Advice for Playing Same Campaign with 2 or More Groups At Same Time? Should I Make 2 Campaigns?

I have two sets of friends playing the same campaign. One bunch started today (mixed FtF and roll20). Interestingly, one of the other group who are not starting for a week or two, appeared on the screen. Working on his character sheet, I imagine. I'm wondering what other folks with 2 or more parties doing the same adventure have done. Do you recommend making copies of the campaign? Thanks for any thoughts/advice. -- Tim

Hi Tim, it's probably not the end of the world to copy/duplicate your game for separate groups... but it could be a hassle keeping things updated between games. Leverage the transmogrifier feature(Pro/Elite) to help copy things between your games.   BTW; anyone that's already joined a game should see that other's are actively in a game when opening the game's "Home" screen outside the game.  Active GM and players will include a little green silhouette indicator next to their roll20 Avatar if they are logged into the game.  Knowing this might help to keep other's out of an active game, but it will ultimately depend on the person seeing that the game is "in-session" and not log in. Example;

I would be concerned that  the actions of one group would affect the other. In my game the PCs sometimes revisit a location, so I need to keep a record of anything that they did to alter that location, like NPCs that are no longer present, new NPCs introduced, buildings or other objects altered, etc.. If I would be running more than one group, I would need to maintain both the altered and the original versions. That can get out of hand in a hurry. Keeping separate  games keeps the bookkeeping simpler. Account space isn't an issue because all of your games share the same art library.

I ran a 13th Age 2e play test where I used the same game for 2 groups of players, Americas & Oceania. I would not do it that way again, I’d use 2 games instead. It wasn’t the battle maps that were the problem, Map Folders made that a breeze. It was Scheduling the next session, which the Players found irritating & confusing. 

Thank you, Rick and Andrew. All important points.  I've just split the campaign into two.  -- Tim Rick A. said: I would be concerned that  the actions of one group would affect the other. In my game the PCs sometimes revisit a location, so I need to keep a record of anything that they did to alter that location, like NPCs that are no longer present, new NPCs introduced, buildings or other objects altered, etc.. If I would be running more than one group, I would need to maintain both the altered and the original versions. That can get out of hand in a hurry. Keeping separate  games keeps the bookkeeping simpler. Account space isn't an issue because all of your games share the same art library. Andrew R. said: I ran a 13th Age 2e play test where I used the same game for 2 groups of players, Americas & Oceania. I would not do it that way again, I’d use 2 games instead. It wasn’t the battle maps that were the problem, Map Folders made that a breeze. It was Scheduling the next session, which the Players found irritating & confusing.