> My more general question is -- surely other GMs have run into
> this situation before, running two groups in the same Glorantha,
> at relatively the same time? Any particular words of advice or
> commentary you might have would be appreciated.
I've done this in RQ before, and it may well end up happening in HW as well. My approach is to treat them as completely independent games, they even have divergent timelines. I know that's not what you want to do, but I think I have good reasons for it.
First off, maintaining two timelines is not hard. It's a lot easier than twice the effort of running one game, because you can still re-use a lot of background material if most off-stage events will probably work out pretty much the same way anyway.
Secondly any benefit you might get from having the same timeline is going to be overwhelmed by the synchronisation nightmare of running two groups in tandem in what is effectively the same campaign, especialy if you expect them to cross-polinate much.
Thirdly, making the two games independent gives you a lot more freedom. You don't have to run things the same way for both groups, so you can do 'what if?' variations and explore different possibilities in the two games.
Finaly, you don't have to maintain any chinese-walls between the players of the two games, and in fact players in one game can run characters in the other (should that prove desirable) without having to worry about it.
Having said all that, I can see the attraction of running multiple games in a common campaign setting, I just feel it's potentialy much more effort rather than less, and I like the freedom that keeping them seperate gives me.
Simon Hibbs
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