SPLITTING THE PARTY
Splitting the party is a situation that every GM will have
to deal with at some point. Sometimes it’s a pain in the
butt, sometimes it goes smoothly – and there are five
principle approaches that you can take to handling it.
Two of them are lousy, one is neutral and two are excellent.
We’ll start with the bad approaches, so you know
what to avoid.
SPLITTING THE PLAYERS: LOUSY APPROACH #1
When half of the party heads down one fork in the
road, and the rest of the PCs take the other path, you
physically split up the group: Half the players leave the
room, the others stay at the gaming table.
This is a terrible way to handle splitting the
party. In my experience, it always takes longer than you
think it will, and boy does it kill the game’s momentum
– especially for the players that aren’t actually playing.
Sometimes it seems like the only thing to do,
though – like in games with a lot of intra-party conflict
and intrigue. In those kinds of games, splitting the
players can be a great way to build tension and sustain
a sense of mystery (“What were they doing in there?”)
– but only in small doses. Use this approach with caution.
For me, part of the pleasure of gaming is in
separating player knowledge from character knowledge,
and I trust my players to do this. I’ve learned that even
when splitting the players up sounds reasonable, it’s
generally not the way to go.
CUT BACK AND FORTH OCCASIONALLY: LOUSY APPROACH #2
I’ve seen this happen so often in different games that I
think of it as the default approach (and it’s very easy to
fall into – I’ve done more than my share of it!): Keep
everyone at the table, and cut back and forth between
the two groups of players periodically.
And that’s really the problem with this method
– the “periodically” part. Understandably, many players
get bored when they’re not involved in the action,
and even if everyone stays interested this approach can
still be a big momentum-killer. (The trick is to cut back
and forth much more often, a tactic that’s described below.)
JUST DON’T DO IT: THE NEUTRAL APPROACH
One way to handle splitting the party is to never split the
party. I view this as a neutral approach because you’re
really just sidestepping the issue – but at the same time,
it does work quite well.
The best way I’ve found to handle this is to
make it a social contract issue: Before the campaign
begins, discuss it with your players. Explain that splitting
the party is often frustrating for everyone, and that
you won’t put the PCs in situations where it’s the most
advantageous thing to do. In return, ask them to avoid
splitting the party unless it’s absolutely necessary. In my
experience, this works like a charm.
You could also just make this agreement a hardand-
fast rule, which is a good idea if you’re under a time
constraint (running a convention game, for example).
CUT, CUT, CUT: GOOD APPROACH #1
No matter how hard you try to avoid splitting the party,
it’s going to happen – so what do you do? Cut early, and
cut often.
With all of the players at the table, handle a
minute or two of what one sub-group is doing, and
then cut away to the other group. A couple of minutes
later, cut back. Repeat until the party is back together.
Think of this as the two minute rule – when in doubt,
cut every two minutes.
This keeps everyone engaged, you won’t lose
momentum, each sub-group gets time to think about
what to do next (and enjoy watching the other players)
and no one will be tempted to go get snacks or start
watching TV.
Whenever possible, try to cut on mini-cliffhangers.
This works wonders for keeping things moving.
GET A SIDEKICK: GOOD APPROACH #2
The fifth approach is to bring in a co-GM – someone
who can take over GMing the other half of the party.
That way no one gets bored, and as long as the two
GMs communicate regularly the game should stay on
track nicely.
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