D&D 5e Solo(ish) Urban Adventure?

As a result of this exchange I have been running a solo game for @theeyetyrant and I have been enjoying it a lot. I have created a city for his rogue to operate in and populated it with all sorts of NPCs and sprinkled it with adventure seeds. It's probably no masterpiece by any measure but as a first effort from this fairly new DM I'm actually quite proud of it.

An idea occurred to me today and I am sure countless others have thought of this before. What if I added another PC? Or several? Via sub-forums each PC would have their own solo adventure but it would be a shared setting. And city-wide events (or world-wide if/when I flesh out the world outside the city) would impact all. There might even be occasional PC to PC interactions/crossovers.

Too ambitious for a fairly new DM? Maybe. Any thoughts or interest?

Should probably post a sample from the prologue:

That sounds interesting
What level range did you have in mind?

Definite interest!

Hmm. I guess I didn't think this through. XD @theeyetyrant is playing at 6th level so I suppose it would be easiest to have everyone at the same-ish level.

This is a really cool idea. I'm running a similar one on one game for another member on here and I would be interested in playing in this.

I don't have much experience with 5e, more with PF and PF2, so I'd prefer a lower starting level, maybe around 3 but I can probably figure out higher if you prefer.

I like the idea, won't be able to participate unfortunately. I will say though, I ran an individual prologues for the PCs before they joined the main party like mini-solo quest, as you know (though half of the players disappeared during it). From that experience I can say that it feels more involved but at the same time it is kind of like running several games at the same time, which can get overwhelming.

I run a superhero game like this. Forums are public if you wanted to take a look.

Few words of advice from someone who has run many games like this over the years: magnificentfly is correct about it feeling like running multiple games as once. I would advise you to ease into it by adding one or two players at a time and waiting a month before adding more. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself and end up abandoning the game because you took on too many players.

I have avoided running this style game in a system like D&D because I am a stickler for continuity. I try hard to never give concrete dates for when events happen. Instead, I’ll say this storyline takes place in the summer. It helps to avoid continuity snarls and I can skip forward in time easily between stories if a character has fallen behind the others because of different posting rates. This is harder to do in D&D because healing and certain spells can be linked pretty closely to actual passage of time in game. So if you are bothered by minor continuity errors, you’ll have to play close attention and track the specific date each characters actions are taken place on rather than the general time period. Just something to keep in mind.

It is a really rewarding format though, and I highly encourage anyone to try it out as a player or GM.

Ambitious for a new DM? It sounds bonkers! You should definitely try it.

I'm at my limit or I'd be interested in your mad experiment.

Good point. Perhaps take one or two more into the parallel solo game, and see how it goes. Its easy to scale up, hard to scale down and it sucks to burn out

Thank you all for the interest and input! @MagnificentFly and @griffrpg, I will take your advice to heart. For now I think I will take in @runekyndig to start with. Perhaps down the line if I feel comfortable taking on more or maybe even with a co-DM situation I can revisit this thread.

@runekyndig I've got some sub-forum restructuring to do and will probably have to change the game title. I'll send you an invitation once that's accomplished. Thanks!

This sounds awesome. I don't have time right now to take on another game, but great idea!

If you have any more spots open up, I'd definitely be interested.

That's a super cool idea. I've been pursuing a solo game, but found other outlets for now, otherwise I'd beg for entry. I spoke with a solo-DM about a similar idea, concurrent solo campaigns where the players occasionally bounce off each other or must team up temporarily.

It sounds like a really fun campaign to be either a DM or a player, have fun!

I'm interested. Would there be restrictions on race and classes?

Would the other player be interested in a bounty hunter tracking them down as a story arc? Maybe something that leads to frenemies saving the world in the future or a persistent game of cat and mouse like spy vs spy?

I've DM'ed ancient.astronaut.64 in three games and play with him in one other. In my experience, his posts are engaging, full of character, and regular.

I have no hesitation in giving ancient.astronaut.64 my "no ghost" endorsement.

Thank you, Adam! I appreciate it!

@DeathB4Decaff and @Jomsviking thank you for tour interest but I have a full roster already. I will keep you in mind if/when I have space.