Is this world big enough for the both of them?

[The Edge]

Ive got a friend who's recently put together a group of characters and asked if id DM for him, I thought why not. I already have a campain going and I had the Idea of puting them both in the same world (made my self) and haveing the groups travel around simultainulsy. The sessions for each group would be done seperately but in a way to keep a degree of sync between them. I know this will be quite tricky, but it seems realy cool. Events from one could influence the other. If it realy starts to colapse I can always seperate it, and run the other party as NPCs for each, but I think it can work.

Im writeing this looking for bits of advice or past acounts of similar campains, before I get it going.

 

[Hand of Evil]

See thread link in my sig for DM Advice

 

[diaglo]

i did it for a few years back in the 80's. it was fun. but it was also hectic.

 

[Jarrod]

Yeah, it's a _lot_ of work.

I've had very good results with people _hearing_ about "the other group", or seeing them in cameo (recognizable walking down the street, say) without having actual interactions. That's very cool, and means you don't have to keep things in sync nearly as well.

 

[shilsen]

I'm running two Eberron campaigns set primarily in Sharn right now. There is about a month's disjunction between the two groups, so the second group has heard of events and encountered things which are a/n (in)direct result of the first group's actions. It's quite interesting for me as a DM, though it does mean some extra work. The one place where it means less work is where it comes to plot options. I'm running a very non-linear game, with the PCs having a great deal of freedom in what plots to pursue and direction to take, and sometimes plots which one group doesn't follow end up getting taken up by the second one.

 

[kolikeos]

you most have a tone of players if you can seperate them into 2 groups. i'm jealus

 

[The Edge]

you most have a tone of players if you can seperate them into 2 groups. i'm jealus

Actually I don't. In fact I've only got three; two are my brothers and one is a long time friend. There aren't many fish in the D&D sea around where I live. It might of been good to have the friend come over for sessions, but theres problems involved in transport and other issues. We've got the strange situation of two characters per player in one group, and four all for one in the other. It's a shame, because haveing more players make the roleplaying work a lot better. But it still works well enough, despite the ocassional moment of telepatic like teamwork. It also means that while one character might be takeing a while doing something, like shoping or such, the other charater cant get bored. Also theres a good sense of owning the party, that this group of friends behave how he imagined them and that he can role play as several charcters, and not get stuck with one.

Im going to try to keep them within at least a week of each other. if they get to far apart i'll stop sessions with one for a while, or work it out some how.

Its going to be cool to have the players competeing, it might be a shame that one party will have to miss out on certain plots, but If im crafty enough ill be able to work them both in some how.


(ps - anyone who read the 'realism headache' thread, it's been sorted, thanks for any tips.)

 

[Bront]

I would suggest a different tactic.

Have them working in a similar area on a different problem. Noble Lord had 4 problems and hires 4 groups of adventurers to solve them. Party #1 gets their choice of the 4 (or perhaps only 3), and Party #2 gets their choice of 3 (A new one could have poped up which is why it wasn't available earlier). Said parties may hear of the other adventurers, and may encounter people who can speak of the others, but the won't compete in general, and perhaps they may help each other (Party 2 rescues the potion maker, who is now availbe to purches stuff from for party 1. Party 1 catches a thief that has connections to the bandits Party 2 is hunting, etc).

Just a thought.

 

[eris404]

Ive got a friend who's recently put together a group of characters and asked if id DM for him, I thought why not. I already have a campain going and I had the Idea of puting them both in the same world (made my self) and haveing the groups travel around simultainulsy. The sessions for each group would be done seperately but in a way to keep a degree of sync between them. I know this will be quite tricky, but it seems realy cool. Events from one could influence the other. If it realy starts to colapse I can always seperate it, and run the other party as NPCs for each, but I think it can work.

Im writeing this looking for bits of advice or past acounts of similar campains, before I get it going.

Kid Charlemagne has done this for years in his homebrew world, but he always puts the groups far apart, working on completely different agendas. We've never come across each other. It's a lot of work, but he's a good DM and keeps up with it (yay, KC!).

Although we're not in the same campaigns, it doesn't prevent the groups from comparing notes online though.