D&D General DMs, how do you handle 'split party' situations?

[Swarmkeeper]

Does everything have to be a mystery? Yes, performing such a maneuver would be logistically harder. There are no win-win deals.

In my opinion, the sacrifice of one specific (but interesting!) possibility is worth increased information bandwith, cutting on time for recapping and redescribing what happened to the other players, and increased ability to make informed tactical decisions.

Agree with this. In a game where the party is seeking a goal cooperatively, I see no reason for players to obfuscate exploratory information for the sake of mystery or character agency or whatever. There are plenty of chances for characters to butt heads explicitly during social interaction, if that’s what the group wants.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I’ve been having a difficult time with this as a player. Having made a sneaky skill oriented character, he’s often wanting to sneak ahead and get intel. Sometimes the dm will say, “okay, let’s play this out” and I’ll shy away from it. Most on the meta level because I don’t want to waste other player’s time as I take the spotlight. It’s actually impacted my ability to play this character properly.

 

[TiQuinn]

If you're giving those who stay behind the scout's intel before the PCs would have it anyway, why bother with the scouting mission?

You're also denying the scout's player the agency to not tell the party everything, or to forget stuff, or to otherwise make errors in reporting be they intentional or otherwise.

Plenty of players are able to distinguish player knowledge from PC knowledge and personally, I find having players leave the table to be disruptive to the point of derailing the game any time that we attempted it in the past. Verisimilitude wasn’t worth the effort in that case.

 

[payn]

Plenty of players are able to distinguish player knowledge from PC knowledge and personally, I find having players leave the table to be disruptive to the point of derailing the game any time that we attempted it in the past. Verisimilitude wasn’t worth the effort in that case.

I actually find it more challenging and thus more rewarding when the entire party is present and has to act accordingly in character around such instances. I agree its disruptive and shows a lack of trust if you feel players cant be trusted with meta knowledge. Fortunately, not something ive had to worry about for decades.

 

[TiQuinn]

I actually find it more challenging and thus more rewarding when the entire party is present and has to act accordingly in character around such instances. I agree its disruptive and shows a lack of trust if you feel players cant be trusted with meta knowledge. Fortunately, not something ive had to worry about for decades.

Yeah, the attempts at keeping groups separated was something we did when we were kids and didn’t know how that’d impact the flow of the game.

 

[Lanefan]

Does everything have to be a mystery?

Ideally, yes; if it's a mystery to the character then it should also be a mystery to that character's player.

Yes, performing such a maneuver would be logistically harder. There are no win-win deals.

In my opinion, the sacrifice of one specific (but interesting!) possibility is worth increased information bandwith, cutting on time for recapping and redescribing what happened to the other players, and increased ability to make informed tactical decisions.

When that increased ability to make informed tactical decisions is coming from info the characters themselves don't have, something really feels off.

 

[Lanefan]

Plenty of players are able to distinguish player knowledge from PC knowledge

My experience is precisely the opposite: they can't keep it separate and either play using that knowledge or overcompensate in trying not to use it.

and personally, I find having players leave the table to be disruptive to the point of derailing the game any time that we attempted it in the past. Verisimilitude wasn’t worth the effort in that case.

If I-as-DM take a player aside to deal with something that player's character is doing, the often-useful side effect is that the rest of the players can get some out-of-game socializing out of the way meaning fewer interruptions during play.

 

[kermit4karate]

This is a tough one, but I usually just jump around the table. Everyone gets to watch what everyone else is doing. I also normally keep a lot of cards close to my chest though, conduct a lot of my rolls in secret, routinely tweak common creature abilities and stat blocks, adjust common spell effects, so no matter who's watching a scene, no one on the players' side of the table ever fully knows what's up.

For instance, even if one of the spectator players knows the textbook description of the D&D Teleport spell and blurts out that it works on "you and up to 8 willing creatures of your choice within 10 feet" to help another player who split from the party and is off on a scene by themselves, my players now know better than to bet their lives on the book descriptions. There's always an element of unpredictability in my worlds that I add precisely to create drama. I don't want anyone, particularly any low-level player, thinking that they know everything there is to know about kobolds and kobold society simply because they've got the official blurb memorized. As the DM, I create the world. I create the exceptions. The players are allowed educated guessing, where they "think" they know about things, just like I feel we do in real life.

 

[TiQuinn]

My experience is precisely the opposite: they can't keep it separate and either play using that knowledge or overcompensate in trying not to use it.

If I-as-DM take a player aside to deal with something that player's character is doing, the often-useful side effect is that the rest of the players can get some out-of-game socializing out of the way meaning fewer interruptions during play.

Our sessions are only three hours long once a week, so time at the table is more important for us.

 

[Maxperson]

I’ve been having a difficult time with this as a player. Having made a sneaky skill oriented character, he’s often wanting to sneak ahead and get intel. Sometimes the dm will say, “okay, let’s play this out” and I’ll shy away from it. Most on the meta level because I don’t want to waste other player’s time as I take the spotlight. It’s actually impacted my ability to play this character properly.

Have you talked about it with the other players? As I said earlier in the thread, my players are 100% fine with the scout going ahead of the group and getting the lion's share of the time. Whoever plays the scout doesn't have to feel bad at all. Maybe your group is the same way.