Advice on a two party campaign

[fictionfan]

I am thinking of running a two party campaign one party being the heros the other party being the villains. Thing is I'm not quite sure how to go about running it. Was thinking of maybe having the villains start on a higher level but when they die that's it well as if the players dies they can just roll up a new character.

Also looking for a co-DM to help me run this.

Also anyone have a good idea for a setting.

[Safarix]

I had to split up a large group due to changes in availabilities. We started out with 8, but then split it in 2 parties of 4. The major plot was the same, but each group investigated different regions.

The players really liked it and shared information by sending letters to the other group. On special occasions, the both parties would reunite for brief, but challenging encounters.

The only time I've heard of parties facing off against each other has been in a persistent game world. So basically the last campaign's characters are still up and about, but have taken on the roles of villains in their retirement. Running the parties concurrently in the way you suggest seems like it would be a challenge both conceptually and in the practical sense.

[Conshey]

I consider the best GM'ing I ever did was when I did exactly what you are thinking of doing. There is A LOT of things that can and probably will go wrong so you are warned.

First don't go with the co-GM thing this only makes it more difficult for you to control the situation in either session. Start the Evil game 3-5 sessions ahead of the Good. The evil party are your plot generators and thus need to be well established before the good guys begin. Also run the Evil game before you run the Good game

Evil Party Suggestions that worked for me:

I would suggest starting the evil group at minimum level 5 and choose carefully who you have in your group. Players that are inquisitive and inventive need to be in your evil group because they need to create plot around then rather than react to it. With that in mind encourage the this group to take leadership type feats and abilities, having a healthy amount of NPC's between the evil group and the good allows you to control the plot on both ends, and also provides mini bosses for the good party.

Enchanters/Telepaths, Necromancers, and Diplomacy masters all make amazing plot generators. Also having a high skill and a high combat characters as guardians and scouts is a great idea.

Encourage the evil group to plot against the world as well as each other, this creates tension, story, and intrigue within the party so they don't get bored.

Good Party Suggestions that worked for me:

More direct action players need to be filtered into this group as they really are bad at being 'bad'. Allow them to here about the deeds of the evil group and even have them interact with the NPC minions that the evil group controls. Don't be afraid to allow the evil group manipulate the good as this is a really common plot arc. The good group is fairly generic when you run it so there isn't much more to say.

Other Advice:

Use NPC's as buffers between the two parties, try to have in game time between both sessions be similar and run them side by side. For example the midsummers day festival needs to happen in the same week for both parties. For greater interaction don't hesitate to bring 'guests' into the good parties session as the need arises. Having a guest evil boss appearance can be exciting for both parties, but I wouldn't have them square off in combat on the first go (of course this isn't always your choice). The evil players needs to be powerful enough to encounter the good party solo and be able to escape.

You'll find that the evil group will begin to be the major source of content for you good party after a while, and that other than managing the army of NPC's that you'll need, that running games becomes simpler as the antagonists are not controlled by you.

I really hope that this helped you and I wish the best of luck to you.

Edit: Forgot to add this, I used my own homebrew world for this as it was far less complicated to 'keep the flavor of the world' so to speak. With that in mind your world needs to be robust, your evil group will shake it to it's very core if they are doing it right.

[Calybos1]

You're not planning to have the evil group directly oppose the good group, are you? Player versus player is a shortcut to armageddon.