I'm going to be starting to GM two different groups this fall, and they're interested in adventuring in the same persistent world, and have their actions affect the other group (mainly indirectly). The world has elements of Eberron (no Good/Evil alignments, skyships, trains, some guns, etc.) and the Wild West (most of the game for group or the other will take place on the Frontier, and the politics associated with that). I will also not restrict them to a specific place, and am willing to let them roam as they please: "Let's go be pirates!", "...OK!", etc.
One of those groups is made up entirely of girl gamers (at their own request), and will have several first-time players. They want to have a light-hearted game style, lots of swashbucklery and monster-hunting and getting into minor trouble with the law.
The other group will be made up mostly of guys, and generally look for a darker, more dangerous style of story. Our last game was quite dark in terms of the forces faced, such as Old Gods that harked to Lovecraft and Mignola's Hellboy.
Players in these groups are friends, and have played together very successfully before. We're all friends, so I doubt either group is looking for a PC vs PC world, but I do think they want to still have that interaction between them, by dint of their actions in the game.
What suggestions do you have for story and world elements that can be altered from one session to the other by what each group is doing? I was thinking bounties could be collected or set by one or the other (one group getting paid to take out the others' enemies) or they could hear tavern-tales of the the other groups' exploits in other parts of the world. What sort of things do you suggest? And what sort of things would you have liked to see if you were playing in a game like this?
As to ways that the characters can effect each other...
Tavern Tales, or some variant, is the simplest. If the party is in a place or situation that they are generally picking up 'news of the day', then throwing in various tidbits from the actions of the other group can make sense....does your world have newspapers? With Lightning Trains and Skyships, printing presses seem thematically appropriate, and a newspaper can be a great startup point for sandbox-style games. Since a newspaper always needs filler, some of that can be inspired by the groups.
Another option is price fluctuations. Did group a just stop (or start) some piracy? This can impact the price of some of the items in game, "Now that those bandits what were robbin' the Lightning Train are gone, I got a slew of those in stock. 10% off this week only."
Third is guest shots. If this is a game where 'downtime' happens occasionally, a person from Group A may find themselves in the same area as Group B, and pop in for a session, providing an adventure hook or piece of expertise (or interesting background knowledge) that is otherwise unavailable to Group B. If these happen 2-3 times per year, the groups can kind of get to know each other, even if they rarely meet.
BTW, Eberron has all the alignments of any standard D20 world, the impact on clerics however is much less due to the corruptibility of the churches.
Yes, sorry about that. I parsed my sentence poorly. I meant to say that there were lightning rails and skyships, and that also there was no alignment systems.
Sounds like a fun idea - just be careful that rivalries don't get out of hand. As for ideas:
*The infamous tomb/dungeon. Have central location of interest, which each party may investigate for different reason, but leave clues as to group #1's presence for group #2 to find, etc.
Perhaps there's an artifact that group #1 has been hired to find, and group #2 gets it in their delving instead. Then they have track it down, but group #2 sells it and group #1 finds it in a curio shop instead somewhere else.
*The faction game. Have a each group wind up working for a different faction/organization on the frontier - maybe a politcal force or a church. While not necessarily hostile all the time, they may find themselves working at cross purposes on a project.
One group may have to clear a mine or dam site of monsters or bandits, etc for the local government. Once they do so and move on, the other group is hired by a nature cult to blow up/close the mine or dam. Therefore, the first may later find that the project they worked on was for naught, and ask why.
Just some thoughts.
Since both of those groups aren't looking for a PC vs PC encounter, you should be mostly fine.
Since you're allowing them to roam as they wish, you could also do the same for the monsters they encounter.
- Light-hearted group slays a bunch of monsters that were threatening a nearby township.
- Darker group stops a cult who was having trouble with their objective because the promised reinforcements (said bunch of monsters) did not show as their lord/ally/oracle promised.
Don't forget to have the massive "group meet for the slaying of the ultimate evil" at the campaign's end! =3
Dudemeister, that's a great idea, especially for the girl's team. The boys are going to be doing a bunch more skulking and sneaking, but the idea of having them interact through NPC's is great.
Also, there are newspapers. So they'll hear about each other if one of them does something particularly awesome.
If any of you gentlemen (or women) were playing in this game, what sort of things would you like to see as ripples of effect from one party to the other?