Thinking Big (maybe too big) ...

Ok ... two big ideas (big in terms of pulling them off) ... I'm posting this in part to solicit advice from anyone out there who might have done similar activities (or just has a decent idea). First idea involves RPGs, the second 40K. 

I've been toying with the idea of trying to do a linked RPG for a long long time ... its just something that has sounded very cool to me ever since conversation about it came up in one of the late night BS sessions in my old gaming group (probably nearly 10 years ago). I've never been able to pull it off though. Now that I've physically relocated from my old home (Las Vegas) to northern Utah ... and am in the process of re-establishing a gaming group and local gaming club ... conversation about this has come up again. I'm trying to think of ways in which this could be accomplished. 

Originally we talked about having two to four GMs coordinate a story arc that would be shared somehow between all of their groups. The GMs would talk on a weekly/bi-weekly basis (via phone, email, however) and update their games accordingly ... all the while revealing whatever was appropriate to their players. At some point there might even be occasion where players would do cameos in other groups ... or groups might even be able to engage in party vs. party conflict ... whether simply role playing ... or actual combat. We even talked about an ending involving gladiatorial combat, etc. (or just doing that for fun at the conclusion of the story arc ... and doing a little fun awards session, etc.).

I'm resigning myself to the fact that I'd probably have to do this via 4E ... as that is just the big system on the block these days and would be the easiest one to get multiple groups engaged in. Though in my mind  it would perhaps be even more interesting to try this with a sci-fi game of some kind ... Star Wars ... Dark Heresy ... etc.

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Ok Second Idea ...

A galaxy spanning Warhammer 40K campaign ...

In a similar fashion to the linked RPG campaign idea in the old epic BS sessions back in Las Vegas ... we talked alot about running some big 40,000 campaigns. We actually pulled off several successful mini-campaigns of between 4 and 6 sessions with anywhere between 4 and 10 players. But it was just games of 40K with an over arching storyline. Almost a round robin tourney if you will. Those were fun and we'll probably do those sorts of things still ... but I'm talking about a huge rolling campaign with a little more grit, and satisfying strategic complexity. We talked about coming up with an RTS style system ... nothing insane ... but a resource based system and doing a full on war that would involve intrigue, deception, resource management, etc. Our old idea was to form between 3 and 5 "teams"  or "factions" of players ... at least two people per team. The big concept here too was ... NO LAME ALLIANCES ... no Nids fighting alongside Necrons just for convienience sake ... no contrived Chaos manipulating Orks ... we wanted to do solid teams that would work with one an other by standard fluff ... again no contrived "well this one time in one short story in issue 82 of White Dwarf ..." type of crap. That is how most crappy store big games go ... and none of us wanted that kind of thing ... again the idea here was optimum fun and engagement for all of the players. We talked about keeping the teams even  ... but we even talked about having larger and smaller teams to emulate a stronger feeling of the 40K universe. For example larger Imperial, Ork, Nid and maybe even Chaos teams might be in order ... smaller Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Necron teams would be in order. 

We talked about running the campaign with a defined duration ... 20 turns or something (a turn representing each team taking their full group of actions ... whatever those might be). We talked about incorporating various GW 40K related games ... Necromunda/Kill Team/etc. BFG and perhaps even Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch (though the latter two systems didn't exist when we had these conversations). I know there are alot of campaigns out there on the net ... the Badab stuff, etc. etc. We were hoping to do something somewhat sleek and not too overly complex ... yet satisfyingly more than just a series of standard 40K games strung together.

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?