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Halceon
@Halceon

People talk about "West Marches" and "Adventurer's Guild" as formats for connected roleplay sessions where you have a changing group of players. And it works for people, I guess. Haven't been in one, because they usually are also DnD and I'm not a fan.

Here's another format to consider – The Global Response. Basically Xcom or Terra Invicta. There is a centralized threat that is coming in and creating issues, crises, direct harm or other things, and the Organization is responding to these. The assumption is that it is more or less a war, but for reasons (interplanar/interplanetary logistics; secrecy; the old seals are just starting to break) it's not an open-massed-armies kind of war (at least initially).

So the PCs go out, do a job, return with intel, spend their downtime figuring out the threat and their response, set new objectives and try to overcome the threat in the long run.


Pros:

  • A built in narrative direction, all sessions tie into the same ongoing goal
  • Can have direct conflict or preparation and recovery jobs, and maybe playing different systems for the different modes
  • It makes sense that people come and go – it's an explicitly harsh job that people might not be able to keep doing
  • Has a narrative endpoint

Cons:

  • It's a war story and that's easy to be uncomfortable with
  • Someone has to keep track of the larger situation, including maybe a strategic map, intel, research etc.

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in reply to @Halceon's post:

Yo this might actually be a perfect solution to the struggles we've been having with getting the whole group together for games most weekends! We are headed (in-game) to a pretty central hub/port city and once the party gets there, I may make a suggestion as GM to explore this format.

i do love the idea this and in particular the counterweight energy of it - Can even have two games going on in that sense

potentially a way to reflavour it as not being a war story too, perhaps for some other global threat that's dealt with in another way? Maybe with something of a monster care squad sorta game?

It could work. One of the things a war story comes with is a convenient excuse when a player drops out. Why did this character, who was integral to many things suddenly disappear? They got shot, war doesn't care about heroes.
But beyond that, it really doesn't need to be about a military conflict, just that it's a long term problem that many people can be mobilized to deal with, while also still being a special minority.