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Why You Should Split the Party - Playing RPGs
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- Опубликовано: 14 авг 2024
- A popular saying among gamers is, "Never split the party." But that's not true 100% of the time. Here's several reasons why you shouldn't, when you should, and some tips for playing and running a split party.
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00:00 Intro
1:31 Reasons Not to Split
1:35 Challenges Designed for the Group
02:04 It Save No Time Around the Table
03:01 It Can be Harder to Run
03:24 Reduces Other Players to Spectators
04:33 Reasons to Split the Party
04:40 When it is Low Threat
05:12 Short Recons
05:53 Short Thief Runs
06:51 Personal Agendas
07:32 Ticking Clocks
08:28 Great for Horror Games
09:10 Schedule a Rendezvous
10:42 Running a Split Party
10:59 Let Them Split Up
11:13 Rotate Between Groups
11:38 Use Dramatic Cuts
12:37 I Let the Non-Active Players Watch
13:55 What if They Get Into Combat?
15:43 Toning Down Encounters
17:06 Long-Term Splits
20:27 Closing
20:46 The Deleted Intro Skit
"We're a party, and a party sticks together, even in the face of carnie-dog diarrhea!" 😂🤣😂🤣
Q: How many CoC investigators does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: All of them; you never split the party!
I need this on a tee shirt!
It was sooooo funny
James Rolfe moment
Nothing brings a smile to your face like a good ol’ “hello internet, Seth Skoooorkowsky”
I personally would write it as "Seth Skorrrrkowsky."
So agreed
Skooor...Skooooorkow.....
Scorecowski
Boom! easier to remember
I was thinking exactly the same
It actually put me off this time - doesn't Seth usually say: 'Hello Internet, Seth Skorkowsky here and today we'll be talking about...' I think I missed the 'here'. Its too much different Seth! Make it stop!! :-)
That last sketch is hilarious and shows how much the three care about each other.
True bros watch each other's backs, even when they go to the bathroom.
Only to a point; "I'm not going to watch you go to the bathroom...again" !
This is why girls always go to the bathroom together
It's actually really genre savvy of them to do that. The guy who goes to the bathroom always gets killed by the monster.
Flukeman!
@@AnEnemySpy456 Yeah, there just might be a Neo-otyugh below the seat...just waiting...
ᗒʖᗕ
whenever someone says to me "never split the party" I just think back on every moment in every choice driven video game ever that had me thinking "gee, I really wish I could split the party right now and try to do both of these things insead of being arbitrarily forced to pick one"
Well that does happen in ME1.....
@@Martionize ironically ME2' is my go to example for this premise. Specifically Zaeed's loyalty mission.
Let me hop the railing to save the civies while Zaeed and whoever else I brought run ahead after Vido
Virmire is.... different.
That's one of the reasons why Divinity 2 is the best split screen game for me and my wife. It manages players going their own ways excellently.
That skit was hysterical. Glad you included it.
Re:scheduling a rendezvous. At military school they taught us GOTWA.
Going: where you are going.
Others: who you are taking with you.
Time: how long you'll be gone.
What: what to do if you don't come back.
Actions: if they know for sure you're engaged or if they get engaged themselves.
It works for me when roleplaying and helps me when I get my players to do it.
One of the most irritating things for me was when a large group I was playing in (I'm talking 8 players) refused to let us even do just brief scouting missions because "That would be splitting the Party!" and it basically meant that half the group that was actually good at Stealth basically didn't get to use it except in combat.
It got so bad that it started circulating into another group where one of the new players heard the first spouting it off so much, they literally tried following my character to an older woman's house, in the middle of a peaceful town because "Don't split the party." And I retorted with "Are you gonna follow me into the bathroom on the off-chance a sewer gator bursts out of the toilet?"
So that deleted Skit really hit home on a personal level, especially as a GM lol
My groups split the party all the time so I often have the other players play nearby NPC'S in Combat.
Good idea
@@marcar9marcar972 It usually works, but there have been several times where their Commoner Carriage Driver has died horrible trying to keep up with the PCs. Though it is entertaining to watch.
Not a bad trick if you don't want to stop them from splitting up.
Honestly the skit made me laugh out loud
Its a very familiar case of "maximum overthink".
I was laughing so hard in my office.
I made it almost to the end of the video and thought, "No skit? That's disappointing." And then I made it to the sketch part and I was so happy.
Am glad I didn't miss the skit at the end!
I glad it was put on the end with a warning. Beginning the video with that would have been...weird.
That last skit was amazing. Hearing the plan laid out while the dm is grossed out was a perfect finisher. Great video as always.
Seth, just want to say, i love your use of the RUclips Chapters feature. Even when RUclips forgets where I am your chapters help me go right back to where I was in the video. You use them so well so i just had to shout you out for using it
"A good game master runs two campaigns if the party splits up." Clearly that is a person who has never run a campaign of any game before
Clearly that's someone who has only been a player 🤣
Clearly that guy has never anything else to do but make and run campaigns
This. Can't even express how dumb this idea is.
"Oh yeah Bob, I know you have a family, a full-time job and can only accomodate this Thursday evening game, but we've decided to do a long-term party split. To be a good GM, you're going to have to rearrange the rest of your life and flip on those "On Demand" creative juices. Don't do that and you're a BAD GM."
That level of self-entitlement boggles the mind.
D&D was all prepared for this eventuality. If someone is determined to wreck your game, just pound them with boring random encounters until they get with the program or die.
I did this recently. I mostly seperated the planned game session where I just told my players to go watch some netflix after an hour or so and I'd text them if input was required (the groups kept in touch using sending -_-). When they whined, I just told them it was their idea to split up, what did you expect? I'm quite sure they won't think of splitting up long term any time soon...
Anyways, I set the groups up in 2 different camps and both groups are convinced they are doing the right thing. So now there is a pvp situation going on... pretty interesting (but chaotic)
"A party sticks together, even in the face of carnie dog diarrhea." Love it.
I stayed for the Deleted Intro and I regret nothing.
I like that the option of a strategic retreat when faced with unexpectedly steep odds is brought up. Makes for fewer TPKs
That last skit alone was worth the 20 minute wait.
I once played with a really old group that was so obsessed with not splitting the party they literally did not think you should split up in regular towns full of patrol guards. Nobody should sleep in separate rooms, and that image of 4 people sitting in the same bathtub was almost a reality to them.
Idea for when lone or paired characters meet overwhelming odds: give them an easier encounter, but hint that if they stick around they will be overwhelmed. If they still decide to stay, *then* spring the rest of the encounter on them.
Always brightens my day to see a new Seth Skorkowsky video.
"Now we need to make sure we stay together....Ok let's split up." - Dark and Stormy Night'
My (totally unwarranted) two cents; when the party is split is a great time for bathroom breaks and refreshments for the non-active players! Plus they can use that time to do character sheet cleanup, note taking, and talking among their own side about what they plan to do next. Just make sure to tell your players that all this is ok. And maybe to grab the DM a beer while they are free!
Great video with solid advice all around!
It was probably shaped by my love of Golden Age and Silver Age comic book superteams, but I always tried to steer the party to split up into co plimentary groups of 2 (3 max) to tackle things (and reunite for the endgame). When it worked out, it was great, like a comic come to life. When it was me as a player and the DM/GM wasn't prepared for it, many did it fall apart gloriously.
Feels so good when Seth suggests you handle a situation in a certain way when that IS the way you already handled it. Also, Seth is all about the friends around the table; love that. Great video.
I've almost never split the party, but most of my group games are character based so would prevent our primary source of fun being playing our characters off each other
And that’s a good reason not to split
Quite the opposite. If there are to be interesting dynamics between characters in the party (intrigue, trust issues etc) everybody always knowing what everybody else is doing would just make the dynamics pointless.
@@robertchmielecki2580 Think of some of the best character based TV shows, many great episodes revolve around unexpected character groupings, or suddenly removing a key member to see how it changes the group dynamic.
And while the three are standing there, discussing who watches out for whom, this creepy Clown-Miniature is creeping nearer and nearer...
Some of my best sessions I've run are situations were the players are separated and they have to be overly cautious to not accidentally shoot their own friends. Builds the tension because they can't just go trigger happy. Have used this in modern settings, fantasy, and mechwarrior. Every time it is memorable and long talked about by the players.
"Don't die alone and stupid."
-Ancient Pennsic Advice
That skit reminded me of "The Moving Finger." I'm sure it looks goofy today, but it freaked me out as a kid.
The skit at the end was pure gold. ^^
Thank you for not completely cutting The Gang intro out of this. They deserved their time in the spotlight.
Oh that last part was hilarious. I loved it. 😆 I have also never had a problem with parties splitting up in most of my games. It happened a few times in my Alien game recently. Also happens all the time in Vampire. I also recently ran Dune and the whole session was separate groups working towards the same thing but in different ways. We have all had a blast in all these games and nobody was worried about not splitting the party because of course we did and it worked perfectly.
Best RPG RUclipsr and nobody knows it.
We do, man. We do.
"I'll watch you poop."
Never thought I'd heard those words on a Seth Skorkowsky video, lol.
But yeah, now *that* is friendship! ;-)
The opening ( closing?) sketch was brilliant !
In my group, we split the party so often, we practically have a standard pairing off we follow for our Delta Green game. It's yet to actually be a problem.
I mostly run horror games so I, personally, love it when the party splits up, whether it's to cover more ground for research or in a dangerous situation. Your advice on that is great, though I usually don't use a stopwatch to give each group exactly the same time, usually trying to keep my jumps back and forth to a minute or three.
The only time we've had long term splits is when people can't make game sessions, sometimes multiple ones. I usually use one-on-one games to catch up the other player when they plan to come back and before they reunite with the party (if they do). I usually make sure they can return with some new information for the group as well, perhaps having had some encounter that revealed some secret they can bring back to help the others.
I prefer splitting the party, especially when it makes sense for the story. It can make for some really memorable moments as well.
Love the closing skit. Now I want to use a cannibal clown in one of my games.
That Skit was fantastic. i am so glad Seth added it
11:20 bingo! We've been having fun with dramatic cuts with the split party; the ax goes up and..., you see waiting just beyond the door..., just then you hear behind you... then cut.
Limited split party play has been working well with our group. They are a good bunch, and understand when I truncate the narration, and move things along for solo player actions. I sometimes tease the party, say by having one party overhear an NPC discussing the trap the the other part of the group is walking into. There had been some players that had wanted to take center stage and hold it, but they were allowed to go their own ways years ago.
PS 17:06 You are right, what is it with Youtude "Experts" telling refs "the right way to play." any part of a game. Your method of sharing insights, and offering suggestions is greatly appreciated.
It works EXTREMELY well with horror games. The players are (usually) on edge already because they know they are playing a horror game and then you turn the vice even harder.
Also, that overhearing a trap is just brilliant.
that skit was so funny, glad you didn't cut it from the video
At least for me I think splitting the party works out well if there is a good reason to split and you rapidly swap between the two like in CoC while one group raids someone’s home while the other group is distracting is distracting the homeowner at the bar
We were skulking through this dungeon, a mighty sorry lot
Old Galliard the fighter had been actin' like a sot
Oh my gosh! That end skit perfectly explains why you should split the party every now and again.
I've always found that splitting the party for more than a handful of minutes can lead to boredom of the players that are not involved I keep it brief if it has to be.
Ah, splitting the party. Like the auto-de-fe, "What you oughtn't to do, but you do anyway."
Please tell me the Charlton Heston pic as Moses was foreshadowing to a time when Seth will play Moses in a skit!!
Split the party or part the Red Sea?
One of the games I wanted to run as a GM was a party-less game where each player character is in a different location (in a different genre) like in War and Peace. Each PC adds to the narrative as a whole.
Honestly dude, I didn't think the skit was too long or overly gross. Glad you included it.
Totally agree on splitting the party, sometimes it's the right call, but spotlight balance is important.
I like to split the gregarious players and the shyer players apart to give the shyer players more opportunity to take charge instead of always kinda just tagging along
@Dizzy Gear I think shyer might have been the wrong word, I think less assertive is more appropriate to what I meant. Players that are capable of roll playing but don't get a lot of opportunity because the other players are far more eager and willing to jump in.
Was just about to complain about the lack of Jack or the gang when you gave us that, er, banger of an outro! (Also, as a GM usually gming more story/character-focused than plot-focused adventures who _wants_ the players to occasionally wander off and do their own thing, both for immersion and bc it just makes more sense, I will totally use the "a party sticks to gether, even in the face of carny dog diarrhea" line to remind my players every now and then, how weird "never splitting the party" would be in real life.)
"I'll watch you p@@%."
That is true friendship.
Might be even more than that lol
Damn only 12 minutes ago!
Personally I find party splitting interesting, but potentially quite difficult for the GM.
Perhaps we get to see the video split off from this, later.
The gross-out skit was hilarious.
I am elated you tackled this, more GMs and players should know about how effective this can be when done right.
That skit was pure gold, gave me a very hearty laugh.
In terms of long term splits - well, I guess my question is, why would you do that? It works in movies or books where it was designed that way, but in an RPG, the social contract generally involves sticking together. If your character wants to leave to do something else, then you need to go make a new character, not draw half the party away with you. If you want to play an RPG with your friends, then do that, and that means you need a character in the party.
My recommendation for long-term splits would be to do 1-2 sessions with the splitoffs to have a rundown of what they are experiencing (and maybe write some notes about other stuff they want to do and aks the GM for permission to incorporate that as canon), and until they come back they play with the main party as new (temporary) characters or familiar NPCs. This way both sides get their way and the returning PCs have a story or two to tell.
That skit was hilarious. :D
As a player, SPLITTING THE PARTY HAS BEEN HUGELY SUCCESSFUL IN GAMES LIKE SHADOWRUN!
Sometimes, the sneaky player needs to break off and talk his way into a building, then sneak around and open a back door from the inside for his teammates with the big guns, waiting patiently outside, to come in guns-a-blazin', and just take a corporate building by storm, using shock-and-awe tactics to maximum effect.
Sometimes, you can have one charismatic player, and he can talk one or two other players into the building before anything happens, and everyone agrees upon the plan, and everyone gets a healthy share of the action!
It all depends upon the players, the group, the GM, and the situation. Splitting the party is a risk, but sometimes it throws your GM for a loop and he has to improvise a bit, which is all good fun!
@Seth Skorkowski
Good to see you again. I'll add a few random thoughts:
1) Love the skit. I really look forward to your skits. When it comes to being a multiply split personality, others try, but you succeed... marvelously.
2) Amazing how many people think they have the right to define how somebody else should act. Of course you "should" double up your time as a GM and drop something else out of your life.
3) Our group commonly has a board game, or two, running in the background because our usual GM is a great one for back room one-on-one time. It works.
4) True. A major reason for the game in the first place is friends getting together. Guys especially seem to need a reason, something specific to be doing, to justify a get-together. Heaven forbid that we just have a gab fest.
@Seth Skorkowski playing another out-of-print sci-fi game "GuildSpace", we quickly found that of the six starting races and professions, half were really good at scouting ahead, going for a stealth approach, while the other half were more heavy ass-kickers with weapons and armor. As a gaming group, it took all of one session for me (one of the more experienced ones) to play a stealthy, scout-ahead type, lead the other two playing stealthy-types on recon, and establish the map for the other three playing more ass-kicker-ish-types to come in heavy. In that way, the "stealth/ recon" types got a share of the action, then the "ass-kickers" got the heavy share of the glory and advancement, and the stealth could come back around for a flanking/ support move for the final resolution of the scenario! Good planning, characters, and teamwork wins in the end! That's just basic good game design and good gameplay, where everyone gets a chance to do something cool, play their character their own way, and have an active role in how the story came out. Cheers!
Me and my friends play CoC on twitch. The way we tend to handle splitting the party is to focus on the sub-group that we determine will take less time to do what they were doing.
Spot on regarding long term party separation, Seth.
If a party feels like they need to split up like that it kinda kills the campaign. As a GM I only have the time to run one campaign and if my players decide to split long term the smaller group is, sadly, going to stop playing with me. I'm currently standing up a Call of Cthulhu campaign and I've planned for (very) occasional separate adventures for people but, doggone it, permanent party breakups would kill that campaign and I just don't see myself doing it.
Thanks for another great video!
It is usually not a big deal to do the permenant split and have _everyone_ roll up new characters. You can then switch between the adventures of the two parties whenever you finish a plotline and need time to figure out the "what next". This means you'll run one party for about a month, and then pick your next adventure, but before you run it, you switch to the other group (in the same world). While running that group's adventure, the DM can prepare whatever the first group will encounter on their next adventure, and then switch back. The groups can even occassionally meet up and shuffle characters around. This is especially helpful if you have players that like switching characters often, as it allows more narrative consistency while also character diversity.
Putting the skit at the end was a great idea as it hammers all the points you made throughout the video a lot better. Thanks for the great content.
Leverage the rpg has several feats to split the party and still support each other.
The Deleted Intro Skit made me stit my coffee out! LoL
I love your skits man, most skits in the internet are cringy but yours are pure gold lmao
The skits are one of the best bits of the video!! Please never take them away!! XD
I had a situation DMing a CoC game where most of the party went to investigate a museum, with a pre planned combat encounter. The remaining two party members decided to go shopping in the local market! On the fly i pulled out a separate combat encounter for the shoppers being mugged by the local crime boss. It worked really well flipping from one combat to the other and, as it usually goes, the improvised crime boss became the most memorable recurring character.
Thank you Seth! This video and the "How to run a Horror Game" has both helped me with this problem. Just last saturday the group split up and they were both on a gigantic boat that they all tried to stop, while I had planned for them to have to split and choose where to go some of the players really did not like that they split up, they argued for a long time both during and after the session about it.
I did try my best to use the tips on jump-cuts from your Horror video, making it so that if one group had just had a long time talking and were about to get into combat, I switched to the other, likewise if they had just had a long combat and wanted to do something else, I made another switch. Great videos, fair and square!
I'm glad I stuck around to the end!
I can completely see my group having that conversation.
I have the feeling, that if it was me GM-ing that, I would stress the players:
"You can barely hold it any longer!"
"Despite all your efforts to hold back, your body does what it needs to do..."
I understand your reasons for not putting that skit in the beginning, but man was it hilarious.
Wow Seth, that was my face too when they were laying out the poop observation survival strategy!
Hearing all of these pieces of advice from Seth really gets my mind going for some West Marches style gaming, especially when he was talking about long-term splits. While I may not do a full-on split campaign for a party, I would happily set things up where every few sessions between big adventures, I’d have something for one or two players that can be done in one to three sessions. This way, everyone gets to have those long strings of being together and having epic quests, and players and characters can still have very intimate personal journeys that can be discovered by the rest of the party when they get back together.
I enjoyed splitting my usual party that used to be "NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY" mentality by default. It really puts the players and the characters on edge, especially after the RPG Horror Stories they've seen about what happens when you do split a party with those Group-Based Encounters. Over time they opened up to it, and now love it when it occasionally happens.
One of my favourite uses of party splitting is having simultaneous buttons, levers or similar to unlock the path forward, but in two different locations. It's great watching the party organise themselves for anything they might come across. It also gives me chances to slip in some more unease with some faint whispering or other option in one location, which follows the character. I obviously always make sure horror is a topic that they're okay with me including from time to time.
I am a complex man. When I see a new Seth Skorkowsky video I make something hot to drink, some food, fire up the playstation so I can watch youtube on my big screen and not just the crappy little screen on my phone, and THEN I click.
I'll have to remember these tips as a player as well. Should smooth over some of those split-ups.
Glad you didn't delete the skit - and I think it worked better afterwards too! Win win!
Thanks for including the skit and not cutting it all together. Very funny stuff.
I've run one long term.split, and i kept all players at the table for it. I would jump back and forth narratively say every 15 minutes. They had access to message stones, so they were going to cross communicate anyway.
Each group knew the others' plans and they each had objectives to accomplish.
Lol my campaign has involved a split party for over a month now due to our characters getting lost in a new city. My character's been in prison under accusations of people trafficking so have needed to plead my case alone while the rest of the party are together. It's quite the task ensuring that everyone gets enough role playing time but we make it work.
Regardless, great video as usual Seth, your content never misses!
Thanks for including the skit at the end. It wasn't too gross to me but I could see why you split it off just in case. I just love the absurd levels of "don't split the party" in it though!
With the temporary splits, there's also things like scenes where some characters in the group just won't work in a scene. Sure, you could have something kind of funny with the wizard getting stuck dealing with the bruisers and skulkers of the party hovering as they get a meeting with a local researcher.
You also have things like the semi-split situations where it's not really a scouting, but a setup. A few characters setting themselves up to take positions for things to come...such as an archer sneaking into a good sniping position or handling scouting familiars...
That last bit. I want to hate it, I really do, but it's just too realistic. That's a creepily accurate representation of the shenanigans that happen at the gaming table.
Splitting a party can be fun, but precisely as you said, small bits and CUT, another one. And yes, I did the same with the behind the close doors scene, but yes once again, it is not worth it.
Personaly, I learned a lot from how to do a split party from mr. Rob, handling the group of feral cats thatare his players group in the beginning of VLDL DnD, before the group got together.
Running two separate campaigns is mostly no-no for me, for various reasons and the main is time.
Anyway, love your videos, you are great, please continue doing what you are doing.
Whenever this topic comes up, I'll never not tell this tale from the first ttrpg campaign I played in. It was a short scifi game where we played as these bio-engineered pig-hybrid supersoldiers and we were stuck in a mine-complex on an ice planet. My character had his leg get broken on the second session, during the underground section it didn't really come up, but when we got out and we had to radio for help we had to split the party so the rest of the party could go to a radar-outpost on top of the mountain and I had to stay behind with a group of soldiers we'd saved because of my injury. The group that stayed behind started losing hope and as they were running low on food I heard them plan that they'd get themselves some bacon, and would kill me to eat. I snuck out and slowly climbed above the mine entrance where we'd set up and rigged an explosive to cause an avalanche.
Damn. I had never heard of the whole "a good game master should run two campaigns" thing. That just sounds brutal and a huge time sink that I couldn't handle.
Hello Seth, great video as usual, but I'd like to offer a few notes as a DM who has run long term party splits and simultaneous campaigns.
So a long term split party in my opinion, is best for small groups, 3 to 4 players. I actually have an example that isn't mine but covers the idea very well. Over on the Dingo Doodles channel the story of the Fools Gold campaign has reached the point where a long term split has occurred. Three players, a few NPCs, each player is currently on their own, with limited contact to the others. It was explained that this was accomplished with everyone playing together, and taking turns every 15 minutes or so. I have done the same in past games, in one, Rifts RPG from Palladium Books. One PC, a Demigod (character class), went undercover in Atlantis to contact the rebels by being "captured" by a slaver party. However unlucky dice saw his partner thrown through a dimensional portal (seriously, it's a random encounter possibility in that game), it took him 2 years in game time to get back home, but he came back with a starship so there's that (he went to Robotech universe, game made by same company, and all their games use the same system). The Demigod meanwhile spent those 2 years as a Gladiator, unbeaten, he actually fought his way free before his friend got home. Both players were brothers, so it went very smooth, and actually established a persistent game world I used for every campaign I ran in Rifts for over 10 years.
That brings me to, running two seperate but connected games. In this case it wasn't actually the party splitting, I had 2 groups of 4 players, they were unable to all gather on one night, so I ran both groups in the same world, and on their own they ended up working for opposite sides. I kept each party's "effects" in both games, so on several occassions one party or the other would find the other's handiwork. Maybe party A gets hired by patron A to loot tomb X. However two weeks ago Party B got hired by patron B to loot tomb X and they already completed the mission. Small side note, to allieviate player irritation I would set up an alternate encounter that would happen after the party found they had been beaten to the punch, which would be balanced (in terms of XP/treasure) to what the other party had achieved (in rough terms, I didn't lock it to they got x you get x).
I eventually managed to schedule a night when everyone could make it and we had a huge battle between the now high level parties, that ended in friendship, and the sudden deaths of Patrons A & B (Demons lol). My players did know what was going on, in general, that there was another party of players in the world, and that mattered, but they had to figure out that the other PCs were their primary antagonists on their own.
I think the idea of the group splitting into two could be kind of cool if it were understood as a temporary thing, like two paths are on a road, they split up, and meet like two sessions later, but that would also be a massive pain in the ass to do
"Splitting the party" actually depends a _lot_ on the game system you're playing in, too. In D&D and equivalent systems, there are usually very strict limits to what an individual character can do or handle. But in many systems, specifically narrative-focused ones, it's entirely possible for a single character to be just as effective as a party, at least in regard to _surviving_ a situation if not exactly being victorious. In those systems it's usually down to what a character chooses to do rather than hard limits coded into the character. Also, dungeon crawls tend to not be a thing in narrative-focused games (but also aren't much of a focus in most modern D&D either).
But anyway, the first system I played/ran after my initial introduction to D&D was then "new" World of Darkness and I genuinely loved how the ability to have the party split without it being a whole thing made the game/story so much more dynamic and flexible.
I enjoy playing D&D but, honestly, I always have even more fun in other systems that aren't so rigid. I just wish it was easier to talk people into learning other systems... it strikes me as funny how often someone will be _afraid_ to learn another system. I guess because they assume everything is as anal and fiddly (bad combo, lol) as D&D. And sure some games (like the others Seth likes to run: Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, Delta Green, etc) have a whole bunch of crunchy math and technical rules stuff... but even there I think that those games encourage deferment to narrative over rules. I suspect we'll see that idea work its way into the next evolution of D&D... hopefully done well, but we'll see. However, that's going to still be a long ways off and there are really great games to be played now.
One of the tricks I've used for "shopping day" is to pair off a couple of players and have them take turns being a "mini-GM" for each other's shopping side quest.
I have one rule: caveat emptor. You might think you bought a Vorpal Sword from the mysterious gypsy merchant. You might have even fought off a rival who was also seeking the same sword. Hell, the gypsy might even honestly believe that it's a Vorpal Sword and give you a detailed provenance of its history. All that might have happened in your little side adventure, but I still am the ultimate arbiter of game balance.
Have gotten quite a few story hooks with that method. Plus, it allows me to either do some additional game prep or offer tips and suggestions for the player that might run me through something. Someday. Maybe?
Really funny slit at the end, it is 2 am here and I had troubles not cracking up loudly
One of the best sessions I've ever run was when the chief of security led a rescue on a Klingon prison ship (save their NPC captain) while the XO was commanding their own vessel. We kept switching back and forth so while the Sec Of was fighting bulkhead to bulkhead, the XO had to balance not exploding while also not destroying the other ship with his people on it.
Got really tense when the enemy ship tried to go to warp!
Thanks for covering this on the meta too. An advice for everyone who wants to play a ttrpg online on a platform like roll20: the effect that other feel like the game runs without them and that they don't have something to do if they are not in the current active party "shard" is much more extreme. Have this in mind and take care.
In my youth i had a group of at least 7 people (yes an insane size) often even more and there splitting was never a problem. The other players were quite good at rollplaying without the gamemasters attention with the other players momentarily not in the game focus.
The flip side is when the GM splits the party, and it's worth discussing. For example, I have a party of six but in truth my favorite number of players is two or three. This is why I habitually split them in two or three teams, and skip between them. So far my players have been happy with the arrangement, but we play online and I just assume they either are satisfied with watching other people play, or go do other things while waiting for their turn. We tend to be heavy on the roleplay and social interaction, so watching those scenes unfold can feel like following a tv show and I think that's what is keeping it working for us.
I absolutely loved the skit at the end! That made all of the great advice even greater.
Great video!!
The sketch in particular was hilarious (specially since I actualle HAVE HAD groups do something very similar to that!).
I am currently running a campaign in which each character has a very particular and individual agenda; where they have spent like 50% of their play time, each on their own; and where one player joined in on the third session, and whose character is not only in a different place than the rest of the party, he is even in a different time. With his character currently having an adventure that is taking place about a month before the actual campaign starts. Even with one other character in the party that is now existing in both times, as he is both on the current adventure as a party member, and on the "past" adventure with this other character that started later in the game, kind of in a flashback style.
It is a very enjoyable mess, but it required a LOT of coordination between players, and pretty much every single point you bring up here has come up. Between the possibility of characters riding off on their own for good, players waiting on their turns and having to adjust their expectations accordingly, a lot of spectator mode playing, etc.
Luckly, we have managed to make it work, but your video has helped me do a good and thorough review of all the dangers and pitfalls that exist in having a split party.
This is one of the convenient things about PBEM games, it makes party splits a great deal easier to manage. In my current PBEM Traveller campaign the party is split with half running off to kill the mounts belonging to a group of bandits, while the other half continues to ride point for the merchant caravan. (Primative area of the planet)
What's PBEM? Is it the name of a publisher?
@@clockworkpotato9892 (P)lay (B)y (E)-(M)ail.
@@larsdahl5528 Ahh. Okay.
I actually really like that skit at the end. Totally made your point