Often over the years Ive had an opportunity to game with only part or even with just one member of the usual gaming group. Most of the time we just play something else but in a few instances I ran a short scenario for them in the same game that we would normally play as a group. We found it really added something to the illusion that the character was a real person, had a life of their own etc.

Now granted if they were currently involved in an adventure we had to step them back and assume this scenario happened in the past which sort of granted them a kind of death immunity, but it was still fun - we even revisited their character at an earlier level for just this purpose.

Similarly, during an actual campaign, there have been times when a character or two were given quests apart from the group, perhaps they were to spy on an enemy or retrieve a needed item. We set up the game for another night then rejoined with cool stories to tell.

Just wondering if you have done this sort of thing in your own games and how it went?

I find it something of a luxury of smaller campaigns with more active players.

Bigger parties tend to need the game-ist enforcement of "don't split the party" lest you end up with everyone wasting their time waiting around. Same with when you can't get together that often. In that case, using that free night on just 1 player isn't as good as having everyone together.

But when it actually happens - and I find this much easier online - it's definitely fun.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;920383Bigger parties tend to need the game-ist enforcement of "don't split the party" lest you end up with everyone wasting their time waiting around. Same with when you can't get together that often. In that case, using that free night on just 1 player isn't as good as having everyone together.

My players seem to naturally understand don't split the party. They handle keeping the party together using in-character means.

Well, the problem is that it isn't so bad to split it sometimes. Sometimes it makes sense to, and people want to split up a bit while resting in town.

We call these intermezzo sessions, and I actually plan for them as part of the game.  I run very long games, so it makes sense, for many of the reasons you mention, and it allows them the time to pursue their own ends privately.
Issue is when PCs want too many of them.

Quote from: LordVreeg;920401We call these intermezzo sessions, and I actually plan for them as part of the game.  I run very long games, so it makes sense, for many of the reasons you mention, and it allows them the time to pursue their own ends privately.
Issue is when PCs want too many of them.

This is my experience. Something I strive to do, in light of this reality, is to generate the general interest-level in everyone's character to help mitigate the waiting-around part by having them as genuinely interested in the solo-threads as possible. If I can dovetail as many of these threads together, if appropriate, I'll do that as well.

^How do you generate a general interest in everyone's character?

Quote from: rgrove0172;920375Often over the years Ive had an opportunity to game with only part or even with just one member of the usual gaming group. Most of the time we just play something else but in a few instances I ran a short scenario for them in the same game that we would normally play as a group. We found it really added something to the illusion that the character was a real person, had a life of their own etc.

Now granted if they were currently involved in an adventure we had to step them back and assume this scenario happened in the past which sort of granted them a kind of death immunity, but it was still fun - we even revisited their character at an earlier level for just this purpose.

Similarly, during an actual campaign, there have been times when a character or two were given quests apart from the group, perhaps they were to spy on an enemy or retrieve a needed item. We set up the game for another night then rejoined with cool stories to tell.

Just wondering if you have done this sort of thing in your own games and how it went?

I've had this done before, mostly because not everyone can make it to a game.  Usually, our GM would do a narrative with you and you had to be there early to go through it, and it had to be something tied directly to your experience.  It's more challenging than you might think.

An easy one is "My dude went to X town to investigate and see if there were new adventures", then the GM may have some little story about how your snooping brings about the attention of some bad guys/stuff that you had to fight off.  He'd give you the responsibility of delivering the 'primer' to what happens next.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;920399Well, the problem is that it isn't so bad to split it sometimes. Sometimes it makes sense to, and people want to split up a bit while resting in town.

Exactly, Ive run into that regularly when the PCs are in town or whatever. Everybody wants to go do their own thing, which is great if nothing happens. Trying to roleplay each trip to this shop, this tavern, this brothel or whatever is a chore with everybody just looking on and they can only go get a snack for so long.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;920408^How do you generate a general interest in everyone's character?

Ideally, when I start a campaign I do some extensive sitdown with my players, both as group and as individuals. I try to do my best to explain the conceits of the setting and how things will start (location, what is generally known etc.) Then when we start making characters, unless someone has some idea that demands some discretion in terms of their background, I figure out ways to tie their characters into the background and/or with one another if they're agreeable so that *usually* when we start, everyone knows something about one another's characters, even if their characters may not know one another implicitly.

The goal for me, always, is to make things interesting for everyone's characters so they always have something "going on" or something to do. It doesn't necessarily have to do with creating conflict, though that's there, but most of these things might have multi-stage objectives that will criss-cross other PC's. Consequently, this fosters some general, if not implicit, interest in one another's PC's because their own interests often coincide with the outcomes of these individual side-stories.

This is a very high-view of it all of course.

I love playing with single players, and as the only PC present. It lets you let the player do what they or their character are actually interested in, without any interference from meta or other-player influences.

The only drawbacks/problems I've seen are when there are other PCs active in the same period of game-time so it can cause problems where other players want to play or are available to play at the wrong times because the split PCs are close enough in space in the world that it can cause paradoxes or cause/effect issues not knowing what the other PC may have done that could affect the other PC's play, etc. Though there are ways to limit and manage that, depending on the specifics. It helps if most/all of the players are flexible and happy to have their PCs experience some downtime and/or be run by the GM.

The other GM's I've played with have tended to indulge and enjoy split parties, too.

I tend to find artificial "we have to keep the party together all the time" much more distasteful than having PCs come and go and have to play NPCs or whatever.

Some games have used devices like telepathy to allow all the players to hear what's going on when one PC is solo, though it still can pose issues when several PCs are doing things at the same gametime, in different places.

I usually run such arcs with NPCs the other characters can play. The last time we did this, we did so because a player was out that night. Since the party was actually in camp mode, I ran a pair of "flashbacks" to fill in character background gaps (with other players playing NPCs). It went over pretty well, it turned out. I haven't done it in awhile, but I'll likely consider it the next time we have an absence.

Frequently. The majority of my games are city based (I've been running a lot of superheroes and cyberpunk) so it is only natural that characters go off an do own thing all the time. Not all tasks require everyone present. Cramming six people into a hospital room to just to ask a witness a couple of questions makes no sense at all - talk about wrecking any sense of verisimilitude.

And of course the realty of being grownups means that not everyone can make every session. But in this kind of context that's rarely a problem. If we only played when everyone were present we'd never get off the ground.

Never really understood the "never split the party" mantra anyway.

Quote from: rgrove0172;920375Often over the years Ive had an opportunity to game with only part or even with just one member of the usual gaming group. Most of the time we just play something else but in a few instances I ran a short scenario for them in the same game that we would normally play as a group. We found it really added something to the illusion that the character was a real person, had a life of their own etc.

Now granted if they were currently involved in an adventure we had to step them back and assume this scenario happened in the past which sort of granted them a kind of death immunity, but it was still fun - we even revisited their character at an earlier level for just this purpose.

Similarly, during an actual campaign, there have been times when a character or two were given quests apart from the group, perhaps they were to spy on an enemy or retrieve a needed item. We set up the game for another night then rejoined with cool stories to tell.

Just wondering if you have done this sort of thing in your own games and how it went?

Our group is usually GM + 3 players, from time to time we've run 2 player side treks, and it's been great. Indeed, we have even run (in a recent campaign) a 1 on 1 with the GM (each of the players), to flesh out important world connections. It worked surprisingly well I have to say!

AAAnd we're back to the AD&D 1st edition DMG and Gary's insistence that you must keep a strict track of time.

The initial assumption, that sadly died very soon, was that each player was an independent agent and that adventuring together was the exception, and adventuring alone was the norm... or at least that there was no fixed "party" composition.  I don't think I ever played with the exact same group of PCs, or even the exact same group of PLAYERS, twice in the year and a half or so I was active in Greyhawk.

It means that you have to end each game session at a "rest spot" of some type, but in the long run I think it's much healthier for the campaign if you don't try to maintain "one group of heroes tried and true welded together at the hip."