Running multiple games in parallel?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I’ve never run more than a single campaign at one time. For those of you that do, how do you handle this? Multiple campaigns set in the same world? Possibly even coexisting and with the potential for the campaigns to influence each other?

Yes to all of this.

As Gary Gygax said, it's all about good timekeeping.

My play by post campaign (continuously going since 2006, babeeee) has a wiki with a timeline that not only includes campaign background, but where each group is and what they're doing. Sometimes adventures have them out of synch, accidentally or purposefully, but the can and do cross over, most typically with the NPC cast from one campaign showing up in another branch periodically.

I'm running a side campaign of Empire of the Ghouls alongside my main campaign, and both groups are in Ptolus and the stuff they're getting up to is already showing up in the local newspapers. So when the PCs want to see what the general public and Ptolus' journalists know what's going on, they have to read past news related to the other group.

For live games, I am alternating a 2024 Radiant Citadel campaign with a Shadowdark campaign. No crossover there. Once the Radiant Citadel campaign wraps, I anticipate doing a Witchlight campaign. After the Shadowdark campaign wraps, I anticipate doing either a Mothership or Pirate Borg campaign.

 

[Deset Gled]

I guess I'll be the voice of negativity here. My group tried it, and it failed.

We typically met once a week, and it was a sandboxy style. Our DM wanted to try some new things that wouldn't drop directly into our regular game, so we tried adding in a second campaign. It brought in a couple new people, and had a slightly different feel (evil PCs), etc. It was multiverse-y with the idea it could patch into our primary game.

At first, we tried doing the second campaign every other week. That was too much work (problems with scheduling, life priorities, sleep, etc). So we switched it to longer sessions once a month. That was a little better, but still made life rough on weeks when we had two sessions. So we dropped gaming in our primary campaign on weeks when we had second campaign. That solution didn't really make anyone happy. The main campaign was moving slower. The second campaign wasn't meeting often enough for people to feel invested. We couldn't find a balance.

Story wise, we failed to have any real crossover. The secondary campaign struggled enough to get its own footing, so connecting it with something else never happened. Not to mention that things moved at a very different pace.

Eventually, both games fell apart. Adding the second campaign wasn't directly responsible (I blame one problem player and DM burnout as more direct causes of the downfall). But I can also say with confidence the second simultaneous campaign didn't help, and probably sped up the demise of the primary campaign.

Noting that experience, I doubt I will try simultaneous campaigns anytime in the near future. Maybe when tje kids move out and I'm retired. But that's aways off. Until then, it just feels like too much.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

My play by post campaign (continuously going since 2006, babeeee)

 

[aramis erak]

This statement caught my eye, and I thought it was worth a thread of its own, rather than derailing the original one:

I’ve never run more than a single campaign at one time. For those of you that do, how do you handle this? Multiple campaigns set in the same world? Possibly even coexisting and with the potential for the campaigns to influence each other? Or going with completely different genres to keep things straight in your head?

Tell me about it!

Usually, two different games. Cheat sheets to hand to keep the att/skill lists and difficulties straight.

I used to run 3 a week. I can't anymore.

My last "3 a week" - D&D at the store, and two different FFG star wars - one F&D campaign, playtesting the Gatekeeper campaign. One EotE, with a group dominated by working for multiple huts... then taking over a kajik's business.

For a couple years, it was friday pendragon, same group plus some more players, later same day doing Fantasy Hero, and a sunday T&T, later 2300 AD.
For a different half-year: saturday morning Prime Directive 1e, sun evening traveller, and thursday evening Street Fighter.

In all cases, taking good notes helped a lot.

 

[Clint_L]

I have my home games, which is usually one campaign but sometimes two, with mostly different players. And then I have my D&D Club campaigns at school, where I run either a single campaign each term, or two on alternating weeks if demand requires it. So I usually have at least two campaigns on the go, and have had as many as four.

There is some overlap between campaigns because they are all set in the same world, so as it evolves in one campaign it also evolves in the others, for the most part. That's particularly true of the home games; my school games sometimes reuse material with a few tweaks.

Keeping track of them isn't hard; I just keep a separate folfer for each in my Google drive.

The time commitment is substantial but, eh, it's one of my passions.

 

[dbm]

Lots of really interesting experience there, folks. Keep ‘em coming!

 

[GrimCo]

Did it back in the younger days. 2 groups, two systems, zero overlap. One was VtM, other was 7th sea. VtM was role play heavy, with politics, plots within plots, every character working with and against other characters. It was blast. Best thing about it was very flexible scheduling. Since they don't really work as a party, i could schedule 1on1 1-1.5 long session with each of the players during the week and then once a month we would have group session. 7th sea one was opposite, action oriented, semi military historically inspired campaign, so i stole lot of "plot" from real world history and tweaked stuff here and there (saved tons of time on prep work). This one was weekly Saturday afternoon game.

Now, i have same D&D group for very long time. Every time we tried to have 2 parallel campaigns, it ended in one or two ways. Either we just like one of them better and just play that one and other one fizzles, or they both fizzle out. More often than not, they would both fizzle out. Not one time did we successfully managed to have 2 parallel campaigns run to any meaningful point in game (so we can say we at least finished something in it). We do have our mega campaign with 3 separate character groups that are all in same setting, around same time (in game), but we play consecutive as in - this year we finish one arc with one group, then next we switch to other arc with other group, etc. It's running since 2013, with couple shorter adventures and one shots all in the same setting ( and with impact to 3 big campaign tracks).

 

[dbm]

Bonus question for the GMs replying, please - out of interest, usually what percentage of your player group is in more than one of your campaigns?

 

[aco175]

Bonus question for the GMs replying, please - out of interest, usually what percentage of your player group is in more than one of your campaigns?

Right now it is the same group of players. My son in college comes and goes to fill out the party. It started at Thanksgiving when he came home and could play that week. Instead of poofing his PC into the ongoing thing, we made new PCs that fit into the ongoing campaign. Partly I wanted to see if the players wanted to do much with the bastion rules and such. It became another game at Christmas and New Year, so now those PCs are more their own campaign.

Generally my playing groups have been more limited in players the last 20 years or so.

 

[bloodtide]

Bonus question for the GMs replying, please - out of interest, usually what percentage of your player group is in more than one of your campaigns?

Not many. Maybe 25%, but this can go up a lot depending on things.

I do run a strict game. You miss a session and your house did not explode and I will just drop you from the game. So most players only want to commit to the once a week game. they will grumble that they had planned to water their rose bush for 12 hours...but were "forced by my harsh rule" to stop and come play in the campaign for the full session, as it is.

And I will just about always pick a player with no current game over one that already has a game with me.

In general only the players really obsessed with gaming will play in more then one game.

A lot of the time I will run a game with players that are new to my game style.....quite often they get mad and leave or I kick them out. And that is on top of the 50% that ghost. So, often enough a game will have open slots. I'll have other players come in to fill the slots. Maybe to stay, but often just until a new player is found.

Though it is very common for players to play their "normal" Easy Casual game with their "best friends", and then also play in one of my harsh Hard Fun games too.