Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7304155" data-attributes="member: 2629">Try telling a non-linear story and giving players with an inactive PC another role that is more active..  When I have a PC that wants to have a side encounter and I don't want to make the entire group wait it out, I tell the player we'll circle back to it and then I'll roll a few dice, give them a slip of paper and we'll move ahead.  Usually, the slip of paper gives them a couple obvious things they'd have learned during their side encounter.  Sometimes - rarely - it is a fun change up, "The encounter went bad - now you're a vampire/doppelganger/illusion of yourself" - but I only introduce this type of change off screen if the player in question would enjoy seeing it and not be too worked up over it.  Then, when there is a break (people going out to get food, bathroom break, session ends and some people leave), we go back and roleplay the encounter with the players and I both knowing how some parts of it will play out, but not necessarily all.  Sometimes we just agree that there is no need to go back and roleplay it out.  However, that doesn't work for every splitting of the party.  Sometimes, if the party splits up, I give monsters or NPCs to players to play while their PC is not present.  If it is just a monster, I give them a side objective for the monster to try to meet to try to keep it interesting, "Renfro is wearing an amulet that is so shiny and you love shiny things... if there were some way to steal it and sneak away from the fight, you'd be a happy goblin."Unfortunately, sometimes there is nothing you can do and you're going to end up with half the group waiting for the other half to wrap up an encounter.  In these rare circumstances, I have a few 15 minute type board games out that the inactive players can amuse themselves with in the waiting period.  Kingdomino, Lost Cities, and Blokus are all used for these situations.</blockquote>

Verification