Splitting the Party and Personal Threads

What's your take on splitting the party and running personal threads for different characters? Does it happen often in games that you run/play in? Do you want it to happen more/less? Any examples illustrating why or why not?

While the answer likely depends on the system and the type of game you're playing (dungeon crawler vs rules-lite personal drama), it feels like both of those things would be easier to set up in PbP, rather than in irl game.

Sometimes it's the only way to keep the players from falling off to sleep. :D

Seriously though, sometimes the group can get more done that way. In a sci-fi game, PCs have split up to track down intel on pirate raiding activity while others are out buying supplies. In a fantasy game, PCs have different needs for shopping: A & B want to hang in a tavern, eavesdropping on the local gossip (like what happened to that group that explored the local ruins last month) while C & D want to hit up the blacksmith for a special axe that they've had their eye on.

Some players aren't good with it as they don't realize that time may be passing slower in one thread than another. Some can't help but let their actions be influenced by what's going on in the other thread.

GM: Ok, Bob fell in a pit and is unconscious.
PC-NotBob: Oh yeah, I suddenly realized that I need to tell Bob something. I race back to find him.

Back when my games were via email, it was really easy to keep groups that split up from knowing what the other was doing (unless they went behind my back). Here, I've found that not everyone is keen on it. So it's important to have buy-in from the players.

It definitely depends on the game and what the group really wants out of the experience, but splitting just makes sense in a format like PbP where it's so much easier to handle -- even for protracted periods. For D&D-like games the party needs to be careful with splits because they are dividing their power and potentially combat endurance... but for stuff like CoC, Delta Green, Blade Runner -- you better split the party!

(The real question is whether those PC / groups threads are private or not. I do both, again depending on the game, the vibe, etc., but usually I like leaving them public so people can read along. Certain horror games are better with the threads private, and some groups just prevent to limit player knowledge as much as they can...)

I think the best part about pbp is being able to share info with just one, or some of the players.
It's hard/impossible at a table.

As a DM, I find the hardest part of getting a good game going is to get the players to really interact with each other, instead of just waiting for "their turn" to interact with the DM. Being able to give one/some of the players an experience of their own, that they need to share with the others is a great tool.

As a player, being separated from the party feels scary and high pressure in the best possible way.

The tricky bit is timing. It always sounds simple, split the party into two groups, each with a simple task, meet back here before dawn,
But one group quickly completes the task. The other role plays the job for days and days. Nobody is wrong, but it still doesn't quite work.

Having separate branches for different PCs is taxing for the GM, and that cost must be respected above any reason to split a party. You can have a personal branch for each character at the start of the game until the team meets up. That is possible because some players are slow and lazy. And also because they have jobs and families. A player can play with a GM at first, because everyone else isn't there yet.

However, if you split a party once after it was gathered, you double the GM's workload. If you add one more branch to that, you triple it. You know what that leads to? Your GM will think that you are an ungrateful SOB and will leave. That is a dead game.

I say, if you really can't live with your awful, horrible, misogynist, racist teammates, you should first ask your GM if she has the mental capacity and stamina to give you a separate branch — and only then split off. Else, just leave the damn game and make a better one.

...What the heck are you talking about?!

Haven't seen you around for a bit, S.F. Welcome back if that's the case.

We're all entitled to our opinions, but do remember that GP is a community where lots of different games are played by different people using different styles to have fun in different ways. Beyond the games, we like to focus on being a welcoming place that fosters positive, interesting and engaging conversation about RPGs.

Painting every player who might want to split the group with such an unflattering (and inaccurate) brush isn't really doing justice to the topic. It sucks if that's what your experiences have consisted of, but PbP -- and PBeM before it -- have been known to be excellent formats for handling multiple scenes at the same time, including those who are simply caused by different PCs going to different places.

I hate the party splitting up but when it happens I'll split the threads. Sometimes, I keep them secret from one another till they merge back up. It's been fun that way. Especially if you can convince the main party that the split one has died.

I prefer keeping split party in separate threads if the split is longer than a could posts. If it is known to be a short thing I just is notes or spoilers if it is trivial information

One of my favorite experiences thus far in PbP was a party split shortly after I joined an ongoing 5E game. It fit well with the story and was an awesome way to really explore my character and also move him from an outsider working against the party to an insider trying to be better. I had never really experienced that before and loved how it turned out. My character could have died and I would have been OK with it as we really were chasing a cool story. As it happened, I wondered if the GM messed with the dice roller as I was hitting crits like crazy and barely made it through the sojourn :)

Splitting is quite common in CoC, where I spend a lot of my time, with characters investigating different threads. In that system, I think it works well because the dangers can kill you quite easily even if you are in a group, so no real net change. As far as private threads, I tend to like them open but separate for organization. That's probably as I focus more on the story being created rather than the game being played. I also think it mimics IRL tabletop more closely. Maybe its because I have GMed some, but I don't find it that hard to separate what my character knows from what I as the player know. There is coolness that can come from them being private, though, as players can share their character's perspective on events rather than everyone just knowing. Just my two cents...

Actively running both a main thread and split threads in my MtA game right now, allows me to do character development and also keep the main plot running.