What's wrong with splitting the party?
- Thread starter Crothian
- Start date
I think what you're hearing is that splitting the party weakens the party in general, and if your DM has a "killer instinct," a TPK may not be far behind.
In my experience, I haven't seen many TPKS, but most of them were subsequent to a party split. Even when the party survives, combat encounters for split parties tend to have more casualties and result in more resource expenditure on average.
In my experience, I haven't seen many TPKS, but most of them were subsequent to a party split. Even when the party survives, combat encounters for split parties tend to have more casualties and result in more resource expenditure on average.
Ranger REG
Explorer
In my experience, I have tried to split the party. Tried to keep the smaller parties entertained but it was a major hassle if you're not fully prepared for it.Crothian said:
Anyhoo, while it was challenging, I swore never to repeat it.
From my own experience, I would say that there are 2 main problems with splitting the party:
1) Most of the time one section does more than another. If it's one character per player, then somebody gets to game more than the next guy.
2) The group is weakened, and it's tough to imagine an enemy worth defeating that wouldn't have been better defeated by the whole party.
Since my own campaigns are always multi-character campaigns, we always just make sure each player gets someone going with each faction. I have had fun playing campaigns in which the party MUST split from time to time. The key there is to make sure the reason for splitting the group is sound, that deciding who goes what direction is actually part of the challenge, and that the characters can actually accomplish more by splitting up than they could as a whole party.
I've had 3 campaigns that I can recall where this worked well:
1) We ran a police force that was responsible for protecting a region. The players had a party about 40 string (this was 1st edition D&D - heavily modified 1st edition), and they had to respond to incoming reports. They had to balance the characters abilities, power, etc. and spread them out as well as possible. There were instances in which half the party travelled a day or so to deal with a dispute over a pig eating someone's garden. There were also incidents in which 3-4 characters ended up dealing with a high level mage or a small army (and they had to run and get help). Loved this campaign. My favorite incidents include the time the night watch left to investigate an incident in a neighboring village - and forgot to tell the sleeping characters from the previous watch. I also liked the time a dozen characters took off to a village and not one of the characters in this well balanced party (good cleric, good mage, goot missiler, meat shield, etc.) didn't take ANYONE who spoke the local dialect, so they couldn't talk to the victims.
2) Ran a patrol boat campaign based on the Vietnam War. Yes, it was still D&D (1st edition -modified) again, but we used magic to create the qualities for the boats. There were 2 patrol boats (8 man crews), a seal team (6 assassins, some multiclassed so we had all the necessary skills), and a back-up boat (with about a 20 man crew). They would sail up a river, deposit the slow moving back up boat to create a fall back position (which the back up team would fortify), and the 2 boats would head up and deposit the seal team for an inland mission. Then the boats would patrol a bit, pick up the seal team and come back. Any given game the real battle could be in any one of those sections.
3) My current seagoing campaign. When the ship lands, the party has to split, because someone has to go inland to check things out and someone has to watch the ship. If the gaurd on the ship is token, the party could end up stranded. If they send a landing party out that's too weak, the ship's crew could end up waiting a long time for a party that isn't returning.
1) Most of the time one section does more than another. If it's one character per player, then somebody gets to game more than the next guy.
2) The group is weakened, and it's tough to imagine an enemy worth defeating that wouldn't have been better defeated by the whole party.
Since my own campaigns are always multi-character campaigns, we always just make sure each player gets someone going with each faction. I have had fun playing campaigns in which the party MUST split from time to time. The key there is to make sure the reason for splitting the group is sound, that deciding who goes what direction is actually part of the challenge, and that the characters can actually accomplish more by splitting up than they could as a whole party.
I've had 3 campaigns that I can recall where this worked well:
1) We ran a police force that was responsible for protecting a region. The players had a party about 40 string (this was 1st edition D&D - heavily modified 1st edition), and they had to respond to incoming reports. They had to balance the characters abilities, power, etc. and spread them out as well as possible. There were instances in which half the party travelled a day or so to deal with a dispute over a pig eating someone's garden. There were also incidents in which 3-4 characters ended up dealing with a high level mage or a small army (and they had to run and get help). Loved this campaign. My favorite incidents include the time the night watch left to investigate an incident in a neighboring village - and forgot to tell the sleeping characters from the previous watch. I also liked the time a dozen characters took off to a village and not one of the characters in this well balanced party (good cleric, good mage, goot missiler, meat shield, etc.) didn't take ANYONE who spoke the local dialect, so they couldn't talk to the victims.
2) Ran a patrol boat campaign based on the Vietnam War. Yes, it was still D&D (1st edition -modified) again, but we used magic to create the qualities for the boats. There were 2 patrol boats (8 man crews), a seal team (6 assassins, some multiclassed so we had all the necessary skills), and a back-up boat (with about a 20 man crew). They would sail up a river, deposit the slow moving back up boat to create a fall back position (which the back up team would fortify), and the 2 boats would head up and deposit the seal team for an inland mission. Then the boats would patrol a bit, pick up the seal team and come back. Any given game the real battle could be in any one of those sections.
3) My current seagoing campaign. When the ship lands, the party has to split, because someone has to go inland to check things out and someone has to watch the ship. If the gaurd on the ship is token, the party could end up stranded. If they send a landing party out that's too weak, the ship's crew could end up waiting a long time for a party that isn't returning.
I mainly dislike split parties because of the logistical hassles IRL. Half the players are sitting idle at any given time, and it's hard to keep everyone entertained and be fair about it.
If you constantly switch back and forth between the groups, the interruptions kill any drama that might be building up, and ruin the rhythm of combat. If you instead stick with one group until they reach a natural ending to the scene, the other half of the players may be twiddling their thumbs for a long time, and they're liable to get very bored.
I have seen a few games when a split party worked out well, but only when there were two DMs in the game. Each DM took half the players aside, and they ran pretty much independently until the groups rejoined. This takes special DM prep and communication, though, because of the need to make the two stories match. (If one half-party passes through Room 19 and kills the inhabitant, the other half should find Room 19 empty if they come upon it later.)
In-game, the major reason to avoid splitting the party is that there is safety in numbers. Remember the Adventurer's Motto: "Stay together, slay together. Act apart, get hacked apart."
If you constantly switch back and forth between the groups, the interruptions kill any drama that might be building up, and ruin the rhythm of combat. If you instead stick with one group until they reach a natural ending to the scene, the other half of the players may be twiddling their thumbs for a long time, and they're liable to get very bored.
I have seen a few games when a split party worked out well, but only when there were two DMs in the game. Each DM took half the players aside, and they ran pretty much independently until the groups rejoined. This takes special DM prep and communication, though, because of the need to make the two stories match. (If one half-party passes through Room 19 and kills the inhabitant, the other half should find Room 19 empty if they come upon it later.)
In-game, the major reason to avoid splitting the party is that there is safety in numbers. Remember the Adventurer's Motto: "Stay together, slay together. Act apart, get hacked apart."
I always thought that was just a Call of Cthulhu saying.Crothian said:
In Call of Cthulhu, whilst there is no safety in numbers, you need to keep the party together to maximise the chances of somebody getting away with sanity intact to report the bad situation to the new characters.
In D&D, apart from the hassle it can cause the DM, it shouldn't be a problem so long as the players appreciate what the characters are doing - which might be entering a dangerous place which would challenge all four of them, and instead facing each challenge with only two characters.
Numion
First Post
Crothian said:
The DM can only DM one situation at a time, so while the group is split, gaming time is split in half. Unless one is a teenager with all the time in the world, this is very bad.
No, it's because half the group is idling when the other half is playing.
I hope so. A system has to have feedback in order for it to learn
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Back when I was younger, this was relatively common (or at least not uncommon); however, in order to do it properly so the players wouldn't just sit around an do nothing, a 2nd DM was used. (Often a player whose character had gotten killed, often me, actually)
Li Shenron
Legend
Crothian said:
It's just for practical reasons.
Running two groups simultaneously (one game night, two groups) is impossible, and even a DM is that good to make it possible, it is almost certainly terrible for the players.
Dividing the players in two groups and have them coming in different days definitely reduces the fun, you can do it once or twice but not more.
OTOH, there are better ways to run a split-party adventure without making it either too difficult or forcing friends not to join on certain evenings:
1) run different groups in the same session, but each group has its own DM (for example, it could be a player whose PC has died or is currently imprisoned or otherwise absent)
2) run a few sessions for the 1st group and let the players of the 2nd group run the monsters, then switch and run the adventure path of the 2nd group while players of the 1st play the monsters
Li Shenron
Legend
Crothian said:
If a DM design all encounters to be "challenging" (CR>party leve), AND if the players have the habit that "everything we meet has to be killable", then yes splitting will result in death
But a slightly more various DM and more careful players can avoid that.
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