Managing a party that splits up.

[Junkie]

I was talking to our group's GM one night and he stated that he hates when our characters split up because it's harder to give everyone the proper attention they need to stay interested as well as synchronize events and whatnot without too much fudging. This is especially bad when one group is engaged in combat and the other is not.

He claims that he's never known a GM who could successfully manage multiple groups without sacrificing quality.

So, what are your strategies for dealing with multiple groups in different places engaging in different (types of) activities?

...and heavy-handedly forcing the group to stay together doesn't count.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Junkie

So, what are your strategies for dealing with multiple groups in different places engaging in different (types of) activities?

Well, that depends. In general, your GM is correct, with one significant exception: a significant portion of what the characters are doing doesn't require GM intervention in the first place (for example, pure role-playing, planning, and so on).

[Bruno]

It depends quite a bit on the players and what they're doing. Some people want more attention than others, some people have more patience than others, some people like to spectate on combat, or "back seat drive".

In the case of combat specifically, if I have a split group and one half gets into combat, I usually give the players on the other half NPCs or enemies to control - one worthy each or a handful of minions each. This trick makes my job easier, and keeps the "other party" entertained, AND usually makes the fight more interesting because two or three minds produce more creative and diverse combat tactics than one.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bruno

In the case of combat specifically, if I have a split group and one half gets into combat, I usually give the players on the other half NPCs or enemies to control - one worthy each or a handful of minions each. This trick makes my job easier, and keeps the "other party" entertained, AND usually makes the fight more interesting because two or three minds produce more creative and diverse combat tactics than one.

That can work in RP too. Give a player a NPC and some suggestions about his/her motivations.

[Luke Bunyip]

I stick them in physically different spaces, that is isolate them visually and audibly. Might give one half of the group a board game to play :-/ Deal with them in turn.

[whswhs]

I routinely have player characters split up; indeed, I've run an entire campaign where the player characters were all in the same place only in the final episode. I'm not sure I can define special strategies for dealing with this; I do it so routinely that I hardly have enough of a sample of campaigns without splitting up to contrast it with meaningfully.

I endeavor to give every character camera time in every episode. I arrange business that brings characters together in different combinations. I try to trace the ways in which one character's actions affects other characters' fortunes. I try to relate characters' actions and experiences to common themes. I crosscut more than once, and if possible at tense moments.

Above all, I play with players who can manage to be interested in the characters run by other players. I try to have players who will give interesting performances that other players will want to see. . . .

Bill Stoddard

[Rocket Man]

Since a lot of my GMing is via Instant Messenger chat, handling a split party is a little easier ... I open up another window and let them have at it. That said, I do still have to remember to ping-pong and not let one window have all the attention. Call this the virtual version of Luke's solution. :)

(IMing is also great for secret communications to players, as well. But you already guessed that.)

[digoraccoon]

I generally keep a stopwatch or hourglass handy so that I can keep track of how much time one group gets and try to allow the other group an equal amount of time.

Assuming it's all just roleplaying.

If a combat starts, than things get more complicated. In such a case I either keep combat short, or I sync the two groups to have combat at about the same moment so that I can run one large combat encounter and just go back and forth between the two groups. Such as--
Group A goes through round 1
Group B goes through round 1
Group A goes through round 2
Group B goes through round 2...

And so forth. Lastly, I try to encourage my players to get back together before I have to break out the asprin. :)

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Junkie

it's harder to give everyone the proper attention they need to stay interested

Originally Posted by Bruno

It depends quite a bit on the players and what they're doing. Some people want more attention than others, some people have more patience than others, some people like to spectate on combat, or "back seat drive".

Originally Posted by whswhs

Above all, I play with players who can manage to be interested in the characters run by other players. I try to have players who will give interesting performances that other players will want to see. . . .

This is the crux of it, I think. If your players have to be "in the spotlight" at all times to enjoy themselves, you can never split the party. Such players are likely to be difficult to deal with even when the party is together. Most of my successful groups with good chemistry have been able to enjoy watching other player's characters getting into and out of trouble.

The only thing I suggest for players who get bored easily is to encourage them to work on bookkeeping tasks while other people are in the spotlight. In GURPS this means figuring out how their going to spend their points, filling out "time-use sheets, etc... In D&D it can mean deciding what spells to memorize, what feats to take next level, etc...

I tend to encourage the passing secret notes and hidden agendas in my games, so there's often plenty for a player to be worrying about while he's split away from the group.

[mearrin69]

Fear of splitting the party is common in games like Pathfinder (D&D) where it tends to be about combat - if you're missing half your group then you're missing half of your firepower.

Our group plays lots of different games but the one's that'd "rather be playing D&D" *always* protest splitting the party, no matter what: such as when my Shadowrun elf "face" guy needs to go into a high-end club to meet Mr. Johnson and the Ork ganger's player thinks everyone should come along in case I get jumped. Makes no sense in the game world (when, really, there's maybe one other guy in the six-character party who can even get in to this place)...but it makes perfect sense in D&D, where you *will* get jumped...

Anyway, getting to the point, some of the best sessions I have run or played in have been with a split party: a Star Trek game where ship-to-ship combat is going on with the bridge crew while security teams are repelling boarders in engineering and the cargo bay; a CoC game where one character is (foolishly) checking into the basement of a house while two others are (safely) finding out something horrible about that same house in the library archives. Just two examples...but...

Mainly it involves making sure all of the players have something to do (and making sure it's something they *like* to do) and switching back and forth between the split scenes at just the right moment. I'm not saying it's easy, but I do think it's a valuable tool in games when you can't justify an eight-man team walking around like a military squad in your universe.
M