Separate events

[Xaov]

In my DnD group I DMed up at college I tried to have events that were unique to each member of the group. I personally think it adds a bit of depth to each character to do something where they aren't joined at the hip by everyone else. The only problem is that while these events are going on you have the other party members being bored and not able to do much. I am still pretty new to DMing and maybe some of the seasoned DMs of this board could give me some advice.

My Two Questions are these:

1) Do you think individual events are a good thing or bad thing? if a good thing how should they be executed, should the DM and the player in question leave the table and go elsewhere or should the rest of the party be allowed to view the event?

2) What should be done about the other players while the event is going on?


Any Insight on this topic would be of great help to me.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Personal adventures are great as long as they don't take away much time from the rest of the group, which they typically do. That was my big beef with Shadowrun: too much time staring at the wall while the decker and the mage had all the fun.

My advice? Do this over e-mail between games. You'll have plenty of time to develop the subplot, the player has time to think about the response for roleplay, and personally recieving email validates my life so its all good.