Friendship is Dragons
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Page 277 - Balancing Act
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Newbiespud
27th Apr 2013, 6:00 AM
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Amazing how he can write one thing and say another at the same time. He can multitask.
...Wow, first post possibly?
...Wow, first post possibly?
Oh no, for my group it's all about the TPK--
Examples:
Party splits up to search a mansion for the keys to the basement. Wizard somehow nearly breaks his neck playing on the bed.
Party splits up to opposite ends of a wide cave room to figure out a puzzle. Rogue somehow breaks into the next room and nearly eaten by wolves.
Party is discussing important plans with the king. They split up so they can tell the queen too. Half the party gets beat up for messing with the guards, the other half arrested for summoning a demon as part of their explanation.
Conclusion: My party is very self destructive. :D
Examples:
Party splits up to search a mansion for the keys to the basement. Wizard somehow nearly breaks his neck playing on the bed.
Party splits up to opposite ends of a wide cave room to figure out a puzzle. Rogue somehow breaks into the next room and nearly eaten by wolves.
Party is discussing important plans with the king. They split up so they can tell the queen too. Half the party gets beat up for messing with the guards, the other half arrested for summoning a demon as part of their explanation.
Conclusion: My party is very self destructive. :D
I want to hear more about that last example. Why did they summon a demon? Who was the idiot who pissed off the guards?
I concur, I am very curious to know why a demon got involved in the explanation.
Prior to the party reaching the king, the party was off at an abandoned temple. They had found a cult there sacrificing people to summon demons. After the party destroyed the cult, they took the altar apart and brought it back.
For reasons I'll never know, when they spoke to the king, they apparently thought that showing him the altar wasn't enough. They summoned a demon from the later to show him how evil the cult was.
Poor king was nearly killed. XD
For reasons I'll never know, when they spoke to the king, they apparently thought that showing him the altar wasn't enough. They summoned a demon from the later to show him how evil the cult was.
Poor king was nearly killed. XD
The groups minimaxed warrior, decides he is right, runs off, and gets a lovely natural 1 on his will save against a vampires dominating gaze. Returns, kills the cleric, the rogue, and the warrior (in his sleep). The wizard, with a lucky roll, is the only one to wake at the silent killing, and runs, managing to get into a nearly tower safely before he can catch up. Having only a few rounds before he breaks in. He makes a mad dash to the top of the three story place, and gets off a very lucky dispel magic to break the charm. Cue the minimax going 'oh beeep' at his actions.
In my party we constantly split up in the most diverse situations, but since half of us are playing for the first/second time, the GM tries to not be very harsh on us (On the kill part that is)
Hey Twilight, you're the one who killed the parasprites.
Oh, wouldn't I like to get that close and whisper in your ear...
...some strange things about apple juice and fan-fics.
...some strange things about apple juice and fan-fics.
Sadly, I've actually had trouble TRYING to split the party. The groups I've DMed for in the past are used to heavy rail-roading and basically stick together because "Well, only one road leads to the plot right?"
I hate splitting the party because I'm not very good at keeping everyone involved at the same time. It was especially nightmarish when the group was in a city, with almost everyone off on their own, doing their own thing, and wanting my full attention.
I had the same trouble about the party splitting up to do their own thing. I ended up having to set a timer whenever they went into a city. Each person gets five minutes to do what they need to do before I move on to the next person. And we just went in a circle like that until everyone's business was done. It worked quite well, but made our in-town sessions take much longer.
we try not to split the party because it lets the thief get even more treasure and xp that they never share with the rest of us and lets the DM loose track of what ever doomsday project the artificer is working on while the plot chases the rest of us down.
Mmm. Nothing is quite as sweet as the DM going "Yeah, sure. Just follow the rules and I'll allow it" to the party artificer.
You know, I still haven't finished my steam-powered spider-based walking siege machine...
You know, I still haven't finished my steam-powered spider-based walking siege machine...
Ha ha, excellent use of sweating and freaked out Twilight Sparkle there. A nice touch.
And if you happen to be playing a sociopathic possibly haunted or possessed LE Ranger, the alone time actually advances character progression, too.
Why do I feel like the DM jumping between them will lead to coming back to a situation 10 times worse then he left on both side's every time he switches?
27th Apr 2013, 11:50 AM
The players often feel neglected with the DM running back and forth.
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The players often feel neglected with the DM running back and forth. Both Rarity and the Mane 6-1 ;-) could end up unhappy. Party-splitting can work if 1 of the players is also a Vice or Lieutenant GM and acts as both a DM and player while the Primary GM tends the other party.
I once split a party of five seven ways.
My familiar and the ranger's animal companion split off as well. Oddly, only the two of them survived.
My familiar and the ranger's animal companion split off as well. Oddly, only the two of them survived.
That kind of math and management made my ideas hurt. XD
my players tend to get split because two of them are evil, when they got to the big necromancer at the end of the adventure, the one that had kidnapped the lord of the town that hired them, the two evil ones ran in and grabbed the kidnapped lord and ran out, while the two good guys got slaughtered by the rooms enemies.
We split the party on a regular basis, but that's mainly due to circumstances. You don't want to drag the almost-but-not-quite-pacifist diplomancer (who is nevertheless scary as Hell if you get on her bad side) or the klutzy science/sensors officer into a gunfight at a bar, after all. That's what the captain, my guy, and two other PCs are for. (Much to the diplomancer's chagrin, as her player routinely does her best to keep such fights from occurring in the first place, the spoilsport.)
And that doesn't include unintended splitting up, like when my character was shanghaied once. Rotten piece of luck, that.
And that doesn't include unintended splitting up, like when my character was shanghaied once. Rotten piece of luck, that.
This makes me thing of how my D & D groups last meeting went. I am a college student so I have a group at my school for all over the state. We had our last session for the semester a few days ago and it ended with the party being taken to four different prisons in for different parts of the world. When we meet again at the start of next semester it will be interesting to see how we break out of our respective prisons and reunite to continue the campaign.
Party-splitting was a fact of life with one of my old groups. The other group usually didn't leave the room, though. So, the rule was that when the GM wasn't running your sub-group you were _quiet_. No chatting, no suggestions, no nothing.
I usually brought along a magazine to read for these moments. One time I had the Houston Press, a weekly news-ish rag from the same company that does the Village Voice and others. Back then, there were still free personals in the back of the paper, which gave me an idea.
Our party was looking for someone acting as a local agent for a shadow-government type group of conspirators. We knew nothing about this person except their handle, Opus. Of course, one the the NPC's (a major NPC from another campaign being run at the same time) is a Penguinophile. I, in a brief moment of brilliance, decide that I will look in the _college_ newspaper's personals, in the crossed wires section. I briefly interrupt the GM to announce this and she nods at the Houston Press in my lap.
I am a little sad because the idea obviously didn't work. However, I am a good roleplayer and decide to check. Imagine my surprise when there's a note to Opus in the exact section of the real-world paper in my lap. It took actually getting through the six months of game time (extended IRL because of a breakdown of the gaming group, in-game time travel, etc to a full year +) to the date listed in the message when we finally found Opus to find out that she had in-fact planted the message. She wouldn't admit a thing before that. This was also the same campaign where the players spent an entire game recapping what they knew in character while the GM had passed out behind her screen due to flu without anyone realizing it. She decided to spring "Suprise LARP Event" on the party the next week to get us out of the rut. Best. GM. Ever.
I usually brought along a magazine to read for these moments. One time I had the Houston Press, a weekly news-ish rag from the same company that does the Village Voice and others. Back then, there were still free personals in the back of the paper, which gave me an idea.
Our party was looking for someone acting as a local agent for a shadow-government type group of conspirators. We knew nothing about this person except their handle, Opus. Of course, one the the NPC's (a major NPC from another campaign being run at the same time) is a Penguinophile. I, in a brief moment of brilliance, decide that I will look in the _college_ newspaper's personals, in the crossed wires section. I briefly interrupt the GM to announce this and she nods at the Houston Press in my lap.
I am a little sad because the idea obviously didn't work. However, I am a good roleplayer and decide to check. Imagine my surprise when there's a note to Opus in the exact section of the real-world paper in my lap. It took actually getting through the six months of game time (extended IRL because of a breakdown of the gaming group, in-game time travel, etc to a full year +) to the date listed in the message when we finally found Opus to find out that she had in-fact planted the message. She wouldn't admit a thing before that. This was also the same campaign where the players spent an entire game recapping what they knew in character while the GM had passed out behind her screen due to flu without anyone realizing it. She decided to spring "Suprise LARP Event" on the party the next week to get us out of the rut. Best. GM. Ever.
Screw you, I'm a rogue,
Without me you'll all be sorry.
You can find your own traps,
From now on 'til the end,
And I'm laughing while your bones are on the mend...
I once DM'd for a party where the cleric and fighter teamed up to disable traps. Cleric buffs fighter, fighter jumps into the trap.
The rogue was annoyed because this was actually working and thus the rogue in the party was out of a trap-finding job.
The rogue was annoyed because this was actually working and thus the rogue in the party was out of a trap-finding job.
Summon elemental/minor shapeshift druid raises your mundane thief skills with infinite disposable minions who can swim and see through stone or metal as well as infinite self healing as a swift action without using up any of their spells.
My group often times splits the party, though only because our DM is really good and running seperate groups at the same time. Still we have recently run into a problem when splitting the party. We only split the party one way, but it's my character in one group and everyone else in the other.
Reason why we split? They wanted to investigate a weird squid smell they picked up on, while my guy wanted to investigate, ya know, the actual plot and reason why we were in this city (investigating an attack on our town).
This has led to my guy falling down 70 feat, and almost dying from that hit, to luckily getting high enough on my death saving throw to spend a healling surge, trying to invade the tower underground, almost get into a fight with some rebels, make my way into the basement of a tower, run into a half complete golem that starts trying to attack me, run away from that as fast as I can (when an enemy just barely misses you one a two, it's time to leave), get exploded by some potions, run up the stairs to find there are warforged guards inside the tower as well as outside, telling me to surrender. I ignore that, try to crash through the door only to fail miserably on my checks and get stunned, then get crit speared by one of the guards, remove the barricade on the door and blow my action point to run out of there as fast as I can, get away with a crossbow bolt in the back for my troubles, which prevents me from healing till I remove it, which I do and take 5 damage dropping me to one hit point left.
After all this, I think I've learned a valuable lesson on spliting the party: Do it with more than one person. Most of the party splitting up doesn't end this badly, I think the GM just wanted to capture my guy so he could get him to join the group back soon. But I showed him, MWHAHAHAHA, wait, nope all I managed to do was get myself beat up badly. Might want to rethink this plan. Still, managed to get a book with some info while the rest of the party did pretty much nothing, so points for me I guess?
Reason why we split? They wanted to investigate a weird squid smell they picked up on, while my guy wanted to investigate, ya know, the actual plot and reason why we were in this city (investigating an attack on our town).
This has led to my guy falling down 70 feat, and almost dying from that hit, to luckily getting high enough on my death saving throw to spend a healling surge, trying to invade the tower underground, almost get into a fight with some rebels, make my way into the basement of a tower, run into a half complete golem that starts trying to attack me, run away from that as fast as I can (when an enemy just barely misses you one a two, it's time to leave), get exploded by some potions, run up the stairs to find there are warforged guards inside the tower as well as outside, telling me to surrender. I ignore that, try to crash through the door only to fail miserably on my checks and get stunned, then get crit speared by one of the guards, remove the barricade on the door and blow my action point to run out of there as fast as I can, get away with a crossbow bolt in the back for my troubles, which prevents me from healing till I remove it, which I do and take 5 damage dropping me to one hit point left.
After all this, I think I've learned a valuable lesson on spliting the party: Do it with more than one person. Most of the party splitting up doesn't end this badly, I think the GM just wanted to capture my guy so he could get him to join the group back soon. But I showed him, MWHAHAHAHA, wait, nope all I managed to do was get myself beat up badly. Might want to rethink this plan. Still, managed to get a book with some info while the rest of the party did pretty much nothing, so points for me I guess?
Your character is hereby awarded the Indiana Jones Medal of Accomplishment.
Splitting the party can be done easy if you are playing post-by-post online game.
Well my current game group is down to two players for the next month. So I'm running a My Little Pony game and I have one player. Can't really split that. :)
I had a party once where one of the PCs decided, before they even got into the teleport to go to their first job, that he was done and wanted off.
Only trouble was, he's in the future, on a space station in the middle of nowhere. To prevent him from causing splitup issues, I got him to make a deal with the devil basically, he could right a tragic wrong he'd been involved with /if/ he finished his year long 'tour'. Felt really dirty doing that but it worked.
Only trouble was, he's in the future, on a space station in the middle of nowhere. To prevent him from causing splitup issues, I got him to make a deal with the devil basically, he could right a tragic wrong he'd been involved with /if/ he finished his year long 'tour'. Felt really dirty doing that but it worked.
hey y'all after olmost a year ah'm back!
mah bad fer be'in gone so long, hope y'all can fer'give me.
mah bad fer be'in gone so long, hope y'all can fer'give me.
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.
You used back with back around with around, Raxon.
Never thought I'd say this, but ya gotta step it up.
Try Lack and browned, let's see what you can do with that. :D
Never thought I'd say this, but ya gotta step it up.
Try Lack and browned, let's see what you can do with that. :D
Before your time, kiddo.
I like quoting and paraphrasing songs, in case you haven't noticed.
thank's raxon.
ah used your idea for the adam west voice in the batman rpg and that is now the groups cannon bruce wayne voice(they still demand the kevin conroy voice fer batman).
ah used your idea for the adam west voice in the batman rpg and that is now the groups cannon bruce wayne voice(they still demand the kevin conroy voice fer batman).
After some thought, I've recalled a few sessions I've done where splitting the party actually worked.
The first was a rather simple one: I did micro-sessions to handle things such as the cleric having a meeting with a priest, two characters doing some plot development with each other, and other such things where the rest of the cast wouldn't have much to do. As these sessions weren't typically as involved as going into a dungeon, it was rather simple to shoehorn it somewhere during the week other than my usual play time (Which was chosen mostly on "when everyone can get together", which wasn't an issue with these).
The other one is one I wouldn't recommend for most DMs. I decided to have an area where each player was trapped within their worst nightmare. I decided to run each scenario at the same time, and in addition things done by a player in one affected players in the others. While it was a lot of fun and something I'd like to do again, it also took a lot more prep work and taxed my ability to multitask and ad-lib.
The first was a rather simple one: I did micro-sessions to handle things such as the cleric having a meeting with a priest, two characters doing some plot development with each other, and other such things where the rest of the cast wouldn't have much to do. As these sessions weren't typically as involved as going into a dungeon, it was rather simple to shoehorn it somewhere during the week other than my usual play time (Which was chosen mostly on "when everyone can get together", which wasn't an issue with these).
The other one is one I wouldn't recommend for most DMs. I decided to have an area where each player was trapped within their worst nightmare. I decided to run each scenario at the same time, and in addition things done by a player in one affected players in the others. While it was a lot of fun and something I'd like to do again, it also took a lot more prep work and taxed my ability to multitask and ad-lib.
I actually had a great party split one time running an Aberrant (superheros) game. They needed to transport a very important criminal to his trial and decided to have a flight as a decoy and actually drive him down the back roads.
So everyone was in the same room, one half had an exciting aerial battle, complete with an enemy only the shapeshifted decoy could perceive. The other half had to figure out how to get past a Sunday driver without blowing their cover since they would be late if they kept following, and other annoying puzzles.
So everyone was in the same room, one half had an exciting aerial battle, complete with an enemy only the shapeshifted decoy could perceive. The other half had to figure out how to get past a Sunday driver without blowing their cover since they would be late if they kept following, and other annoying puzzles.