I am running my first game as a DM after being a long time player, but I have taken a liking to it and my players are thoroughly enjoying going through my Remixed version of Dragon Heist.
The problem I am running into I think is that I have been bombarding my players with numerous quests, and I am of the mind that I'd rather give the players too much to do than too little, but of course I am still working out pacing. But I now find myself worrying for the players because they are constantly splitting up to cover more ground and fit as much as possible into the 'day' before its over.
I'm looking for advice on a tactful way to teach the party to stick together without outright punishing one of them for going off alone.
Depends on when they are splitting up. Players will often split up for downtime, shopping, or other general maintenance type activities that don't require much interaction.
I suppose my point is, we need to know when and why the party is splitting in order to give accurate advice.
Of course, they seem to be splitting up to do quests.
For instance they we're given a task to watch the Dock Ward for a murderer prowling around at night, so 1 person wanted to go speak with some of their own kin concerning something they discovered earlier in the day, another person wanted to stay home and help with the renovations to the Tavern and the other 2 people decided they would stake out Dock Street.
There was little to no discussion about that and they all seemed to agree.
It ended up leaving the 2 people to face the murderer alone, but due to some lucky rolls and the murderer failing some saving throws it turned out alright.
I guess I am trying to get the party to play more cohesively and work together.
It sounded fine up until the part about only half the party going to the "definitely a combat mission, guys."
And I don't think combat encounters that were supposed to be faced by the whole party totally killing the half of the party that bothered to show up is a "punishment" per se.
they're going up against family's and criminal organisations. if only 2 of the 4 actually show up for the encounters. then it's only natural the 2 will eventually die. don't change the world to cater to your players. let them handle the consequences of their decisions.
Let the dice fall where they may. Sooner or later a group of one or two of them is going to find themselves in way over their heads. There are going to be situations where the abilities of one of the other party members who is not present will be critical. Let them learn that will be more effective together.
Also let them realize that by splitting the party some of them will always be sitting around not engaged with game play while you and another group are roleplaying out what is happening with them. This is a metagame, to of character, play dynamic thing, but it definitely affects the game experience for everyone.
If they enjoy splitting the party though, let them. Unless it is causing issues for your ability to handle the Doing duties. If that is the case you may just need to tell them upfront that the game is easier for you to run if they stick together.
You may benefit from having an honest conversation with your players that amounts to, "Guys, it's really tough on me to juggle two separate stories at the table at the same time with only half of you belonging to any one story." It's like you're running two games of D&D at the same time at the same table. Get their input on how to make this run smother for everyone including yourself. It may come down to you upping the scope of any one story to the point where it needs to include the whole party in order to go on the adventure appropriately.
I'm currently playing in Dragon Heist and my character is very much the type who prefers to work alone. I'm part of a faction that none of the rest of the characters know about, I speak very little about it, and I'm very fond of just wandering off to talk to my faction without much notice to my fellows. I'm playing a Drow, and I'm choosing to play him as an escapee from a major family of Underdark. The rest of my party consists of females, so here I am "stuck" working with women, coming from a Matriarchy, so that makes me uncomfortable to boot. I'm also playing a power hungry Sorcerer who's ultimate goal is to become powerful enough to make it back home and wipe out the family that I bear the name of. The idea of being a team player is not high on my priority list.
The trick I've used is to make it a personality issue rather than going the whole "lone wolf" approach. My character has decided that working with these women serves a purpose to him, so he will suffer their company. They are, first of all, women which makes the perfect cover for him, why would a Drow escapee choose to work with women? Secondly, each of them belongs to a different faction, one happens to be the Harpers, so now I can gather information about one of the most elusive groups. I have 2 safe houses within the city, one being an apartment near the warehouse with the Kenku, and the other being the Manor. So now I have a source of income, two places to hide out, and a way to have my faction associate with me in a manner that won't cause too much suspicion. The women tend to talk to each other, discussing their different goals, missions, and whatever. I sit and listen, I give them just enough help to accomplish the missions without expending too many resources, and I make them believe I'm useful.
Using all of those personality mannerisms, I can give myself reason to step out and go solo, but it also gives me a way to stay with the party. When you talk to your players, explain that there are dangers in the city. My character has lived in Waterdeep for a year, he's aware of this, so the DM can use me to help give that message to the players. If you can use one of your players as a tool to remind your group to stay together, that makes it much easier. Sometimes you just have to come out and tell your players, "Hey, splitting up the group is a bad idea, you'd know this". However, if they insist on splitting up after explaining these things...then let them, it is their choice after all.
I think there are three things you can look at and adjust in the future.
1. Urgency. Even if you give your player a lot of things to do, make sure that there is a hierarchy of importance and urgency. Even if you don't want to be too straightforward with your players, make sure you know this and can hint it to everyone in the group. An make sure the are consequences no matter what - either when players act on the 'quest' you prepared or not. Obviously, it is up to you to decide how severe the consequences would be. There is a murderer on the streets and players didn't can to stop him? How about the townsfolk start to riot and demand action or there are copycats sprouting all over the districts? Or the murderer kills someone close to them? Let them feel that this is a living world and it's not just a quest laying around but a real thing. It will help them to feel more immersed in the world.
2. Players needs. You must put yourself in your placers position and understand their needs. Seems pretty obvious, but as a fellow DM I know how hard sometimes it is to work on something for hours or days just for the work to be ignored. I've once prepped a whole village with several NPC and backstory, for my players to just go through it, without even making a stop. But getting back to your players - if one of them is more into the Tavern, explore this topic so that this player can feel a sense of ownership over this 'arc' for the team. How about while he/she was supervising the works, something happened and now it's this character responsibility to gather the team to deal with it?
From what I've read, I feel like the player that stayed in the tavern didn't have much time to dig into the whole thing of owning a business. The one that went to ask around was more into social encounters and investigative approach and the rest went either where you pointed them or when they assumed they should go to finish this quest. Ask yourself it this kind of story was fun for them? If they were into it from the beginning?
Since I'm having a 100% homebrew campaign the beginning of it was very slow. Not to mention that fact that this is my first campaign and it was the player's first one as well. For that reason, I've made a questionary on Google Forms to ask them what they enjoy, what parts they liked and what seemed a little too dull for them. It was a very helpful thing and ever since the game is going much better.
3. Balancing encounters The encounter was a red light for me to be honest. If catching the murderer was the main goal (so he was in fact 'a boss on this level') the encounter should be much harder and generally impossible for them to win. Even if they had some great luck with dice, you can always make the villain to run away, ambush the characters or even modify it's stats on the fly (some DMs oppose this technique, but I find such adaptation to be a natural part of the game, especially that balancing encounters can be really tricky). In some ways, it touches the first point (Urgency) - those events must have an impact, both on the world and the characters.
Hope you will find the right way to deal with it. A lot of it is a matter of dynamics of the group and there is only that much you can do. If the issue doesn't fade away, try to be more direct, either on the gameplay part or staight with your players. As someone mantioned, jumping from one player to the other to tell a different story is simply impossible to be fun in a longer perspective.
You may benefit from having an honest conversation with your players that amounts to, "Guys, it's really tough on me to juggle two separate stories at the table at the same time with only half of you belonging to any one story." It's like you're running two games of D&D at the same time at the same table. Get their input on how to make this run smother for everyone including yourself. It may come down to you upping the scope of any one story to the point where it needs to include the whole party in order to go on the adventure appropriately.
This would be my first move. Just say "I'd like to keep everyone together as much as possible, so no one is sitting around waiting for long periods of time, and so it's easier for me to keep track of." If the concern from the party is that certain time-sensitive things might get missed if they don't split up, you can just stipulate that they won't be missed. "The dungeon will still be there tomorrow" or even just say "So, we can do the counterfeit magic items thing today, and then next session you guys can tackle the kidnapped royal baby plot." That's basically the understanding of all the old RPG sandbox games I used to play when I played a lot of vids. You'd go around collecting tips about quests, but it was understood that any and all of them would wait for you to get around to them :)
You might then need to specify when that won't be the case--when they do have to make a dramatic decision to do X or Y. But otherwise, just let them know they'll be able to do all the cool stuff you have planned in time :)
I am running my first game as a DM after being a long time player, but I have taken a liking to it and my players are thoroughly enjoying going through my Remixed version of Dragon Heist.
The problem I am running into I think is that I have been bombarding my players with numerous quests, and I am of the mind that I'd rather give the players too much to do than too little, but of course I am still working out pacing. But I now find myself worrying for the players because they are constantly splitting up to cover more ground and fit as much as possible into the 'day' before its over.
I'm looking for advice on a tactful way to teach the party to stick together without outright punishing one of them for going off alone.
Depends on when they are splitting up. Players will often split up for downtime, shopping, or other general maintenance type activities that don't require much interaction.
I suppose my point is, we need to know when and why the party is splitting in order to give accurate advice.
Of course, they seem to be splitting up to do quests.
For instance they we're given a task to watch the Dock Ward for a murderer prowling around at night, so 1 person wanted to go speak with some of their own kin concerning something they discovered earlier in the day, another person wanted to stay home and help with the renovations to the Tavern and the other 2 people decided they would stake out Dock Street.
There was little to no discussion about that and they all seemed to agree.
It ended up leaving the 2 people to face the murderer alone, but due to some lucky rolls and the murderer failing some saving throws it turned out alright.
I guess I am trying to get the party to play more cohesively and work together.
It sounded fine up until the part about only half the party going to the "definitely a combat mission, guys."
And I don't think combat encounters that were supposed to be faced by the whole party totally killing the half of the party that bothered to show up is a "punishment" per se.
they're going up against family's and criminal organisations. if only 2 of the 4 actually show up for the encounters. then it's only natural the 2 will eventually die. don't change the world to cater to your players. let them handle the consequences of their decisions.
Let the dice fall where they may. Sooner or later a group of one or two of them is going to find themselves in way over their heads. There are going to be situations where the abilities of one of the other party members who is not present will be critical. Let them learn that will be more effective together.
Also let them realize that by splitting the party some of them will always be sitting around not engaged with game play while you and another group are roleplaying out what is happening with them. This is a metagame, to of character, play dynamic thing, but it definitely affects the game experience for everyone.
If they enjoy splitting the party though, let them. Unless it is causing issues for your ability to handle the Doing duties. If that is the case you may just need to tell them upfront that the game is easier for you to run if they stick together.
You may benefit from having an honest conversation with your players that amounts to, "Guys, it's really tough on me to juggle two separate stories at the table at the same time with only half of you belonging to any one story." It's like you're running two games of D&D at the same time at the same table. Get their input on how to make this run smother for everyone including yourself. It may come down to you upping the scope of any one story to the point where it needs to include the whole party in order to go on the adventure appropriately.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I'm currently playing in Dragon Heist and my character is very much the type who prefers to work alone. I'm part of a faction that none of the rest of the characters know about, I speak very little about it, and I'm very fond of just wandering off to talk to my faction without much notice to my fellows. I'm playing a Drow, and I'm choosing to play him as an escapee from a major family of Underdark. The rest of my party consists of females, so here I am "stuck" working with women, coming from a Matriarchy, so that makes me uncomfortable to boot. I'm also playing a power hungry Sorcerer who's ultimate goal is to become powerful enough to make it back home and wipe out the family that I bear the name of. The idea of being a team player is not high on my priority list.
The trick I've used is to make it a personality issue rather than going the whole "lone wolf" approach. My character has decided that working with these women serves a purpose to him, so he will suffer their company. They are, first of all, women which makes the perfect cover for him, why would a Drow escapee choose to work with women? Secondly, each of them belongs to a different faction, one happens to be the Harpers, so now I can gather information about one of the most elusive groups. I have 2 safe houses within the city, one being an apartment near the warehouse with the Kenku, and the other being the Manor. So now I have a source of income, two places to hide out, and a way to have my faction associate with me in a manner that won't cause too much suspicion. The women tend to talk to each other, discussing their different goals, missions, and whatever. I sit and listen, I give them just enough help to accomplish the missions without expending too many resources, and I make them believe I'm useful.
Using all of those personality mannerisms, I can give myself reason to step out and go solo, but it also gives me a way to stay with the party. When you talk to your players, explain that there are dangers in the city. My character has lived in Waterdeep for a year, he's aware of this, so the DM can use me to help give that message to the players. If you can use one of your players as a tool to remind your group to stay together, that makes it much easier. Sometimes you just have to come out and tell your players, "Hey, splitting up the group is a bad idea, you'd know this". However, if they insist on splitting up after explaining these things...then let them, it is their choice after all.
I think there are three things you can look at and adjust in the future.
1. Urgency.
Even if you give your player a lot of things to do, make sure that there is a hierarchy of importance and urgency. Even if you don't want to be too straightforward with your players, make sure you know this and can hint it to everyone in the group. An make sure the are consequences no matter what - either when players act on the 'quest' you prepared or not. Obviously, it is up to you to decide how severe the consequences would be.
There is a murderer on the streets and players didn't can to stop him? How about the townsfolk start to riot and demand action or there are copycats sprouting all over the districts? Or the murderer kills someone close to them? Let them feel that this is a living world and it's not just a quest laying around but a real thing. It will help them to feel more immersed in the world.
2. Players needs.
You must put yourself in your placers position and understand their needs. Seems pretty obvious, but as a fellow DM I know how hard sometimes it is to work on something for hours or days just for the work to be ignored. I've once prepped a whole village with several NPC and backstory, for my players to just go through it, without even making a stop. But getting back to your players - if one of them is more into the Tavern, explore this topic so that this player can feel a sense of ownership over this 'arc' for the team. How about while he/she was supervising the works, something happened and now it's this character responsibility to gather the team to deal with it?
From what I've read, I feel like the player that stayed in the tavern didn't have much time to dig into the whole thing of owning a business. The one that went to ask around was more into social encounters and investigative approach and the rest went either where you pointed them or when they assumed they should go to finish this quest. Ask yourself it this kind of story was fun for them? If they were into it from the beginning?
Since I'm having a 100% homebrew campaign the beginning of it was very slow. Not to mention that fact that this is my first campaign and it was the player's first one as well. For that reason, I've made a questionary on Google Forms to ask them what they enjoy, what parts they liked and what seemed a little too dull for them. It was a very helpful thing and ever since the game is going much better.
3. Balancing encounters
The encounter was a red light for me to be honest. If catching the murderer was the main goal (so he was in fact 'a boss on this level') the encounter should be much harder and generally impossible for them to win. Even if they had some great luck with dice, you can always make the villain to run away, ambush the characters or even modify it's stats on the fly (some DMs oppose this technique, but I find such adaptation to be a natural part of the game, especially that balancing encounters can be really tricky).
In some ways, it touches the first point (Urgency) - those events must have an impact, both on the world and the characters.
Hope you will find the right way to deal with it. A lot of it is a matter of dynamics of the group and there is only that much you can do. If the issue doesn't fade away, try to be more direct, either on the gameplay part or staight with your players. As someone mantioned, jumping from one player to the other to tell a different story is simply impossible to be fun in a longer perspective.
Check my new Warlock subclass - The Living Plane
This would be my first move. Just say "I'd like to keep everyone together as much as possible, so no one is sitting around waiting for long periods of time, and so it's easier for me to keep track of." If the concern from the party is that certain time-sensitive things might get missed if they don't split up, you can just stipulate that they won't be missed. "The dungeon will still be there tomorrow" or even just say "So, we can do the counterfeit magic items thing today, and then next session you guys can tackle the kidnapped royal baby plot." That's basically the understanding of all the old RPG sandbox games I used to play when I played a lot of vids. You'd go around collecting tips about quests, but it was understood that any and all of them would wait for you to get around to them :)
You might then need to specify when that won't be the case--when they do have to make a dramatic decision to do X or Y. But otherwise, just let them know they'll be able to do all the cool stuff you have planned in time :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)