I'm in a position I'm sure most would be very happy to be in - too many players. Most of the players are willing to play every other week or so, and eight players is a bit too much.
So, it got me thinking about running two separate groups of four (every week, alternating which four), and every now and then weaving in the interrelated campaign so that they can 'shuffle' themselves into different groups of four.
I'd start with one major adventure, with all eight (suffering through the 'fun' of eight characters), and then end with an obvious division of equally important tasks, and have the group split up into the two arcs of the story. When they do meet up again, they could role-play what they've learned, and as they gain levels, we could even use magical communication (albeit delayed) to chat between the groups (or, heck, they could do so via e-mail, really).
My question becomes whether any of you have done this before, and/or how it went, what hurdles you hit, etc? I know time-keeping will be one of them, but quite frankly, if they designate a "meet-up" spot, if one group gets there days before the other, that's fine - it's bonus item creation time, or what-have-you. And I'm just imagining the extra layer of fun of having, say, the Sorcerer from group A switch with the Wizard from group B and knowing everything that happened in the A-track of adventures, but not what's been going on in the B-track... at least, until the others tell him.
It does also mean there'd have to be two healers, one for each group, heh. I've only got one person who enjoys being the Cleric (other than me). Ah well, that's what cohorts are for...
Any advice on 'concurrent adventure path' ideas would also be appreciated. I'm tempted to work in my 'Dagger Guild' stuff in the city base of the path(s), so that I can happily give those who return to the city early something to do...
i've been doing this for the past 8 months. it has worked surprisingly well. actually, i had an additional twist - group B knew of group A, but A thought it was the only group. early on we did challenge of champions and group B won by 5 points over A in second place - both did amazingly well. group A just thought the other group was an NPC team. i also do a newspaper, and there are always articles about what happens in adventures, and group B kept popping up, but A again just thought it was an NPC group. since they got more of the glory, though, A took a strong dislike to B. finally, just a few weeks ago, i set up a joint game. group B arrived early, and sat upstairs. group A got set up, then i had group B come down to join us and everyone's mouth on group A was agape. everyone loved it and we had a great session (although with too many people). i intend to have full group sessions one or two times a year, but otherwise keep them separate. i may steal your idea of switching teams at times though; that sounds fun.
My idea is take group A and have them work on recovering an artifact to defeat the great evil. Group B goes out and becomes the thorn in the great evil's side and lets group A get the arifact.
Another cool thing you could do is run some stealth mission if you want. Get both of the rogues together and let them run a side quest. Maybe do a part thick with undead and have the other cleric join up for a little.
I think it is a very cool idea. Make sure you got alot of paper for note taking.
i've been doing this for the past 8 months. it has worked surprisingly well. actually, i had an additional twist - group B knew of group A, but A thought it was the only group. early on we did challenge of champions and group B won by 5 points over A in second place - both did amazingly well. group A just thought the other group was an NPC team. i also do a newspaper, and there are always articles about what happens in adventures, and group B kept popping up, but A again just thought it was an NPC group. since they got more of the glory, though, A took a strong dislike to B. finally, just a few weeks ago, i set up a joint game. group B arrived early, and sat upstairs. group A got set up, then i had group B come down to join us and everyone's mouth on group A was agape. everyone loved it and we had a great session (although with too many people). i intend to have full group sessions one or two times a year, but otherwise keep them separate. i may steal your idea of switching teams at times though; that sounds fun.
That sounds awesome! I don't think I'd be able to keep one group unaware of the others - my gaming group is more than half made up of married couples. :)
But that sounds like a blast!
My idea is take group A and have them work on recovering an artifact to defeat the great evil. Group B goes out and becomes the thorn in the great evil's side and lets group A get the arifact.
Another cool thing you could do is run some stealth mission if you want. Get both of the rogues together and let them run a side quest. Maybe do a part thick with undead and have the other cleric join up for a little.
I think it is a very cool idea. Make sure you got alot of paper for note taking.
So far, the barest bones of the idea for me is to have it be an incursion of the Far Realms as the sweeping over-plot, with Aboleths in one corner trying to control the event, and Cultists of Tharizdun in the other, trying to subvert the event to free their god. The initial split would be at a fallen stronghold of the Cerulean Seal (from the Lords of Madness book), where the PCs learn of two places where the baddies are heading at the same time - some into the wilderness to another fallen fortress of the Cerulean Seal, and some into the city, to recover artifacts a local knightly order doesn't realize they even have. I'd like to delve a little into the long history of the various aberrations - they're not often 'done' very much, and I just think they're freaking creepy.
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somewhere online there is a really fun 2e adventure that is made for two groups, one good aligned and one evil aligned, which is a race to the center of the maze. In college (2 years ago) we converted it to 3e and had 2 groups of 6 each on different floors of our townhouse, the DMs communicating through IM to one another, and once the groups encountered each other, all the players came together - you think 8 people is a lot, try 15 (two groups of 6, 2 dms and a third "co-DM" to run notes between the groups that were too inflective to be effectively communicated over AIM. It was a really quirky adventure, the good group encountered some strange things in addition to the normal things: a giant snake in a poncho and sombrero and a Cadillac on blocks.
That sounds awesome! I don't think I'd be able to keep one group unaware of the others - my gaming group is more than half made up of married couples. :) But that sounds like a blast!
my wife was the only member of both groups. she did struggle with not saying the wrong thing to the wrong group - but we pulled it off.
somewhere online there is a really fun 2e adventure that is made for two groups, one good aligned and one evil aligned, which is a race to the center of the maze.
sounds a little like the idea behind the reverse dungeon too. always wanted to try that one....
I remember playing the Goblin part of the Reverse Dungeon and loving it.
I couldn't find the adventure for one good aligned and one evil aligned group, but I'll be honest, I can't stand evil aligned PCs, nor DMing for them.
I've managed to rough outline to about 7th level so far, and I'm thinking I might plumb the depths of my Dungeon collection to see if any adventures might leap out.
Do any of you recall Dungeon adventures with a high Aberration content?