Finally, a heroic group shot of the full party.
You know, I blame this trope on books. And also on movies. And also every other form of non-tabletop RPG adventure narrative out there. Beyond the confines of the gaming table the fantasy, sci-fi, and action genres are rife with lone wolves splitting off from the group to do any of the following:
That’s a cool moment in a non-interactive or single player story, but it just doesn’t work as well with your buddies sitting around the table. Of course, that’s not to say it can’t be done well with a bit of prep on the GM’s side. Running simultaneous encounters with a single initiative track is a particularly cool tactic. “You sabotage the bridge while we distract the guards,” can work just fine. The problem comes when players spontaneously decide to sneak off and do their own thing. Most encounters are based around challenging the whole party, so blundering into a group challenge all loneliest wolf style is generally going to result in chunky salsa.
Have any of you guys had a positive experience splitting the party? Let’s hear it in the comments.
My kender ended up a full two levels ahead of the rest of the group because, for some odd reason, they kept thinking that leaving her behind or setting her on a side task while they did the real quest was going to keep her out of trouble. “Oh, you got geased to stay out of this city? We’ll just have to go in without you instead of heading someplace you’re allowed in.” Two days later, they come out and my pouches are overflowing with interesting things from the hidden Temple of Void that I’d discovered outside the city while bored…
On the one hand, I want to congratulate you on a job well done. On the other hand, you’re a dirty kender….
Loners are grandstanding far too often. It seems ‘kewl’, but we only have x hours to play. I prevent this in 2 ways: Not down scaling the monsters (CR for a full party) and the wasted time option (you wander about for a bit, but find nothing).
Has the CR thing ever resulted in played death? I heard a story recently about a new player scouting ahead (several hundred yards) before encountering a goblin + goblin dogs. She thought it would be cool to attack, died in short order, and subsequently quit the game. That seems like “how it would really happen,” but it struck me as a crazy harsh “lesson” for a new player.
Digging that wasted time option though. It doesn’t even have to be “literally nothing.” I only has to be less interesting than the crazy-cool hijinks the main party are getting into.
I think that something like that comes down to setting expectations by the DM. I make sure to tell my players that not every encounter is meant to be overcome. If you’re all on your lonesome as the rogue and you run into a wandering kludge of rock trolls, it’s a really good idea to run the hell away…
If you’re all on your lonesome as ANYONE And you run into a wandering kludge of rock trolls, it’s a really good idea to run the hell away…
The one time I’ve had a split the party moment work really well was in a Call of Cthulhu-esque game that I didn’t tell the players was a CoC game. I started it off as a pretty standard murder mystery, let the players split up to search the big house for clues, then started passing out notes, using minor spooky phenomena to keep them separated for an hour of wandering the house. I let them each find some stuff which pointed to mundane answers to the mystery, though also left clues to the actual answer (that the victim was killed by something he accidentally released) until they finally gathered in the cellar, where one of the ones who I hadn’t gotten to suspect all the other players had found a bunch of the victims papers. Then I dropped the floor out from under them, and had them fall into some old abandoned subway tunnels with basically no light and a pack of feral dogs.Part way through the fight, the dogs all got scared and ran off, just before the party was attacked by a ghoul (the thing the victim had released). It was the start of a great campaign, but it was SUPER hard to do, and required not only a lot of prep time from me, but a good group of players open to new things.
Well dang. That’s extremely cool. What version of CoC were you running? I’ve heard great things, but I have no idea where to jump in. I’ve heard good things about Masks of Nyarlathotep…?
I was using the one by Chaosium, though it was a while ago. Unfortunately, I lost all my PDFs when my hard drive fried, so I can’t remember the specific edition.
Well then it sounds like I might have my answer:
http://www.chaosium.com/masks-of-nyarlathotep-pdf/
Thanks for the tip!
Sometimes it’s necessary for info gathering. I’d say it really depends on the DM/GM and how they handle and react to it. I hate splitting the party, but it can still be fun and entertaining for the dormant players with a good amount of storytelling and RP by thE active players. It can be tricker with combat though.
On point about combat. If some players are sitting out you’ve got to hustle it along, otherwise you’re looking at half the party leveling up their dice stacking skills. You don’t want them putting ranks in that skill.
This doesn’t quite count as my wife was doing overtime and couldn’t make our regular sessions: but during a murder mystery defending a monster in court our party bard (my wife) was playing defense barrister and presenting the evidence the party would find adventuring. This led to a really intense and almost augmented reality session where I as the GM would not interfere or bring her up to date on the evidence, they had to tell her before the next day of the court case with an email or skype call.
The Lone Wolf PC always cracks me up. I remember the beginning of the previous campaign I played with my current group. Standard start in a tavern, so the DM asks us in turn where in the tavern our characters are and what they’re doing. The first player: “I sit alone a dimly lit corner of the room, keeping to myself”. Second player: “My chacter is naturally weary of others, so he secludes himself at an end of the room”. Third player: “Is there a corner left unoccupied in the tavern? There is? I sit there on my own”.
You ever read the Ballad of Edgardo?
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/26565579/
The whole thing is an amazing read, but here’s the relevant bit: “I swear the tavern had to be some kind of 8th dimensional shape, because EVERYONE was in their own fucking corner away from everyone else.”
Great story, thanks for that!
One time splitting the party went well was in a World of Darkness game when for…incompatibility of character, half of the party tried to assassinate the other. Luckily, we were two GMs… Otherwise, the “multiples activities on one init track” is something which works well I found for things like base defence, ambushes and the like.
Ooh… Tower defense is a good one. Any cool encounters where you’ve seen that pay out well?
Splitting the party worked out well for my rogue, once. While the paladin led our party and the army against the city’s defenders, I infiltrated the throne room and forced the military dictator to surrender, ending the battle early and securing the town for our empire in the process.
Gambles and payoffs, right? But even if you managed to get the in-game goods, was it still a manageable experience at the table? By that I mean, how long did the paladin and the rest of the army wait to watch you go on a solo mission? I’m guess it was a fun time at the table, but it is a high degree of difficulty for a GM to keep multiple threads moving like that.
In the game of Agone I’ve been running I’ve had the party split several times. It’s a much more forgiving system for that kind of story telling than most other games. The thing about combat in Agone is it usually runs a lot smoother the less combatants there are, so it actually works better to habe the party split up pursuing different goals simultaneously so their combats that they get involved in don’t grind to a halt. Twice I’ve had Pcs in different parts of the continent pursuing coinciding objectives. The biggest issue is just making sure you jump bacl and forth between the split groups at reasonable intervals, and try to cut just as the action slows down when possible, then puck a scene back up once the action picks up again.
In one of the most successful instances, one group of players was working to make contact with and protect a foreign army woth similar goals while the other group ventured into the frozen wastes of a northern continent to try and find an ancient ruin one of the captured soldiers had described (it makes more sense in the larger context of the setting why these were both time sensitive issues). Essentially, as long as the split components are 1: made up of more than one party member abd 2: dealing with interestong problems that the whole party has a vested interest in it usually works pretty well
Before I go on a wild Google chase for this game, can you unpack the combat system a little? Why is combat better with fewer participants? What mechanics make that true?
Well, each turn you roll initiative and declare in reverse initiative order. then based on your declared action you modify your initiative and perform your actions in initiative order. You can then change your action afterwards by lowering your initiative. if there were only a few options it wouldn’t be that bad but there are 20+ It’s essentially designed to be a dueling system which works really well when having 2 swordsmen facing off, probing each-other for weaknesses, etc. but the more people you add the slower everything gets.
I’ve heard of “declare ahead of time” initiative systems, but it’s good to know there’s a system out there that actually specializes in it. Funny how deeply those kinds of changes can work their way through a system, including even classics like “never split the party.”
I appreciate your larger point though. If people are invested, sitting back and watching the other guys work can still be interesting.
I’ll just leave this here for posterity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ
It’s got a beat and you can dance to it. 🙂
Actually in our last Pathfinder session the party was split and it worked out really well for defeating the encounter. We were level 4 or 5 and had to take/open a keep with 100+ guards in it. The Rogue (Dimensional Jaunter archetype) and Kineticist went to do recon while the rest of the party followed up on rumors. The rogue, with hat of disguise and teleporting abilities was able to see important parts of the place and get the information the party needed to make a plan of attack. Ultimately, the party got some poison for the rogue to poison their food (taking most of them out), then invaded from a secret entrance that they discovered through rumor and recon. Splitting allowed us to gather the information and execute a plan that made this daunting task a cakewalk.
It’s the sort of thing that works until it doesn’t. 100 dumb guards and you’re OK. One hold person trap or basilisk guard dog and you’re screwed.
You know, that comic made me seriously laugh when I first read it, but after giving it some thought…
… bathing in medieval times tended to be communal, AND mixed-gender. So in a way, this is accidentally quite accurate.
I can practically hear the lute cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ
Currently in an Apocalypse World game where one of the characters wandered off by himself during a pitched battle, ran into another group of raiders and ended up bonked on the head and kidnapped. Thankfully he was a cult leader, so he’s just playing one of his followers who’s taken over his gang in the meantime.
That’s a good way to make lemonade out of a kidnapping!
That may be the best reason I’ve heard for starting a cult. Unlimited replacement characters on the same quest!