Multiple Groups in One Campaign

super_rats
super_rats
edited March 2011 in Campaign Portal Building
I will be a DM for two separate groups using my campaign setting. I'm wondering what the best way to handle it on OP would be? The main problem I foresee is with the forums/log and notifications. Checking/unchecking half the respondents each time someone posts a message in the forum looks like it is going to be cumbersome. I could have two separate campaign sites, but then that means maintaining two separate wikis for the same setting. It's not an insurmountable barrier, but it's sort of not an appealing thing.

If there's a nice trick or way of doing this in one OP campaign or somehow get both campaigns to link to the same wiki, I'm all ears.

Right now I only have one group logged into the campaign site, while the other isn't, just to keep the notifications sane for all groups involved so that they don't turn off forum notifications because half of the messages don't apply to them.

Comments

  • Kiana
    Kiana
    Posts: 1
    Hm. Ascendant campaigns let you selectively send e-mail notifications. You could just mark logs to distinguish which group it's for. If Ascendant isn't your thing, you could designate one player in each group to pass the word around and just e-mail them yourself when you post a log or update.
  • Poutine_Paladin
    Poutine_Paladin
    Posts: 285
    I can't think of an easy way to do this, either. I think maybe the easiest one would be to do this:

    1. You become ascendant so you have multiple campaigns at your disposal.

    2. Create a main, all-encompassing "campaign" which would be more like a campaign setting that your groups all play in (see Wyrmshadow)

    3. Link your various group "campaigns" into the "main" one so that the members of the adventures have their own campaign to engage with but still linked up with the "world" you've created for all groups to be a part of.

    Granted this is a lot more work for you as a GM, but if it's simplicity you're looking for for your players, that's the trade off. And it really wouldn't be all that bad, actually, because you could explore the different areas of the world (within the areas that your individual groups are involved), and then develop the "main campaign" using the elements explored by those groups, and in a sense, let hem build up your world for you, and link in their adventures to that site.

    I've never done this...just picturing it in my head. Kinda sounds like fun.

    Now you've got me thinking. Or wait...did I do that on my own?
  • RaseCidraen
    RaseCidraen
    Posts: 890
    That's a pretty swank idea Paladin - I like it!
  • super_rats
    super_rats
    Posts: 24
    Been Ascendant for a couple of months, so that part is taken care of. I'm definitely thinking about simplicity for the players, because players don't have the same level of contact with the campaign that a DM does. Simply having to remember which individual players to click-on/off notices for is a pretty big nuisance from an average user's perspective (plus out of the 11 players, 3 of them are named Mike...one player is in both groups). I guess the multi-campaign linked to a main setting site option is the best one then. Thanks!
  • JonathonVolkmer
    JonathonVolkmer
    Posts: 114
    Neat ideas, guys. As my play group grows (5-6 going on 7-8 right now) we may be looking to split in half and run simultaneous interacting campaigns. Let me know how it goes, would you rats?
  • Duskreign
    Duskreign
    Posts: 1,085
    In my previous campaign, Sins of the Fathers, I ran Friday nights with the Order of Draconius, a party of mostly lawful characters owing allegiance to the God of Justice, and Saturday nights with The Current, a clandestine gang-like group comprised mostly of chaotic characters. Both games happened simultaneously, with both groups working toward a common goal, and several players had characters in both games. I still feel like that was the best campaign I have ever run.

    I am running two seperate groups in my Star Wars campaign as well (Jedi and Sith), but rather than split the group into seperate nights, I run short arcs of Jedi story, then shift over to do a short Sith arc. This is mostly due to my desire to continue running Wyrmshadow while I run Star Wars, and my inability to devote myself to three nights of gaming a week with any kind of consistency (see Dark Queen of the West).

    Actually, speaking of Star Wars...
  • RaseCidraen
    RaseCidraen
    Posts: 890
    Dusk, it's not your fault about DQoTW - that failing is on me - I'm working on rectifying it though! I'm getting my arse in gear, trying to get a more established schedule going, and I'm super looking forward to today - it seems like a lot of people are going to try to be on! Woot! I'm super impressed with your ability to run Jedi/Sith arcs simultaneously - how do you manage the players?
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    Super_Rats,

    I've toyed with the idea of running the exact same story-arc with two (or eventually more) groups just to see how all the different variations turn out.

    This is currently stymied by a sudden realization that there are several combinations of people I do not want at a given gaming table. So I'm not even sure I could put the first group together. But it's still a dream of mine.

    Anyway, when I finally get that rolling, I intend to go Ascendant and make *darned* sure all my campaign iterations are private. (I really like the Paladin's idea of tying them together somehow, but I don't think it'd work for me because I really want the iterations to grow in a relative vacuum - I don't want group A inadvertently learning something about the Bas-Lithan dwarves because of something group B did and so I updated the main wiki page to reflect it.)
  • super_rats
    super_rats
    Posts: 24
    I'm putting the two groups on different continents, mainly to keep them easily separate in my head. I thought it might be cool to have both groups in the same location. For one thing it means less work for me in writing background material since it's a homebrew world and two it sounds like fun to have the two groups sort of influencing the campaign world for each other. But I think the steady schedule of Group A and the more erratic schedule of Group B would make that difficult.

    I've never actually ran two campaigns at once before. Group B starts in a week. Some odd happenings led to the original GM of group B to burn out and I'm stepping in to keep the group together because I have such a good time whenever we get together. Two weeks ago I had no idea I'd be running a second campaign. Had I planned to run two groups, I might have had more time to sort out how I wanted to present things...though to be honest I'm procrastinating and Dragon Age 2 has been stealing a good bit of my time.
  • Duskreign
    Duskreign
    Posts: 1,085
    Rase, the Jedi and Sith games run concurrently story-wise, but consecutively in reality. We got to a certain point in the Jedi story arc, a cliffhanger that made the players wonder how things got to be the way they were, and then the next session had them playing their Sith characters in an arc starting a few months before the last session left off, and leading up to the events that caused the Jedi cliffhangar to begin with. My players really dig the multi-faceted approach, as it gives them vastly different gaming experiences while offering multiple perspectives of the same story.

    Megamice, don't allow yourself to get caught with your pants down! Running a multi-party game is challenging to say the least. DA2 isn't going anywhere, so put the controller down and get to planning that game! :D
  • RaseCidraen
    RaseCidraen
    Posts: 890
    Dusk, that's pretty inventive - I imagine it helps the characters explore more of their personalities, as they're not locked into the "one" mindset permanently - they can do things they wouldn't be able to otherwise, which can be a great excercise, provided they can keep the character personalities in isolation.

    Note to self: two arcs running concurrently sounds like a great idea compared to six individual stories that are only marginally connected at the moment... I need to get on with the combining... :)
  • super_rats
    super_rats
    Posts: 24
    Having a set of players have multiple parties is also a great way to show the rest of the world. In the previous campaign I ran, the players were two different sets of heroes working on the same goal, but in different parts of the world and sometimes on different planes. They played a third party, the assassins trying to track their characters down, so got to see the "bad guys" from another perspective. It also solves the problem that some people have of wanting to try different characters without having to kill or retire characters just to play something new.
  • optimus_mush
    optimus_mush
    Posts: 28
    super_rats, I don't personally think that you need to worry yourself too much about keeping the groups' pages separate or making sure that all of the updates are sent to individuals in one group or another. personally I would just update everyone (or no one) and let your PCs worry about educating themselves on what has changed on the site. that way you only need to keep together a single campaign page and can compile all of the info as a common history.

    that is how our campaign world works. not only is there separate player groups in the world operating at the same time but we also have multiple DMs developing it making the world truly collaborative. as DMs we tend to riff on each other as well with events that one party undergoes effecting events in other parts of the world. for instance, a regional conflict began by one set of adventurers that I was DMing ended causing our group havoc in another part of the world when the next GM took over at the end of that adventure.

    just a thought, but i know that everyone organizes things differently.
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