I'm DMimg my own campaign with 4 players and they got separated and are in 3 different location.
To explain whole situation - One of my player backstory is that his father last will was for him to become paladin and to go to the city where paladins are located. He got this message via letter 5 year after father's death because he was too young to travel. The problem is that his father died during rebellion during which paladins of the city were on opposite site, so family of a player is not popular there. Team got got to the city and had to do some challenges to convince leader of paladins that he is worthy to become one of them.
Here's where problem started - earlier party robed one of important figure in the city and another PC got a cursed sword that he cannot be separated from or he becomes deaf. This PC was scared that paladins will recognize the sword and arrest him, so he run away leaving a note that he will be waiting in another city. Other PCs went on trials and at the end portal to Feywild was opened and big battle occurred. At the end of the battle PCs got almost killed (intentionally) and had to run away. They had an item that allowed them to open a portal to unknown safe location (house of powerful mage that is long gone - they don't know that). They opened a portal and 2 of them got in (that I hoped all of them will go to) and the third one decided to stay (even when he knew that portal to safe location will be closed soon - it was opened for 10 rounds and they were aware that it will close after that time). Instead he got through portal to Feywild. Once two players left safehouse they met devil that was willing to make a contract with them and that would solve the problem, but instead they attacked the devil (they almost died so there's still a chance that they will have to make a contract to survive).
So now I have two players that are in one location after battle with devil and maybe they will make a contract, one player in Feywild and one waiting for them in another city. I wanted to ask for ideas on how to gather them again as one team without creating powerful mage with teleport spell that happen to be close to each PC and is willing to teleport them.
TLDR: I've created a situation where 2 players are together in one location, one PC went to different city and another one in in Feywild... I know the rule never split the party, but well it happened. Now I need an idea how to gather them in one place without introducing powerful mages in each location that is willing to teleport them. Any ideas?
I'll brainstorm options first, because that's what you asked:
1) Something went wrong with the Feywild portal and the one who went through gets spit out again because it needs 4 people to connect to the proper destination or some other narratively convenient reason. 2) Paladin's deity intervenes, knowing the party is in danger, and allows him to astral-project to the devil fight to help the friends he abandoned and redeem his honor. He has to burn some of his soul-energy to stay there (maybe he can only roll half his hit dice or something until he's reunited), so there's incentive for him to get his physical body back to where his astral projection is. 3) It wasn't a portal to the Feywild after all, it was a malfunctioning teleportation experiment of the mage's that takes anyone who walked through it to a safe house outside the town the paladin is currently hiding in.
The party split is actually just a symptom of your problem, not the problem itself. It seems to me that there is little party cohesion if the paladin thinks it's fine to run off alone and nobody bothers to chase him, and one player decides to stay on a completely different plane of existence than travel with the others to the Feywild. D&D is a cooperative game, and your players don't seem to understand that. It's worth having a conversation with them that they really need to think and act like a team, because you didn't sign up to run 3 separate campaigns.
And on that note...you are the one who created scenarios and consequences that made 3 campaigns possible. If you don't want to have to come up with ways to get the party back together, don't give them the option to split up in the first place. They may have made the choices, but you are the one who enabled them. You could have closed the portal before stranding the one player, or had the paladin arrested on the way out of town, or had the devil cast Hold Person on the party when they attacked and said "I'm here to bargain, you fools, so listen up." It seems like you want to provide the option of player agency, but you don't want to deal with the consequences of giving it to them. That's really tough to straddle. It's okay for a DM to say no, especially if saying yes will turn into a mess you don't want to clean up. In the future, I'd encourage you to think about how much leeway you're willing to give and if you're comfortable with the fallout. If not, maybe you adjust the story (or the consequences) to keep everything fun for you and your players. Because I guarantee that players will do things you don't expect - and they have no idea what you have planned, so they don't know if they've messed anything up.
You could have the separate characters accidentally fall into the Astral Plane and almost immediately fall into a feywild color pool and reunite with the character there.
The wild has odd time problems with the material plane and they could then come back at almost anytime you want.
In addition to the great advice already present here I'd like to suggest something I've done before.
Talk to your players and tell them you are all about character agency in the game setting, but the logistics of playing the game means you can handle only so many plot threads at one time for active players. Then offer them a discussion that leads to choosing what to do about it.
I'd suggest that they either work with you on a simple narrative that gets them together without a game session (travel montage) OR you run a side quest for both groups and the player who doesn't have a character present makes a secondary character that's a traveling companion on the road to them getting together. That way the player isn't left sitting on their thumbs, but all of them have a session or two of reinforcement that they can't play their main character due to separating.
Not as a punishment, just as a functional reality.
They should feel like partners in your game being fun and part of that is working with you to not split the party, etc. without talking to you first.
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Hi all,
I'm DMimg my own campaign with 4 players and they got separated and are in 3 different location.
To explain whole situation - One of my player backstory is that his father last will was for him to become paladin and to go to the city where paladins are located. He got this message via letter 5 year after father's death because he was too young to travel. The problem is that his father died during rebellion during which paladins of the city were on opposite site, so family of a player is not popular there. Team got got to the city and had to do some challenges to convince leader of paladins that he is worthy to become one of them.
Here's where problem started - earlier party robed one of important figure in the city and another PC got a cursed sword that he cannot be separated from or he becomes deaf. This PC was scared that paladins will recognize the sword and arrest him, so he run away leaving a note that he will be waiting in another city. Other PCs went on trials and at the end portal to Feywild was opened and big battle occurred. At the end of the battle PCs got almost killed (intentionally) and had to run away. They had an item that allowed them to open a portal to unknown safe location (house of powerful mage that is long gone - they don't know that). They opened a portal and 2 of them got in (that I hoped all of them will go to) and the third one decided to stay (even when he knew that portal to safe location will be closed soon - it was opened for 10 rounds and they were aware that it will close after that time). Instead he got through portal to Feywild. Once two players left safehouse they met devil that was willing to make a contract with them and that would solve the problem, but instead they attacked the devil (they almost died so there's still a chance that they will have to make a contract to survive).
So now I have two players that are in one location after battle with devil and maybe they will make a contract, one player in Feywild and one waiting for them in another city. I wanted to ask for ideas on how to gather them again as one team without creating powerful mage with teleport spell that happen to be close to each PC and is willing to teleport them.
TLDR: I've created a situation where 2 players are together in one location, one PC went to different city and another one in in Feywild... I know the rule never split the party, but well it happened. Now I need an idea how to gather them in one place without introducing powerful mages in each location that is willing to teleport them. Any ideas?
I'll brainstorm options first, because that's what you asked:
1) Something went wrong with the Feywild portal and the one who went through gets spit out again because it needs 4 people to connect to the proper destination or some other narratively convenient reason.
2) Paladin's deity intervenes, knowing the party is in danger, and allows him to astral-project to the devil fight to help the friends he abandoned and redeem his honor. He has to burn some of his soul-energy to stay there (maybe he can only roll half his hit dice or something until he's reunited), so there's incentive for him to get his physical body back to where his astral projection is.
3) It wasn't a portal to the Feywild after all, it was a malfunctioning teleportation experiment of the mage's that takes anyone who walked through it to a safe house outside the town the paladin is currently hiding in.
The party split is actually just a symptom of your problem, not the problem itself. It seems to me that there is little party cohesion if the paladin thinks it's fine to run off alone and nobody bothers to chase him, and one player decides to stay on a completely different plane of existence than travel with the others to the Feywild. D&D is a cooperative game, and your players don't seem to understand that. It's worth having a conversation with them that they really need to think and act like a team, because you didn't sign up to run 3 separate campaigns.
And on that note...you are the one who created scenarios and consequences that made 3 campaigns possible. If you don't want to have to come up with ways to get the party back together, don't give them the option to split up in the first place. They may have made the choices, but you are the one who enabled them. You could have closed the portal before stranding the one player, or had the paladin arrested on the way out of town, or had the devil cast Hold Person on the party when they attacked and said "I'm here to bargain, you fools, so listen up." It seems like you want to provide the option of player agency, but you don't want to deal with the consequences of giving it to them. That's really tough to straddle. It's okay for a DM to say no, especially if saying yes will turn into a mess you don't want to clean up. In the future, I'd encourage you to think about how much leeway you're willing to give and if you're comfortable with the fallout. If not, maybe you adjust the story (or the consequences) to keep everything fun for you and your players. Because I guarantee that players will do things you don't expect - and they have no idea what you have planned, so they don't know if they've messed anything up.
Good luck!
You could have the separate characters accidentally fall into the Astral Plane and almost immediately fall into a feywild color pool and reunite with the character there.
The wild has odd time problems with the material plane and they could then come back at almost anytime you want.
I was going to comment, but Bagels summed it up perfectly. Reread their comment again and consider how to use their advice in your game.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
In addition to the great advice already present here I'd like to suggest something I've done before.
Talk to your players and tell them you are all about character agency in the game setting, but the logistics of playing the game means you can handle only so many plot threads at one time for active players. Then offer them a discussion that leads to choosing what to do about it.
I'd suggest that they either work with you on a simple narrative that gets them together without a game session (travel montage) OR you run a side quest for both groups and the player who doesn't have a character present makes a secondary character that's a traveling companion on the road to them getting together. That way the player isn't left sitting on their thumbs, but all of them have a session or two of reinforcement that they can't play their main character due to separating.
Not as a punishment, just as a functional reality.
They should feel like partners in your game being fun and part of that is working with you to not split the party, etc. without talking to you first.