Okay I have lost sleep over the topic of this thread. This is for two reasons, one of them is my competence as a GM, and the other is the larger issue at hand.

Personaly I enforce the party mentality. What I mean by this is that the players MUST keep splitting up to an absolute minimum. In exchange for this restriction I offer that any side plots they would like to persue, and questions they would like to research, and any extra curricular activities may be resolved inbetween game sessions without detriment to the charecters current situation. Furthermore if a player's extra curricular activites warrents the atension of a game session then all players are required to participate.

It is the most anal retentive rule that I have. Charecters are not allowed to scamper off to the bar whenever they want to. I discurage them to split up in order to cover more ground, and stuff like that.

Why?

Well this deals with the first problem I've hard to deal with when I came to writing this post. I wasn't the first one to pick up on how inane it was for this group of people to be working together. It was the players. That is when the splitting up started to begin. At first I was cool with it, but then I started to notice something. Every minut I spent talking to one group was another minut that the other group's distintrest level started to rise. Were I to switch groups I would watch as the other group would start to loose interest. The problem would be compounded 100 fold when combat started. I needed a solution because I was not good enough to keep the interests of 2+ groups of people when the events that were happening didn't directly affect them. So I sat down one day and explained how I am not good enough to entertain you all when you get seperated.

I think this it is for this reason why the party mentality still excists. I am not mental organized enough to keep track of everyone's doings when they are off doing three diffrent things at the same time. In especialy rules heavy games like Shadowrun this problem could get even worse. When everyone is in the same room interacting with the same things that cuts down the amount of clutter in my head by 100% and as a result I am that much more effective. If you can hanfdle multiple groups doing multiple things then that is wonderful. You are so much cooler than me and this problem dosn't need to apply to you. You can essentialy run two games at the same time. I personaly can't and I have not met someone who is capable of doing so. I feel that this is the main reason why the party still excists in one form or another. I can't function without it.

Hello,

I split this post from The party principle, which was closed by the initial thread author.

Comte, I think the larger issue is way easier than people's emotions are letting them see. Here's that larger issue in a nutshell - pick one of the following four.

1. Internal plausibility, themes being created, or tactical necessity justifies the "party" for a group. Hence their characters are a party. Very easy, no muss and no fuss.

2. Social Contract reasons demand a party approach to play. The people try to get #1 into action, or they just don't worry about it.

3. Neither of the above apply, but the group plays in the party mode out of habit, probably with grumping about it from various people, from time to time.

4. Neither #1-2 consistently applies, and the group does not employ party play except for rare instances when #1 does apply.

Seems to me that #1, #2, and #4 are wonderful and fine ways to play. You sound like #2 to me, in a big way. A lot of the people currently posting are struggling through a painful transition from #3 to #4. So it's not surprising that their sometimes-muddled, sometimes overly-emotionally stated comments seem to be over the line to you.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Actually, in my theoretical terms, party-based play would be called a "technique," but this is a pedantic aside and now it's over.

Well I still don't understand all this closing threads and stuff but I'm posting anyway, since I doubt it will ever make sense to me:

I just wanted to say I agree and I also don't like the party splitting up:

1 - it encourages TOO MUCH independent character sub-plots and activities and leaves the other players twiddling thumbs, drawing, watching tv over someone's shoulder, etc.

2 - I have the same problem - I'm a scatterbrain sometimes; I can usually keep enough notes and job my own memory to keep on track of a plot and maybe a *couple* of sub-plots for the PARTY - but I don't enjoy playing or running games with a split party, my mind just can't track it all and its SERIOUS effort to try to do so - and while I love rpgs and playing, thats MORE effort than I want to do for a GAME that you're supposed to have FUN at.

However, I would like to recommend a *little* leeway for at least 'town scenes' or the occasional 'thief goes off to check on something' segments - thats nice, especially if you can allow for one or two NOW AND THEN - without it compromising party stability, as it allows each player to 'star' for a while, in his own 'mini adventure' but in the end, everyone returns to the fold and carries on.

Hi guys,

I think Ron lays forth the "how's" of party/no party play, but I think we're mixing a couple of issues here...

1- GM's multitasking ability

A fine and legitimate reason to go for party style play or not, based on your ability.

2- Who's got the Ball?

1 - it encourages TOO MUCH independent character sub-plots and activities...."

...and leaves the other players twiddling thumbs, drawing, watching tv over someone's shoulder, etc.

The problem I see here is, a lack of experience, practice, and preparation. The original poster isn't used to split parties, and has had some bad experiences with it. One important factor is missing however: How many people are there in the group?

In a situation such as this my advice is to flesh out the party. Who does the party know? Who are their friends? Their enemies? Who knows them, and what sort of reputation do they have? Do they have families, and what are their relationships with their families. How do the PCs fit in to society, individually and collectively. It means more work, but it gives you a lot more to play with.

Another thing one could do would be to find something for the 'idling' party to do. (I'm drawing a blank here, so ideas are welcome.)

Let's face it, just as RPGs will never be for the common man (it demands too much), so GMing will never be for the common gamer, for it demands too much. But, God, the rewards are worth it.:D

Alan

Chris and Alan have raised some valid points. In fleshing out the particulars of "what I want" out of gaming, I have come across a lot of these issues.

For me, the characters' subplots ARE the thing. For some, that works, for others, it doesn't.

As far as switching between groups, Chris is doing it faster than I am even. I usually try to give myself 5 to 10 minutes. This is where simpler systems (especially for combat) are really helpful. If you can resolve the results of a combat round in a minute and a half, you can narrate the results of it, and then switch to the other guy, who's having a business lunch, or whatever. Five minutes will build suspense where an hour will create boredom.

Also, and this is partly related to the Kibbitzing thread, I encourage everyone in my group to be interested in each others' characters. People who know me have heard me use this analogy time and again: Pick your favorite movie. Now pick your favorite character in that movie. Now, when watching said movie, would you fast forward though all of the bits for which that character is not present? Of course not. It's about being able to see the big picture. After all, I'm running a story about a group of semi-related protagonists, not three or four little separate stories that may happen to overlap at some points. No character is an island. Of course, in this, my gaming agenda is revealed: I want my games to be more like movies. Note: This may or may not coincide with Alan's preferred mode of play (what he calls "Adventurism" in another thread).

Alan's question about the size of the group is important as well. Specifically because of Ron's writing, I heavily favor a smaller group. I have no problem switching between three or even four players if they happen to separate. Five or six (or more) becomes a real problem.

I have recently found myself in the position of having more people that I want to game with than I can handle in one group. My proposed solution (going to try to implement it this month) is to, instead of running a single game every other week (which is what I've been doing), try to run two separate games, once a month each. It seems sound in theory, because some of the people I'm inviting can commit to once a month, but not twice a month.

-- Ben

Hmmm. I often encounter the same problem, and since I've been grasping around over the last couple of days on ways to make standard RPG play (i.e. D20, in my case) more collaborative, here's an idea. This is not an idea I've tried yet, but it addresses Comte's issue, and I'm curious to know if people think it has some merit:

In situations where the party's split up, or some players have downtime for any other reason (PC unconscious, whatever), let the idle players assist in the running of the active scene. Perhaps they could play NPCs or monsters. In situations where the GM's time is truly split, someone could even GM the other scene.

Obviously this results in the loss of some GM control. Whether that's a bad thing or not depends on the GM's and the group's attitude. Depending on the playing style you could either have a 30-second mini-briefing to synchronize GM secrets -- "Here's what the villain wants from 'em, he's got a Can o' Dragon in his pocket for emergencies, and oh, there's a secret door at the bottom of the pit" -- or just let the assistant make it up in true collaboration. If this leads to inconsistencies or wild new directions, the primary GM can reincorporate them later.

I favor the latter solution, myself. Whenever feasible, a proxy NPC or 'substitute' GM should have all the freedom as a PC or the regular GM. It's a bit wilder that way, and as long as the player has the experience and willingness I think that's a good thing. One of the reasons I always lose energy a few months into GMing a campaign is because after a while I get tired of working up all the little details. I'm more of a big-picture person; I like working up the long-term story arc more than the personality of this or that orc lieutenant. Some surprises and new ideas from the players shfiting toward my side of the screen would reinvigorate things a little. Or so I hope. >8->

Any thoughts? Experiences? Flying fruit?


Have Fun,
- Steve Eley

That all makes sense, Steve.

Comte, are you interested in hearing more techniques for allowing effective split up play? Lot's of folks here have lots of experience with it, and could shed light on how to do it. Or would you rather just focus on party play? For example how to make it more plausible?

I think that it's interesting to note that players in party play get about the same amount of overall "screen time" that they do in split play. It's just spread out more evenly, usually. Which is why Chris's method works so well, because it spreads the play back out again. Steve's method is especially powerful because you get the the same distribution as with party play but you can still split up about as much as you like (though this method still has it's own problems).

So what do we want to look at further here?

Mike

Small goups (2-4 people) and split parties work very well for me. I've even gone so far as to time-slice (every person gets 15min ... if you're in a party of 3, you play for 45 min consecutively).

I've played in games where half the time (literally) we spent out of the room (for relevant reasons we weren't privy to the other groups success or failure at their mission). In a wierd way it heightened the excitement.

So my advice:
1. Little bit more work (ask 'em what they've got planned to do until you get better at winging it)
2. Have something for people who aren't playing to do (if they're not content to watch).
3. Time if necessary. Our rule was that a combat sequence could run a bit long without a problem--and we never had a big deal about it.
But as always YMMV.

-Marco

Yeah, I think the predeliction of most people who play this way primarily to have small groups is quite a bit due to the advantages of small groups when splitting occurs. Good point.

How many players do you play with in one session, Comte?

Mike

Comte, are you interested in hearing more techniques for allowing effective split up play? Lot's of folks here have lots of experience with it, and could shed light on how to do it. Or would you rather just focus on party play? For example how to make it more plausible?

Well, other than the simple idea of keeping the numbers low, another way to make splitting more palatable is to ensure that all the players are interested in all the characters. There are a few ways to do this, but two techniques come to mind. First, group charracter generation. That is, require the players to discuss their character concepts with each other, and to veto each other's ideas, essentially. That rarely actually happens, however, and what you get is people tossing ideas around until you get a group of nifty characters that everyone likes.

This relates to the second idea which is to require complete openness. That is, there should be no time that players aren't allowed to see "behind" the scenes of other players scenes. This goes against some players mode preferences, but if players can swallow it, it means that they can always appreciate the context of all the character's predicaments. This avoids those moments where something special happens, but only the player who has the character realizes it.

Essentially what I'm talking about is making the players into audience in all parts of play. Otherwise, they'll only pay attention to their own play, and ignore that of others leaving them bored. If you can make the experience of watching another player as good as, say, TV, for the other players, then they'll pay attention and be entertained even when it's not their character up on stage. And they'll appreciate the attention of the other players as well.

Mike

I haven't had much success with mini-parties either, but these threads have inspired me to give it another try.

Something that I am going to try next time our group splits up in the game is farm out npcs to the players not directly playing at the moment (as another poster mentioned.) I'll then reward the player for helping out. To facilitate this, I am stealing an idea I saw elsewhere (on rpg.net I think...)

I detailed the 2-3 major players/factions in the ongoing 'plot' and then detailed an opponent (and motive for opposing) for each of them. Then for each of those opponents, I created an opposer. To each of them I randomly added a + or - for their inclination toward or away from the PCs. I should even be able to keep most of them them in my head.

When it's time to hand an npcs out, I should be able to quickly scribble a few traits (and a couple of lines of info pertinent to the situation) and let the players play the npc. I'll probably further reward them for especially interesting play within the bounds I had described on the scribbled note.

Anyway, that's my untested plan. It has lots of little benefits for me...and the reward will encourage the players to be engaged and involved.

Sparky

I was mostly lurking on this thread. I've already given a lot of input to this subject on the earlier thread, PC Interaction and Party Split-ups, particularly in my extended post at the bottom of the second page, where I give a lot of the tricks we use in Multiverser (a game in which PC separation is the norm, and players have to make affirmative choices if they want to stay together).

But I was intrigued by what Mike Holmes wrote: I think that it's interesting to note that players in party play get about the same amount of overall "screen time" that they do in split play. It's just spread out more evenly, usually.

Well said, MJ. I think you nailed the issue on the head. I think that the best GMs using these styles do exactly what you are talking about, and frame back and forth suddenly, and unexpectedly. So just like the party at the door waiting for the thief, the players in an agressively framed game also pay attention so that they are ready when it suddenly becomes their turn.

People often think that you have to complete an entire "scene" before leaping to the next. Often times, however, the best place to leap is when there's some similarity in the scenes. For example, this works great: work through a scene to some important point of decision, and then, before the player can react, hop to another player (hopefully leaving the player with that about to answer look on his face), and set up the same sort of scene for his character, with a thematically similar sort of decision. Then when you get to the decision point in that scene, jump back to the first for the character's decision. The tension is maintained because you have rebuilt it in the other scene. Then when you jump back to the other scene for the other decision, the decisions get compared and contrasted automatically.

Just an example of the kind of surprise jump that one can make in the middle of action to ensure that everybody is on the edge of their seats. The players with the pending decisions await their moment to make the decision (and may indeed make more interesting decisions having some considerable extra time to ponder the decision, as well as input). The other players wait in suspense (in both senses of the term) until the decisions are made.

Any sort of "cliffhanger" is a great place to jump scenes. Player needs to roll to see if he can hang on for dear life, or is in the middle of a fight with a hated enemy? Jump to another scene, and let the suspense build in the meanwhile.

I'm sure that there are all sorts of other ways to cut back and forth that do the same things. There is a danger of messing up your pacing here, however, so use these with care. But done correctly this is a great way to maintain interest in cases where the group is split up.

Mike