How do you handle the game when the party splits up?

[Stalker0]

All of the players I'm with have always been in a party oriented game.

However, in this new campaign, I've arranged the campaign where a lot of the time, the party is seperate into small groups or individuals.

I've had two games like this so far, and almost everyone has said it was a ton of fun and they like the individual attention, but a couple of players have been bored with the style.

I'm looking for advice from experienced dms on a method that would allow me to run muliple parties at once, but gives enough time to everyone. Do you set a 5-10min timer for each group then switch? Do you start the game for the different groups at different times? Any advice would be useful.

 

[mseds99]

splitting up...

I usually try to dissuade the party splitting up into morre than two groups. Each group then has a preset time frame before the other group comes in. I ALWAYS tell the other party to leave the room when the other party is playing. It adds tremendously to the tension of the situation, IMO.

 

[boothbey]

If it is going to be an extended time that they are apart, I try to switch back and forth between each group. I seperate the players only when "priveleged" information will be found that the second group should not be allowed to act on yet, or if a party member requests it because that person is doing something sneaky and underhanded.

On a couple of occasions, I have had the party split up during their normal downtime. Two members went on a side quest to investigate something on their own. This led to a mini adventure. I allowed the rest of the party to play the henchmen (in this case vampires) acting as guards. They were much more inventive than I could have been playing all the bad guys and everyone had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Crothian]

It depends on the circumstances around the split. In town, parties like to go their own way to do what they need. That is the most common time I've had them split up. So, I take them one at a time and make sure they get everything done they need to. I try to keep things moving and not take to long with this, as other players do find it boring.

 

[LostSoul]

I shift back and forth between the groups. If there is any action, I let the players who aren't a part of it roll the dice for the NPCs. That gives everyone something to do.

 

[King_Stannis]

i just send the players in the other room and deal with the split party one by one. occasionally, if one person is splitting off, i keep them all there but allow no talking or coaching from the players that aren't there.

if some of your players really like the attention, you oughta design a couple of side missions for them. pair up your group and have them come over on different nights. this way no one is sitting around, they get individual attention, and their characters have a bond with whoever they are teamed up with ("hey joe, remember that time when me and you took on that swamp troll...."). this is best done when the party has "down time" in a big city and can afford to go their own way for a bit.

 

[ced1106]

I shift back and forth between the groups. If there is any action, I let the players who aren't a part of it roll the dice for the NPCs. That gives everyone something to do.

Ditto. I've given a player not in the scene the information the NPC is to give to the PCs, some adjectives describing the NPC, and let him run with it. Very entertaining, and the PCs can't blame me if they didn't get the right information.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[StalkingBlue]

I don't like to send players out of the room. Sitting in on the other players' scenes is a lot more fun. This takes players able to separate character knowledge from player knowledge, of course.

Letting players take over NPC parts can be great when the split-up is going to go on for a while; otherwise, it can get confusing and jar the atmosphere.

 

[Umbran]

The problem, very simply, is boredom. If you sit for a while with nothing to do, no way to give input, you get bored. And players don't come to a session to be bored.

Sending players out of the room for extended periods may keep them from learning information they shouldn't have, but it doesn't keep them from getting bored. I'd prefer to keep all the folks in the room so I can easily bounce between them so that nobody gets ignored for very long.

If you know the party is going to be split up for a significant amount of time, you might consider engineering it so that you actually run separate sessions.

 

[BenBrown]

Play Call of Cthulhu until everyone has ingrained in them that splitting the party means the swift death of one side or other.