I bring you all into my hypothetical situation.

(Somewhere in Nevada) GM Adam is running a game of Ascension (remember, Adam, Ascension) for Inquisitor Isaac and his Throne Agents. Inquisitor Isaac decides it's time to recruit some Acolytes to do some dirty work for him, so he spends the XP and takes the advance.

(Meanwhile, somewhere in Delaware) Derek is about to start running a game of Dark Heresy (remember, Derek, Dark Heresy) for a group of Acolytes.

(Back in Nevada) GM Adam has stayed in contact with his old college buddy Derek. During one of their semi-regular conversations, Derek happens to mention that he is about to start running a game of Dark Heresy. GM Adam has a great idea; why doesn't Derek run the cell as if they were under Inquisitor Isaac? The Acolytes would receive mission orders from the Inquisitor to do something he is either incapable or does not want to do.In essence, the following happens (as an example).

Inquisitor Isaac decides that he needs his Acolyte team to frame the planetary governor for some heresy so that Isaac can step in, condemn him, and take control of the production facilities there. So Inquisitor Isaac sends word to his Acolytes. Meanwhile, GM Adam tells GM Derek that the Inquisitor of the Acolytes has an assignment for them, and the two of them discuss what this will entail, what obstacles the Acolytes will face, what other variables are present, etc. GM Derek then runs the mission with his players and then one of the players submits a report to their Inquisitor when it is complete. The Inquisitor, satisfied or otherwise with his Acolytes, acts accordingly....

You may now step out of my hypothetical. Thoughts?

Quite a few people had the idea of running Deathwatch this way: Play Dark Heresy as an investigative game and switch characters once the big guns are requested.

Cifer, I think you misunderstood Daemyn. The concept here is that two (or more) different groups of players act according to a common, shared storyline, ran by GMs who coordinate the events amongst themselves. Which I think is a brilliant idea, especially since it puts a lot more randomness into the game. For instance, your NPC Acolytes might get the job done with a good roll or two, while the PC Acolytes might turn the planet in question totally upside-down. There's much fun to be had in this concept, although it also presents a lot of pitfalls, such as the Inquisitor (in L.A.) punishing his Acolytes (in N.Y.C.) might not sit well with the players of the punished Acolytes.

Anyhow, if a good system can be elaborated to run such games (main GM who puts together the story and acts as Lord Inquisitor, a mailing list for GMs, another for Inquisitors etc.), it could create a whole new experience for players in these groups. If several groups participate in such a coordinated gameplay, it could create a living-breathing Warhammer 40.000 world for them.

I understood it all-right and merely wanted to shed light on a related concept.

Hi,

I'm already doing something similar to the OP, but I've taken it down a step.

I started a DH campaign a good 2 years ago and its been ticking along ever since. Then 4 months ago one of my players asked if run a second group for his dnd group, which I agreed to.

When coming up with the second group's campaign I decided that they would be working for the same inquisitor as my irst group, and be part of the same over-all campaign.

The idea is working (and now the main group has ascended the inquisitor is looking to 'borrow' one of his old inquisitors cells) but the problem is one of timiing. As I GM both group keeping them on the same plot isn't a problem, the problem is one group plays in-frequently and the other group plays regularly. This hasn't caused any 'lag' related issues yet as the two groups are on different planets in different sub-sectors, but if you are trying to run groups a little closer together in-game this might be a bigger problem.

Just my thoughts.

Surak

Both groups being on the same planet would definately cause a problem I think, but that should also be easily enough remedied; one big playing session!

As to punishment, I've seen that handled very well in group I've been in and I think it could be done, but also could be a stumbling block. It would likely tick the Acolytes off if the Inquisitor just sent them on a suicide mission with no chance of success (though their GM could run the mission and have it not be suicidal and actually very informative), but if the Inquisitor's wrath was a little more in-character I don't believe that's what he would do. Well, perhaps if they really badly screwed up. But more often than not the Acolytes do a really good job but make one bad decision, someone's name they shouldn't, something simple like that. In those cases the Inquisitor is not likely to send his valueable team he has spend time and money recruiting to the death, he will likely send them on a less desirable mission (staking out a cult, researching a xeno culture in a data-library) where the GMs could work in a chance for redemption (during the stake out the second in command of the cult shows up and gets captured by the Acolytes, or the research yields information on a pattern of incursions by said xenos, and the Acolytes then move to stop the invasion.

However, this could all be avoided by not letting either group know they are intertwined with another group (though I think it's way more fun knowing you have real people who you can count on instead of a set of dice).

Both groups being on the same planet would definately cause a problem I think, but that should also be easily enough remedied; one big playing session!

You mean "both groups being in the same town block" - being on the same planet won't be a problem at all as there's only a theoretical possibility of meeting if the plot doesn't require it. Although there's a tendency among writers to let planets replace towns in narrative function when it comes to SF, few things could be further from the truth. A planet doesn't become any smaller just because there are several of them. In fact, resisting the temptation of engaging in the "planet of the week"-syndrome a la Star Trek will generally yield a much more detailed and rich setting.

As an added benefit, you could easily rig up a chat conference between the acolyte player group and their 'handler' during game time if the other player has nothing to do at the time so the acolyte group can directly relay their findings and receive new orders.

Sounds like fun, but I would be worried that the two groups might get badly out-of-sync time-wise.