Request for DMing advice- split party!

[skinnydwarf]

So I am at a bit of an impasse with my group. The situation is, near the end of tonight's game, three of the five party members basically abandoned the party, and went off on their own.

Here is what happened: the players had been hired at the end of the previous game to escort a centaur and his servant to a village a little over a week away, since Orc raids had become more frequent along the roads that run by the mountains.

Nothing really happened the first day. They slept at a small village that night, most of them with the centaur in the stables, since they were supposed to be guarding him.

In the middle of the night, a ruckus was heard in the Inn. The inn keeper was being beaten for information about a boy named "Elkar." The PCs stopped this, taking care of the thugs with non-lethal means. They learned the "thugs" were men in the service of the local lord (Mahon), and Elkar was the son of a neighboring lord (Renthar), one favored to be the next king. (There is currently a dispute brewing over who will ascend to the throne, as the king and his heir were recently slain). They surmise that Mahon wants to hold Elkar hostage to keep Renthar from ascending to the throne, so he can do so himself.

So I thought this was an interesting sub-plot, and so did some of the players. The centaur NPC, their current employer, wanted to stay around the area and investigate for a day. Three players didn't want to, two did. There was some arguing over what exactly their contract was, and whether they should get extra pay for going along. Eventually the centaur said "fine, you who don't want to look around stay in town, the rest can come with me."

So while the centaur and the two players who wanted to investigate were investigating, the other players took the packhorse and all the supplies and left town, headed back to the monster lands to try and raise an Orc army.

I told them "well, I don't have anything planned for you guys now, so you can go home," then finished up with the other players.

Now my party is split, and I don't know what to do. I am thinking of just saying that those that left town simply are out of the campaign. I am baffled about why they did what they did. I've gamed with one of them since I started gaming, another for almost five years. They've never done anything like this before.

Any thoughts, advice?

 

[Ampolitor]

greed

how about as the party was leaving theye were captured by one of the soon to be kings guards or something like that. there is always a way to string them in, remember one thing, players are greedy and gold coins are always their downfall, try to always have a what if scenario to get them back on course.

 

[thalmin]

Try to give them a reason to return, nothing heavy-handed.

It sounds like the party has split, but really who split from who? It seems the party majority has decided to abandon what you planned, the other two left the party.

 

[Pbartender]

I've seen this sort of suddenly odd character behavior on occasion, and it usually means one of two things... Either the players are bored with the adventure, or they are bored with their current characters.

I suspect that the three players are a bit disappointed that the party's majority vote to not investigate the sub-plot was over-ruled by the NPC. From their point of view, they were trying to stick to the main goal of the adventure, and they got brushed off by the DM and (when they admittedly reacted poorly) were told to go home.

Looking at from the NPC's point of view, you must remember... The centaur has a goal too, and that goal is currently to get to a particular town under the protection of the PCs. Why should he want to stick around and delay his journey by investigating something that is better left to the local authorities? And why should he pay the PCs extra for something that isn't in their original job description?

Unless it's obviously an integral part of the campaign's plot, I'd either keep the NPC aloof in such a situation, or have him urge the PCs to stay the course.

So, what to do now?

I'd go talk to your three players out of game. Send them an email. Found out why they took off, and perhaps remind them that its a decidedly uncharacteristic thing for their characters to do. They might change their minds... Or you might. The important thing is to find out why they did it. Once you know that, a solution can be worked out.

 

[LostSoul]

Roll with it. Proactive PCs are great. All you have to do is come up with whatever makes sense for a group of non-orcs trying to raise an orc army.

So maybe they encounter some orcs and get into a fight ("I ain't talking wit' no weak human"). Eventually they find out where the camp is (through whatever methods they feel like using - tracking, diplomacy, magic) and then have them go through some hoops to get to talk with the chief.

But maybe the increase in orc raids has something to do with what's going on in the rest of the kingdom. Maybe one of those lords is paying off the orcs to raid along trade routes to make it look like that lord is weak and incompetant, as well as draining his resources so he can't make a play for the throne. Or whatever politics work for you.

Now the PCs talk to the orc chief after proving that they are worthy, and they see some human aide at his side. "What's that guy doing there?" Well, now he's trying to kill the PCs.

And now you have a whole new plotline just because the PCs decided to do something different.

Meanwhile, with the other PCs (make sure you cut back and forth often enough so all players get a chance to do something - and try to have combats occur at the same real time, so everyone is fighting like normal), just run through whatever you had planned.

 

[tarchon]

So I thought this was an interesting sub-plot, and so did some of the players. The centaur NPC, their current employer, wanted to stay around the area and investigate for a day. Three players didn't want to, two did. There was some arguing over what exactly their contract was, and whether they should get extra pay for going along. Eventually the centaur said "fine, you who don't want to look around stay in town, the rest can come with me."

So while the centaur and the two players who wanted to investigate were investigating, the other players took the packhorse and all the supplies and left town, headed back to the monster lands to try and raise an Orc army.

I told them "well, I don't have anything planned for you guys now, so you can go home," then finished up with the other players.

Now my party is split, and I don't know what to do. I am thinking of just saying that those that left town simply are out of the campaign. I am baffled about why they did what they did. I've gamed with one of them since I started gaming, another for almost five years. They've never done anything like this before.

Any thoughts, advice?

Easy - the orcs are actually the ones behind the Elkar plot. Just manipulate the clues to lead the small group back to the larger one. I do agree that this is probably a sign that the majority of the players don't like the direction of the campaign though. Let them follow their own way, and recreate the adventure around whatever it is that they're into.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I second what Pbartender said. You need to talk with the players, because from what you've outlined here, I'd guess that this is an out-of-game problem. Perhaps the three dissenters were unhappy with being overruled by two players. Perhaps they feel they are being railroaded. Perhaps they were merely being petulant because they feel they were basically excluded when they didn't want to follow the DMs subplot.

Whatever the reasons, talk with them, see if you can work it out with them out of game, because I truly believe that until you are right with your players again, you're never going to fix things in-game.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Kill them.

Players in my game know that you don't split up without good reason. Sure, this is, in part, a metagame thing, but they have learned over time, without me saying anything, that to separate for non-story reasons will see their characters die. Players have a duty to be fair to each other so that everyone can enjoy the game. That means playing as part of a group and, ideally, ensuring that the character CAN play as part of a group (otherwise they should go and play Baldur's Gate or similar).

Seriously, kill them. You won't regret it.

 

[skinnydwarf]

Kill them.

Players in my game know that you don't split up without good reason. Sure, this is, in part, a metagame thing, but they have learned over time, without me saying anything, that to separate for non-story reasons will see their characters die. Players have a duty to be fair to each other so that everyone can enjoy the game. That means playing as part of a group and, ideally, ensuring that the character CAN play as part of a group (otherwise they should go and play Baldur's Gate or similar).

Seriously, kill them. You won't regret it.

That was my initial reaction. But then I tried to think about why the players might have done what they did. I mean, I can see why they thought they might have been overruled by a minority, but that is not how I saw it.

The centaur is a retired adventurer, and the current employer of the party. He wanted to investigate, because he didn't want Mahon taking over the kingdom, since he doesn't think Mahon will be a good king. After he got over the fact that some of the guards he hired weren't with him on this, he was like, fine, stay here while I go do this. Some of the guards were with him, and he was ok with that. He wasn't too happy some of his guards weren't coming with him, especially considering how much he was paying them (1,000 GP each for a mere weeks journey), but figured that once he was done investigating, they would continue on.

It's not like the PCs got together and voted on what they were going to do, and the majority was outvoted. They were given a choice by their employer on whether they wanted to accompany him investigating the situation with the boy, some chose not too. It just happened that they were the majority. I didn't want to say "well, ok, he goes and does his thing and come back" becuase that was not fair to the two who wanted to investigate, so I was trying to play the investigation out, and hopefully it wouldn't take too long and we could get on to the next part of the adventure. But then the rest of the party split.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice, I'm sure it will help me figure out what to do.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Kill them.

Players in my game know that you don't split up without good reason. Sure, this is, in part, a metagame thing, but they have learned over time, without me saying anything, that to separate for non-story reasons will see their characters die.

Once again I'm reminded that though we all play the same game, we don't all play the same game. As a player I would never stand for this kind of DMing.

I didn't want to say "well, ok, he goes and does his thing and come back" becuase that was not fair to the two who wanted to investigate,

So it's not fair to the two players who want to investigate if you gloss over the details of that investigation, but it is fair to the three who don't, if you decide to just kill off their characters for not liking a plot hook? :\