So, in the next few months, some college friends of mine are considering having me as a DM for a 5E campaign, while one of them takes a break from being the DM himself to work on tweaking the home-brew system he'd developed, and even though it will be my first time DMing, I am planning on adding a unique twist to the campaign.
You know how some campaigns have NPC adventuring parties that they may encounter, sometimes even rival adventuring parties? I was thinking that each player would control two characters, with one character a member of one adventuring party, with the other one a member of another adventuring party. Both parties would undoubtedly be connected somehow, at least in terms of the problem/conflict that is given to the players. I was thinking that if the parties were opposed, such a mechanic would provide a sense of drama, tension, urgency, makes in-universe conflicts feel more involved and "real," and even if the parties were not necessarily strictly speaking opposed to one another, but approach a problem with very different methods, it would provide a neat sense of dualism in the campaign's thematic elements.
To help answer this question, I provided a poll, but I would really appreciate it if you would leave a post giving a detailed explanation for your answer and the reasoning behind it.
Also, if you have any campaign story and plot ideas where this mechanic can work, I would love it if you were to leave a post giving a detailed explanation for them.
I think you'd need to discuss this with your - now de facto co-DM.
I can see it being much easier to share a campaign setting - with the two Parties being in different parts of the worlds, and - maybe - working toward a joint story-line. I can see there being complications with you and the other DM trying to coordinate story lines, but being restricted how much you can share, since each of you would be players in each other's story lines. Seems very tricky, and prone to mis-communication.
That would be where I'd recommend starting, at least: shared world, completely separate story lines, maybe working toward a multi-party joint story-line.
Especially as "it will be [your] first time DMing" - start as simple as you can away with until you get your comfort level up, and them maybe start steering the adventures toward the other party.
Don't get me wrong - it's a cool idea if you could pull it off! But there are some advanced collaboration and story-line management "gotchas" inherent in the idea.
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At one time I tried to run two groups on the same continent with the idea of overlapping stories.That is a LOT of work and creates some interesting problems of it's own. I had inconsistencies that would crop up because one party would do something that completely invalidated what the other group was trying to do. It would have been fine if the second party wasn't already in the middle of that particular story instance. There were paradoxes that popped up and there were plot holes that became gaping chasms. That said, it was still a lot of fun while it happened. I decided, instead, to try again only run the two groups in different time periods. One group existed decades before the other group. This way I could use the actions of one group to alter what was happening in the other without causing problems in the story for either group.
The idea you present is interesting and, if it works, could be very complex. Beside the issues of story cohesion, I worry about your players being able to separating the two characters. If a player knows that Rygal was doing work for the Bishop of Craghelm, and now his other character Ilian is on a mission to assassinate the Bishop...well that one player can use his meta knowledge to great effect. It's hard to have information and pretend you don't, as a 30+ yr DM it's hard for me not to know the stat blocks of most of the monsters when I'm a player.
I have done it. I had the players running 2 characters and I would use them them at different times in the game or have them played in different sessions. All working towards the same goal. Its a pain in the ass but can be loads of fun. Another setup I had going was running two games in the same world with two separate groups of players. One group was evil and the other good. They had a goal to reach in the game that was only obtainable to the group who got there first. Ill spare you the details but it was fun while it lasted. The issue I ran into that was started by one of the players. He felt that as a DM and having my wife in one of the groups I would favor that group. In all reality I could care less what side won. This sparked other concerns from others like why spend all of that time playing only to end up losing. This was something I had made clear when the whole idea came up. That one group would fail. I spent a good amount of time trying to keep the game as balanced as possible. Once a group felt that they were getting to far behind they just sort of gave up even though I had made ways for a group to get caught back up if they got to far behind. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted.
We've tried this a few times with varying success. One friend ran a chronomancer-type homebrew campaign in which the parties were working toward the same goal but one was sent far into the past...we think it might have worked, but one of the groups lost almost all of the players pretty soon after we started, and it fizzled.
I'm running one now set in Neverwinter (soon migrating from the 4E campaign guide to the 5E material), and a coworker has been running an even longer Forgotten Realms campaign...her character in my campaign is the twin sister of my PC in hers. It's mostly the same players in both worlds, and it's tied together enough to make a fun story without demanding too much coordination or consistency. Someday we'll arrange for the two parties to meet and they'll all have to talk to themselves.
I've done it like with some one shots, in a way kind of similar to what Viggen was saying. I'd have the regular party doing its thing, chasing after some macguffin or another. Then when only a couple people could make it to a session but we still wanted to play, I did a one-shot of them in the distant past, deciding the macguffin was too powerful and finding a way to hide it. Then when we returned to the regular campaign, it helped flesh out the story of why it was where it was. And I let them know that if they'd failed in the one-shot, it would be more difficult for them to find it in the regular campaign, so there would be consequences.
As far as having two parties working at the same time in the same world, I'm not sure why you'd do that. It would be a lot of work for you. It would give the players some meta-world knowledge, as others have said. And I'm not sure what the up side would be, except maybe letting them try out multiple character concepts. I'm also not sure why it would add much tension or urgency to encounters. It might even remove tension since they know if they fail, they've got another try coming with their other characters. Worst case, the players could even decide they like one group better and just not try/be bored when they were acting as the other party.
If you really want tension and urgency, provide a compelling villain that the characters (and players, even) really want to beat, and give the players a deadline to beat said villain.
I like the idea. It wouldn't be too much work. Both parties would be interacting in the same locations, with the same NPC's and story, except on opposing sides. Each session could switch between one group and the other, which gives plenty of time for you to figure out how the group's actions during one session will set the story for the other group in the next session.
You would have to add some sort of element that would prevent each group from interacting with the other directly. Without it, the story would quickly result in the two parties simply hunting each other down and killing each other by the time they hit level 3. If my experience as a DM has taught me anything...
It would also provide some great opportunities for players to use some of the more abstract mechanics, like divination, against each other.
It sounds so much fun. A game that could reflect the idea is Fire Emblem Echoes, Shadows of Valentia. I didn't like it much, but the idea of seeing the accomplishments and how the other group has changed the world is fun. Especially getting to use even more unused characters.
It's an interesting idea, but it does require double work, and will also slow down character progression and storyline development for both parties. If you play weekly then you can probably run it fine, but if your group only plays once per month or so then I feel that character progression would slow to an unsatisfying crawl.
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So, in the next few months, some college friends of mine are considering having me as a DM for a 5E campaign, while one of them takes a break from being the DM himself to work on tweaking the home-brew system he'd developed, and even though it will be my first time DMing, I am planning on adding a unique twist to the campaign.
You know how some campaigns have NPC adventuring parties that they may encounter, sometimes even rival adventuring parties? I was thinking that each player would control two characters, with one character a member of one adventuring party, with the other one a member of another adventuring party. Both parties would undoubtedly be connected somehow, at least in terms of the problem/conflict that is given to the players. I was thinking that if the parties were opposed, such a mechanic would provide a sense of drama, tension, urgency, makes in-universe conflicts feel more involved and "real," and even if the parties were not necessarily strictly speaking opposed to one another, but approach a problem with very different methods, it would provide a neat sense of dualism in the campaign's thematic elements.
To help answer this question, I provided a poll, but I would really appreciate it if you would leave a post giving a detailed explanation for your answer and the reasoning behind it.
Also, if you have any campaign story and plot ideas where this mechanic can work, I would love it if you were to leave a post giving a detailed explanation for them.
I think you'd need to discuss this with your - now de facto co-DM.
I can see it being much easier to share a campaign setting - with the two Parties being in different parts of the worlds, and - maybe - working toward a joint story-line. I can see there being complications with you and the other DM trying to coordinate story lines, but being restricted how much you can share, since each of you would be players in each other's story lines. Seems very tricky, and prone to mis-communication.
That would be where I'd recommend starting, at least: shared world, completely separate story lines, maybe working toward a multi-party joint story-line.
Especially as "it will be [your] first time DMing" - start as simple as you can away with until you get your comfort level up, and them maybe start steering the adventures toward the other party.
Don't get me wrong - it's a cool idea if you could pull it off! But there are some advanced collaboration and story-line management "gotchas" inherent in the idea.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
At one time I tried to run two groups on the same continent with the idea of overlapping stories.That is a LOT of work and creates some interesting problems of it's own. I had inconsistencies that would crop up because one party would do something that completely invalidated what the other group was trying to do. It would have been fine if the second party wasn't already in the middle of that particular story instance. There were paradoxes that popped up and there were plot holes that became gaping chasms. That said, it was still a lot of fun while it happened. I decided, instead, to try again only run the two groups in different time periods. One group existed decades before the other group. This way I could use the actions of one group to alter what was happening in the other without causing problems in the story for either group.
The idea you present is interesting and, if it works, could be very complex. Beside the issues of story cohesion, I worry about your players being able to separating the two characters. If a player knows that Rygal was doing work for the Bishop of Craghelm, and now his other character Ilian is on a mission to assassinate the Bishop...well that one player can use his meta knowledge to great effect. It's hard to have information and pretend you don't, as a 30+ yr DM it's hard for me not to know the stat blocks of most of the monsters when I'm a player.
I have done it. I had the players running 2 characters and I would use them them at different times in the game or have them played in different sessions. All working towards the same goal. Its a pain in the ass but can be loads of fun. Another setup I had going was running two games in the same world with two separate groups of players. One group was evil and the other good. They had a goal to reach in the game that was only obtainable to the group who got there first. Ill spare you the details but it was fun while it lasted. The issue I ran into that was started by one of the players. He felt that as a DM and having my wife in one of the groups I would favor that group. In all reality I could care less what side won. This sparked other concerns from others like why spend all of that time playing only to end up losing. This was something I had made clear when the whole idea came up. That one group would fail. I spent a good amount of time trying to keep the game as balanced as possible. Once a group felt that they were getting to far behind they just sort of gave up even though I had made ways for a group to get caught back up if they got to far behind. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted.
We've tried this a few times with varying success. One friend ran a chronomancer-type homebrew campaign in which the parties were working toward the same goal but one was sent far into the past...we think it might have worked, but one of the groups lost almost all of the players pretty soon after we started, and it fizzled.
I'm running one now set in Neverwinter (soon migrating from the 4E campaign guide to the 5E material), and a coworker has been running an even longer Forgotten Realms campaign...her character in my campaign is the twin sister of my PC in hers. It's mostly the same players in both worlds, and it's tied together enough to make a fun story without demanding too much coordination or consistency. Someday we'll arrange for the two parties to meet and they'll all have to talk to themselves.
I've done it like with some one shots, in a way kind of similar to what Viggen was saying. I'd have the regular party doing its thing, chasing after some macguffin or another. Then when only a couple people could make it to a session but we still wanted to play, I did a one-shot of them in the distant past, deciding the macguffin was too powerful and finding a way to hide it. Then when we returned to the regular campaign, it helped flesh out the story of why it was where it was. And I let them know that if they'd failed in the one-shot, it would be more difficult for them to find it in the regular campaign, so there would be consequences.
As far as having two parties working at the same time in the same world, I'm not sure why you'd do that. It would be a lot of work for you. It would give the players some meta-world knowledge, as others have said. And I'm not sure what the up side would be, except maybe letting them try out multiple character concepts. I'm also not sure why it would add much tension or urgency to encounters. It might even remove tension since they know if they fail, they've got another try coming with their other characters. Worst case, the players could even decide they like one group better and just not try/be bored when they were acting as the other party.
If you really want tension and urgency, provide a compelling villain that the characters (and players, even) really want to beat, and give the players a deadline to beat said villain.
I like the idea. It wouldn't be too much work. Both parties would be interacting in the same locations, with the same NPC's and story, except on opposing sides. Each session could switch between one group and the other, which gives plenty of time for you to figure out how the group's actions during one session will set the story for the other group in the next session.
You would have to add some sort of element that would prevent each group from interacting with the other directly. Without it, the story would quickly result in the two parties simply hunting each other down and killing each other by the time they hit level 3. If my experience as a DM has taught me anything...
It would also provide some great opportunities for players to use some of the more abstract mechanics, like divination, against each other.
It sounds so much fun. A game that could reflect the idea is Fire Emblem Echoes, Shadows of Valentia. I didn't like it much, but the idea of seeing the accomplishments and how the other group has changed the world is fun. Especially getting to use even more unused characters.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
It's an interesting idea, but it does require double work, and will also slow down character progression and storyline development for both parties. If you play weekly then you can probably run it fine, but if your group only plays once per month or so then I feel that character progression would slow to an unsatisfying crawl.