Dungeons and Dragons Joint-Campaign

[Pip Boy]

I've recently joined a new D&D group that had so many players, they've decided to split into two implementing an interesting mechanic. Both parties will be separately active within the same campaign, but one will be good and one will be evil. Over the course of the game, both parties will work towards opposite goals, eventually becoming aware of, and fighting with, each other. While I've never seen it happen, I'm sure that something to this effect has been done before somewhere. Does anyone have any idea what kind of extra prep and such should be done to manage a campaign of this odd style?

[Fenris]

I put a tag on this thread.

[Julford Hajime]

In the past I've been part of campaigns that became too big and split up, but it was always a main group (With the "Main" GM, the guy ultimately calling the shots) with a splinter group run by a secondary GM (Who would differ to the "Main" GM) that would accomplish side-things to help the larger group. The secondary group would feel more like a "Behind the scenes" look at the lives of extras in the plot, to be honest, though this seems to not be the case for your group.

I'm curious how the group is being run. Are the two groups running simultaneously (As in, one side of the room is the good alignment group with their DM while the other side of the room is the evil side with their DM)? Is it just one DM running the two campaigns at seperate times (ie Goodies meet Wednesdays, Evilites meet Saturdays)?

Honestly though it sounds like it's just two seperate campaigns being run concurrently whilst being able to piggy-back ideas and events from the other until the ultimate showdown between the two groups happens. Sounds fun, but I don't have much DMing experience so I can't imagine the horrors of setting up two campaigns at once (I can barely handle my group of three now >.>)

[Professor Smarmiarty]

You're biggest problem is that as soon as one group feels they have a distinct power advantage over the other group they'll try to hunt them down and kill them as the most efficient way to achieve their goals. Assuming the groups know about each other.

[Pip Boy]

We have two DMs that will each work with one of the groups (that meet at separate times, but thinking about it could be worked to play at the same time in another room for convenience if there is ever any group<-->group interaction) The DMs will frequently discuss with one another what is happening with their group, something that I believe they'll be pretty thorough about since they're best friends.

Our Evil Party: Will be a very small group (maybe 3 tops) of characters from a variety of expansions and source-books and prestige classes. So far we're looking at a beguiler and one of them was saying something about some kind of warlock thing from the Book of Vile Darkness.

Our Good Party: Is a larger group of mostly newer players consisting of vanilla classes. While they're a bit newer to D&D, their superior numbers, and probably also character levels, will give them a giant advantage in any direct combat confrontation unless the evil characters have managed to stage things ahead of time (traps, hirelings, etc) to rig things in their favor.

THE WORLD: A dark god waits slumbering in the ancient ruins of a city forgotten by time. Lately some disturbance has caused it to nearly stir from its eternal sleep, causing its evil... um... energy... darkness.. stuff... to make bad shit happen in general. Random monsters getting more aggressive, those few mad cultists who dare follow it being granted greatly increased power... It puts the world in a sad state of things. The good party is meant to venture into these ruins to discover the source of the disturbance and end it, returning the world to normal.

On the other side of the adventure, the evil team is traveling the world, trying to collect the four fragments of a "key" (actually more like a staff) that could be used during a specific cosmic event to awaken the slumbering god, and even grant the staff's wielder a portion of its power.

The good team will be supported by the lawful world, and so they'll have the advantage that they can get constant reports from any lawful organization that knows the activities and whereabouts of the evil team with a flick of their wrists. The evil party, on the other hand, is going to get nearly no support from any outside influence, and mostly will be trying to travel under the radar, avoiding detection if possible.

This makes the objectives and win condition fairly straightforward for each group.

The Good Party wants to reach the ancient city and discover the source of the disturbance. I'm not sure what that is, so there may be more for them to actually correct whatever that disturbance is. They have a great advantage in combat and they have the support of world governments and such.

The Evil Party wants to find all four quest items, then perform an evil ritual that will complete the staff thing and grant them giant super powers to take over the world with. If the good party corrects the disturbance in the ancient city first, they cannot complete the staff/the staff will have no power even if completed. The evil party will be forced into hiding and acting covertly, and will have the advantage of more political and technical skills (better at setting traps, finding backdoor contacts, persuasion - magical and otherwise) but will be less effective in a fight. This means that as a rule, if the good team ever catches up and a straight-up combat breaks out, its going to mean the evil team dies. The only way evil team can win in a fight is if they set a careful ambush where something works a load in their favor like having poisoned the good characters first or something.

EDIT: The good characters are meant to discover very early (first session) that some bad guys are up to something, but they're up to their own resources to track down the bad guys and find our more about them. The Bad guys will know more about the good guys, a ballpark estimate of their number and maybe a couple of their classes, but little else.

EDIT EDIT: Thanks Fenris, everyone seems to forget about those pesky tags.