2DM's 2 Parties 1 Game

[Memnoch3434]

I wanted to run a dungeons and dragons game for newbies. Of course I had a limited number of interested persons so I decided to increase my player base. When that happened I had a few self invitations, a few last minute additions, and in the end my measly 3 player group turned into a 13 player group. I started into doing the difficult task of cutting folks, because 13 is WAYY too big. Then one of my best friends came up with a good idea.

I was running a superhero game so we said to each other why not have two parties with opposite goals?

So we are trying our best to make two factions, neither good nor evil, that sometimes work together and most of the time work against each other. Think brotherhood and x-men.

We ran it the first week and its not as difficult as I was expecting, the improvization is over 9000 on this one.

Has anyone tried this before? What did you find successful?

 

[edemaitre]

Dual parties

I'd be careful not to overplan. Let each party find its own motivation, as long as you describe the setting consistently and provide plot threads that will lead them to each other. The Game Masters should meet or talk regularly between sessions.

For example, in my homebrew space opera game, I had one group that consisted of pirates and con men, and another that was of the more heroic explorer and diplomat mold. They were aware of each other, eventually got starships, and visited some of the same spaceports, but not at the same times.

After some rounds of player turnover, both ships are now in possession of the successors of one party, which is hunting down treasure left by the other, even as they prepare for an alien invasion. Now the difference between the two ships is psions and scientists on one vs. soldiers on the other. You need to give the players time to develop the personalities of both their individual characters and each party as a whole.

Scheduling, tracking resources, and keeping plot threads straight are usually the biggest challenges. When I've run large groups of a dozen people or more, I've tried be strict about limiting crosstalk and making sure that each person/P.C. gets a moment in the spotlight unique to their talents. You'll also want to balance set-piece action scenes involving the entire group with times when smaller squads can split up to get things done by common interest, say in a city.

Another way of handling large groups is to run "troupe-style play," in which people take on pregenerated N.P.C.s for scenes involving only a few P.C.s at a time. That way, everybody's engaged, the core characters get the spotlight, and N.P.C.s can take on a life of their own without lingering grudges among adversarial P.C.s.

In a fantasy game, you could have a Good party and an Evil party hunting after the same artifacts, be unknowingly manipulated by a bigger villain they may need to cooperate against, or even lead to some duels to the death (and, conversely, marriages). In a world of more complex morality, even the good guys may not know whom to trust, and the bad guys may find their own sense of honor.... Good luck!