I picked up the anniversary edition Runelords campaign and am starting it up with one group soon. In fact, I got so much interest, I have enough players for two campaigns, so that's what I'm doing.
While I could just run two versions of the Runelords campaign, I'd prefer to run Runelords plus one other Varisia-based AP so that I'd have the option of the characters bumping into each other, or hearing about each other. The question is then: which other AP?
Shattered Star is out since it's in the future and I may want to run it with the two groups after this current campaign.
I've done a lot of urban campaigns, so I'm a bit urban-ed out, thus I'm leaning towards Second Darkness over Crimson Throne. But Second Darkness has a mixed reputation. Is it really that bad? I've seen some ideas of mixing up some of the two APs. Does that work?
Thoughts?
The only problem with Second Darkness considering your plans for a parallel story:
In fact, that's where all the negativity surrounding Second Darkness comes from. It was poorly positioned, originally, as having a deep conenction to Riddleport and the surrounding region but that turned out not to be the case. It was an excellent example of expectation management not quite properly implemented. The actual writing and modules are really good. People were just disappointed from the bait-and-switch. If you play it as an actual Against the Drow campaign it works a lot better, but that may not help with your parallel story idea.
With that said, I'd go with Curse of the Crimson Throne. Keep in mind, only parts of it are urban. Modules Four, Five, and half of Six are not urban at all.