Running two campaigns at once

[Circa]

So, I have a new idea fleshed out for my newest campaign- an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil. Our story is set in the Kenneth Valley, an isolated, made-up campaign setting I devised for the purposes of this struggle. My players are a group of three good/neutral characters working under the direction of the Kingdom who is on the brink of being overthrown by various nasty beasts, and one Evil character on her own working for the Evil Lich who is in charge of aforementioned nasties.

The problem I'm looking for a solution to is this: How do I smoothly run both campaigns at the same time?

The idea was that I'd have a session with the Evil player who goes on a mission or two to help set up the nasties to introduce a plot hook for the Good guys in the following session- perhaps she's commissioned a town to rebel against the capital, or bribed a bunch of bandits into attacking a highway. I'm encouraging PvP- in fact, I've devised a way for the evil player to come back to life if she's killed by the main party. I just want to be able to keep both running chronologically. I'll be starting the Evil player a few weeks ahead so she can "set up" the valley to give the Good players something to do, but I want to make sure there aren't any time-mishaps.
Any ideas?

[Kane0]

Perhaps try it as a one shot, where the player of the evil character is sort of a co-dm up against the good party. You allocate resources, and see what the evil character does with them while you provide plot hooks to the good party as normal.

If that works and your players like it then you can expand into your full story. The biggest problem will be the 'split the party' conundrum where you have to divide your time and effort at the table and between sessions. Granting the evil player a bit of leverage can keep them busy plotting evil deeds while you run for the rest normally up until they encounter each other. The evil character becoming a recurring villain and perhaps ally as things progress.

And don't forget the golden rule: If the DM sets it up, the players will burn it down. Its in the job description, so best plan for it so you can avoid having to take a break to figure out your next move over a coffee.

And if you do this, I for one would love to see a journal or something to see how it went.

[Circa]

I could try that out, having the Evil player watching over the good guys' sessions, but I feel like it would ruin the surprises for the Evil player. It's a lot harder to surprise someone when they already know what you're going to do, and Meta-Game usually comes into account no matter what.

[Threadnaught]

Both Campaigns are coexistent, so the best I can really offer is to have a cheat sheet of the Evil PC's round by round tactics and to meticulously keep note of everything that happens.

I'd also suggest skipping the clock forward between sessions, but since you actively want them to fight, and for the Evil PC to be a recurring villain, well that instantly becomes a bad idea.

[Crake]

Both Campaigns are coexistent, so the best I can really offer is to have a cheat sheet of the Evil PC's round by round tactics and to meticulously keep note of everything that happens.

I'd also suggest skipping the clock forward between sessions, but since you actively want them to fight, and for the Evil PC to be a recurring villain, well that instantly becomes a bad idea.

It's comments like this that make me feel like PvP has an unfairly bad reputation on these boards. It can be done well, and to a degree, every single one of my games has had pvp be a part of it, and my players loved the experience.

[danzibr]

Huh. Sounds awesome!

On the contrary, I would definitely *not* suggest having them near each other. Completely separate, so they don't know of what the other is doing. Of course, this only lasts as long as they don't encounter each other in game.

I'm curious to see how this goes.

[Douglas]

Reminds me of a story where someone was running two games through online chat. He had two groups doing the same dungeon crawl (I think starting at different entrances), and was running them as being in the same world, so sometimes one group would come across traps, enemies, etc. that the other group had already dealt with. I don't know whether it was deliberate contrivance, but both groups ended up arriving at the final room (with the bulk of the treasure) at about the same time, at which point he described each group to the other and started relaying their actions to each other. This being online chat, both groups were so totally isolated from each other that they had no idea the other group wasn't NPCs (the DM hadn't told them), and any delays could be passed off as because of the medium. As I recall, the tense standoff ended when one of the players cast a Scorching Ray without warning, which of course promptly turned into all-out battle.

In general, the biggest problem with running multiple concurrent campaigns in the same world is keeping the timelines in sync. It's a big problem when one group decides to take a month of down time while the other group goes on a series of three week-long adventures. Or when one group gets bogged down in a giant battle that takes 10 hours real world time to play through but just a few minutes in game, and the other is glossing over a week of traveling long distance through safe lands. You can ignore this if the two groups are sufficiently separated, but you're planning to have the two groups be each others' primary direct antagonists.

I can think of two possible approaches to resolve this issue: a) add some mechanism of indirection and separation, where anything either group is reasonably capable of will not affect the other until a significant time period later, accompanied by sufficient time pressure to avoid down time longer than that delay, and b) combine D&D game sessions with some other gaming, so a group that's waiting on the other group's effect on the setting can play something else while they wait. Ideally I'd say do both, have two DMs, and run the play sessions for each group simultaneously in separate rooms, with the DMs passing notes to each other as needed during the session.

[Threadnaught]

It's comments like this that make me feel like PvP has an unfairly bad reputation on these boards. It can be done well, and to a degree, every single one of my games has had pvp be a part of it, and my players loved the experience.

How so?

Unless you got the wrong impression, I'm unsure how you could come to the conclusion that I made PvP (by itself) out to be a bad thing.
Time skips, by running each session on different days in game would easily prevent continuity from crashing down, but if the Evil PC is to meat the Good PCs at multiple points and even fight them sometimes, then it automatically becomes bad by preventing both groups from interacting with one another.


My only issue with PvP here, is how Circa decided to DM a game with active PvP before me. I must do horrible things to his Pixie.

[Hiro Quester]

In general, the biggest problem with running multiple concurrent campaigns in the same world is keeping the timelines in sync. It's a big problem when one group decides to take a month of down time while the other group goes on a series of three week-long adventures. Or when one group gets bogged down in a giant battle that takes 10 hours real world time to play through but just a few minutes in game, and the other is glossing over a week of traveling long distance through safe lands. You can ignore this if the two groups are sufficiently separated, but you're planning to have the two groups be each others' primary direct antagonists.

I can think of two possible approaches to resolve this issue: a) add some mechanism of indirection and separation, where anything either group is reasonably capable of will not affect the other until a significant time period later, accompanied by sufficient time pressure to avoid down time longer than that delay, and b) combine D&D game sessions with some other gaming, so a group that's waiting on the other group's effect on the setting can play something else while they wait. Ideally I'd say do both, have two DMs, and run the play sessions for each group simultaneously in separate rooms, with the DMs passing notes to each other as needed during the session.

We are playing a game like that right now. Two DMs running four players each; passing notes between them. Sometimes everyone is together at the beginning or end of a session, but splitting into different "Away Teams" for separate missions. The composition of the team's changes each time, too.

Right now we are playing quite separately for four sessions or more, traveling different routes to a rendezvous point. The synchronicity problem is getting obvious,too. One group sent the other a message (using a feather token). But the other wont be athetoid toget itfor two weeks IRL time.

Fun tho.

[Circa]

I can think of two possible approaches to resolve this issue: a) add some mechanism of indirection and separation, where anything either group is reasonably capable of will not affect the other until a significant time period later, accompanied by sufficient time pressure to avoid down time longer than that delay, and b) combine D&D game sessions with some other gaming, so a group that's waiting on the other group's effect on the setting can play something else while they wait. Ideally I'd say do both, have two DMs, and run the play sessions for each group simultaneously in separate rooms, with the DMs passing notes to each other as needed during the session.

Unfortunately I don't really have anyone else I can trust to DM the way I'd like (since I'm more concerned about telling a good story than worrying too much about the mechanics) so I'm doing both sessions myself. I agree with the second idea though, and so I've decided on attempting this in two stages:

STAGE ONE
We have our Evil player beginning several weeks beforehand, in-game time as well as real life. This will give me time to get used to the feel of the world, and getting back into DMing as well. Once the Good players begin their campaign, I'll be operating on two time-lines and have the Evil player several days ahead as often as possible. Since this is an undead-heavy campaign, and my Evil player is also an undead (See: Necropolitan. Thanks Threadnaught for the original suggestion) and the Good players are living, Evil will be needing significantly less rest and I'll be setting missions up to keep her busy.

STAGE TWO
When it eventually gets to the point that my players are more or less interacting with each other on a regular basis, I'll be taking Douglas' suggestion and just running the two campaigns at the same time. I'll keep one group occupied with a board game or some video games while I run the other campaign in another room, and see if it works. Alternatively, I could see if the Evil player would accede to trying out combat online while I relay her moves to the other players.