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

[Lanefan]

Nothing the thread necromancy here (4 year old thread).

I will echo this. I think the little bit of players having to not use info they learn for their own roleplay is far less of an issue than players bored because they can't even sit at the table and listen to what's going on.

I find they often can't - or won't - separate the info, and will instead do one of two things:

--- blatantly use info their characters don't know to inform their roleplay (e.g. one group finds the diamond in the basement so the other group suddenly stops searching upstairs even though there's no communication between the two groups)
--- overcompensate by denying knowledge of things their characters do know.

 

[Stalker0]

I find they often can't - or won't - separate the info, and will instead do one of two things:

--- blatantly use info their characters don't know to inform their roleplay (e.g. one group finds the diamond in the basement so the other group suddenly stops searching upstairs even though there's no communication between the two groups)
--- overcompensate by denying knowledge of things their characters do know.

Completely possible, yet I still find it preferable to them just having to walk away from the table. I can work with them knowing things they shouldn’t, but if your entertainment isn’t entertaining that’s a much bigger issue

 

[Lanefan]

Completely possible, yet I still find it preferable to them just having to walk away from the table. I can work with them knowing things they shouldn’t, but if your entertainment isn’t entertaining that’s a much bigger issue

It's a matter of expectations. If they know up front that if they split the party they'll also be splitting the players (and my attention), and they do it anyway, they know what they're getting into.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I find they often can't - or won't - separate the info, and will instead do one of two things:

--- blatantly use info their characters don't know to inform their roleplay (e.g. one group finds the diamond in the basement so the other group suddenly stops searching upstairs even though there's no communication between the two groups)
--- overcompensate by denying knowledge of things their characters do know.

Are you sure you're playing D&D? I've never once seen a group of adventurers stop searching just because they found the McGuffin. There is usually more loot to be found, every inch of the dungeon must be examined carefully!

 

[Lanefan]

Are you sure you're playing D&D? I've never once seen a group of adventurers stop searching just because they found the McGuffin. There is usually more loot to be found, every inch of the dungeon must be examined carefully!

Depends whether they're on a time crunch or not. But indeed, strip it all down to the studs is a common SOP.

 

[Distracted DM]

Does it happen often? No. I don't encourage it, the players tend to avoid doing it themselves.
When it DOES happen, I'm sort of forced to up my energy and bounce between both groups to keep them engaged... and you can be sure that if one group gets into a combat, the other is going to as well.. or get into some hairy situation that needs them to be engaged. Maybe the two situations are linked in some way, though separate. I run them both on the same initiative track.

One big thing here is managing pacing and slicing time as you need it, so that if the groups are separated, and you think that there's something that they can both get engaged with, you cut time with each so that they happen to get into initiative at the same time.

For example: in spelljammer, the party boarded a ship. They found that the crew was all fast asleep, couldnt be woken up. They found one of the sleepers dead- they thought to conduct a dissection to see if they could determine cause of death. The two folk with medicine took the corpse to a table, other two kept exploring the sound they were hearing. Jump between each group, describing what they're seeing, answer some questions, not letting either side spend too much time unengaged.
Now I know that there's a hag and a feyr on this ship, they're the cause. The feyr's busy eating the sleepers, the hag could jump the medicine PCs anytime.. but I wait until the exploring PCs find the feyr chowing down- as those PCs are about to find the monster chowing on sleepers, THAT is when the hag shows up as a creepy girl and tries to fk with the medicine PCs... she messes with them a bit as a creepy girl, switch back to the PCs discovering the feyr. It's unhappy to be interrupted, roll initiative. Switch to the PCs with the creepy girl, who reveals herself as a hag and they can join the initiative.
Start combat.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

If the players split the party, I shift the spotlight back and forth until they are back together. I mean, the same thing happens to a lesser extent when a party is engaged in exploration - I go around to find out what each PC is doing before adjudicating. Now, with a split party, the spotlight swings take much longer so I just pray no one gets lost on their phone while their portion of the party is not in the spotlight. Then again, maybe that's ok (to some) as those players won't be able to know information that their PC couldn't know.

Which brings me to another point. I don't care about metagaming or separating player-PC knowledge. Good faith players can play their PCs however they like. So I don't care if everyone is listening in - I would assume the party would share knowledge once they are back together anyway. Saves table time to not force them to then act it out. I'd much rather have engaged players than having some people isolated from game events while the rest of us play for a while.

What younger me said 3.5ish years ago.

I’d just add: I’d find it exhausting as a DM to police the motivations behind every action of the PCs if we cared about them using out of character information.

Scenario: party of five splits and the group of two is encountering trouble.
PC in group of three: “hey friends, not much is happening here for us three, let’s go check on how the other two are doing.”
I mean, am I to tell the player “your character wouldn’t do that” if the “other two” are encountering trouble since every player in the room just heard that was what was happening? But am I to allow it if I had split the players up into different rooms? Or do I then suspect that player of eavesdropping on the split session? Or is it ok for them to say that after a certain amount of time has passed?
Examples abound.
Personally not worth my mental energy. Players can play their characters however they like (indeed 5e rules state the player determines how the PC thinks, acts, and talks) with whatever info they choose as long as they are adhering to the goals of play: “everyone had a good time and created an exciting memorable story”.

TL;DR: I get that some tables have fun by not metagaming; I personally find worrying about metagaming to be a deterrent to my own fun and our table’s.

 

[Lanefan]

What younger me said 3.5ish years ago.

I’d just add: I’d find it exhausting as a DM to police the motivations behind every action of the PCs if we cared about them using out of character information.

Scenario: party of five splits and the group of two is encountering trouble.
PC in group of three: “hey friends, not much is happening here for us three, let’s go check on how the other two are doing.”
I mean, am I to tell the player “your character wouldn’t do that” if the “other two” are encountering trouble since every player in the room just heard that was what was happening? But am I to allow it if I had split the players up into different rooms? Or do I then suspect that player of eavesdropping on the split session? Or is it ok for them to say that after a certain amount of time has passed?

Simple-ish solution: when they split, if the group of three are intending to wait while the two go exploring, ask up front how long the three will wait (unless interrupted) and then hold them to their answer, no take-backs or mind-changing. If they say an hour then the two have an hour to get into all the trouble they want, because the next time you're even going to check in on the wait-group is after an in-game hour has passed.

This can even be done in character: the two explorers say as they leave "If we're not back in an hour, come looking for us. Otherwise, wait right here."

 

[bloodtide]

I just about never split the party, other then character death.

I generally don't allow things like scouting during the game. Often I will ask the player that wishes to do something Solo to come over like an hour before the game starts and we do a quick game. In 2025 online works great for this: log in for an hour and do the game. Discord is great for this.

For more planned games, I will often structure Downtime for the group. So the group does downtime activities while the split game happens without them.

Every so often I will plan complex parts of an adventure. And if the players decide to split up, I can run 2-3 mini games. Often I will toss out a hard complex problem so group one will stop and discuss what to do about it. And while they do I'll run group two.

 

[Mort]

I generally don't allow things like scouting during the game.

What about stealth and observation focused characters, characters with familiars, or casters with any number of "scouting" spells?

Or do you just tell groups not to bother with that?