Pretty cool idea (that I was sort of forced into developing): Parallel Campaigns

[Raiden333]

So I've been really interested in the Dresden RPG for awhile, but it was pretty unlikely that I was going to find anyone running a game for me to play, so I said screw it, I'll GM one. I've never GMed a tabletop RPG before, but I'm a quick learner and good at improvising, and it seemed like the players carry more weight in this system than in most RPGs, so I figured I could do it.

5 of my friends were immediately interested in playing, so I thought awesome, full party.

The night before our first meeting, one of my best friends lets me know he'd also like to play, so that brings us up to 6. Okay, getting a bit large, but I can deal with that.

Then the night of the first meeting, 3 people each bring a friend and say "Oh, I told him about the game and he was really interested, can he join?" without letting me know beforehand. I'm too nice of a guy to send people home, but 9 people is kind of ridiculous for a party, so I start thinking. Finally, I come up with a good idea that everybody loves:

We all did city/character creation as a big group, and the first game session (next week) will be basically a giant action scene involving all 9 of them. The resolution of that play session will reveal a couple different possible campaign leads, at which point the party will decide to split up to tackle both of them simultaneously. I'll be running 2 games a week, one with a group of 5, and one with a group of 4.

For major plot events and action scenes, I'm planning for the parallel campaigns to cross and having all of us meet at once and play together. Most of the players I'm GMing for play World of Warcraft, so I said "sort of like raids" and they were sold instantly.  

I love this idea, and so did my players. I'll be sure to update when we find out if it's a success or a catastrophe.

[sinker]

One of the issues I have seen with parallel campaigns is you can't always count on the players to come together at the same point reliably, so be prepared to deal with that one way or another. You can always play scene without half of them and then let the others find out the result of their non-involvement.

I have GMed a group of nine or ten before and it is possible to do well but I've been gaming (and GMing) for almost twenty years so I've got a bit of experience under my belt. One of the things you might be wary of is that large groups tend to get smaller sometimes so be ready to collapse the two groups back into one if necessary.

[newtinmpls]

Also - if it's really working as an ensomble thing, you might consider rotating DMs. When I was first introduced to DMing (low these many years ago) everyone wanted to "take a turn" so we had one world, and just rotated DMs. If someone didn't show, their characters just missed out or "where somewhere else".

[Wyrdrune]

reminds me of a mage: the ascension/vampire: the masquerade campaign i was hosting once. i had about 12 players, which were divided into two groups who had different plot threads working towards the same ending. unknowingly they often influenced the other groups environment and npcs.

the campaign hat about 30 single adventures, i think the mages had one or two more than the vampires. i think there were about 70-80 gaming sessions.

it was a nightmare to plan out and adapt during the game but i had a blast of a time.

[Kaldra]

i have done it before, for a pathfinder (dnd) group of 11. aye 11. just have built in snack time/waffle time ( its only waffle time if they earn it ) and be ready to fly by the seat of your pants often, and remember beyond here thar be dragons.

[Ren]

My upcoming game will have 8 players and we've already planned to swap GM's at some point in the future. I think I will be planning for the characters to to break up into groups of their own accord and some folks will likely be doing downtime to research or repair or craft so I figure it shouldn't be too difficult to manage.

[Raiden333]

unknowingly they often influenced the other groups environment and npcs.

I am so stealing this idea! Thanks.