Be wary of allowing the party to split and go on separate adventures. It's hard to run, and gives half the table nothing to do while you're running the other half's adventure. If they want to split up, give them a hard time.
This struck home, as at the end of my last session my players had a brief discussion about how one of their problems was that they were attempting to bringing everyone along on all tasks. In this case they had attempted to bluff their way onto a naval warship at dock in the harbor, disguised as an admiralty inspection team, and it had not gone to plan. They reasoned - likely correctly - that if they had kept it to a small team of 2-3 ( of a party of 6 ), while the balance of the party had gone off to perform a different task, both tasks would probably have gone better. So they agreed to start looking into this approach, so it's likely that I'll be seeing more party splitting up in the next few sessions.
I was also reminded of a recent Matt Colville video where he talked about appointing one or more players as "monster wranglers" in large scale combat ( see embedded video below ).
The idea struck me that if I had two groups of players, each following a different story arc, and - let's say each having to interact with different NPCs - why not involve everyone in every scene? Have the "sidelined" team responsible for running NPCs for the "spotlight" team ( and vice versa when the spotlight shifts ).
There are - obviously - some major complications with this idea:
All players would have to be on board with this!!!
NPCs would have to be fleshed out enough to be able to hand "summary cue cards" to a player, and have it be detailed enough and succinct enough that they could scan it quickly, and be able to run with it.
Because of point #2, some NPCs - who the DM had no clue until 5 seconds before they were needed that they even existed - would still have to be controlled/run by the DM. Likewise the DM might need to take control back on certain NPCs, at certain points. Alternatively, the DM can have a stack of "NPC Cards" or use one of the online NPC generators to quickly pop out a semi-random NPC.
Players can't "play favorites" and "go easy" on their team-mates - DM still retains veto, and can override the players.
Players can't get in an adversarial "your NPC was a jerk to my team, so mine will be a jerk to your team as well!" exchange - again DM ability to veto/override NPC behavior.
NPCs can't meta-game ( they likely know their team-mates plan! ).
I'm curious if anyone has tried this sort of thing, and how well did it work ( or fail )?
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Hmm, I had never thought about having players run NPC characters for scenes that they are not in. My biggest fear with that would be, in addition to the series of bullet points you pointed out needing to work, would be the sense of consistency for the NPC if it was later switched which players was guiding them, or when having to take them back over for DM objectives. It would complicate certain details that the character should know (since the DM knows them) but that the players have yet to learn.
My players will often split up during recon portions of things (some going to scope out defenses, others taking to NPCs that might have access to useful information about the people/creatures the party might soon be dealing with, or to approach from different angles). For these moments I find the trick is to make sure that the current scene keeps moving, requiring the active players to make decisions more quickly, with less time to mull them over out of game, and minimize potentially distracting unimportant side details (if in town they are going to reach the house they are trying to scope out without having a random beggar ask them for money for instance). That and if you have two or more scenes active at once that will last for substantial amounts of time (around the 15-20+ minute mark for myself) I will also make sure that I will switch back and forth between the two scenes at impactful moments, allowing the players of the scene we exited to have some extra time to think on the event that just passed, while bringing the passive players back to the fore. Most of my early practice in this came during running a Shadowrun campaign (2070's with high tech and fantasy elements, where most missions resemble some form of heist) which helped me find the balance for my D&D campaigns that followed.
Involving the players that are passive is a good thing. However, the risk of doing it too often and in such an organized fashion could rather have you running two groups of PCs instead and you’re back to square one.
Personally I think allowing a split party when it fits the story is fine - and in periods of downtime when exploring personal stories and goals can be a nice flavor - but that an agreement within the gaming group about limiting it as much as possible is good. Even if it sometimes would be better from a PC perspective.
In the campaigns I’ve been a part of we have used it a few times with great success, but probably because it was rare occasions and a chance to have fun with a different approach. Had we done it more often - as a regular part of a gaming session as I believe you indicate - I think it would have failed. It might work for others of course.
I think you should talk it over and try it but like in most other things story related, be ready to kill you darlings. If it does not work, do it less often instead and see if that’s fine or stop all together and simply try too keep the group of PCs together.
Agreed with the above. I applaud your creative thinking to keeping the game alive when the party is split, though!
From my point of view, if you're having your players play NPCs, they're not NPCs. Your rules around it address some of the main issues, but we all know players go completely off-piste when it comes to interacting. My main problem would be that only the DM has the omniscience to drive these interactions, as ShadowPhage mentions, it could seriously complicate events later down the line.
My original comment on splitting the party, that you've referred to, was more about preventing essentially two simultaneous game sessions, where two parties are off having their own adventures in isolation, because they couldn't agree on what to do. In your example, where it seemed better to have a smaller group attempt to bluff their way onto a warship, the other group of players could be doing something to support that effort; keeping a watch for guards, keeping the dock-workers busy, etc.
The most common example is during town interactions, where the party often goes their separate ways to do what they need to do. Shopping, chatting to townsfolk, gathering clues, etc. The main thing in those situations is to keep the interactions short, so each player can quickly complete their business, and come back together. Main story progression should be done as a single unit.
The NPCs should not be repeating NPCs - or, yes, you really end up with players running multiple characters. This also alleviates the consistency issue of multiple players playing the same NPC more than once. Repeating NPCs are the province of the DM, still.
Backdrop NPCs ( shopkeepers, barkeeps, etc. ) aren't really interesting/important enough for this treatment.
DM always has NPC veto, and can always retain an NPC to themselves. This means that not only repeating NPCs, but NPCs that contain plot-relevant information, are the province of the DM
I guess this really only works for:
NPCs which are "one off", and not likely to be repeatable.
Are having some kind of meaningful interaction with the party.
Don't have any "plot information".
In the example of my players - having the "off screen team" playing the Captain and Officers of the vessel, to the "spotlight team" of the infiltrators trying to bluff their way on board would likely have worked - but this technique wouldn't work in all situations.
I still think it could be fun to try, if it worked, and everyone was comfortable with it :)
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When reading this thread here - Advice for arguing Players - I was struck by a particular quote from Chequers:
This struck home, as at the end of my last session my players had a brief discussion about how one of their problems was that they were attempting to bringing everyone along on all tasks. In this case they had attempted to bluff their way onto a naval warship at dock in the harbor, disguised as an admiralty inspection team, and it had not gone to plan. They reasoned - likely correctly - that if they had kept it to a small team of 2-3 ( of a party of 6 ), while the balance of the party had gone off to perform a different task, both tasks would probably have gone better. So they agreed to start looking into this approach, so it's likely that I'll be seeing more party splitting up in the next few sessions.
I was also reminded of a recent Matt Colville video where he talked about appointing one or more players as "monster wranglers" in large scale combat ( see embedded video below ).
The idea struck me that if I had two groups of players, each following a different story arc, and - let's say each having to interact with different NPCs - why not involve everyone in every scene? Have the "sidelined" team responsible for running NPCs for the "spotlight" team ( and vice versa when the spotlight shifts ).
There are - obviously - some major complications with this idea:
I'm curious if anyone has tried this sort of thing, and how well did it work ( or fail )?
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Hmm, I had never thought about having players run NPC characters for scenes that they are not in. My biggest fear with that would be, in addition to the series of bullet points you pointed out needing to work, would be the sense of consistency for the NPC if it was later switched which players was guiding them, or when having to take them back over for DM objectives. It would complicate certain details that the character should know (since the DM knows them) but that the players have yet to learn.
My players will often split up during recon portions of things (some going to scope out defenses, others taking to NPCs that might have access to useful information about the people/creatures the party might soon be dealing with, or to approach from different angles). For these moments I find the trick is to make sure that the current scene keeps moving, requiring the active players to make decisions more quickly, with less time to mull them over out of game, and minimize potentially distracting unimportant side details (if in town they are going to reach the house they are trying to scope out without having a random beggar ask them for money for instance). That and if you have two or more scenes active at once that will last for substantial amounts of time (around the 15-20+ minute mark for myself) I will also make sure that I will switch back and forth between the two scenes at impactful moments, allowing the players of the scene we exited to have some extra time to think on the event that just passed, while bringing the passive players back to the fore. Most of my early practice in this came during running a Shadowrun campaign (2070's with high tech and fantasy elements, where most missions resemble some form of heist) which helped me find the balance for my D&D campaigns that followed.
Involving the players that are passive is a good thing. However, the risk of doing it too often and in such an organized fashion could rather have you running two groups of PCs instead and you’re back to square one.
Personally I think allowing a split party when it fits the story is fine - and in periods of downtime when exploring personal stories and goals can be a nice flavor - but that an agreement within the gaming group about limiting it as much as possible is good. Even if it sometimes would be better from a PC perspective.
In the campaigns I’ve been a part of we have used it a few times with great success, but probably because it was rare occasions and a chance to have fun with a different approach. Had we done it more often - as a regular part of a gaming session as I believe you indicate - I think it would have failed. It might work for others of course.
I think you should talk it over and try it but like in most other things story related, be ready to kill you darlings. If it does not work, do it less often instead and see if that’s fine or stop all together and simply try too keep the group of PCs together.
Agreed with the above. I applaud your creative thinking to keeping the game alive when the party is split, though!
From my point of view, if you're having your players play NPCs, they're not NPCs. Your rules around it address some of the main issues, but we all know players go completely off-piste when it comes to interacting. My main problem would be that only the DM has the omniscience to drive these interactions, as ShadowPhage mentions, it could seriously complicate events later down the line.
My original comment on splitting the party, that you've referred to, was more about preventing essentially two simultaneous game sessions, where two parties are off having their own adventures in isolation, because they couldn't agree on what to do. In your example, where it seemed better to have a smaller group attempt to bluff their way onto a warship, the other group of players could be doing something to support that effort; keeping a watch for guards, keeping the dock-workers busy, etc.
The most common example is during town interactions, where the party often goes their separate ways to do what they need to do. Shopping, chatting to townsfolk, gathering clues, etc. The main thing in those situations is to keep the interactions short, so each player can quickly complete their business, and come back together. Main story progression should be done as a single unit.
Some really good feedback, thank you :)
I agree that:
I guess this really only works for:
In the example of my players - having the "off screen team" playing the Captain and Officers of the vessel, to the "spotlight team" of the infiltrators trying to bluff their way on board would likely have worked - but this technique wouldn't work in all situations.
I still think it could be fun to try, if it worked, and everyone was comfortable with it :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.