Anyone ever played a game with two linked groups?

[Lord Mhoram]

I sort of did the reverse - we had 2 concurrent Champions games running with 2 different GMs (I was one of them). For a bit each campaign had similar power leveled characters (I tended to give out more XP, so my campaigns advanced faster). So the two of us came up with a very basic structure that threatened both worlds, and in classic comic book style - we had a cross company crossover. We also had some published companies characters show up (I asked everyone who thier favorite superhero was, built them at let the players use them at times). So in each campaign we played natives, crossover or published campaign. It ran about 4 months, and had a huge ending. It was a great once in a lifetime thing that worked from every angle - note both campaings ran 8+ years, so a 4 month "summer crossover" was just about right.

 

[DollarD]

I'm currently running a game with linked groups - but not in terms of players, but characters.

My players wanted to try different characters, and at the same time, one of the players got sick, so the remaining players rolled up new characters, and I'm currently running them in the same timeline, just a few weeks in the past. Essentially, they're completing support quests for the main plotline, so when the timelines meet up, the two parties will meet and potentially mix up.

The group will control one party, while the other (now NPC) party is involved in a support capacity. As the campaign comes to an end, I intend to allow the support party to 'catch up' to the main party in the final confrontation, allowing them to take control of their 'old' characters if, or rather when, their characters go down.

 

[John Dallman]

That'll be fun if they ever end up either fighting each other or working together in the same battle against something else: which rule-set do you use?

Fighting each other seems quite unlikely: both parties are working for the same government in the process of reconstruction after large-scale damage to the country's cities. I'm in the 1e party.

 

[Voadam]

We used to occasionally do it by who was there, so A might DM one adventure for B and C, or another one for D, E, and F in the same world and there would be occasional crossovers and intersections. If A was not there it would be B's Warhammer game.

 

[Retreater]

I have had actions going on different continents being shaped by separate groups, where I could be fuzzy on the timing of all the actions. But having them in the same adventure seems like a recipe for a PvP battle royale - which I wouldn't be keen on running.

 

[Nytmare]

I played in a ...I think it was a DC Heroes campaign where there was another group playing a team of villains and every other week the other group would play and impact the opposite group. The plan was for the groups to eventually duke it out, but the game fell apart well before the final fight. It was janky as hell.

That however inspired me to run a one shot game where two groups in two different rooms played alternate reality versions of each other and players could jump back and forth between the games every half hour on the dot. It went okay, but there were a lot of things, in retrospect, that I would want to do differently.

I'm currently running a Torchbearer West Marches game that (if I ever manage to have enough people playing at once) can support several groups playing at the same time.

I think that the real trick of it is to find a way that information between the games can flow back and forth, but at a speed where it doesn't impact things in a meaningful or paradoxical way.

Time is abstract in TB and in my game flows seasonally with 2ish "adventures" happening each season. Players will have the option to switch between groups, but once you leave a group who is on an adventure, there's no tying back in with them till their adventure is complete.

The game is also split between adventuring, travelling, and town "phases" and returning to town feel like a natural point where players can act on the rumors and stories that they've been hearing about from the other groups. "The other group TPKed to a crocodile monster in the swamp a week north from town? Maybe it's worth it for us to go out there and see if we can find the mage's spell book." "I know your group explored an old abandoned temple somewhere to the west. I found a bit of a map that sounds like it describes how to find and enter a hidden treasure vault there and I'll split anything we find 50/50 with you if you take me there."

 

[TarionzCousin]

Because it involved two separate groups under the same DM, I feel obligated to mention the Head of Vecna here.

Head of Vecna - 1d4chan