Don't split the party

[Venger]

I've got something of an unusual problem.

The circle I play D&D with lives far away from me and I play via webcam. this usually works just fine (they move the map so I can see, use speakers so they can hear me, etc) but today I got hit by an awful snag

usually, they have dinner midway through the game and while everyone else is busy, the DM will one-on-one with my character (since I am the only one in the party who actually likes roleplaying and he is a fantastic storyteller/roleplayer until the party finishes their dinner and then we will wrap up and my character will rejoin the party.

we never plan this out, just almost every game, there will be something that my character needs to do that no one else is qualified for and/or interested in (often both) so we have an agreement for me to put off these missions until people have started on their dinner.

today, the game started out like this. our party has two objectives, one of them is a week's travel away west by land, the other is a week's travel away by sea to the east. we have no teleport magic at the moment (we are lvl 7 and 8 party because some people don't show up to games every week)

we have a long-term questgiver benefactor that is 2 weeks' travel away to the east who expects us back in 6 weeks. obviously, we do not have enough time to do both without splitting the party

my character owns a pirate ship, so volunteered to go to the east on his own since no one else in the party was interested in doing the roleplay mission to the east, they were all interested in the combat mission to the west (which I obviously didn't care about, I enjoy roleplay more than combat)

I asked the DM (OOC) if it would be okay with him if I did this since that way I would be able to complete the east objective, the party would be able to complete the west one, and we'd all be done in time for the long-term mission (them: 1 week of travel west, fight monsters & associated downtime/rest/miscellaneous random encounters (assumed 1 week), 1 week back, 2 weeks east to long-term mission, 6 weeks. me: 1 week of travel east, talk to people(assume maybe a day and whatever incidentals arise, give 1 week buffer, but will probably be less), 1 week of travel west to pick up the party and wait around for them to show up (the week built into their buffer since they will have a random encounter or two) and then 2 weeks to the east for the mission, 6 weeks)

the party said this sounded like a good idea to get both things done on time and the DM did too, so I assumed this meant he'd budget time out to give my character spotlight time to roleplay during dinner like we usually do

their dinner was really short time time around, so I only got to play for about 5 minutes before I had to endure sitting through two hours of interminable combat with everyone lamenting the fact that my character was not there (the party is not very good at combat, my guy is, I just don't like it that much and my character likes talking his way out of problems rather than CLEAVE AND SMITE all day) so combat took about twice as long as it normally does for them and I was just sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I couldn't roleplay because I wasn't there and I had little to offer when they were asking for help planning because whenever I'd suggest something more complicated than "kill everyone" they would get bored and say they thought they should kill everyone instead (which is what they ended up doing)

the other half of the party has 3 separate hour plus long combats without really advancing the plot at all (killing henchmen and failing to find evidence of the refugees the party's supposed to be looking for) I do my best to ask them politely to move things along since they're just mindlessly killing everything anyway and am largely ignored.

I do absolutely nothing for the rest of the session and after the party's done fireballing everything (yep, our wizard actually just fireballs everything, they really exist) the DM says he wants to call it early. the other players look uncomfortable and they all ask about my welfare which touches me, and the DM tries to cut me out of the experience loop because my character wasn't present at the fights.

I tell him that's not how he runs his games (it's not) because quite often, my character will oneshot enemies before the rest of the party has a chance to lay a finger on them (not deliberately, my initiative is highest and the wizard took inattentive so always goes last) and in that case, we divide the xp by the number of party members as the rules dictate because it avoids the people who didn't actually help getting their feelings hurt and lagging behind on xp and avoids players fighting IRL about who killed what.

he gives me a slightly reduced amount of my share of the xp (about 85%) and says next time I shouldn't try to split the party.

this made me very unhappy because at the beginning of the game before any dice were rolled or any decisions were made, I asked him if he was comfortable splitting the party for a little while like we do in every game and he said it was ok, leading me to believe he was going to pay attention to my character like he usually does

I expected this weeks long debacle to be mostly timeskipped over ("a week passes and you're back in the city) sort of thing, I didn't expect that part of either my half or the fighty half to take more than about an hour and a half with periodic switches depending on whether the party was eating as is usually done.

instead, combat dragged on for four hours and I think I got to play for about 10 minutes total. this is specifically what I sought to avoid and I asked about it in advance and he said it would be fine, implying he had plans in mind to avoid it.

the best part? the wizard hit level 9, so knows teleport now. this makes my sacrifice entirely pointless as she could have ported me to my story objective and ported me back in two days if I had stayed with the party (but I had no idea that they would fight so many monsters in 3 boring interminable combats as to level up) or I would've just stayed with them all along

the wizard offered to teleport onto my pirate ship and back to reunite me with the party which made me really happy, but the DM said they didn't know my precise location (all this hacking and slashing only took 1 in-game day, so my ship hasn't even made progress yet and I didn't get to say what my character did during the same time period. the party does not have a long-range communication option with my character (sending, etc) available so he doesn't know that the wizard can teleport now in-game.

I suggest that she use scrying on me since another party member (my character's wife) has some of his stuff they can use to get a bead on my physical location.

he says they need a scrying mirror (one exists back in the town we started in, but they are a day's travel away by now) and he suggests the wizard teleport there, use the mirror to scry on me, teleport to me, fill me in, teleport me to my RP objective and teleport me back to the rest of the party so we can do fightan together and then all teleport to our long-term objective together with no party splitting.

a lvl 9 wizard with a 20 int can teleport 2/day, so this would all take 7 jumps (our party is of 6, including the wizard and teleport can take one medium creature/3 levels, so 3 creatures for a lvl 9 caster)

day 1
hop to town
hop to me
(rest)
day 2
hop me to objective
hop me to party
(rest)

then either:

day 3
hop 3 party members to long-term goal
(rest)
day 4
hop to remaining 2 party members
hop back

or:

day 3:
hop 3 party members to long-term goal
hop back to remaining 2 party members so they'll have the wizard while the 3 she ported cool our heels in town
(ret)

day 4
hop remaining 2 party members to objective

either way, this would take at most 4 days. if I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have set sail on my own. as is, I am reluctant (IC and OOC) to leave my pirate ship unattended since our enemies are prowling the ocean and sinking ships and if a PC leaves something valuable unattended, it's getting destroyed. it was safe back where we started out and I would've left it there if I'd known loloportation was on the table.

so my question is twofold:

what should I do?

how can I prevent this from happening again?

[werik]

Wow. That sounds like you got royally screwed over. Your DM needs to get better at dividing up time between separate groups. I think you have every right to be upset.

[candycorn]

To be honest? It sounds like you're investing an awful lot of time and effort into playing with a group that doesn't match your preferred playstyle.

[Suddo]

For what to do either
A: Just sit out another week or essentially have your skype, or other program you use, sit in the background they can talk to you at any time if they need. This choice sucks especially for you but read how to prevent this from happening again for a way to lessen the blow.
B: Ask the DM what he thinks you should do. If he sees the problems you have, leaving your ship unattended is bad but you don't want to do choice A, then he might say, I won't kill your ship your guys are smart and loyal enough to get it back from a days journey's to the main town. Then you just skip the fluff of multiple days of teleporting and your done.

For preventing this. The simplest thing I can think of is giving the party a cohort, maybe of your design maybe of the DM's, and you play him during the hack and slash so you don't get left out of the action. It might be annoying to play a secondary character for a while but you should, in theory, not always get shorted on having one-on-one time with the DM and if you do then its all good.

Hopefully that helps. Sorry to hear your problems.

[Venger]

thanks for all the responses, everyone! it's been nice to get this off my chest.


Wow. That sounds like you got royally screwed over. Your DM needs to get better at dividing up time between separate groups. I think you have every right to be upset.

I kind of did, which was why it hurt my feelings so much. I've been in this campaign for over a year and the DM and I get along really well. he's never really out to get me, so to speak. I thought that he had a pretty firm grasp on dividing time between separate groups, but he doesn't usually have a combat encounter for one group while the other is idle, it's just bad DMing and it's not really like him. I'm not exactly upset, more disappointed and rather than dwell on the past, I'd like to prevent it from happening again in the future.



For what to do either
A: Just sit out another week or essentially have your skype, or other program you use, sit in the background they can talk to you at any time if they need. This choice sucks especially for you but read how to prevent this from happening again for a way to lessen the blow.
B: Ask the DM what he thinks you should do. If he sees the problems you have, leaving your ship unattended is bad but you don't want to do choice A, then he might say, I won't kill your ship your guys are smart and loyal enough to get it back from a days journey's to the main town. Then you just skip the fluff of multiple days of teleporting and your done.

For preventing this. The simplest thing I can think of is giving the party a cohort, maybe of your design maybe of the DM's, and you play him during the hack and slash so you don't get left out of the action. It might be annoying to play a secondary character for a while but you should, in theory, not always get shorted on having one-on-one time with the DM and if you do then its all good.

Hopefully that helps. Sorry to hear your problems.
I have done so and he says he regrets letting me "talk him into" splitting the party, which strikes me as a little silly. he is the DM after all and has the power to say no to certain things. before I suggested it I asked him if it was all right if I split the party because I know that a lot of DMs have problems with it and if he said no then I'd go with the party. he didn't, so I didn't. he's just not the type that is comfortable saying no to people often. he said that he can solo with me during the week for me to do my RP stuff which will let me accomplish what I needed to and get me my goal of RP with him, so I'm pretty happy.

I am very hesitant to leave my ship because it represents a significant time and monetary investment (7000gp pretty much wiped me out when I bought it back at level 7) and I've got a crew of 20 trained men (pirates, but that works better for me) that I don't want to lose because I've developed an attachment to them (they're hilarious) and also from a more mercenary perspective, pirates are less likely to sign up with me if I'm the jerk who got his crew killed by abandoning my ship in dangerous territory.

I think that if I remind the DM of the essentially irreplaceable nature of this ship (as far as my finances go right now) then he'll be less likely to try to get me away from it.

using a 2nd character to stick with them during the hack and slash seems like a very elegant solution. I'll see if that could work out in-story if this becomes a threat in another game

this hasn't happened before, which is why I was so thrown.



To be honest? It sounds like you're investing an awful lot of time and effort into playing with a group that doesn't match your preferred playstyle.
welp, honesty is why I asked the boards, to get an unbiased opinion from people who don't know my circle and can view their behaviour objectively divorced from what they are like as people (my DM is a perfectly nice guy, he's not edging me out to "get me back" for anything)

you are, to a certain degree, right. I am in this game because my girlfriend goes to it every saturday and stays at it essentially all day long. rather than be apart the whole day, she suggested I join as well (it's how I started playing D&D) and her friends were receptive to the idea and every game we have a really great time. she's more or less cool with roleplaying, but when there's a choice to settle a problem with words or violence, she's always the first one to pull a knife. two of the other party members are wow players, so that's all that really needs to be said about that, and the other two are the wizard (who's the type of wizard that actually casts fireball all the time like the rulebooks think wizards do) and the other is a fighter, so they are very much the "wake me up when it's time to roll dice" kinds of players.

the party has known each other for a million years so it's really not possible for me to play with this DM (who's the best I ever had) without playing with the rest of the circle too (the wizard's his gf, but she has surprisingly avoided "dm's gf" cliches thus far)

that said though, while the others don't much really care for RPing themselves, they're always entertained during dinner when I RP with the DM and I do my best to be entertaining because when it's my turn to have the spotlight I want to make sure everyone has fun and they do always laugh at my jokes.

it's honestly kind of impossible to find a party anywhere that's all interested in RP, so I'm kinda used to it, I just really like that this DM will RP with me, he's really great at it and his worldbuilding's fantastic (eberron games often are)

[jiriku]

Even an experienced and capable DM can struggle with managing multiple groups of players, especially if he's the type who has trouble saying no. I imagine he felt that when the group finished dinner, he was obligated to wrap things up with you and bring them back into the game. Probably didn't even occur to him to have them sit and wait for an hour while you did your thing with him.

One thing you might try is to cut a deal with the wizard to prep a few summoning spells, possibly on scrolls. If the group gets into combat while your character is away, he busts out the summoned monsters and you run them. This is gets you involved and in the game.

I'd also ask the DM for the chance to get back your missed 15% of the XP through your mid-week roleplaying. :smallbiggrin:

[Venger]

Even an experienced and capable DM can struggle with managing multiple groups of players, especially if he's the type who has trouble saying no. I imagine he felt that when the group finished dinner, he was obligated to wrap things up with you and bring them back into the game. Probably didn't even occur to him to have them sit and wait for an hour while you did your thing with him.

One thing you might try is to cut a deal with the wizard to prep a few summoning spells, possibly on scrolls. If the group gets into combat while your character is away, he busts out the summoned monsters and you run them. This is gets you involved and in the game.

I'd also ask the DM for the chance to get back your missed 15% of the XP through your mid-week roleplaying. :smallbiggrin:

oh, sure. I don't blame him for having trouble with a split party. I'm more annoyed he didn't just say "no" to me. that's exactly what happened, that's the sort of guy he is.

that is a good idea, I'll see if the wizard is receptive to it.

I suspect that he will do that for me during the week. he said he felt bad about the way things turned out so we're going to try to fix things up before the next session.

[Allanimal]

I don't have anything to add about how to prevent the situation you are in in the future, but for the immediate conundrum of what to do with the ship once the wizard pops in, aren't you a mere 1 day out from safe harbor? Why not sail back to the town, put the ship away safely, then let the wizard teleport you to where you need to go?

The ship is safe, and you only are delayed by 1 day from the teleport everyone like crazy plan.

[Venger]

I don't have anything to add about how to prevent the situation you are in in the future, but for the immediate conundrum of what to do with the ship once the wizard pops in, aren't you a mere 1 day out from safe harbor? Why not sail back to the town, put the ship away safely, then let the wizard teleport you to where you need to go?

The ship is safe, and you only are delayed by 1 day from the teleport everyone like crazy plan.

the harbor my ship departed from was our initial startout location for the campaign, but it has been invaded and essentially taken over by the enemy's forces. they don't know who we are (we've been adventuring since before they came in-game) but were willing to give us safe passage (read: not kill us and steal my ship) after the local filthy pirate king said we were with him (lhazar principalities, you are the best) and a slick bit of negotiations by my character later, we were in the city looking around and got permission to leave. while it may be safe to park the ship there for long enough for everyone to get aboard, I think it would be irresponsible to leave it in the bay while we went off adventuring for a few weeks. I want it with me at all times or to at least know it's accounted for in some area where my crew and ship are safe from harm.

the cove they're sinking ships in is to the west and news travels slow in a medieval fantasy game. even though the branch here knows that my ship is off-limits, the ones over there might not. I wanted to get my ship out of the threatened area as fast as possible by going east to a big city where I know the enemy doesn't have any influence so it won't be in danger. the waters between here and there are iffy at best, so I don't want to leave my crew without a PC to protect them. I do not trust the enemy forces with my crew or my ship and would not leave them unattended in this city unless I had no choice.

[Draconi Redfir]

After reading this i realized just how much easier it would be if teliport had a more limited range, like say caster level + INT/CHA bonus x10ft or something, so it would act more like a warcraft blink then a "i win" button.

[Zaq]

After reading this i realized just how much easier it would be if teliport had a more limited range, like say caster level + INT/CHA bonus x10ft or something, so it would act more like a warcraft blink then a "i win" button.

Like this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionDoor.htm)

[Draconi Redfir]

Like this? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionDoor.htm)

pretty much, but a shorter range. mostly just so long-distance travel stuff (i.e. Ven's boat) actually have a reason to exist.

[Venger]

After reading this i realized just how much easier it would be if teliport had a more limited range, like say caster level + INT/CHA bonus x10ft or something, so it would act more like a warcraft blink then a "i win" button.

easier for who? this is all because we didn't have teleport

teleport won't really help us accomplish anything (fight the enemy, contract reinforcements) it'll just save me from having to do algebra problems for 20 minutes while we figure out how many days' travel the forest to the west is from the town to the east and keep us from missing story hooks because of geography.

it's just the wizard and CL/3 ppl, which isn't even the whole party, hardly gamebreaking.

I just think I'm misunderstanding you

[suhkkaet]

Shiz.
First-first of; Are you 7 PC's? You, your GF, two Wow-players, two wizards and a fighter?

Well, first of, remind your DM to award both you and the other players (XP-wise) when you get to your RP-part - that way, the other players won't feel screwed over that you got combat XP (while not being present), and them not getting RP XP (while not being present). Know what I mean?

Secondly, speak with the DM and the other players. See if you can work out a deal - the summoning is a good idea, but it could also be something else. Such as having the wizard teleport the other people to your ship, so they can watch it (random encounter!) while you go RP with the wizard.
Of course, this will take 2 days (one day to get back to the city to scry, then one tp to the ship with 3 other players, one tp back, rest 'till next day, tp to the ship with the remaining two players), but it might be better than nothing.

When your ship gets to the "safe" port (it was east, right?), teleport to the west and do the combat-part. You might even be able to hire a first mate to take care of the ship in the mean time - or promote one of your crewmen.

Alternatively (I wouldn't recommend this), let them play out the combat part while you just listen and do other things (so you're still available), and when they're done, do one-on-one with the DM (either having the others listening, or just cancel the session with the others so they don't have to get, as you say, bored)

[Venger]

easier for who? this is all because we didn't have teleport

teleport won't really help us accomplish anything (fight the enemy, contract reinforcements) it'll just save me from having to do algebra problems for 20 minutes while we figure out how many days' travel the forest to the west is from the town to the east and keep us from missing story hooks because of geography.

it's just the wizard and CL/3 ppl, which isn't even the whole party, hardly gamebreaking.

I just think I'm misunderstanding you


pretty much, but a shorter range. mostly just so long-distance travel stuff (i.e. Ven's boat) actually have a reason to exist.

oh, I see. short-range teleports are better for video games than turn-based games since they allow you to exploit the lag between the timing of the opponent's attacks or the reactions of your human player 2 at the arcade. there's always abrupt jaunt, but people complain about that too, so yeah.

I'm not familiar with that specific item, but items of long distance travel really don't have a reason to exist in a fully realised D&D game (tippyverse) but our wizard's not going to be setting up any teleportation circles, so to speak

we're in eberron, which is essentially a vaguely fantasyish caribbean isles, so long-term travel (boats) is still very much a thing as far as flavour goes, especially since I run a trading empire (can't teleport more than your max load, which for the wizard ain't much) we've been in this game since lvl 2, so we're too set in our habits now to drastically change the way we as a party think of dealing with the annoyances of transportation

teleport is also set up for the textbook 4 man party (usable on self + 3 chars when unlocked) so can't be used effectively on a party of 6 for quite some time.

I do understand your point about teleportation, but I find in my experience it's really only a problem when players start out at a sufficient level to cast it so they never have to get used to doing things the mundane way.



Shiz.
First-first of; Are you 7 PC's? You, your GF, two Wow-players, two wizards and a fighter?

Well, first of, remind your DM to award both you and the other players (XP-wise) when you get to your RP-part - that way, the other players won't feel screwed over that you got combat XP (while not being present), and them not getting RP XP (while not being present). Know what I mean?

Secondly, speak with the DM and the other players. See if you can work out a deal - the summoning is a good idea, but it could also be something else. Such as having the wizard teleport the other people to your ship, so they can watch it (random encounter!) while you go RP with the wizard.
Of course, this will take 2 days (one day to get back to the city to scry, then one tp to the ship with 3 other players, one tp back, rest 'till next day, tp to the ship with the remaining two players), but it might be better than nothing.

When your ship gets to the "safe" port (it was east, right?), teleport to the west and do the combat-part. You might even be able to hire a first mate to take care of the ship in the mean time - or promote one of your crewmen.

Alternatively (I wouldn't recommend this), let them play out the combat part while you just listen and do other things (so you're still available), and when they're done, do one-on-one with the DM (either having the others listening, or just cancel the session with the others so they don't have to get, as you say, bored)

there are only 6 of us, me, my gf, the wizard, the fighter, and the 2 wow players.

I believe that's what he's doing xpwise. like I said, he gave people their xp and gave me a smaller amount. I suspect I'll make up the difference with my RP session later this week. yeah, that makes sense.

yep, safe port's to the east. them coming aboard my ship is ideal. as long as some PC is on the ship, it can't be demolished offscreen by the enemy. I've got a few officers with NPC class levels, but none of thema are really combatworthy. they're more there so I don't have to put ranks in profession (sailor) and knowledge (geography) like a chump. our party's just so awkwardly big that teleport takes 3 hops total to take the whole party anywhere (taking at least 2 days) since teleport's designed for parties of 4. that is a good plan though. the wizard can take the party aboard and then we can stay with the ship till it's safe, teleport west, finish up there, come back, my guy can do his negotiations and we can set sail and take the cove together as a party

I tried letting them play out the combat part while I listened and did other stuff and I wouldn't recommend it either, it was terrible

yeah, I wanted to wrapup with the DM after the game today (ended early, like I said) but he has work in the morning, which I understand,and I want to avoid people being bored during a D&D game, because that's not right. I had to do that today and it doesn't feel very good, so I wouldn't want to impose it on my friends.

[Draconi Redfir]

easier for who? this is all because we didn't have teleport

teleport won't really help us accomplish anything (fight the enemy, contract reinforcements) it'll just save me from having to do algebra problems for 20 minutes while we figure out how many days' travel the forest to the west is from the town to the east and keep us from missing story hooks because of geography.

it's just the wizard and CL/3 ppl, which isn't even the whole party, hardly gamebreaking.

I just think I'm misunderstanding you

Easier for everyone who doesn’t play a wizard basically. just so wizards/sorcerers can't just say "Teleport in, do the job, teleport out, i am pwn" and such. plus it would make split-up situations such as your own more interesting when they do occur.

[suhkkaet]

I wanted to quote something, but there was nothing I felt like commenting on..
Mostly because I want to ask you a question (and didn't want to go offtopic)
How does your webcam/long-range sessions work out? Any special programs you use, or is it just skype (/similar) with webcam + microphone?
What about rolling dice? Is it done online or do you have some kind of special setup? What about character sheets? Hidden rolls? Etc. Etc.
I'm asking because I've been thinking about doing the same thing, but it seems very impractical - especially if you're not using some kind of program to help out (such as IRC with dice-rollers or something, and something else for you/the DM to keep track of your characters, sheet-wise).

Oh, I thought of something to get a little bit on topic:
Let the wizard research the spell V uses (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0643.html). Except a bit less epic. Just one ship teleported. :P

[Venger]

I wanted to quote something, but there was nothing I felt like commenting on..
Mostly because I want to ask you a question (and didn't want to go offtopic)
How does your webcam/long-range sessions work out? Any special programs you use, or is it just skype (/similar) with webcam + microphone?
What about rolling dice? Is it done online or do you have some kind of special setup? What about character sheets? Hidden rolls? Etc. Etc.
I'm asking because I've been thinking about doing the same thing, but it seems very impractical - especially if you're not using some kind of program to help out (such as IRC with dice-rollers or something, and something else for you/the DM to keep track of your characters, sheet-wise).

Oh, I thought of something to get a little bit on topic:
Let the wizard research the spell V uses (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0643.html). Except a bit less epic. Just one ship teleported. :P

oh, that's fine, I don't mind answering. everyone's been very helpful. I sent my DM an email and I'll see what he says tomorrow. I usually use google video (sound quality's better than skype) but I use skype when google's having one of its outages (like today) with a webcam and mic

everyone else at the game plays over at the DM's house so it's not all online. I just roll my dice on my table at home and tell him what I rolled, we know each other pretty well and my rolls are poor enough that he has no reason to question my integrity (why would I cheat anyway, just a game)

sheetswise, I email him an updated one every time we level up by using a form fillable pdf character sheet.

since I'm the only person telecommuting to the game as it were, it's not too cumbersome on people. did you mean doing that? or did you mean running an all online game?

I've run a game with all the players present but one (who played via webcam like I do) and we used the same system. it worked fine. as long as it's not someone who lies about their rolls (but who wants to play with someone like that anyway?) there's not much that can go wrong.