Key Takeaways:

1. Origins of "Never Split the Party": Understand the historical context and reasons behind this traditional advice.
2. Challenges of Splitting the Party: Recognize the primary reasons for keeping the party together, including safety and ease of DMing.
3. Preparation and Planning: Emphasize the importance of thorough preparation and planning to handle split parties effectively.
4. Communication and Clarity: Maintain clear communication with players about mechanics and expectations when splitting the party.
5. Leveraging Narrative Opportunities: Use split-party scenarios to enhance storytelling, character development, and world-building.
6. Using Initiative and Turn Order: Organize multiple scenes using initiative or turn order to ensure fairness and structure.
7. Case Studies and Examples: Learn from detailed scenarios that illustrate successful split-party management.
8. When to Split the Party: Identify situations where solo adventures or side-quests are appropriate and manage them outside of regular sessions.

"Never split the party" is a long-standing piece of advice in the world of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). This adage has been passed down through generations of players and Dungeon Masters (DMs), often serving as a guiding principle to keep adventurers together and safe. But what if splitting the party could lead to richer narratives and more dynamic gameplay? In this article, we’ll explore the origins of this advice, its importance, and how you can effectively manage scenarios where splitting the party is not only unavoidable but also beneficial.

The Origins and Importance of "Never Split the Party"

The saying "Never split the party" likely originated from the early days of tabletop role-playing games. In the chaotic and dangerous worlds created by DMs, sticking together was a survival strategy, especially as each level of a dungeon crawl became increasingly more difficult. Separating was not only discouraged, but had deadly consequences. The advice became a staple in player handbooks and gaming forums, cementing its place in the RPG lexicon.

Challenges of Splitting the Party

The main reason behind not splitting the party is safety in numbers. Keeping the party together ensures that characters can support each other with their full array of diverse skills and abilities. It reduces the risk of encountering overwhelming threats without backup and helps maintain a balanced party where everyone participates equally.

However, the guidance to never split the party extends beyond mere player safety. It simplifies the DM’s job by keeping the action in one location, reducing the complexity of managing multiple scenes simultaneously. Despite these advantages, there are times when splitting the party can enhance the gaming experience.

While the advice to never split the party is sound, there are scenarios where splitting the party can be both effective and rewarding. Let's explore how to do it right.

Strategies for Successfully Splitting the Party: Juggling Scene Chaos

Splitting the party requires thorough preparation and planning. Anticipating potential challenges and preparing solutions can make the difference between a chaotic session and a seamless experience.

Zoom Out, Zoom In

Splitting the party is essentially navigating two or more scenes simultaneously, bouncing back and forth to allow each scene to unfold. Just like in combat, you address each character and their particular position on the battlefield, except you are doing it scene by scene. The way to do this is to have your scenes pre-written, well-thought-out, and efficiently organized. I always have a Google doc with header links to quickly move back and forth between scenes. Each scene has notes, dialogue options, or whatever is needed to complete the scene. The players are expected to know their position in the game as they would have previously identified their interests and intended actions.

Communication and Clarity

Whenever I approach a scenario where the party has competing goals, clear communication with players about the mechanics of splitting the party is essential. Make players aware that they will have a chance to act before you switch to another scene. Set expectations for how turns and actions will be managed, ensuring that everyone understands the process. Typically, this results in a significant amount of success while switching scenes, alleviating stress.

Leveraging Narrative Opportunities

Using split-party scenes to enhance storytelling and character development can be very efficient in your storytelling. In city settings, for instance, players may have massively different interests to explore. This is a great opportunity to organically allow players to beat feet on the streets, allowing you to implement local lore, adventure hooks, and various shopping or role-playing activities. This technique can enrich the game world, providing depth and a more immersive experience. Additionally, allowing players to explore different aspects of the city or environment can lead to new and exciting plot developments, unexpected alliances, and a deeper understanding of your world.

When and How to Split the Party Correctly: Organization Is Your Friend

When splitting the party, using the initiative, scene (or turn) order is crucial for managing the chaos. This method ensures fairness and keeps the session organized, allowing each player's actions to impact the overall outcome. Let's explore a few scenarios where I have used these different approaches.

Scenario 1: Simultaneous Infiltration of a Fortified Town

In one memorable session, my players approached a well-fortified town using different methods. Some characters flew overhead, others stealthily snuck through the forest, one crept along the wall perimeter, and another teleported into the thick of the city avoiding all guard contact. I could feel the sweat on my brow building up and my blood pressure rising. Because the characters didn't know exactly where the others were, I treated the entire session like a combat scenario, immediately diving into initiative. Initiative organized events and actions happening simultaneously. I'm not going to lie, this was the most difficult session I have ever run, but organizing this approach maintained fairness to each player's actions and kept the session engaging for all players as they saw different aspects of this massive scenario unfolding. For me, it allowed me to shift focus from one scene to the next as I tracked them across a vast map with guards posted at each corner.

The key to success was that all the players knew they needed to get to one single point, so while their actions were all vastly different, I was able to help guide them from various points within the city to the agreed location, all while fighting guards, avoiding guards, and causing a city fire distraction that rivaled the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It was mayhem, and it was masterfully managed. Everyone had a great session along with a memory that stuck with us.

Scenario 2: Stealth Session with Dynamic Enemy Movement

Another time, the session was entirely focused on stealth. The players stayed in initiative order, and good thing too, because the first thing one of my players did was cast invisibility. The hour clock started ticking. By organizing both combat and stealth actions into rounds and minutes, it allowed for enemies to move dynamically, altering their positions every 20 and/or 10 initiative. Minutes swept by as the players searched for quest clues and stuffed valuables into their packs. Knowing that guards were constantly moving, the tension level was set to high for the whole time. By treating the entire session as a series of minutes broken down into rounds, it was easier to manage both player and enemy actions, making the stealth mechanics feel fluid, integrated, and kept that pressure cooker anxiety up to insane levels.

Scenario 3: Divided Activities in a City Setting

In a bustling city setting, my players were engaged in different activities: some participated in an exclusive ritual, others shopped, a few were up to no good, and some were simply exploring. I organized them into two loose groups—the city group and the ritual group. I bounced back and forth between prewritten passages, role-playing interactions, and secret notes passed between myself and the more shifty players. Eventually, I wanted to pull it all back together with a surprise attack underlining the idea that a dangerous war was not far away.

I took turns between the groups, which was easy enough, but joining them back together was the key to the climax of the session. By placing them on the same map near each other, but not next to each other, it illustrated the distance between the characters. The session reached new emotional heights when a surprise combat assault from a goblin zeppelin started raining hell down on them from above. This split the party into two separate encounters, which was easily managed by a single map and initiative to track turns as normal. This division forced the players to adapt their strategies, creating a fresh and intense gameplay experience.

As you can see, each of these scenarios had significant organization techniques applied before the session. I knew where the players wanted to go, they knew the goal, and we were all able to communicate how to approach multiple scenes happening simultaneously. But what if you really have to split the party?

But Seriously, When To Actually Split The Party

There are some occasions where a player wants to take a vastly different action that might take them on a solo adventure or result in a significant time side-trek. This is great! This is a wonderful opportunity for character development, however, it would ruin the group play due to the focus on a single character. While I have always been open to smaller 30 to 90 minute side quests, these actions truly do need to be on the side, outside of normal gaming time blocks. The key to this is to always go back to communication. If it is possible to fit into your schedule, politely say, "Yes, but we will have to accomplish that outside of this session."

In all my years of playing, not a single player has ever been upset with this response. Not only because they trust that I will make it happen, but we both understand that in order to interact with my homebrew world, it takes time for me to make each scenario engaging, building all of the little side quests, hooks, and pieces of lore to interact with. They know that by allowing the game to move forward, they will get the most of that session by respecting both the group's time, and my time to set up their solo quest.

Splitting Hairs

While the adage "Never split the party" holds valuable advice, there are times when splitting the party can lead to more dynamic and engaging gameplay. By understanding the origins and importance of this advice, using initiative and turn order effectively, and employing strategies for successful splits, DMs can create exciting and memorable sessions. Remember, the goal is to provide a fun and immersive experience for everyone at the table, where players feel heroic without facing inevitable doom.