When players split up...

[Vanion]

As one of my very few house rules, I have said that only under certain circumstances can the members of the pary split up. I have found that splitting the group has several adverse effects on the game. Most importently it slows the game down to a crawl. I find myself cutting from one group to the other, splitting game time... neither group accomplishing as much in their reduced time. Not to mention that it never fails that one seperated player or one fragment of the group begins to get frustrated because they're not getting to do as much as the others. Also... if a single seperated character gets into trouble, then either that player ends up dead, or the entire adventure grinds to a halt as the other players have to bail him out of trouble.

Anyway, I have other complaints about the group splitting up, but one of my players continues to want to argue about this house rule of mine. I wanted to get other people's thoughts on this issue and if you have had similar problems from groups splitting up... how did you solve them?
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[gollummen]

I got a great idea from someone her in this forum.
I cannot remember who or what he called it (guest NPC? guest GM?).
Anyway, if your group is split up you can make one of the inactive players play the role of an NPC the other players encounter.
I have not tried it myself yet, but i defenetly will, when I get the chance.

[entropy]

I don't know that this will help your specific problem, but it might help other people reading this.

Often when I first get a group together, they like the idea of splitting up, because they feel they could accomplish more. For things like shopping trips and brief encounters with NPC contacts, I have no problem with that. When they want to do it to tackle different parts of an adventure, or tackle two adventures at once, it becomes a problem.

I've found that if you throw a bunch of powerful opponents at half the group when they split up (enough that they have no choice but retreat or surrender) eventually the players realize that it's no fun to split the party. It is my opinion that an adventure well-tailored to the party has elements that require every one of the characters to be present. My players realize this fairly quickly, and stay together on their own.

Sometimes the players will want the pilot and/or gunner to stay back with the ship to provide air support for an escape, and I have no problem with things like that. Pilots get to have all the fun in the space encounters anyway.

[beaumont sebos]

I don;t mind when my PCs split up. They do it all the time. Someone always stays behind at the ship or whatever. I think it really limits players if you don't let them split if they want. They know the consequences (weaker when split apart, downtime in playing, etc.) But if they are willing to suffer the consequences... then by all means I let them do it.
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[Sabre]

I hate splitting up the party, but I'll let it happen. It's almost a given that the players will complain, even if you told them last time "There's only one of me, I can only GM one group at a time, so if you don't like waiting remember this for next time."

I don't think the ability to split up is essential to maintain the 'illusion of free will' discussed in the GM section of the book, but it is definitely a contributing factor. Even so, I don't think a house rule prohibiting splitting is a bad idea.

[Tahlorn]

I fully support, and encourage, my PCs to split up. Here is my reasoning.

Individuality. When characters split up, they can not follow actions. This means each player gets to PLAY rather than watch or follow someone else that they are with. The most frustrating thing for me in a gme is when I have an action, but the person who goes before me does the exact same action, making me pass on my turn becuse I had no other plans.

Time and Expertise: Sure, for some groups it may take longer to get things done if the group splits up, but in game-time it takes a much shorter amount of time. In my missions, there is a lot of research / planning / info-gathering to be done before they can embark onto the main mission. If the group splits up, they can follow multiple leads at the same time, and letting them use thier specific area of expertise.

Power-Control. Say you have a thief, a mechanic, a hacker, and a tank in your party. The tank can take on anything that the three others, combined, wouldn't be able to deal with. If the tank is seperte from the group, thenb you can feel free to throw something at him/her that will be a challenge, while not having to worry about killing the other characters with a single shot.

The trick is knowing how to get the group to come back together after sdplitting up. My group is pretty good about this, expecially if they are just gathering info ("We meet back at the ship in 12 hours"). They also let eachother know where they are going, and have a common comm frequency, so they can call for help if needed. In my missions, there is usually a large opponent or obstacle that requires them to all work together to overcome, so they have gotten used to joining back up when they are executing thier plans. Even if the group realizes that the best way to sucseed is to work seperately on a common goal, they at least communicate and plan this, and constantly update eachother on thier status.

The problem with splitting up would stem from a lack of teamwork. If the group doesn't have a good group dynamic, or if they split up one or all of them tries to do the entire mission by themself, it all goes to hell. No fun for the rest of the players.

Then again, my group works well for this, for a couple reasons. Each person has a true personality for the character, and working independently allows for another chance to roleplay, which is where the character points many come from for us. Creativity is rewarded, so being able to go with a plan before someone else does it for you is easier when splitting up.Also, my group is fine with waiting for thier turn, as long as the turns are divided evenly and don't take too long (we have discussed getting an egg timer for turns to keep things even).

I can see not allowing splitting up for the following reasons- GM ability / experience, as in unable to handle multiple groups (we avoid splitting up with new GMs to keep things easier for them), and the player dynamic (as discussed above). A ban on splitting-up would absolutely not work in my group, as they like to cover as much ground as possible. If you ban splitting, and the players complain, explain to them your concerns. If you have problems GMing groups, tell them this, and start having them only split into two groups. Tell them that the turns are going to abe about X minutes long, and keep a notepad to keep track of the groups if you need it.


~Tahlorn

[Argamoth]

I'd allow splitting for some instances, like shopping or info gathering. But if a player decides to go and do their own thing while everyone else is trying to play, I give them a reason to hang with the rest of the group.

[Jamfke]

I'm in full agreement with Tahlorn. Splitting up is not hard to do...

Really though, I've run several great adventures when the players go different directions. In fact, my group in the PBP forum here on Rancor Pit have done it successfully several times.

Another thing that gives splitting up a plus is that they did it all the time in the movies! Ep IV, Han, Luke, and Chewie go to rescue the Princess, while Ben goes to cut the power to the tractor beams, and the droids shuffle around all over the place.

Ep V, Luke and R2 go to Degobah while the rest of the gang gets stranded on Bespin.

Etcetera, etcetera!
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[Hellcat]

[garhkal]

While i agree, splititng does make hastles for the gm, if it happens, i do not try to stop it.

As a side question. Say one group does get into hot water. Do you prohibit inter group communication/yakking and handing out hints/advice, unless they are within personal com link range and have them on???
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[Sabre]

I for one do prohibit such comments from the peanut gallery, garhkal. I also prohibit the players saying "I think it's time I met up with the others now!" the instant some action begins with another group. The obvious exceptions apply... comlinks and Force sensitivity. Barring those, a player is out of luck.

It's not that handling more than one group is difficult, it's just that when the groups are together it's easier in a lot of ways for both the players and the GM. I agree with Tahlorn's list of things that are good about splitting up characters, especially the individuality bit. I recall an online game where I intentionally split the characters up and scheduled individual sessions with each player precisely so that they could get a personalized story in which they were the most important figure and bring their roleplaying powers to bear in full force without having to wait and watch on someone else's turn unless they showed up precisely for that (some did). I was hoping that the less active players would carry on their roleplaying when the group merged together again, and I think it worked somewhat, but what I found was that the players who don't say much usually have other things going on in the background while I'm running the game (TV, cards, browsing the net) whether I'm running it for them alone or for the entire group.

[Boomer]

In KotoR, they make you split up, three go out alone, up to five stay home. Totally unrealistic. Why can't all 8 plus your character go out and adventure?

But around the table, when I am running a game... depending on how it starts, all 5 players were in completly diffrent parts of the city, and splitting up tends to happen often. I run it quite smoothly. Jumping back and forth from player to player, especially since in most cases when they split up, the actions of one group effects the other. So if I don't keep running it like they were still one group (only standing much farther apart now) than I have seriously shot realism out the window.

Even when they split up, they are still one group, and can still affect each other.
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[Orgaloth]

I generally play SW and don't run it, but when our group splits up, the group not being played generally do a food/drink run, or make lunch/dinner/breakfast. If it's their turn the other group goes and takes over their OOC duties. It helps keep the IC/OOC knowledge seperate, and gives everyone something to do.
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[Tahlorn]

[roguesquad]

I run a few games on PBP systems, and always the group will split up for any number of reasons. Sometimes I even start them off seperately. I enjoy it, as it seems to provide more etertainment as several things are going on at once. Breaking the group up can sometimes speed things up if one or two players are psoting at the same rate as the others, (or posting too fast). It helps match up players to have a similar speed, so that everyone can play and get what they can out of the game.


With PBP, I say it's ok to split players up. In person however, I have done it on a need to basis, and I ind it split my time up too much. It makes it fun on occassion, but I do say, it's too much to make a habit out of it.
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