a regular basis are slightly miffed about it being updated only once a week, and not knowing what day of the week I’m going to do it. >.>