do anyone ever try to GM two games a the time.

don't get me wrong, i mean you can GM two different games a the time, what i mean is if you can GM two games a the same exact time, in the same room, with two different groups IN THE SAME UNIVERSE, they may even meet or fight each other, and group 1 actions affect group 2 and vice versa. no body have ever try that right?

This was done before, though more commonly in PbP.

I did it once for a face to face battletech game and never will do it again. Two merc companies facing off against each other I had over a half a dozen maps to let the attacking force to choose their path from and laid the terrain on the table then I allowed the defending forces to choose their placements and where to setup their limited static defenses. After that it was just a matter of letting the attacking force place their mechs on the edge of the table and have the game go. Lots of rping went on as the battle raged. Characters were lost, mechs were scrapped, the defending force showed how a smaller lighter mech company can beat a heavier tonnage mech company if they use teamwork and proper use of terrain.

Pat S. said: I did it once for a face to face battletech game and never will do it again. Two merc companies facing off against each other I had over a half a dozen maps to let the attacking force to choose their path from and laid the terrain on the table then I allowed the defending forces to choose their placements and where to setup their limited static defenses. After that it was just a matter of letting the attacking force place their mechs on the edge of the table and have the game go. Lots of rping went on as the battle raged. Characters were lost, mechs were scrapped, the defending force showed how a smaller lighter mech company can beat a heavier tonnage mech company if they use teamwork and proper use of terrain. looks like fun

I can see how if you did there would be a lot of juggling involved, but yes eventually it would be cooler to tie them both together at some point and just have a battle royal or have them work together on some large task. Hell, you could even divide them up to where some are on one party, and the rest are on the other to go after separate quest items. That way the whole party doesn't meet each other at the same time, but both get an idea of the others, just not a full picture. 

Some game systems would work for this better than others.  You generally want rules light systems to facilitate large groups (or two different groups at once).  But BattleTech... man, I can't even imagine how long it must have taken to resolve two different groups of MechWarriors duking it out.  8O I've never tried it, myself, other than a Star Frontiers PbP some years ago, where I had several groups going at the same time.  You can manage that easily enough with PbP, though.

Jason W. said: But BattleTech... man, I can't even imagine how long it must have taken to resolve two different groups of MechWarriors duking it out.  8O It was an all day event (12hrs) where I pitted my two battletech groups (almost 30 people total) against each other. There was lots of trashtalk between the groups as it was assume there were open comm channels being listened to but for private communications, it was pass notes (which could be stolen or lost) or step out of the game store. I had 3 other people helping me referee the game and it was still a bear to run. The game store loved it as everyone there was buying stuff and as word spread about this massive battletech game running, it pulled gamers in to see what was happening. I had people asking to join the game so I just assigned them planetary defense vehicles. It was all pre-clan stuff so it was house employed mercs vs another house employed merc. Nothing was custom but straight out of the books. The end result was everyone having a good time while mechs were damaged, vehicles blown up, characters were killed or taken as p.o.w. to be ransomed at a later date. It was not a run full tilt with PPC blazing till they melt type of game as this involved everyone's characters which they have grown attatched to over the proceeding two yrs.

That's awesome, Pat.  I envy your players.  I've always loved old school BattleTech, but anything more complex than lance on lance play confounds me and I always found the MechWarrior RPG's too complex- so I've never GM'ed a campaign.  I'd really covet being a player in a 3025 era game like that, though.  8)

I hated the Mechwarrior system so we used Gurps instead. We found out that doubling the Battletech modifiers worked almost perfectly with Gurps. I haven't ran anything Battletech since the early to mid-90's (pre-clan) but I was heavy into the miniature battles during that time.