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View Full Version : Handling a Split Party (Uh Oh.....)



Chijinda
2017-05-19, 07:22 AM
I've recently taken the reigns of GM in my group to give our last GM a break after a three year campaign, and so far I've generally been met with positive feedback (yay!) However, last session, I ran into a major snag in streamlining the campaign, which came in the form of splitting the party. During the last session, one of the two PC's (henceforth referred to as "Bob") tried to fall in with the villain's group to act as a mole on the inside and it's early enough in the campaign that they don't have much reason to doubt him. So far he's been pretty successful-- this isn't inherently the problem.

The problem is the other PC (henceforth referred to as "Joe") used this opportunity to fall off the grid, by getting Bob to shoot him non-fatally, and fake his own death, before setting off in a completely different direction. While the two are still going to stay in contact via electronic means, they are effectively tackling this campaign from basically two completely separate railways now. It also (to an extent) precludes me doing solo sessions BECAUSE they are still in contact with each other, and may call on each other to create options or leave intel for each other that may affect what they do.

So basically, I have Bob's PC running with the villain's group for probably the next session, maybe even the next two sessions, and Joe's PC faking his own death and trying to work under the grid, and I'm not sure how to handle this long-term, as I feel this is DRASTICALLY going to slow things down and leave one player or another bored, as I have to switch between the two.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-19, 07:40 AM
You do what you'd do in most other kind of games: make them take turns. Time them if you have to. If one of them gers bored while it's not their turn, that's on them.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-05-19, 07:48 AM
A massive time skip. Advance things forward weeks/months/years until the infiltration is completed and the party can reunite. You can spend a session doing it if it feels like you need to, but you don't have to. Absolutely make some rolls to see how both sides fare over this period of time.

Nupo
2017-05-19, 09:53 AM
The best way I have found to handle a split party is don't. Avoid it like the plague! It's almost impossible to keep players from gaining information that their characters don't have while at the same time keeping players not involved from getting bored. The best solution it to get the party back together ASAP.

SirBellias
2017-05-19, 10:43 AM
I second the time skip idea. Mostly because I enjoy time skips as a device. But still, it's probably the best way to get them back together while accomplishing their disparate goals.

LordCdrMilitant
2017-05-19, 12:12 PM
I go with the "take turns" solution, usually.

I do a little with one, and a little with the other.

CharonsHelper
2017-05-19, 01:28 PM
+3 to the time skip. Maybe play a scene or two montage style, but hurry them back together.

AshfireMage
2017-05-19, 03:04 PM
+1 to making them take turns here. In the games I've been in, it hasn't been a problem as long as the DM is reasonably on top switching in reasonable amounts of time. Especially since it seems like you only have two groups to work with here. Maybe tell your players to bring something vaguely non-distracting to work on in their downtime (or maybe that's just me, since I tend to have problems concentrating when my hands aren't busy. Usually I bring drawing or knitting or something to sessions)

You can, of course, do a time skip too, but only if your players aren't super invested in seeing their pathways played out. It would suck to be forced to skip an interesting portion of the story and something cool your character did just because the DM didn't want to deal with a split party.

Another option, if you don't want to alternate and your players aren't keen on just skipping it is to do two separate sessions. This could also be a good idea if secrets are coming heavily into play and your characters don't trust themselves (or you don't trust them) to avoid metagaming. Either schedule extra sessions outside of game time or just tell one player not to show up one week and the next one not to show up the week after. In this case, you'd want to be super strict about limiting the length of time your players can spend on that (so you don't wind up doing this for the next three months), but it could be just what you need to give people a little time for a brief solo jaunt.

Lazymancer
2017-05-20, 03:32 AM
I've recently taken the reigns of GM in my group to give our last GM a break after a three year campaign, and so far I've generally been met with positive feedback (yay!) However, last session, I ran into a major snag in streamlining the campaign, which came in the form of splitting the party. During the last session, one of the two PC's (henceforth referred to as "Bob") tried to fall in with the villain's group to act as a mole on the inside and it's early enough in the campaign that they don't have much reason to doubt him. So far he's been pretty successful-- this isn't inherently the problem.

The problem is the other PC (henceforth referred to as "Joe") used this opportunity to fall off the grid, by getting Bob to shoot him non-fatally, and fake his own death, before setting off in a completely different direction. While the two are still going to stay in contact via electronic means, they are effectively tackling this campaign from basically two completely separate railways now. It also (to an extent) precludes me doing solo sessions BECAUSE they are still in contact with each other, and may call on each other to create options or leave intel for each other that may affect what they do.

So basically, I have Bob's PC running with the villain's group for probably the next session, maybe even the next two sessions, and Joe's PC faking his own death and trying to work under the grid, and I'm not sure how to handle this long-term, as I feel this is DRASTICALLY going to slow things down and leave one player or another bored, as I have to switch between the two.
Each player gets additional character to play.

Main PC of player #1 finds someone to boss around in villain group and this someone is played by player #2.
Main PC of player #2 finds someone to work with the grid and this someone is played by player #1.

It's a good idea to make secondary characters less powerful than the main and have main PC be in charge.

P.s. Sorry for digits, but I'm not sure if Bob/Joe are players or PCs.

RazorChain
2017-05-20, 04:23 AM
Each player gets additional character to play.

Main PC of player #1 finds someone to boss around in villain group and this someone is played by player #2.
Main PC of player #2 finds someone to work with the grid and this someone is played by player #1.

It's a good idea to make secondary characters less powerful than the main and have main PC be in charge.

P.s. Sorry for digits, but I'm not sure if Bob/Joe are players or PCs.


I second troupe style of play....I often do this when the party splits in this way. The players often have a lot of fun with a secondary character.

Freed
2017-05-23, 09:49 AM
I like to take turns, but I occasionally pass notes with the player that isn't getting the spotlight at the moment, as well as the one who is if the other player shouldn't know that information.

Velaryon
2017-05-23, 12:52 PM
I'm quite surprised (pleasantly so) to see so many people advocate taking turns. In my experience, most of this board acts as if their players are deathly allergic to being out of the action for more than ten minutes.

Splitting up is okay, as long as you make sure that nobody is left idle too long and that everyone at the table is okay with it. Depending on the specifics of the game, you could bounce between their two storylines frequently, or dedicate an extended length of time to one character, then switch to the other.

In the case of the second, I think it's a good idea to involve the player whose character is "off-screen" in one way or another. Lazymancer's suggestion of having each of them take on the role of a secondary character in the other's storyline is a good one. That keeps them actively involved and makes it easier to concentrate on one part of the story at a time. If for some reason this isn't feasible or the players don't want to do it, you could always draft the idle player as an assistant DM during the other's play - have them run some of the enemies in combat encounters, for example.

I find that a party who is capable of splitting up sometimes adds to the immersion and makes the game more interesting. Or to quote someone I used to play with, "the party don't have to hold hands to go to the bathroom." As long as you can manage things so that nobody is bored at the table, and you're willing to do the extra work of managing two story arcs at once (and it is definitely some extra work), there's no problem with this.

If, on the other hand, you don't want to deal with the players being separate, I'd suggest either having one character retire for the moment and focusing on the other, or speaking to the group out of game and saying that you're not comfortable essentially preparing for two separate games at once, and ask them to find a reason to get their characters back together.

Jay R
2017-05-23, 08:13 PM
Nobody in my group is willing to split the party, whether I'm the DM or somebody else is.

We all know that the DM plans the encounters in advance, and won't change them based on PC actions. If we split the party, then each half will face an encounter that was intended to be a serious challenge for the entire party.

Splitting the party represents your intent to commit suicide, neither more nor less than being flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests1.

1I'll be shocked if anybody recognizes this reference.

Katrina
2017-05-25, 12:37 AM
"It's dangerous to go alone" as one old man said.

That being said, as a big fan of Intrigue, I love scenarios like this. I advocate taking turns, and my players are...well, of mixed feelings on it. In all honesty, their opinion seems to shift with the wind and who is addicted to cigarettes at the moment. I've played some games where players will happily volunteer "And then I'm going to go take a smoke while you do his stuff so I won't know what's going on when I'm not there." and then other times they seem annoyed by it. I think it may actually be a personal split through the middle of my group, perhaps based around certain people's ideas of the competency of other people, but I digress.

If both of your players are willing to do work with this style of play, it can be very realistic and awesome, allowing for amazing stories that simply can't happen in "non-splitting" parties. That being said, in a split party scenario, attention must be paid to both any form of combat encounter and to keep the time roughly engaging for the others. A second character for the left out PC is an excellent Idea that I might impliment at my own table.

Chijinda
2017-05-25, 06:17 AM
Small update:

Looks like we'll be sticking with the taking turns for now. They seem relatively happy with it, and, as this is an investigative game (Dark Heresy), it lets them both pursue leads as related to their specialties. By sheer coincidence (and this isn't even GM "conveniently" this was a happy accident), Bob is getting a perfect chance to check out a lead that Joe started itching to pursue just last session but is unable to make any headway on, and Joe basically has all but given Bob a character to play, as one of the first things he did when he found himself on his own was explicitly go out to hire himself a bodyguard to replace Bob's character.

Overall they seem pretty happy with the turns, and it's going much smoother than anticipated, as on occasion they run into mental blocks on how to tackle an issue, so this gives them the time to work out their problem, while I work with the other PC. I'd still like to have them regroup in the somewhat near future, but for the time being, this is functional.

Velaryon
2017-05-26, 08:51 PM
Excellent news! If this style of play works for your players and doesn't stress you out too much, there's a lot to be said for a game where the PCs split up to accomplish separate but related tasks, as long as they frequently meet up to pool resources and information. It goes especially well for an investigation-focused campaign like you seem to be focused on.

LordCdrMilitant
2017-05-27, 11:51 AM
Small update:

Looks like we'll be sticking with the taking turns for now. They seem relatively happy with it, and, as this is an investigative game (Dark Heresy), it lets them both pursue leads as related to their specialties. By sheer coincidence (and this isn't even GM "conveniently" this was a happy accident), Bob is getting a perfect chance to check out a lead that Joe started itching to pursue just last session but is unable to make any headway on, and Joe basically has all but given Bob a character to play, as one of the first things he did when he found himself on his own was explicitly go out to hire himself a bodyguard to replace Bob's character.

Overall they seem pretty happy with the turns, and it's going much smoother than anticipated, as on occasion they run into mental blocks on how to tackle an issue, so this gives them the time to work out their problem, while I work with the other PC. I'd still like to have them regroup in the somewhat near future, but for the time being, this is functional.

Good to hear it's working out!

My DH player "investigate" by driving a leman russ tank around shooting at things, so I never have to deal with splitting the party.


Though DH is one of the systems more friendly to splitting the party. Combat isn't the be all and end all of the game, and there are many, many times the investigation can be advanced more effectively by a single party specialist than the whole group. Most of the time, the party has dedicated specialists for out of combat roles, and then everyone just carries a lasgun for fighting.