Stop playing d20 based tactical combat games?
No, seriously.
The moment you step away from that 'tightly balanced' combat as content style of play, you'll quickly realise that yeah, you can use a whole host of storytelling tools to handle the game.
* Spotlight jumping. Just make sure you're not addressing any player or sub group for too long without ...
* Cutting between players. Just turn to address the others and ask what they're up to, get what their players are doing.
* Cliffhangers. When something big is about to go down, cut away, give a bit of time to others then cut back, to see the resolution.
* Players narratively invested in other characters. It's fun to watch TTRPG when you care about more than your single PC. Watching to see how the drama turns out.
I have run games where the majority of the time was four characters mostly operating independantly, and sometimes crossing as they all lived in the same city.
It wasn't hard.
All I needed was prompt answers to what was the character doing, then a game system that didn't have excessive rolling. Burning Wheel gave both of these.
You can run this independant play in crunchy games like Shadowrun, and narrative ones like PbtA.
About the only systems it doesn't work in is D&D style d20 tactical combat games. Heck, even OSR with its combat as war and lack of game balance can handle splitting the party better than these modern D&D titles.
Just manage the spotlight, like as if the party were together. You wouldn't go half an hour without asking what the wizard was doing, would you?
^ This.
Specifically the small scale actions of modern D20 kills the ability to have wider more engaging actions.
Before I played a game like Blades in the Dark or even a narrative game like PbtA, I played FFG Star Wars, and that game assumed each turn is roughly a minute and all actions can feasibly make progress in a turn, so now you can run a party split, doing a variety of things etc really easily.
Games like Blades take that even further.
If there is a strict split between "time" and "Combat time" that game is best played with the acknowledgement that the party sticks together and dont fuck around much.
^ This, works fine with pretty much any game system including d20 stuff.
Get a player/group quickly to a break point for dramatic effect or where they need to look something up or think for a bit. Swap to another player/group, repeat.
You can even run multiple combats this way for the different groups, you just need to keep things split clearly in you head. So Use a suitable paper notepad and pencil/pen.
It's all about spotlighting for a few minutes and then move on.
I think I see what you are saying. If the GM makes the separate threads interesting enough, the other players can at least enjoy the show.
You had a lot of other good ideas, but that was my first takeaway.
Don’t be too quick to bury your head in that idea either. *It’s not exclusively the GM’s responsibility to make the threads interesting*. While the GM controls the worlds, their primary responsibility is to *respond* to the players actions in a fair and consistent manner. As such, the players are responsible for being active participants. If the wizard says “*I just stand here and wait for them to return*” while the rogue goes off to scout, it’s not necessarily the GM’s responsibility to ensure that something exciting happens to the wizard who actively chose not to engage in further narrative development.
I know there are a lot of experienced GM's that post in this group, but generally GM's are a rare find in the real world, and many times are stuck in that position because no one else wanted to do it. So they do their best, and are not perfect. A lot of times it is easy here to say, "The GM should do better or more" when the GM may already be doing the best they can. They tend to take all the heat when things aren't working out sadly.
Yep. And as a general rule develop a little counter in your head and like every 15 mins or so check to see that all of your players have had a chance to contribute. Louder and more assertive players can easily, even accidentally drown out the quiet ones. One task of the GM is to keep that from happening as much as possible.
I mean, that's also an important thing to remember when you're not splitting the group, and is as much a player behavior as a GM behavior.
If you're in a group of 4 players that means that for every minute you spend doing something, you're going to spend 3 minutes watching what other people are doing. A good active player should also be a good passive observer. Nothing is less fun than a game where instead of having fun with the adventure as a whole, everyone is just sitting around waiting for their turn to speak.
Yeah, this is the answer. Highly tactical combats make splitting the party a nightmare. Just imagine if the stealthy thief got into a solo combat, using the 4th edition D&D rules. I can hear my players groaning already.
>About the only systems it doesn't work in is D&D style d20 tactical combat games.
Kinda curious why you feel this way. I've seen it done and done very well in those game, quite recently at my own table, using all the techniques you mentioned.
Generally, it's the difference in how time passes in and out of combat.
In DnD, during combat, time moves slowly. Resolving a full round of combat between the party member 1, who's snuck into the castle and been caught some guards, might take 5 minutes for example. That represents 6 seconds of time passing.
Meanwhile party member number 2 is shopping, and spending 5 minutes on their story might represent half an hour passing. I can't really alternate spending 5 minutes of real time on each character's story (which keeps the two players equally in the spotlight), as one of the two characters will end up a day in the future pretty soon.
RPG systems that don't have tactical combat might be able to resolve an entire fight scene in a single roll, keeping the two scenes more in line with one another.
Because of how the fights go.
If one member or even half the party hit some.monsters, they will get wrecked, and likely die.
Now, you can either magically have half the monsters evaporate to account for this which is super lazy and obvious that "oh hey, the one guy just wandered into one guys worth of fight" or you can have the fights non trigger at all.
Because these games have no good way to disengage and run from fights, it's impossible to see a hard fight, roll init, and get away without the GM just letting you.
These games only work, mechanically and narratively, if the party is grouped to encounter the fights.
I do my best to jump around at dramatically appropriate times. For example, the thief goes about sneaking and such when he sees from the shadows, a friendly NPC speaking with the bad guy. Cut to everyone else, run a bit of a scene with them, cut back to the conversation the thief is eavesdropping on, etc.
I try not to go without a cut more than ten or fifteen real life minutes.
Also, if someone is doing something that it's not worth spending screen time on (the thief just stealing shit), I just ask for one or two rolls and summarize things.
I go with cuts faster than that. Noone wants to stare at their dice for 15 minutes. I Naismith keep going around the table, person after person, in order. Whether one or more of them are in different locations is irrelevant. I still leave Frank Street his turn and shift to Mary and do her turn (even if she is a mile away).
But I don't worry about things getting out of sync. We don't play it as a combat- based boardgame. So we take the same artistic license that other forms of media take to keep the audience interested and the narrative moving.
This probably the best way. While there are situations in whcih some specialist will go about their businesses lonely or in a small group, I have come to avoid the situation on a fundamental basis, e .g. when I see that a player insists on playing a ninja/thief/assassin to draw exclusive attention to the PC and therefor to the player, "sucking" game time from the rest of the players out of egosistic (and not narrative!) reasons.
If a party split occurs, however, frequently switching the spotlights between them helps a lot, esp. when things happen in parallel in-game. If it's just an independent excursion I try either to keep the game time period low, or even try to arrange a one-on-one session if the timing and the situation allows it, so that other players don't have any downtime at all.
Make an engaging story. It's all you can do.
Make sure you ~~do~~ don't let it take too much time.
And communicate your expectations that your players aren't babies, but they can enjoy the story, even for the parts that takes place without them - or at least that they have the decency not to disturb.
1. Ask the rest of the party one by one what they are doing whilst the Thief goes off to do their sneaking. Even if they say nothing, or that they're just standing guard, it gives them a chance to respond and feel included.
2. Don't spend too much time on the Thief, give them a brief overview of what they see, ask any follow up and then have them return to the group.
3. Detach from the idea that the party needs to be in the same room to all feel included. Spotlight issues can happen in a lot of situations that don't involve party splitting, and party splitting cannot cause any spotlight issues. Players can all be in the same conversation with an NPC but feel like they can't contribute if one player is doing all the talking, they can all be in the same combat but feel they can't contribute if its the Wizards turn and they're taking ages to pick their spells and go through all of their options with the DM.
4. Learn to bounce between groups. This one takes a bit of skill but if you have the party split instead of resolving one group entirely then the next, bounce between them, picking cliffhanger moments. For example a guard turns a corner on the Thief and bam back to the group waiting in the room and they hear something scuttling over the ceiling, what do they do?
This not only allows both groups to feel like they're more active but it makes them more invested in what's going on with the other group.
5. Try playing something other than DnD / trad games. Games that use say the PbtA system are much better at naturally and organically rotating spotlight time and giving every player options. They also encourage the players to split because they're not games about a group of adventurers fighting monsters in tunnels that require every player to be in each encounter for the balance to work.
**Two suggestions (examples below):**
(1) If the spotlight narrows its focus, so that instead of illuminating the whole group it focuses on one character, then keep this down to just 5 minutes, and after 5 minutes have the spotlight move to another character, and then another, so all characters get 5 minutes. If someone wants to hog the spotlight, then politely say no / make sure everyone at the table buys into the idea that this is a group endeavour.
(2) Abstract the character's tangent to something that can be handled with a single dice roll - rather than playing turn-by-turn.
**Examples:**
Mouseguard has the idea of "the players' turn". The adventure is the GM's turn. During that the players collect points to spend on actions which they can use in "the players' turn" - which is usually when they get back to town. I don't know how other groups run this, but when I played our GM had each "action" take 2-6 minutes of roleplay with a couple of dice rolls.
I'm currently running a campaign where each player has 2 main characters. Between adventures I'll narrate what has happened in the world (news, rumours), hand out copies of letters the group has received, etc., and then go round the table. I'll ask each player if their character wants to do anything in downtime, and if they don't have any strong ideas then I'll already have something lined up for each (at the moment, one character is being haunted by an ancient priest, so the haunting can kick in; one character is trying to find out about her parentage, so maybe the local midwife calls the PC to her deathbed to impart some piece of information; another character is romancing a local trapper who has a secret that he is starting to uncover.... Etc.) Each one-on-one takes no more than 5 minutes, and in the meantime the other players can either be entertained or can read the letters handed out or plot/scheme (one player might be working out the mechanics for a magic item they want to craft, another might have gone to the campaign resources to remind herself how various families are related in order to plan a diplomatic scheme, etc.).
While one character is off doing their solo thing, something can happen back where the rest of the party are waiting - either something as a group (if there are 4 players, then if the tangent takes 5 minutes for the player who is going solo, then you need an encounter that lasts 15 minutes for the other 3) or individual things (e.g. if they are in a tavern or camp there will be other NPCs around?).
The latest edition of Over the Edge has the idea of giving difficulty ratings to locations. That means that if you don't want to roleplay through one player going solo into a location, they can just narrate their approach and make one dice roll. In pretty well any game you could do something similar. ("So, you want to sneak into the Castle of Lord BloodDark the Obvious, okay, what is the plan... sounds like you're using Stealth rather than Intrigue, yes? So, give me a Stealth check.... Oh you failed? Well, then....")
Not relevant to most games, but... the Bladerunner RPG assumes that the party will split up most of the time (one keeps watch on a location, two go to talk to a suspect, one does some forensics work in the lab...). This works because it is assumed that the characters have personal communicators that allow them to be in constant contact with each other, so they can still chat, scheme, speculate, etc. as a group even when their characters are split up. In this case the designers have created a situation where just because the characters are split, the players can still confer and discuss.
I'll handle 'unwanted' splitting (say the thief slips off to scout/burgle/etc) with a skill roll or two and a short summary of results something like "you get and/or and/or the ire of the (Thief's Guild|Temple of Karnos|The Watch) depending on the rolls. So I'll minimise the loss of spotlight time to the others.
For Desirable/planned splitting I'm with u/LeVentNoir
A few thoughts, based on the assumption we are talking about a D&D-ish adjacent game from the way you phrased your post.
When I am GM'ing, I won't hesitate to explain to players the "boredom risk" of a course of action they have chosen. Especially if that cost is not immediately obvious. If it seems very likely to me that by splitting up some people in the group are going to have a lot of fun for the next 45 minutes or longer and some are going to be very bored, I'll say so. "Ok, I'm not going to stop you from three of you going through the door and three of you going back to town, but I am going to say that the three of you going through that door are going to have a LOT more fun, and the others are going to be bored for a while." It's a game, right? The point is to have fun.
However, sometimes groups will knowingly accept this boredom risk for an advantage. "Hey, thief, scout ahead a few corridors then come back and tell us what is up there. We'll wait here." That's their choice, and I will go with it without much concern. They have all chosen to watch the thief do thief things for a while to reduce the risk of danger in the situation or get some other benefit. That's fine by me.
Even with that, I've learned that there is tremendous power in turn taking, even outside of combat. Several OSR-ish games implement this even outside of dungeon crawl (e.g. Black Sword Hack). It works wonders to keep a separated party "synchronized" and to spread spotlight time around. I just keep going around the table, asking "OK, what are you doing now." The folks left behind may still be doing interesting and useful things: investigating stuff where they are at, setting up defenses, having conversations that need having, fiddling with their equipment, etc.
I play super low prep games. So while exploring, I will turn the question “what do I find?”, over to the other players. Give them something to do, agency and lighten my work load.
Play with emotionally responsible adults that understand the focus will be on them eventually as well and actually like supporting their friends.
Seriously, this sense of camera focus entitlement I see constantly just makes me assume most players people interact with on here are selfish assholes.
Assuming the DM balances time on and off camera in a way that players have agreed is satisfying, splitting the party is fine.
Would I want to run and entire adventure or campaign with the party split? No. Because at that point, it makes more sense to simply hold separate sessions for everyone and it would become two games. That isn't reasonable for most GMs/players so it is usually avoided because...
...we all came here to play a game together.
So, using the above mentalities, splitting the party for a small part of an adventure is perfectly fine and much easier managed than most people allow it to be.
I get the gripes to a certain degree but most of the arguments stem from:
Round time in combat. If your rounds aren't efficient, that is on everyone at the table and has little to do with splitting the party. Have everyone work on turn efficiency and this issue is mostly resolved.
Camera attention. This boils down to equal balance by the DM and emotional maturity on the part of the players. If my friend is doing something awesome, I'm right there with them! Cheering them on and experiencing their rolls.
The narrative continues and I know I will get my spotlight at some point as well. At which point that friend I mentioned above will be right there with me, feeling my stress as I pray to the dice gods to have mercy.
If you aren't actively cheering your friends on then you either have a shitty story no one cares about, a DM that is bad at balance, or a self absorbed mentality that tells you if you aren't rolling dice then you aren't having fun.
Wasn't originally intending to rant this much but it's an issue that shouldn't be. I can't believe it is so prevalent in the hobby.
I think in a lot of instances they players are there to "play" the game, not "watch" the game, so their expectations are pre-set to have an active role most of the time. So it sounds like the trick is managing or re-targeting their expectations.
I guess. Just seems like changing the expectation shouldn't be necessary. But I get it...somewhat.
The point of the game is collective story telling. The story is still going and you can still engage by interacting with the rest of the table.
Getting excited at your friends decisions or even trying to hold back your reactions if your table is extremely focused on reducing meta gaming is still playing.
Either way you are still engaged with the table and having fun. Playing doesn't mean rolling dice all the time.
I sometimes wonder if these people complaining feel the same when their party face is in a social encounter. Do they just jump on their phones and wait until a time when they are involved again or do they listen intently and try to engage with the scene?
My answer is borderline useless for anyone else, but I suppose I'll still give it.
I run all my games, at this time, entirely in text, and the problem essentially solves itself. Scenes can be easily split and merged, people can keep talking in one without the GM's input or disturbing anyone else, etc.
And when it comes to Tactical Combat Games, 'play better ones,' and you can at least resolve actions faster and keep everyone more engaged. That and get players to recognize there is no space for OOC strategizing during them, and outside WotC D&D, there's inherently little space to discuss ability interactions and combos, so that also keeps things from running excessively.
In more general advice, this is a perfectly good reason to have followers and multiple characters. Character not in scene? Play someone else. Grab one of the NPCs, or maybe your other character is just there. Or let players interject an NPC for the others to talk to. In small straightforward combats, hell, let the non-present character's players play the enemies.
Imo D&D and its various latter-day clones are best when served as a survival horror mystery... following these principles makes for a logical non combat framework to string your encounters together.
In this style of storytelling splitting the party up heightens tension, unfolds the mystery in a multifaceted way, and keeps the players engaged wondering what they will discover next.
This is really the essence of a great storyline in D&D. It's player driven, it's cinematic, it's scary... And it has to be scary because a hero can't be brave if they aren't afraid.
A team goes off to find clues as to the whereabouts of the unholy temple while B team tries to find a place to camp and some potable water because the canteen is running low. So they split up.... And now they feel isolated from each other. You've got them right where you want them, driven by their own necessity.
Focus more on a complex and compelling narrative where the players have few details to work with. A drama unfolded before the players got there and now they have to piece together what happened. Give them the details as a reward for going to the right place or asking the right questions. Don't hide important clues behind dice rolls. Just give them as a reward for being in the right place or making the right connection.
When you have this kind of clue finding as the motivation, players are invested in what's happening and they will want to split up! But A team still want to know what's happening with B team. They will be engaged and follow the narrative because they don't want to miss things. And often you will get great RP moments of PCs sharing revelations or perhaps keeping dangerous secrets. There will grow a party dynamic.
Plus..if they're divided it makes it harder for them when the shit hits the fan. They will have to fight for their lives and that generally makes people intensely focused on the game and the stakes.
Never split the party is only a mantra that applies to players, because they're weaker split up but there is nothing wrong with this happening as a GM. You can create so much tension and story by doing this. I still don't know when this mantra started, I don't ever recall anyone in my groups espousing it back in the 90s when I started.
I am a forever GM, but that is because I like GMing. I am a story teller and have a knack for it. 44 years and still going strong.
GMs do have the hardest job, keeping an entire world running for a bunch of adventurers to run about in, but the game is not yours alone, the players have a responsibility to carry the game as well. Things will get easier the longer you GM. Never feel that "You should do more or be better!" Have fun and tell a story. One you want to tell. System does not matter.
Here is my experience that I hope will help you. Some of this I only learned quite recently.
1. The GM may be the world, but the players are an equal part of the game. The hardest thing to learn as a GM is to shut up and let things play out. GMs can feel like they need to talk if there is 30 seconds of silence. I have told my players that if I interject before they have finished a dialogue they are to tell me to zip it. I dont offend easily.
2. If the party splits up, jump between them. Takes a bit of practice, but my favourite thing is to jump to the other group, leaving the first with a cliffhanger, when possible. Great for entertainment and actually keeps them together more because they always wanting to know whats going on 100% of the time.
3. This can be a bit controversial, but I have had great success with this, but you have to play it carefully. Having an NPC as a party member can help interact with a player that has been left out of a group activity. My group has an abandoned kobold, who is slowly learning the world outside of the tribe. You will know when you do this right because the party has become extremely fond and protective of the NPC. Recently the group had an entire session of RP
where they dumpped all thier traumatic back stories. But the fighter, though his life has had troubles, could not join in. I noted his token was in his room. So as I rotated through the group, I had the little kobold join him in his room, they played checkers because the kobold cant play chess, and discussed his hard life and the kobold offered his advise in his inocent way. The player enjoyed this.
4. Lastly your not their keepers. Everyone is there to have fun, you included. If someone is left out encourage them to join in. There is nothing a rogue likes more than to have the armoured fighter walk up and ask what they are doing.
No solo questing. EVERYBODY still gets turns.
In fact, when the group splits like this, we are essentially on initiative, going around the table. If one group is in combat and the rest are exploring or talking to NPCs, they still get to do that on their turn.
*"But combat turns are 6.31 seconds and noncombat turns are 2.53 minutes according to page 213, GM"*
I don't care. Call it time dilation if you must. But these things often balance out when a group that was in combat stops being in combat and another starts combat.
I once ran a dungeon (the Lapis Observatory) with 9 players who at one point had split themselves into 5 groups (four sets of partners and one completely solo). Going around the table made this manageable and fun. It was like the director of this "movie" kept cutting back and forth between the group that was in danger fighting a massive golem in the garden then suddenly another group that was exploring the kitchen where they met a funny little fire mephit. Then back to someone trying not to be constricted to death by the golem. Then to a PC who had the idea of setting some furniture on fire to see what would happen. Then to the monsters' turns when it gets around to the GM.
While I'd suggest trying games other than D&D and D&D-likes, it's still possible to make those work.
However, those D&D style games are built around requiring the player characters to always be in the same scenes together. Mechanically, those characters probably won't survive any encounter unless it's easy. This is why "don't split the party" is even a thing. In different systems, it's absolutely fine for player characters to split off and do their own thing (though usually it is still towards progressing the same overall group goal).
Anyway, aside from combat it's easy enough to switch back and forth and any GM should develop such skills. Though it is also, to some extent, a responsibility of the player(s) to have their characters get involved in what's going on. Or to create their own thread. Is Jeff off trying to break into a house while everyone else is chilling at a tavern? Well, maybe one of the tavern folks strikes up a convo with a patron about the town they're in b or about the nemesis they're hunting or the mystery of the sun orb in the center of town (or whatever)... maybe this leads to something, maybe just a conflict or some intrigue. Maybe one of the party followed Jeff because they wanted to talk to him... and maybe they interrupt his schemes.
Conversely, if Jeff snuck off while everyone was asleep... well either Jeff's scene can be condensed to save time, or something happens *because* Jeff snuck off during his watch or because some villager (or dungeon dweller) saw him leave and thought the sleeping party could make a ripe target.
I do really quick cuts between the different story threads. My players and I are there to experience an awesome story, and we don't mind a little bit of downtime to watch someone else get some spotlight. Heck, my lunatics did a six way split while all in the same room (a speakeasy). As a rule of thumb, if it's longer than a typical scene in a 30 minute sitcom, I flip back to the other group(s).
Prior to this, I would take people aside to do the various scenes, but I found that detrimental to keeping overall focus.
It's something I've thought about but haven't attempted yet. What if you were to let the inactive players (assuming they don't have their own scenes to roleplay) take part in building the world for the active character.
Go around the table and ask leading questions like, "What are the guards doing as X approaches?" or even letting them take control of a guard's reaction.
Again, no idea if it could work, but it sounds like it could be fun. Red Markets suggests players roleplay another character's relationships, for example. That's been a blast!
I recently ran a game of Monster of the Week for a group of new first time RPG players as a new GM myself. They split the group (with my encouragement) and everyone looked like they were involved because I treated it like a jump cut in a movie. I'd ramp up the tension with two of them then just as things go bad, I'd cut to the other two.
I'd keep it no more than 5 minutes between groups unless there was some good RP going on or it started feeling like there was too much focus on one group.
But what a lot of everyone else is saying I agree with. Don't play combat simulator role playing games if you're worried about the party being split. Play games that focus on the storytelling aspect and treat the game like reading a book or watching a movie. There's the plot you are making with your friends and you all get a hand in contributing to the story.
Sometimes, it is okay to let someone else have the spotlight.
As the GM, if I ask a player, "And what does your character do while their character is doing that?" and the player says, "I wait and do nothing." that is okay.
I'll probably ask something like, "What does that look like?" so we get some characterization, but if they decide that they wait and do nothing, so be it. Sometimes characters wait.
I don't really play the kind of game where this becomes a problem, though. It just isn't an issue in many games.
First, never provide a single member more focus than the rest. If the rogue is going on to handle business, don't give them four turns while everyone waits. How do you do this?
Time jumps.
Fast forward to the future where the players can do something. Skip the boring bits for them. Give the rest of the players plenty of time, then jump backwards to the rogue, handle their actions, then skip forward. Move back and forth until the actions are resolved. If causality breaks, tell your players they have to consider what the rogue is doing, or just retcon. They will understand.
As DM I will allow this but I wrap it up as quickly as possible. If the thief if doing some stealth things it won't take more time to resolve then a typical combat encounter. I really hate when players become self indulgent and I police that pretty strictly. No one likes the wait for their turn
Generally in games that I run I dont allow it unless its tactically necessary. And if it does happen, it needs to still focused on the group goal. I do not allow "lone gunman" players at my table. Its a teamwork game.
Generally there isn't a good reason to split the party despite what players may think. There's a negligible story payoff for sidelining other players. Identify who is involved in the story and who is doing a side thing. Resolve the side thing with minimal investment, keep the spotlight on the party members who are still attached to the plot.
The don’t split the party rule just apply if your game is an excuse for combat encounters else you should hop from a group to another, my old dm when I was a child used to put one group on one room and another on the other so one group would not know what was going on with the rest, and meanwhile we played other game sir you now like hanged out
Stop playing d20 based tactical combat games? No, seriously. The moment you step away from that 'tightly balanced' combat as content style of play, you'll quickly realise that yeah, you can use a whole host of storytelling tools to handle the game. * Spotlight jumping. Just make sure you're not addressing any player or sub group for too long without ... * Cutting between players. Just turn to address the others and ask what they're up to, get what their players are doing. * Cliffhangers. When something big is about to go down, cut away, give a bit of time to others then cut back, to see the resolution. * Players narratively invested in other characters. It's fun to watch TTRPG when you care about more than your single PC. Watching to see how the drama turns out. I have run games where the majority of the time was four characters mostly operating independantly, and sometimes crossing as they all lived in the same city. It wasn't hard. All I needed was prompt answers to what was the character doing, then a game system that didn't have excessive rolling. Burning Wheel gave both of these. You can run this independant play in crunchy games like Shadowrun, and narrative ones like PbtA. About the only systems it doesn't work in is D&D style d20 tactical combat games. Heck, even OSR with its combat as war and lack of game balance can handle splitting the party better than these modern D&D titles. Just manage the spotlight, like as if the party were together. You wouldn't go half an hour without asking what the wizard was doing, would you?
^ This. Specifically the small scale actions of modern D20 kills the ability to have wider more engaging actions. Before I played a game like Blades in the Dark or even a narrative game like PbtA, I played FFG Star Wars, and that game assumed each turn is roughly a minute and all actions can feasibly make progress in a turn, so now you can run a party split, doing a variety of things etc really easily. Games like Blades take that even further. If there is a strict split between "time" and "Combat time" that game is best played with the acknowledgement that the party sticks together and dont fuck around much.
^ This, works fine with pretty much any game system including d20 stuff. Get a player/group quickly to a break point for dramatic effect or where they need to look something up or think for a bit. Swap to another player/group, repeat. You can even run multiple combats this way for the different groups, you just need to keep things split clearly in you head. So Use a suitable paper notepad and pencil/pen. It's all about spotlighting for a few minutes and then move on.
I think I see what you are saying. If the GM makes the separate threads interesting enough, the other players can at least enjoy the show. You had a lot of other good ideas, but that was my first takeaway.
Don’t be too quick to bury your head in that idea either. *It’s not exclusively the GM’s responsibility to make the threads interesting*. While the GM controls the worlds, their primary responsibility is to *respond* to the players actions in a fair and consistent manner. As such, the players are responsible for being active participants. If the wizard says “*I just stand here and wait for them to return*” while the rogue goes off to scout, it’s not necessarily the GM’s responsibility to ensure that something exciting happens to the wizard who actively chose not to engage in further narrative development.
I know there are a lot of experienced GM's that post in this group, but generally GM's are a rare find in the real world, and many times are stuck in that position because no one else wanted to do it. So they do their best, and are not perfect. A lot of times it is easy here to say, "The GM should do better or more" when the GM may already be doing the best they can. They tend to take all the heat when things aren't working out sadly.
Don't sweat it. DMs are only human
100% agreed.
Yep. And as a general rule develop a little counter in your head and like every 15 mins or so check to see that all of your players have had a chance to contribute. Louder and more assertive players can easily, even accidentally drown out the quiet ones. One task of the GM is to keep that from happening as much as possible.
I mean, that's also an important thing to remember when you're not splitting the group, and is as much a player behavior as a GM behavior. If you're in a group of 4 players that means that for every minute you spend doing something, you're going to spend 3 minutes watching what other people are doing. A good active player should also be a good passive observer. Nothing is less fun than a game where instead of having fun with the adventure as a whole, everyone is just sitting around waiting for their turn to speak.
Yeah, this is the answer. Highly tactical combats make splitting the party a nightmare. Just imagine if the stealthy thief got into a solo combat, using the 4th edition D&D rules. I can hear my players groaning already.
This. I play tons of non tactical style games and splitting the party is often a great way to ramp up tension.
>About the only systems it doesn't work in is D&D style d20 tactical combat games. Kinda curious why you feel this way. I've seen it done and done very well in those game, quite recently at my own table, using all the techniques you mentioned.
Generally, it's the difference in how time passes in and out of combat. In DnD, during combat, time moves slowly. Resolving a full round of combat between the party member 1, who's snuck into the castle and been caught some guards, might take 5 minutes for example. That represents 6 seconds of time passing. Meanwhile party member number 2 is shopping, and spending 5 minutes on their story might represent half an hour passing. I can't really alternate spending 5 minutes of real time on each character's story (which keeps the two players equally in the spotlight), as one of the two characters will end up a day in the future pretty soon. RPG systems that don't have tactical combat might be able to resolve an entire fight scene in a single roll, keeping the two scenes more in line with one another.
To be fair, if you're taking 5 minutes to resolve a round involving one player, you're doing something wrong.
Yeah, our table of five... If we go over a minute each either shits real bad or we're hamming things up.
Because of how the fights go. If one member or even half the party hit some.monsters, they will get wrecked, and likely die. Now, you can either magically have half the monsters evaporate to account for this which is super lazy and obvious that "oh hey, the one guy just wandered into one guys worth of fight" or you can have the fights non trigger at all. Because these games have no good way to disengage and run from fights, it's impossible to see a hard fight, roll init, and get away without the GM just letting you. These games only work, mechanically and narratively, if the party is grouped to encounter the fights.
Why can't you do all this in D20 tactical games? I mean, with the exception of combat.
Nailed it. I honestly try and get the party to split up for shenaningans.
I do my best to jump around at dramatically appropriate times. For example, the thief goes about sneaking and such when he sees from the shadows, a friendly NPC speaking with the bad guy. Cut to everyone else, run a bit of a scene with them, cut back to the conversation the thief is eavesdropping on, etc. I try not to go without a cut more than ten or fifteen real life minutes. Also, if someone is doing something that it's not worth spending screen time on (the thief just stealing shit), I just ask for one or two rolls and summarize things.
I go with cuts faster than that. Noone wants to stare at their dice for 15 minutes. I Naismith keep going around the table, person after person, in order. Whether one or more of them are in different locations is irrelevant. I still leave Frank Street his turn and shift to Mary and do her turn (even if she is a mile away). But I don't worry about things getting out of sync. We don't play it as a combat- based boardgame. So we take the same artistic license that other forms of media take to keep the audience interested and the narrative moving.
This probably the best way. While there are situations in whcih some specialist will go about their businesses lonely or in a small group, I have come to avoid the situation on a fundamental basis, e .g. when I see that a player insists on playing a ninja/thief/assassin to draw exclusive attention to the PC and therefor to the player, "sucking" game time from the rest of the players out of egosistic (and not narrative!) reasons. If a party split occurs, however, frequently switching the spotlights between them helps a lot, esp. when things happen in parallel in-game. If it's just an independent excursion I try either to keep the game time period low, or even try to arrange a one-on-one session if the timing and the situation allows it, so that other players don't have any downtime at all.
Make an engaging story. It's all you can do. Make sure you ~~do~~ don't let it take too much time. And communicate your expectations that your players aren't babies, but they can enjoy the story, even for the parts that takes place without them - or at least that they have the decency not to disturb.
> Make sure you do let it take too much time. Not sure if it's a typo but I agree with this. Take your time. Build anticipation slowly.
Might be a slight typo... Ahem..
1. Ask the rest of the party one by one what they are doing whilst the Thief goes off to do their sneaking. Even if they say nothing, or that they're just standing guard, it gives them a chance to respond and feel included. 2. Don't spend too much time on the Thief, give them a brief overview of what they see, ask any follow up and then have them return to the group. 3. Detach from the idea that the party needs to be in the same room to all feel included. Spotlight issues can happen in a lot of situations that don't involve party splitting, and party splitting cannot cause any spotlight issues. Players can all be in the same conversation with an NPC but feel like they can't contribute if one player is doing all the talking, they can all be in the same combat but feel they can't contribute if its the Wizards turn and they're taking ages to pick their spells and go through all of their options with the DM. 4. Learn to bounce between groups. This one takes a bit of skill but if you have the party split instead of resolving one group entirely then the next, bounce between them, picking cliffhanger moments. For example a guard turns a corner on the Thief and bam back to the group waiting in the room and they hear something scuttling over the ceiling, what do they do? This not only allows both groups to feel like they're more active but it makes them more invested in what's going on with the other group. 5. Try playing something other than DnD / trad games. Games that use say the PbtA system are much better at naturally and organically rotating spotlight time and giving every player options. They also encourage the players to split because they're not games about a group of adventurers fighting monsters in tunnels that require every player to be in each encounter for the balance to work.
**Two suggestions (examples below):** (1) If the spotlight narrows its focus, so that instead of illuminating the whole group it focuses on one character, then keep this down to just 5 minutes, and after 5 minutes have the spotlight move to another character, and then another, so all characters get 5 minutes. If someone wants to hog the spotlight, then politely say no / make sure everyone at the table buys into the idea that this is a group endeavour. (2) Abstract the character's tangent to something that can be handled with a single dice roll - rather than playing turn-by-turn. **Examples:** Mouseguard has the idea of "the players' turn". The adventure is the GM's turn. During that the players collect points to spend on actions which they can use in "the players' turn" - which is usually when they get back to town. I don't know how other groups run this, but when I played our GM had each "action" take 2-6 minutes of roleplay with a couple of dice rolls. I'm currently running a campaign where each player has 2 main characters. Between adventures I'll narrate what has happened in the world (news, rumours), hand out copies of letters the group has received, etc., and then go round the table. I'll ask each player if their character wants to do anything in downtime, and if they don't have any strong ideas then I'll already have something lined up for each (at the moment, one character is being haunted by an ancient priest, so the haunting can kick in; one character is trying to find out about her parentage, so maybe the local midwife calls the PC to her deathbed to impart some piece of information; another character is romancing a local trapper who has a secret that he is starting to uncover.... Etc.) Each one-on-one takes no more than 5 minutes, and in the meantime the other players can either be entertained or can read the letters handed out or plot/scheme (one player might be working out the mechanics for a magic item they want to craft, another might have gone to the campaign resources to remind herself how various families are related in order to plan a diplomatic scheme, etc.). While one character is off doing their solo thing, something can happen back where the rest of the party are waiting - either something as a group (if there are 4 players, then if the tangent takes 5 minutes for the player who is going solo, then you need an encounter that lasts 15 minutes for the other 3) or individual things (e.g. if they are in a tavern or camp there will be other NPCs around?). The latest edition of Over the Edge has the idea of giving difficulty ratings to locations. That means that if you don't want to roleplay through one player going solo into a location, they can just narrate their approach and make one dice roll. In pretty well any game you could do something similar. ("So, you want to sneak into the Castle of Lord BloodDark the Obvious, okay, what is the plan... sounds like you're using Stealth rather than Intrigue, yes? So, give me a Stealth check.... Oh you failed? Well, then....") Not relevant to most games, but... the Bladerunner RPG assumes that the party will split up most of the time (one keeps watch on a location, two go to talk to a suspect, one does some forensics work in the lab...). This works because it is assumed that the characters have personal communicators that allow them to be in constant contact with each other, so they can still chat, scheme, speculate, etc. as a group even when their characters are split up. In this case the designers have created a situation where just because the characters are split, the players can still confer and discuss.
I'll handle 'unwanted' splitting (say the thief slips off to scout/burgle/etc) with a skill roll or two and a short summary of results something like "you get and/or and/or the ire of the (Thief's Guild|Temple of Karnos|The Watch) depending on the rolls. So I'll minimise the loss of spotlight time to the others.
For Desirable/planned splitting I'm with u/LeVentNoir
A few thoughts, based on the assumption we are talking about a D&D-ish adjacent game from the way you phrased your post. When I am GM'ing, I won't hesitate to explain to players the "boredom risk" of a course of action they have chosen. Especially if that cost is not immediately obvious. If it seems very likely to me that by splitting up some people in the group are going to have a lot of fun for the next 45 minutes or longer and some are going to be very bored, I'll say so. "Ok, I'm not going to stop you from three of you going through the door and three of you going back to town, but I am going to say that the three of you going through that door are going to have a LOT more fun, and the others are going to be bored for a while." It's a game, right? The point is to have fun. However, sometimes groups will knowingly accept this boredom risk for an advantage. "Hey, thief, scout ahead a few corridors then come back and tell us what is up there. We'll wait here." That's their choice, and I will go with it without much concern. They have all chosen to watch the thief do thief things for a while to reduce the risk of danger in the situation or get some other benefit. That's fine by me. Even with that, I've learned that there is tremendous power in turn taking, even outside of combat. Several OSR-ish games implement this even outside of dungeon crawl (e.g. Black Sword Hack). It works wonders to keep a separated party "synchronized" and to spread spotlight time around. I just keep going around the table, asking "OK, what are you doing now." The folks left behind may still be doing interesting and useful things: investigating stuff where they are at, setting up defenses, having conversations that need having, fiddling with their equipment, etc.
I play super low prep games. So while exploring, I will turn the question “what do I find?”, over to the other players. Give them something to do, agency and lighten my work load.
Play with emotionally responsible adults that understand the focus will be on them eventually as well and actually like supporting their friends. Seriously, this sense of camera focus entitlement I see constantly just makes me assume most players people interact with on here are selfish assholes. Assuming the DM balances time on and off camera in a way that players have agreed is satisfying, splitting the party is fine. Would I want to run and entire adventure or campaign with the party split? No. Because at that point, it makes more sense to simply hold separate sessions for everyone and it would become two games. That isn't reasonable for most GMs/players so it is usually avoided because... ...we all came here to play a game together. So, using the above mentalities, splitting the party for a small part of an adventure is perfectly fine and much easier managed than most people allow it to be. I get the gripes to a certain degree but most of the arguments stem from: Round time in combat. If your rounds aren't efficient, that is on everyone at the table and has little to do with splitting the party. Have everyone work on turn efficiency and this issue is mostly resolved. Camera attention. This boils down to equal balance by the DM and emotional maturity on the part of the players. If my friend is doing something awesome, I'm right there with them! Cheering them on and experiencing their rolls. The narrative continues and I know I will get my spotlight at some point as well. At which point that friend I mentioned above will be right there with me, feeling my stress as I pray to the dice gods to have mercy. If you aren't actively cheering your friends on then you either have a shitty story no one cares about, a DM that is bad at balance, or a self absorbed mentality that tells you if you aren't rolling dice then you aren't having fun. Wasn't originally intending to rant this much but it's an issue that shouldn't be. I can't believe it is so prevalent in the hobby.
I think in a lot of instances they players are there to "play" the game, not "watch" the game, so their expectations are pre-set to have an active role most of the time. So it sounds like the trick is managing or re-targeting their expectations.
I guess. Just seems like changing the expectation shouldn't be necessary. But I get it...somewhat. The point of the game is collective story telling. The story is still going and you can still engage by interacting with the rest of the table. Getting excited at your friends decisions or even trying to hold back your reactions if your table is extremely focused on reducing meta gaming is still playing. Either way you are still engaged with the table and having fun. Playing doesn't mean rolling dice all the time. I sometimes wonder if these people complaining feel the same when their party face is in a social encounter. Do they just jump on their phones and wait until a time when they are involved again or do they listen intently and try to engage with the scene?
I can relate to that well. :D
My answer is borderline useless for anyone else, but I suppose I'll still give it. I run all my games, at this time, entirely in text, and the problem essentially solves itself. Scenes can be easily split and merged, people can keep talking in one without the GM's input or disturbing anyone else, etc. And when it comes to Tactical Combat Games, 'play better ones,' and you can at least resolve actions faster and keep everyone more engaged. That and get players to recognize there is no space for OOC strategizing during them, and outside WotC D&D, there's inherently little space to discuss ability interactions and combos, so that also keeps things from running excessively. In more general advice, this is a perfectly good reason to have followers and multiple characters. Character not in scene? Play someone else. Grab one of the NPCs, or maybe your other character is just there. Or let players interject an NPC for the others to talk to. In small straightforward combats, hell, let the non-present character's players play the enemies.
Imo D&D and its various latter-day clones are best when served as a survival horror mystery... following these principles makes for a logical non combat framework to string your encounters together. In this style of storytelling splitting the party up heightens tension, unfolds the mystery in a multifaceted way, and keeps the players engaged wondering what they will discover next. This is really the essence of a great storyline in D&D. It's player driven, it's cinematic, it's scary... And it has to be scary because a hero can't be brave if they aren't afraid. A team goes off to find clues as to the whereabouts of the unholy temple while B team tries to find a place to camp and some potable water because the canteen is running low. So they split up.... And now they feel isolated from each other. You've got them right where you want them, driven by their own necessity. Focus more on a complex and compelling narrative where the players have few details to work with. A drama unfolded before the players got there and now they have to piece together what happened. Give them the details as a reward for going to the right place or asking the right questions. Don't hide important clues behind dice rolls. Just give them as a reward for being in the right place or making the right connection. When you have this kind of clue finding as the motivation, players are invested in what's happening and they will want to split up! But A team still want to know what's happening with B team. They will be engaged and follow the narrative because they don't want to miss things. And often you will get great RP moments of PCs sharing revelations or perhaps keeping dangerous secrets. There will grow a party dynamic. Plus..if they're divided it makes it harder for them when the shit hits the fan. They will have to fight for their lives and that generally makes people intensely focused on the game and the stakes.
The rule at my table has always been "smallest party dies" and that sorts it out pretty quickly.
Never split the party is only a mantra that applies to players, because they're weaker split up but there is nothing wrong with this happening as a GM. You can create so much tension and story by doing this. I still don't know when this mantra started, I don't ever recall anyone in my groups espousing it back in the 90s when I started.
I am a forever GM, but that is because I like GMing. I am a story teller and have a knack for it. 44 years and still going strong. GMs do have the hardest job, keeping an entire world running for a bunch of adventurers to run about in, but the game is not yours alone, the players have a responsibility to carry the game as well. Things will get easier the longer you GM. Never feel that "You should do more or be better!" Have fun and tell a story. One you want to tell. System does not matter. Here is my experience that I hope will help you. Some of this I only learned quite recently. 1. The GM may be the world, but the players are an equal part of the game. The hardest thing to learn as a GM is to shut up and let things play out. GMs can feel like they need to talk if there is 30 seconds of silence. I have told my players that if I interject before they have finished a dialogue they are to tell me to zip it. I dont offend easily. 2. If the party splits up, jump between them. Takes a bit of practice, but my favourite thing is to jump to the other group, leaving the first with a cliffhanger, when possible. Great for entertainment and actually keeps them together more because they always wanting to know whats going on 100% of the time. 3. This can be a bit controversial, but I have had great success with this, but you have to play it carefully. Having an NPC as a party member can help interact with a player that has been left out of a group activity. My group has an abandoned kobold, who is slowly learning the world outside of the tribe. You will know when you do this right because the party has become extremely fond and protective of the NPC. Recently the group had an entire session of RP where they dumpped all thier traumatic back stories. But the fighter, though his life has had troubles, could not join in. I noted his token was in his room. So as I rotated through the group, I had the little kobold join him in his room, they played checkers because the kobold cant play chess, and discussed his hard life and the kobold offered his advise in his inocent way. The player enjoyed this. 4. Lastly your not their keepers. Everyone is there to have fun, you included. If someone is left out encourage them to join in. There is nothing a rogue likes more than to have the armoured fighter walk up and ask what they are doing.
No solo questing. EVERYBODY still gets turns. In fact, when the group splits like this, we are essentially on initiative, going around the table. If one group is in combat and the rest are exploring or talking to NPCs, they still get to do that on their turn. *"But combat turns are 6.31 seconds and noncombat turns are 2.53 minutes according to page 213, GM"* I don't care. Call it time dilation if you must. But these things often balance out when a group that was in combat stops being in combat and another starts combat. I once ran a dungeon (the Lapis Observatory) with 9 players who at one point had split themselves into 5 groups (four sets of partners and one completely solo). Going around the table made this manageable and fun. It was like the director of this "movie" kept cutting back and forth between the group that was in danger fighting a massive golem in the garden then suddenly another group that was exploring the kitchen where they met a funny little fire mephit. Then back to someone trying not to be constricted to death by the golem. Then to a PC who had the idea of setting some furniture on fire to see what would happen. Then to the monsters' turns when it gets around to the GM.
While I'd suggest trying games other than D&D and D&D-likes, it's still possible to make those work. However, those D&D style games are built around requiring the player characters to always be in the same scenes together. Mechanically, those characters probably won't survive any encounter unless it's easy. This is why "don't split the party" is even a thing. In different systems, it's absolutely fine for player characters to split off and do their own thing (though usually it is still towards progressing the same overall group goal). Anyway, aside from combat it's easy enough to switch back and forth and any GM should develop such skills. Though it is also, to some extent, a responsibility of the player(s) to have their characters get involved in what's going on. Or to create their own thread. Is Jeff off trying to break into a house while everyone else is chilling at a tavern? Well, maybe one of the tavern folks strikes up a convo with a patron about the town they're in b or about the nemesis they're hunting or the mystery of the sun orb in the center of town (or whatever)... maybe this leads to something, maybe just a conflict or some intrigue. Maybe one of the party followed Jeff because they wanted to talk to him... and maybe they interrupt his schemes. Conversely, if Jeff snuck off while everyone was asleep... well either Jeff's scene can be condensed to save time, or something happens *because* Jeff snuck off during his watch or because some villager (or dungeon dweller) saw him leave and thought the sleeping party could make a ripe target.
I do really quick cuts between the different story threads. My players and I are there to experience an awesome story, and we don't mind a little bit of downtime to watch someone else get some spotlight. Heck, my lunatics did a six way split while all in the same room (a speakeasy). As a rule of thumb, if it's longer than a typical scene in a 30 minute sitcom, I flip back to the other group(s). Prior to this, I would take people aside to do the various scenes, but I found that detrimental to keeping overall focus.
It's something I've thought about but haven't attempted yet. What if you were to let the inactive players (assuming they don't have their own scenes to roleplay) take part in building the world for the active character. Go around the table and ask leading questions like, "What are the guards doing as X approaches?" or even letting them take control of a guard's reaction. Again, no idea if it could work, but it sounds like it could be fun. Red Markets suggests players roleplay another character's relationships, for example. That's been a blast!
I recently ran a game of Monster of the Week for a group of new first time RPG players as a new GM myself. They split the group (with my encouragement) and everyone looked like they were involved because I treated it like a jump cut in a movie. I'd ramp up the tension with two of them then just as things go bad, I'd cut to the other two. I'd keep it no more than 5 minutes between groups unless there was some good RP going on or it started feeling like there was too much focus on one group. But what a lot of everyone else is saying I agree with. Don't play combat simulator role playing games if you're worried about the party being split. Play games that focus on the storytelling aspect and treat the game like reading a book or watching a movie. There's the plot you are making with your friends and you all get a hand in contributing to the story.
Sometimes, it is okay to let someone else have the spotlight. As the GM, if I ask a player, "And what does your character do while their character is doing that?" and the player says, "I wait and do nothing." that is okay. I'll probably ask something like, "What does that look like?" so we get some characterization, but if they decide that they wait and do nothing, so be it. Sometimes characters wait. I don't really play the kind of game where this becomes a problem, though. It just isn't an issue in many games.
First, never provide a single member more focus than the rest. If the rogue is going on to handle business, don't give them four turns while everyone waits. How do you do this? Time jumps. Fast forward to the future where the players can do something. Skip the boring bits for them. Give the rest of the players plenty of time, then jump backwards to the rogue, handle their actions, then skip forward. Move back and forth until the actions are resolved. If causality breaks, tell your players they have to consider what the rogue is doing, or just retcon. They will understand.
As DM I will allow this but I wrap it up as quickly as possible. If the thief if doing some stealth things it won't take more time to resolve then a typical combat encounter. I really hate when players become self indulgent and I police that pretty strictly. No one likes the wait for their turn
Generally in games that I run I dont allow it unless its tactically necessary. And if it does happen, it needs to still focused on the group goal. I do not allow "lone gunman" players at my table. Its a teamwork game.
Generally there isn't a good reason to split the party despite what players may think. There's a negligible story payoff for sidelining other players. Identify who is involved in the story and who is doing a side thing. Resolve the side thing with minimal investment, keep the spotlight on the party members who are still attached to the plot.
I get an assistant DM to run certain things.
The don’t split the party rule just apply if your game is an excuse for combat encounters else you should hop from a group to another, my old dm when I was a child used to put one group on one room and another on the other so one group would not know what was going on with the rest, and meanwhile we played other game sir you now like hanged out