Hey y’all. This is my first post on… Google+, even? Sure.
I’m running my second campaign of Blades, and I’m about to run (currently) two groups in the same ‘consensus’ Duskwall. I only do faction clocks once for both groups: so for a random example, the Inspectors’ll be trying to pin down the smuggling routes of Fog Hounds in both groups if both tables tried to talk to them. I’m not planning for direct contact between the two crews, but more going for interesting reactions with how their actions ripple through the network. One group’s Thieves, the other’s Smugglers, and judging from how their Faction Statuses COMPLETELY contradict on 2 factions, I think they are destined to wind up competing against each other. Which is cool!
Any suggestions or comments? Has anyone else done this before? I’ve got a finger tapping on my lip for how I should handle the possibility of direct confrontations. Maybe wrapping that into entanglements or flashbacks? There’s always resistance rolls and maybe I can use the other group’s actions as some of my GM fuckery instead of making it up myself which’d be the case in other scenarios. I’m also considering what “Hold on lightly” says about rewinding and reconsidering events.
Interesting stuff, I’m prepared for it to fall to pieces and be unpleasant and terrible, and then we’ll pick up the pieces and fix it as we go along. And that’ll be okay.
I ran a 50+ session Apocalypse World series with two different groups in the same world (actually three groups at one point). It was tricky but really fun.
When it seemed inevitable that the groups would interact, we all went out for drinks and had a big talk about the games. The players decided to re-form new groups, moving some PCs around to explore new story threads.
Overall, it was amazing. Sounds like you have a good handle on how to do it! Good luck.
I have run the Unrecommendables in Duskwall for 10 sessions, as well as open table games and a very brief stint with my home table, all in the same city.
One thing that I think will be important to this effort is nailing down time a little better, but still letting it be loose. The nature of down time flexibility means in general you can stretch it to keep one group out of action while another is in play, or truncate it to give one group a chance to respond what another did, and keep the two downtime actions intact.
I assume down time is about a week as a base; there’s no effort to address that in the quickstart that I recall.
Anyway, I had no trouble slotting in open table one shot games into the Unrecommendables schedule, having the Unrecommendable activity give me ideas for how the Crow gangs would respond to threats that flared up or died down in the wake of my crew. Running crews simultaneously is a different animal, for there will be persistent issues and ongoing goals for multiple crews.
I originally planned to have separate Duskwalls, but my mind just wouldn’t partition that easily, and they all ended up in the same setting because that way they were generating hooks for each other.
Good luck!
The list of potential players for my weekly Blades in the Dark game is getting bigger, soon, I think, I might end up with too many for one group. Personally, my idea is to recruit another GM to run a second group truly simultaneously (like, we would be playing in the same pub on the same night) if it comes to that.
How I’d deal with direct confrontations, if they were to occur, would be to do what happens when any other two gangs go to war. Roll their Tiers and see who wins.