D&D General An Experimental Dual Timeline Campaign?

[Weiley31]

Honestly something like this is a great idea although it would probably work best if the flashback was played with a set of different characters compared to the present timeline's set of characters.

For example: Imagine you had a campaign prologue sequence where the PC's party were level 20 characters and the plot twist of the campaign reveals that said PC party, in the Prologue sequence, were actually the BBEGS of the campaign in the current present timeline that the main PCs are fighting against.

If you wanted to, you could have the campaign switch back to said group at certain points. Then once the revelation happens, there would be no more switching as the past story of the BBEGs have been told and how they came to be. The pro to this approach would be that you'd avoid any complications with a PC death if somebody "died" and it has no affect upon the present timeline's PC party.

The Con, if you can call it that, is that said past timeline PC party is basically exempt from death. The story still enforces the possibility of it happening, but it technically doesn't otherwise, you have no BBEG unless they all became a group of Lich Lords at the very end due to plot related thing happening. But said event is what causes them to become the group of Lich Lords or whatever. Course I think that's only an issue if your gonna complain about it being a walkthrough or telling a story the DM prepared.

In Breath of Fire IV by Capcom, you had moments in the game where you switched from the Main Character Ryu and his party, to literally playing moments/segments as the final boss of the game pre-final boss form.[/ISPOILER]

Yeah it's videogamey in a way, but so what? It's less upkeep and avoids potential headaches.

 

[Tonguez]

I’ve tried to run parallel games in the past - one involved two parties, one a group sent to steal an artifact, the other heroes trying to catch them, the problem is that things quickly get out of whack and it becomes a nightmare to reconcile without railroading or having to find diversions until one side ‘catches up’ with the other. It might be possible, but I couldnt do it.

That said I didnt do a parallel story but in one random session I did an adventure in which the PCs were forced through a oneway portal to an unknown world, where they found a group of decomposed skeletons. Examining the remains the PCs notice that the rusted armour, broken weapons and holy symbols are identical to their own property and thus the PCs realise that the skeletons are their own - the PCs now need to find a way out and discover what happened to themselves.

I didnt do it but I suppose you could do regular flashback scenes at different adventure points, let the players play themselves in the ‘past’, and then use any information gained to inform their ‘current’ decisions

 

[Don Durito]

There are certain issues with doing things this way of course but it's not impossible.

It's easier if you are playing different characters and can have huge benefits for information. I've run games when characters need to explore a ruined city and then they find a journal written by people who visited that city at it's height and then they actually play a one off with those characters, before visting the city with their regular characters in its present day environment.

With the same characters - barring some device which means the characters have lost their memory of previous events (not too hard to do in a fantasy game). You need to structure things very carefully.

I'd approach it with something like this: At the end of the session Kurlog the Half-Orc arrives on the scene. Leave the session with a kind of cliffhanger - you all of course know Kurlog the Half-Orc.

Then the next session going back in time is about defining their relationship with Kurlog the Half-Orc in the past. This is meaningful as if affects their so far undefined present relationship with Kurlog. Based on the past time line he might be there to assist the PCs in the present day or he might be seeking revenge.

But I think it's key that it be structured in such a way as the events in the past timeline have meaningful choices that influence the present day.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I love it.

I'd start them as high level characters and run an adventure and then do a 'flashback' to an important time/adventure that, maybe relates to what they're doing now: "Do you remember coming here many years ago but we couldn't get through these magical wards?"

Then play out the flashback with Lower level PCs - like 3rd leve.

Then flash forward, and then back again to when they're 5th.

Every flash back has them a few levels higher.

I wouldn't worry about character death because, if a character dies, when you flash forward to the high level PCs, you can ask the players to discuss - in character - maybe ad libbing - how they brought the character back. "OMG, and Tordek got killed by that Bodak. Do you remember the druid we had to find in order to bring him back!? The crazy favour he asked almost got us all killed!" Which could lead to an interesting lead-in to your next flash back.

Do. it.

Edit: So the high level characters might be on a single adventure but their flash backs encompass a multitude of adventures.

 

[Don Durito]

The difficulty of flashbacks are that the players are trying to inhabit their characters rather then just watch them as the audience.

Flashbacks are about revealing things to the audience for the best dramatic effect.

Where you run into trouble if is players feel like flashbacks reveal things that might have led them to make different decisions previously based on what they're characters would have known, or where players feel like they don't know what there characters would do right now - because important information about past events hasn't been revealed yet.

The way to avoid this is to make sure that information in flashbacks is not important until it is revealed, and that it is revealed as soon as it becomes important.

You still need the players to buy in to it to a degree though.