Quickly, I'll paraphrase what's happening. The party of four players has broken into two parts, with two players each. Anshelm and Tiberius had earlier entered the town of Dachau, while Delfig and Kazimir had chosen to visit a cotter's settlement outside the town walls. While separated, it was discovered by the outside group that a group of doppelgangers were plotting to gate an undefined entity from another plane of existence.
Both groups would have the agenda of getting in touch with persons of importance in the town. Anshelm and Tiberius would try to reach the home of Johann Mizer, with whom they had a brief acquaintance. At the same time, Delfig and Kazimir would be bent on getting into the town, in order to share their discovery of the doppelgangers' plan with an important town member they had never met, the Paladin Eberhardt Hornung.
With this post, I wish to talk about some strategies and important functional techniques for dealing with split parties. While it is true that I had more time with the online campaign to juggle the two parties, as we played the game by blog comment, let me reassure the reader that I have played dozens of similar circumstances in all my campaigns, right back to the time when I began to play in High School. I believe I had a particular gift for doing this well; but having self-deconstructed my techniques for many years now, I believe I can set the reader on the proper course to being able to do this themselves. Like any skill, it takes practice, and the first few times you may have trouble. But if you will keep in mind the ideas behind this post, and trust your instincts, you will master the ability to juggle a split party without a loss of game momentum.
Reading online, this last seems to be the chief resistance to allowing parties to split. Most, if not all DMs, will insist that it slows the game down and that a night like this can reflect the worst kind of play. Yes, it can ~ but that does not mean it has to. It will require more energy from the DM, and it will require a different way of resolving events in your game, which we'll discuss. Let's get started.
I chose the above example because it is virtually as old as the internet, and gives the most cliched exhortation to "never split the party" that any of us can know. The reason is referenced throughout the video, and you'll find it repeated all over the internet: "Parties that split up in dungeons always die."
That's because a typical dungeon is a collection of set-pieces, static in form, all of which are deliberately designed to engage the whole party with every encounter. It would be easy to build a more flexible dungeon, where the party was encouraged to split up, because it became obvious that the monsters within the dungeon were constantly on the move, and could be caught between rooms by clever party members, who were moving through the dungeon's structure with a measure of freedom that enabled them to pick the moment of their fights. This is impossible in a static, set-piece dungeon ... and yet it is this sort of dungeon that prevails in almost every example we can name.
This flexibility is improved in both an urban or a wilderness setting. The potential for a smaller group to flee when outgunned allows for small, careful groups to move more freely within the total framework of the setting. This, in turn, lends dimension to the game, as the separation of parties, moving in different places but controlled by a consistent passage of time, eliminates the linearity of a single party that must move in a single path without deviation.
Flexibility of setting and Inflexibility of Time are absolutely key. The focus of the game must be free to jump from place to place instantly, like the camera in a movie, just as the characters in their independent courses must constantly be regulated by how much time has passed, to keep separate groups in tandem with one another. This regulated time helps every person in the party, whether they are playing in the group being run, feel that they are part of all events as they are happening.
Here is where the momentum of a game can grind to a snail's pace. The DM cannot make the concern of a given player's participation dependent on the resolution of events. Resolution can take a long, long time; and if we feel that we cannot cut back to the other party members ~ again, just like a movie ~ then the tedious waiting for that resolution will kill momentum.
I cannot stress this enough. Like a film, to keep the split groups of the party engaged, no period of engagement with any one group can be allowed to last more than six to eight minutes. Four to five, even less, is better. This helps maintain the rigidity of time, and keeps the other players on their toes as you might, at any moment, cut away from this group back to their group, to pick up the action as it was left off.
Consider the example of the Senex campaign. Although there's a great deal of text included in the document, the whole represents about two, perhaps three hours of game time, depending on the amount of additional material regarding character abilities or additional discourse the players might engage in were they face-to-face.
The scenes included are as follows: (1) Delfig and Kazimir [group A] speak with Father Jan and others in the cotter's village; (2) Anshelm and Tiberius [group B] make plans to speak with the guards in the street and are stopped by Helmunt; (3) group B engages a guide and starts across the rooftops; (4) group B crosses a series of rooftops; (5) group B drops down to the street and fights a pair of guards; (6) group A, outside the walls, speaks with the guards by the North Gate; (7) group A chooses to climb a wall to get into the town; (8) Delfig of group A slips into a tower and knocks a sleeping man unconscious; (9) group A reunites after Kazimir attains the tower room and search the place; (10) They decide to leave and strange things happen; (11) group B reaches Mizer's property and strange things happen; (12) group B sees the gate open above Dachau and experience slow time; (13) group B is faced with slug creatures which appear; (14) group A experiences the gate opening and slow time; (14) group A is faced with similar slug creatures.
Were I to run these events at a game table, I would split the scenes up much finer, interspersing them. I would split the dialogue between group A and Father Jan with group B observing events in the town square. Group A would then make their plans on the side while I engages group B with the passage across the roof. As group B dropped from the roofs to the street, group A would be deciding to climb the wall. Delfig would see the guards on the top of the wall just as group B was interrupted by the two guards coming out of a random doorway. I would cut back and forth from the combat, asking Delfig and Kazimir to roll dice as they climbed up to the tower room. And so on.
As DM, I know what each group is going to meet in their travels. There are no surprises for me. I can see perfectly clear how each side of the equation will play out, depending on the group's choices or actions, because I have an excellent knowledge of three crucial elements.
I Know Exactly how Dachau works as a town. I don't need a street map, but I know how every citizen could conceivably react to any action that group B might make. I have the same knowledge about the reactions of the guards, or Father Jan, engaged by group A. How? Because the world is not just a set piece to me. It isn't fifty words of description next to a number that corresponds to a diagram of the tower. I see, in my mind, and with my experience, why the tower exists, how it is lived in every day, what is done there, what is kept there, how the inhabitants will respond to outsiders, what answers they would give to outsiders if it came to that, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And how do I know this? I try very hard to live in my world, every day. And because my world is a 17th century version of the real world, this also means I try hard to live in the real world, every day. As I walk along the street, and see things, I puzzle out how those things might have gotten there. How was that store sign contracted for, how much money was spent, is the owner happy with it, how dearly would he like another, is the store likely to support that expenditure? If not, then why not?
The reader should understand that it doesn't matter if any of my musings are in any way accurate. That is irrelevant. What matters is that my musings are ALL stories. The story of that sign, the story of that abandoned automobile, the story of this abandoned railroad track, the story of the fellow sleeping on the bus, the story behind the three bunnies I saw playing in the park, the story of the guy that Delfig hits with the pommel of his sword, the story of the two guards who stumble into the alley, the story of how Father Jan became a cleric, the story behind what is actually happening in Dachau.
When we talk about stories in D&D, people think we mean just one story; the great arc that justifies the existence of all the set pieces we have created for the players. But for the world to be living, there have to be millions, billions, an infinite number of stories that are all stuffed inside the DM's head, ready to pour out if the player asks, "How are you," instead of screaming, "Die, you bastard."
With stories in place, I can flip from group to group, and maintain the momentum because I'm not confused about what's happening. I can see, in my mind, what I am telling Delfig about the tower ~ not because it is written in a book, but because I made it, I built it with my imagination, and like any builder I can feel every brick I put in place.
This is what you could do. This is what you could practice. Even if it takes years ... because it will serve you long past these games, and in a thousand ways.
But I digress.
Picture the flipping of scene to scene in the same way you would envision a movie. This is done with film all the time, and you as the viewer are rarely confused, even when the scenes come fast and furiously at you ~ because you've been prepared.
Let's take a popular film with a complexity of scenes: say, The Avengers. I'm choosing it because the party is definitely split up, but they are free to move and re-engage. Remember, with magic such as message, ESP, clairaudience or other similar powers, a D&D party could fare just as well as the Avengers communicating with radios. If you haven't access to a copy, try to remember the scenes I'm going to outline in your mind, and remember how fast the cuts piled one upon the other.
Pick it up from the moment the gate opens and Stark says, "Right. Army." At that moment, the party is scattered. Imagine here that you're the DM, running these scenes. You describe the sky opening up and the chitauri pouring through the gate. You let the player behind Tony Stark dive up into the sky to fight the first chitauri he can reach. You let him fire a few shots.
Then you describe the people on the streets, watching these first moments of the invasion, to remind the players there are many innocents here. You describe the scenes of the street being shot up by the chitauri. Then you let the player behind Thor act. He says he lands, and tries to reason with Loki. The dialogue fails and Loki attacks, gaining initiative. Loki misses, they exchange a few rounds.
So you abandon that player and jump back to Stark, who is eluding chitauri by flying between the buildings. That's going to take time, so we jump to Hawkeye, Black Widow and Steve Rogers in the jet. These characters decide to fly into the city and contact Stark; they share a few words.
We jump back to Thor and Loki and play out a few more combat rounds. Remember, we're keeping the time element constant. We let Stark fire a few missiles. We cut back to Hawkeye and Black Widow, who open fire on a Chitauri. Rogers, in the back, is stuck waiting.
As DM, we play Jarvis inside Stark's suit and tell him more chitauri are coming. The player blows it off with a crack and makes up his mind to "Keep them occupied." Thor and Loki are still rolling dice at each other, trying to take the other down. Hawkeye pulls the jet in sight of them, Loki gets a critical hit on Thor and then fires at the jet with the spear. The jet starts to spin out of control. We tell Thor that he's free to attack again and he rolls dice ...
And so on.
The party is split geographically but they are not split chronologically! As DM, you have to splice the events happening to one part of the party into the other, maintaining momentum.
So, we might ask; what if the one party is trying to break into the alchemist's guild and the rest of the party is sitting in a bistro across the street? How does that work? Do we ask the burglar to roll dice to avoid the trap, then jump over and ask one of the other party to roll dice to see if they noticed the coffee was too hot?
No. We have two strategies. Either we compress the amount of time the one member of the party is inside the guild, or we create a balancing incident that engages the rest of the party.
Okay, the burglar has discovered the alarm and is contemplating how to remove it. At the same time, the party in the bistro notices two alchemists enter and order coffee. One says, "I am concerned about the McGuffin. I feel a strong need to ensure it is safe." The other says, "You're such a worry wart. All right, we'll go look, if that makes you feel better."
There. The bistro party is now engaged. It is up to them what to do.
Another technique we must employ is to created a Shared Experience. My players in Dachau were all informed of the storm, of the pyrotechnics, of the wind and the noise ... and even if the players in town could not advantage their knowledge in their actions, all were affected by the tension that this was probably the gate opening. No one knew for sure how long it would take to open, and that was also relevant to the momentum.
To draw the players together, even if they are separated positionally, there should be something they are all experiencing, though from different sides. The pieces then begin to fall together for the whole party as each part of it can be revealed by the DM, in the proper time to create the best effect.
This is done in film constantly. And we have all seen it. But have we looked, have we deconstructed those moments, have we considered how the shared experience of the film has resulted in each character within the film having a separate piece of knowledge that we, the audience, can reflect upon? I would guess, from the simplistic way that we approach the linear method of running parties, insisting that parties that split up MUST die, that the answer is no. We watch the film, but we don't learn from it.
The same incidence happens in literature, of course; but film is much more reflective of the real time experience of a campaign running. The momentous events of a campaign are not paced like literature, but like the speed of a film. Slower than real time, with unimportant moments of time dispensed with, but still with the importance of carrying a momentum that multiple participants can experience.
It is true, the characters in books and movies don't have the benefit of shared knowledge that players have. And there are cases of players advantaging that shared knowledge in ways that have a potential to break our game. It takes a strong DM to police these players; and a DM that can detect this sort of advantaging when it might be trying to pass under our radar. The alternative is, unfortunately, dragging players repeatedly out of the room, to run the game in cones of isolation ... and for decades, yes, I have done this.
But better still, it is best to restrain the shared knowledge in such a way that none of the players really can take excessive advantage. Take that example with the alchemists outside and the burglar inside. Now, we might suppose that the burglar, knowing the alchemists are coming, will immediately decide not to dismantle the trap and flee. Suppose, however, that we encourage the burglar to believe that the rest of the party will "handle" these two alchemists, enabling him to continue his part of the adventure. Once again, the attempt might continue. The shared knowledge hasn't upset the campaign. The burglar always knew there was some chance of being discovered. Telling him that he's specifically going to be doesn't necessarily change that. Particularly if there are others around to help keep him safe.
To handle the splitting of parties, it does take skill. And the right attitude. And a setting that doesn't depend on every person in the party participating in the same battle, all the time. Most battles, of course, will be played with the party in one group. But they don't necessarily all have to be played that way. There are other options, other opportunities, other ways to experience the passage of the game.
We just have to practice them. And know what we're practicing.
