What's wrong with splitting the party?

[Umbran]

Are we all so entertainment-focused that we can't go a few minutes without sensory input?

No, but that doesn't mean that spending our hard-earned leisure hours doing nothing is a particularly grand idea.

My group meets once a month, for a few hours. If people wanted to sit around and do nothing, they could have stayed home and watched their babies, or gotten some chores done, or been otherwise constructive. Or, if they didn't want to be constructive, they don't need to drive for half an hour to stare at the walls.

The average American football player, at just about any level, spends more time standing on the sidelines than he does on the field. If he plays defense, then when the offense or special teams is on the field then he is not in the game. Baseball players wait their turns at bat.

The archtypal American football player is getting some sort of profit from sitting around. The pros are still getting paid. The college players are getting scholorships. The high schoolers are getting prestige and extracurriculars on their applications....

The RPG player is getting... time wasted.

 

[Crothian]

Okay, it seems the two biggest reasons are it is tactically unsound and it will bore players.

Are there ways a DM can have a split party and not have bopred players? What techniques have worked for people in the past?

For instance I do the one group for a five or so minutes then goto the other group. We've had some comments that seem to indicate that one part of the party would take hours of the DM's time. The solution to that seems simple, don't spend all that time on one group. Even if it is an unplanned split, the DM needs to come up with something for both sides to do.

 

[Bagpuss]

I dislike it from the perspective that it means that half the table is always sitting there doing nothing. If you don't physically split the players up some players can't resist the temptation of offering suggestions or trying to get their PC to "sense" that the other PC's are in trouble and rush off to help them. Too much trouble for very little gain in my opinion.

Quoted for disagreement.

I've rarely found that the case if the GM is switching between each half of the table often enough and leaving them on suitable 'cliffhangers' then they are two busy using the time you are with the other half planning what they are going to do when you come back to them.

It's just bad player-time management if you have people sitting there doing nothing. The same thing can occur if they are all in a group but the GM spends too long being monopolized by one outspoken player, that's got less to do with splitting the party than just bad GMing.

 

[Psion]

Okay, it seems the two biggest reasons are it is tactically unsound and it will bore players.

Are there ways a DM can have a split party and not have bopred players? What techniques have worked for people in the past?

1) Multiple characters and/or other representatives (e.g., the sorcerer sends his familiar with the rogue on the scouting mission.)
2) Saving activities that only require one player's attention for offline/email/post game (this is more a shopping and chagen problem than a split party problem, though.)
3) Communications (in modern games, radio comms. Substitute telepathy or scrying in fantasy.)
4) Bracelet of Friends.
5) Permit players to portray NPCs the active player is interacting with.

 

[diaglo]

ask yourself the question: what is a party?

why aren't you playing wargames and dragging a whole army around?

a party is a strategic strike force. each member is meant to contribute to the team.

if you split the party you end up with an even smaller force with less capabilities. but hopefully also less particular weaknesses. say... like an aquatic elf in the party going inside the cave pool alone.... um... still a bad idea. but at least he can breath.

 

[diaglo]

Okay, it seems the two biggest reasons are it is tactically unsound and it will bore players.

Are there ways a DM can have a split party and not have bopred players? What techniques have worked for people in the past?

For instance I do the one group for a five or so minutes then goto the other group. We've had some comments that seem to indicate that one part of the party would take hours of the DM's time. The solution to that seems simple, don't spend all that time on one group. Even if it is an unplanned split, the DM needs to come up with something for both sides to do.

you can also send the nonactive players out of the room. there they can discuss strategy and/or talk about clues or riddles or ideas. or they can go to the bathroom, get snacks, make drinks or chat out of character or even out of game without distracting the active players.

 

[Umbran]

Are there ways a DM can have a split party and not have bopred players? What techniques have worked for people in the past?

The one that has worked the absolute best for me in the past is simple - multiple GMs. However, that's not always available.

For instance I do the one group for a five or so minutes then goto the other group.

In my experience, this works reasonably well in low-stress situations. When folks are out doing "legwork" and other needed but uncomplicated things, nobody cares about having the time be in small chunks.

But when the scenes in question have lots of dramatic tension, you tend to ruin it by breaking away frequently. And it is very easy for both the players and the GM to lose track of combat scenes when you time-share like that.

Note - for my group "don't split the party" is a player mantra, not a GM one. I do nothing to enforce it. If the players all choose this course, I do my best, but they have to understand that some may end up idle. I apologize to them, but there's only so much a GM can do when this happens unexpectedly.

This is a case where a little bit of meta-gaming is a good thing, in my humble opinion. Not that folks should never split up, but that they should only do so when it is worth the detriments to the game as a whole.

 

[Squire James]

In my 15 years of DM experience (I'm not counting a 10-year hole where I WANTED to DM but couldn't find a group), splitting the party is always a bad idea unless (1) it is part of a plan, (2) it is a GOOD plan, and (3) the party sticks to that plan.

For instance, sending a rogue ahead to scout is fine, as long as he's just scouting. If he sees something (and perhaps discovered), he needs to move back to the party or he will probably die. I've seen 2-3 rogues go down on different occasions because they thought the Sneak Attack and Shout method would suffice (including one guy who tried this on obvious undead mooks).

 

[Rika]

I've got to agree that it depends on the GM, the players, and the group size.

I have one group (3 players) that are only occasionally in the same scenes. We rotate though pretty well and everyone seems to get a fair amount of game time and provide entertainment for the rest of the group.

In that group we even run split combats which usually works out great.

Another group I'm in (also 3 players) has one player in it that will go to any lengths to not split the party. Even if it makes no sense to stay together. He seems to think that no matter what something bad will happen even though 80% of the time nothing does. He's a pretty new player though so that may have something to do with it.

Now if there were 6 players in the group I'd hate splitting up because it'd take forever to get through everyone. With 3-4 players everyone gets 15-20 minutes before the scene shifts at the most.

 

[takyris]

Definitely agree on the "cliffhangers" point. While I don't go for party splits all the time, when they're there, I'm quite happy to have PC Team One open a door, see twenty dark elves led by a mind flayer necromancer captain, and say, "You've got a surprise round. Figure out what to do with it," and cut over to PC Team Two.

Sure, it gives them more time than they really should have to prepare, but it's FUN.