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Duos Greanleef
2009-11-07, 12:30 AM
I DMd a session tonight where the party knowingly and willfully divided and went two separate ways for the time being. One half stayed with the wild gnomes in their peaceful little valley. The others went back to discuss things with the civilized kobolds who had accused them {the gnomes} of such barbaric deeds as eating kobolds. It's going to turn into a border war... but that's not really important.
Unless of course I think of a better idea... This is where the Playground comes in.
I want to know some of the awesome and/or horrific and/or hilarious things that have happened to your party when you split the party!
*cue dramatic music*

Pika...
2009-11-07, 12:40 AM
1. LoL. Awesome take on the Kobolds vs. Gnomes conflict. Switching the stereotypical roles is something I would have never imagined. Simply awesome. :smallbiggrin:

Filthy Gnomes...

2. I do not see why everyone always says it is terrible to split a party. It worked for these guys:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f173/celestialkin/_38039847_scooby_doo69.jpg



Unless a DM is running a straight module they should be able to compensate by either splitting the encounters, or altering them as needed.


3. I would have them forced to aiding both sides in the final clash. Get some DM sanctioned PC vs. PC action.

Xefas
2009-11-07, 12:42 AM
Usually, splitting the party, in my experience, has just added up to time wasted and substantial lengths of boredom all 'round.

Occasionally, the party will take this separation time to consider why they're adventuring with each other in the first place, and not by themselves, with only a few of the other members, or with a different party entirely. Invariably this leads to them realizing that they seemingly purposefully built their characters with absolutely no consideration for what the other players would be playing or the theme of the campaign itself and the party should probably have never been formed in the first place (and was only done so via egregious DM fiat and large amounts of purposefully induced ignorance on the parts of some players).

Seriously? Neutral Good Kobold Druid and Chaotic Evil Succubus? How was this going to end well?

Pika...
2009-11-07, 12:44 AM
Usually, splitting the party, in my experience, has just added up to time wasted and substantial lengths of boredom all 'round.

Occasionally, the party will take this separation time to consider why they're adventuring with each other in the first place, and not by themselves, with only a few of the other members, or with a different party entirely. Invariably this leads to them realizing that they seemingly purposefully built their characters with absolutely no consideration for what the other players would be playing or the theme of the campaign itself and the party should probably have never been formed in the first place (and was only done so via egregious DM fiat and large amounts of purposefully induced ignorance on the parts of some players).

Seriously? Neutral Good Kobold Druid and Chaotic Evil Succubus? How was this going to end well?


Wow. Thanks. From now on I will have no parties always needing to start themed/untied by the players.

PhoenixRivers
2009-11-07, 12:44 AM
Splitting the Party =

...extra work for the GM
...extra waits for the groups
...extra hassle trying to make a non-contrived re-uniting

All in all, not good for long, and only when necessary. I usually include good ways to punish parties for seperating.

My parties? They're trained. They don't split the party unless they're absolutely forced to.

Duos Greanleef
2009-11-07, 12:49 AM
2. I do not see why everyone always says it is terrible to split a party. It worked for these guys:


Who are you kidding? That never worked for Daphne. She ALWAYS got kidnapped. :smalltongue:
And thanks for the confidence booster. I kind of went out on a limb for the kobolds vs. gnomes thing.

EnnPeeCee
2009-11-07, 01:14 AM
I've got two that I can think of.

- The first was when the fighter and barbarian left town to go find some gnoll's lair or something on their own. I don't remember why. But anyway, the short of it was that they got ambushed, the barbarian got criticaled something like 5 times in a row, and the fighter narrowly escaped due to his hit-and-run tactics to tell the rest of us the tale.

- The second was when I was dming. The players were dungeoncrawling when they came across a maze-like area which, unknown to them, had Guards and Wards perpetually cast in. They sent the ranger into the fog to scout ahead, and of course, became lost due to the magic. When the ranger couldn't find his way back, he called out for help. So what does the party do? Sends the barbarian in to go find him. The babarian also gets lost.

So, after wander for a little while, the ranger triggers, but avoids a pit trap at the end of a hallway (although is long enough as to not be able to see across in the fog). Meanwhile, the barbarian kicks in a door to discover an iron golem. Running away from it, he happens to run across the ranger. The two of them keep running from the golem. Due to luck, they come across the pit trap again, but because of the fog the ranger doesn't see it in time and falls in (100ft onto spikes). The barbairan, panicking with the golem not too far behind, decides to jump over the pit. He hits the back wall, and also falls into the pit. Both are very injured.

The rest of the party finally decides to go in after the two after hearing yelling and golem noises. After a LONG time wandering back and forth, they reach the pit, which now has the golem in front of it. After taking some damage, they retreat to the entrance and eventually teleport away, back to town. The barbairan and ranger try to climb out of the pit, but due to the sheer sides, just fall and hurt themselves more. They did have rings of sustenence however, so they sat at the bottom dancing if I remember correctly.

After resting, the rest of the party returns and finds the golem waiting at the entrance of the maze, so they teleport away again, and because of only preparing 2 teles, rest again. They return several times to try different things on the golem, most of which fail. They eventually kill it a few weeks later, and after wandering the maze again, find the barbarian and ranger and rescue them.

thegurullamen
2009-11-07, 01:18 AM
Seriously? Neutral Good Kobold Druid and Chaotic Evil Succubus? How was this going to end well?

My entire DM career seems to be made up of trying to separate characters seemingly built to rip one another to shreds moments after meeting. Sort of like that example above, except the kobold would be a paladin of the god of chastity with a battered spouse rogue as a best friend and the succubus would be played by an over enthusiastic roleplayer. Hilarity Ensues, party split by the DM. In keeping with the OP's question, splitting that party resulted in splitting the play party into two groups. (Thankfully it was solely for out of game reasons; everyone just figured that with the party split, they could split the group as well to fit their schedules better.)


They return several times to try different things on the golem, most of which fail. They eventually kill it a few weeks later, and after wandering the maze again, find the barbarian and ranger and rescue them.

Rofl.

PhoenixRivers
2009-11-07, 01:30 AM
I think the last party that split on me did so to try to corner a vampire, and had one guy circle around the building to get into the back.

He was dominated. He was then ordered to behave as he normally would, with one exception. He wasn't allowed to betray any indication that he was under her thrall.

She then re-dominated him once every few nights during his watch, for half the campaign.

The party was rather surprised when the party fighter brained the wizard in the brilliantly planned BBEG encounter.

Temet Nosce
2009-11-07, 02:35 AM
Hm, well I have several but one of my favorite was with my level 4 or 5 mute, sociopathic half-minotaur Warblade. The party split up because we were being attacked from the trees, and part of it wanted to stay and "guard" the person we were escorting. So, two of us head off into the trees and the DM gives us a description of a savage village of cannibals performing ritual sacrifice. We kill off an enormous number of them (something like CR 8 total probably, with only two of us there), and then get curious about what they were sacrificing to. So, we head off happily into a sacred swamp, with ritual guards substantially stronger than what we were already killing.

Anyways, while trying to kill as few as possible I get separated from my Warlock companion who has to deal with three over CR mobs on his own. I however, get the real treat. The DM starts providing me with horrible suggestions of the power of the creature in here (mangled higher CR mobs, torn trees, etc), until finally I get assaulted by a young adult Green Dragon (CR 11). The DM of course provides me with another chance to run away, but instead I attack. The breath weapon hurts, but I deal a lot more damage than it and on the second round the DM gives up and has the dragon fly off. Now, most people would be satisfied. I wasn't. I got out a rope and grappling hook, threw it around the bloody dragon and DRAGGED the thing out of the sky, and back to me then cut off its head while holding the rope under my foot.

Afterward, the Warlock caught up and after healing me up we went and looted the whole area gleefully (money, gems, magic items, etc... It was clearly planned to be something we did after the escort as a full party). Then cut cross country to get ahead of the rest of the party, who'd spent that whole time walking down the road avoiding attacks.

Dervag
2009-11-07, 02:42 AM
And thanks for the confidence booster. I kind of went out on a limb for the kobolds vs. gnomes thing.What, are you kidding me? It's a great idea! I can hardly imagine two intelligent races in D&D better suited to fighting each other. You've got kobold trapmasters digging in against gnomish illusionists, constant war of misdirection going on with both sides, limitless possibilities...

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-11-07, 02:45 AM
Random Encounters should teach them quickly why they shouldn't split up, particularly if the skills needed to defeat the encounter are in the 'other party'.

To quote a famous guy "We must all hang together, else we shall all certainly hang separately"

oxinabox
2009-11-07, 03:31 AM
CtL:
we had to collect a item from the dream of a certain child.
the PArty face, seduced the mother, and anther party member seduced random NPC, and somehow they got incedeble lucky (even after the luck they had already shown) and convided the mother that it would be fun to have a 4 way.
anyway, the other two party members, Me - a ogre and a Beast (an Amazing warrior) , followed the home.
and then (under our varient dream rules) entered the hedge, to enter the childs dream.
while the other two kept the ladies busy.
so one party split there.
inside the dream we meth the child, and conviced her that we were her gaurdian angels. (not bad for coming up with it on the spot)
anyway, we when with the girl to find the item we were looking for, sh wasnet to go the the other end of the valley and we thought it was as likely as not a place to find what we were looking for.
anyway the vally stated getting grimmer, darker.
and then are meims started showing, and i decided that we were heading in to arcadia (or somewhere similar), and that i didn't want to risk the child.
so i took her back to the start of the valley, while he went on ahead to find the item

when i got to the start of the valley, I saw one of the other PC's - he'ld failed hi stamina roll, and gone to sleep :smallredface:

I then immidiately saw someone I recongised as a potential big villain (none of the other party members had met him).
I give the child to the other PC: "Look after her, and when i say RUN, you RUN!"
he's like "..er..OK"
I go to the guy and we start talkign the classic: "I you want the girl you wi'll have to go through me stuff"
mean while the other PC fall asleap and turns up in the dream,
(we're still very low on comabt ability as the BEast was better than the rest of us combined)

mean while, the bad guy unleashes a massive 4 dot Contract, that forces me to cower and does my whole health worth of bashing damage.
I fall to the ground bellowing "RUN"

now, the gBeast who when ahead to get the item has just got it, and hears my bellow from the other end of the valley.
His speed is massive, like olymic runner massive, but we know that even he can't run the whole valley in the ammount of time it takes the bad guy to finish me off.
HE starts running, though.

anyway the PC i left the child with give the child to the New PC.
And takes out his gun, and starts heading back to where i am. (We are a bout 4 meater away from where he was, after i walked up to the guy)

the new PC, convinced the girl to imagine that the beast she ment earlier was increably fast.
Wings like the ones he had in arcadia burst from his back, and he uses the to shoot forward, a white feather bird, streaming ever closer from the other end of the valley.


Just as the guy was pullign back his sythe to finish me, the PC with the un lets of two shots into his shoulder.
And the now winged beast throws his throwing knives as he continues advancing. right into the small of his back, where his spine should be.
My natural responce to having my life saved what of couse "I told You to Look after the Girl! I said Run!"

Tengu_temp
2009-11-07, 08:09 AM
The only problem with splitting the party is that group 2 is sitting there and twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to finish narrating for group 1 and go to them - and then group 1 is sitting there and twiddling their thumbs! Not fun.

It works excellent in PbP, however. Sometimes it can actually speed up the game!

Lvl45DM!
2009-11-07, 08:28 AM
The casters were sleeping and the two guards on watch got bored and went exploring

We found two morlocks (psychic evil gremlin things) encased in blocks of ice. The casters were woken up but a wandering monster and had to fight it without spells whilst the paladin and barbarian played ice hockey with the morlocks smashing into each other to get to the other side

We got back saw the blood and tears copped a few lambastings from the other players and cried with laughter

Moofaa
2009-11-07, 10:38 PM
Many years ago I was discussing D&D with some friends on Battle.net. We played often using IRC. Several other clan members got into the discussion and wanted to try it, so I made up characters for them (none of the new people had played any form of DnD before)...all told I ended up with around 10 players (only 2-3 of which were experienced), which of course is far too many but I decided it might be fun anyways even if we just ended up sitting around making crude jokes all night.

It was a gritty sci-fi campaign, the party of course consisted of a diverse group of aliens. I set them up as a mercenary/profiteering group, figuring that would be the simplest way to handle this many players, and whipped up a simple "meet secretly with someone that wants you to take a delivery job" adventure.

It was total chaos. The meeting was to take place at a small seedy diner. As soon as I decribed the area as being of "ill repute" at least 1/3 of the group decided to run off and get drunk, find women, and aquire illegal substances from the back alley. Another 1/3 of the group decided to actually go conduct the meeting and stay on target. They meet up at the scheduled time and proceed with negotiations.

Meanwhile the final 1/3 of the group were debating just shooting up the place and stealing the package. They only "saw" one guy there negotiating (they didnt see the snipers outside on the roofs, or the thugs in the back room of the diner).

They see a futuristic equivalent of a suspicous white van outside the diner, and determine that the dealer must be planning something so they decide to open the back of the van and hold the driver at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, the 1/3 of the group that was pursuing drugs and other illegal activities gets the idea to rob the small local gang of their illegal substances. This starts a shootout about a block away from the diner where the other two groups are.

Outside, the back of the van is thrown open...to reveal a swat team of law enforcement that was planning to go in for a take-down once the deal was finished. A firefight breaks outside in front of the diner.

Inside the diner, the 1/3rd of the group that was doing the negotiations sees the fighting begin outside, so they assume it was an ambush all along and attack the dealer, which of course ignites a third simultaneous gun battle inside the diner, with the dealers snipers adding to the confusion.

The battle at the diner doesnt go well. The snipers especially are brutal, and half of those two groups of players are disabled or dying in the street. Luckily, the rambunctious group manages to scare off the drug-dealing gang members, steal their hovercar, and ride in at the last second for support.

There was then an epic hover-car chase across the city to the spaceport where the entire party (in multiple stolen vehicles) were being chased by a conglomerate of angry gang members, police, and criminals. They managed to escape by blasting their way out of the system.

I have no idea how I, as the sole DM, kept any semblance of order in that chaos. There were some skipped turns, rules arguments, and lots of questions trying to sort out what was going on, all in addition to the usual non-game related chatter.

That was the only session with that many players, thank god.

Thane of Fife
2009-11-08, 12:01 AM
*cue dramatic music*

By dramatic music, I assume you mean Never Split the Party (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ).

In game, I once forced the party to split with a trap. I did it right at the end of a session, then met separately with the others. Group A, a PC and his NPC crush, were sent to a barbarian fort, where they saw all of the PC's remaining living relatives killed. Then I took the opportunity to notch up the romance a bit.

Group B was sent to the nation's capital city to help defend it from barbarian hordes. While there, the royal family was mostly killed, so the PCs were needed to advise the new queen.

Group C was sent to the HQ of the priesthood that made up the major villains for the campaign. While there, they destroyed an artifact that they were trying to destroy and discovered that the BBEG was not, in fact, the latest in a succession of High Priests, but that he had been the high priest for the faith's entire existence, and that he was directly related to the PC in group A.

So when they all got back together, they've all got all sorts of crazy news, and they're trying to piece together what's going on and yelling at each other - it was all definitely worth it, but it was a lot of work.

Golden-Esque
2009-11-08, 12:28 AM
In my experience, splitting the party works best if the players are split, but still in the same general area and combat.

For example:

It was a dark and stormy night, and my party (neutral tendency for evil) was on a small boat that we owned. We were returning to harbor when a massive storm came into town. The waves caused us to smash into one of those viking row ships. We were taking on heavy water, and our boat was all but done for and sinking fast. We split up; three of us crawled into the cabin that we conveniently smashed a hole into and the other three boarded on top. I was in the bottom group. Paladin of Slaughter/Psion(shaper)/Cleric on top, Fighter-Sorcerer/Bard/Meat Shield Fighter on the bottom.

* Bottom * A cleric pops out of nowhere, shaking. She tells the three of us that we're going to die and attacks us.

* Top * We just hit 4th level, so Paladin is bored and wants to try out one of her new spells. For some reason, she picks Sense Undead, and the entire ship lights up with undead auras. She swears as they hear her and start climbing up to her.

* Bottom * The three of us are dueling the cleric, and we take her out quick. I barely say "That was easy" when the cabin door bursts open and zombies start flooding in. That's right folks. ZOMBIE SWARM.

* Top * Paladin and Cleric are Turning / Rebuking Undead like there's no tomorrow while Kinesticist is blasting zombies in torrents of fire.

* Bottom * Bard starts singing but no one upstairs can hear her over the moans of the undead. Meatshield gets thrown off of the boat in a particularly viscous wave. She's all muscle though, and she doesn't get crushed by the ships grinding into each other. Sorcerer is Force-Pushing zombies off of the boat as he can.

Eventually, via the massive AoE on the top of the ship we defeated the zombies, but it was quite interesting not to have all of us in one place. It really put an "Oh ****, we're in it deep now!" feeling to it, because even though we were all fighting the same fight, it was at different places. God, I love zombies :).

Jayngfet
2009-11-08, 01:12 AM
In a PBP game party splitting can be an advantage if done right. This lets everyone post at their own pace and not need to share the limelight. As well if someone drops no one notices since they aren't there.

DnDgeek13
2009-11-08, 01:13 AM
The last time my group split the party, it was for our rogue to infiltrate a city we were trying to get into but the guards were stopping us from entering. our characters don't know this but he got captures and thrown in jail.

TheCountAlucard
2009-11-08, 01:27 AM
We've had to split the party a bunch of times in Shadowrun. Last session, while the rest of the party was infiltrating the 2070 equivalent of NASA, my Face was obtaining contraband in the criminal underworld.

In fact, oftentimes it's important to split the party in Shadowrun. If you're going on a hacking mission, you probably don't have the gunbunny Street Sam or the sniper Adept with you. You are not going to come across a Force 14 Fire Spirit in the Matrix. :smalltongue:

Thajocoth
2009-11-08, 02:21 AM
Party splitting has been suggested in groups I've played in/DMed several times. EVERY time, the DM gives a wicked grin and says "So, you split the party?" EVERY time, the players immediately change their mind. However, we were kinda forced to split up a bit recently in one game as we're helping a town set up to defend itself. Nothing too bad has happened yet though. We've had:

Battle happens. Two PCs (Psion & Warlord) meet the enemies and hold them off for 9 rounds until the other 3 of us show up. By then the Psion has had the Grey Render beat the crap out of almost everything else on the battlefield, the Warlord has kept him alive & hitting, and there's just a round of cleanup.

Another time, the Psion & Ranger follow tracks and find some old wizard dude 3 hours outside of town and bring him back to the town. Nothing happened to the remaining 3 of us meanwhile.

So, really, nothing too bad here...