Never Split the Party: How to Break D&D's First Rule

The first rule of fantasy fight club is…

One of the first “rules” that any new D&D player or dungeon master will hear uttered is the injunction to “NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY!” Nonetheless, with a few techniques in our DM’s toolbox we can make splitting the party a fun and engaging experience.

When the fiction demands it, splitting the party should be possible. We don’t have to take the strategic choice of splitting the party off the table because it presents a challenge to our DMing skills. If the players decide their characters need to separate, we can take steps to ensure that it doesn’t negatively impact the flow of our game.

…never split the party!

For most of the time in our D&D games, “never split the party” is good advice. From a player’s perspective it makes sense to concentrate their characters’ powers as much as possible. The patrol of bloodthirsty cultists is going deal with two characters much easier than they would with four. In any combat, if the number of actions the enemy has is larger than the characters’ number of actions, the difficulty of the encounter increases dramatically. In battle, more is better.

From our perspective as D&D dungeon masters, “never split the party” is also good advice. Engaging all of the players at the table becomes harder if only one half of the characters are “on screen”. Having two parties act in different locations at the same time can create narrative problems. Describing simultaneous events in different locations can work in a novel because the author knows how the events are going to play out. But when we run D&D, we don’t know what the characters are going to do until they do it.

Take the following example. Cultists of the demon prince Demogorgon have taken over an old manor, and are threatening the piece of the town. The characters want to take on the threat and decide that it makes strategic sense to split the party. One half of the party sneaks into the cultists’ manor while the other half is assassinating the guards at the front door. Both scenes take place simultaneously. But in D&D, we can’t tell both at the same time. … Right?

Split the party: Escalating tension

The writing strategy of escalating tension can help us run simultaneous scenes unfolding at the table. In a brilliant video essay, D&D guru Matt Colville tells us how to do it: We can “cut” between the split party halves while constantly turning up the tension dial for both of them. The characters inside the cultists’ manor have to deal with traps, guards, and summoned monsters. They are increasingly on the verge of being detected. Meanwhile, the other characters attempt an assassination strike on the cultists guarding the front door. The closer they get to the cultists, the higher the likelihood of failure. Both scenes’ tension arrows are pointing upwards. The closer the separated parties get to their goals, the more threatening the situation becomes.

Constantly increasing the tension keeps players engaged even while their characters are off-screen for moments at a time. They can scramble to find solutions for their own mission, and they can cheer for their party members while they are engaged in their encounter. We can empower this technique by using small cliffhanger moments as spring boards to cut between party halves.

Split the party: Jumping between cliffhangers

Player: “I want to sneak around the corner to see what the source of the green glow and the screeching noise is.”
DM: “Ok, make a stealth check.”
Player: “Oh no, that’s a seven for stealth!”
DM: “You take a few steps around the corner when a lose stone tile gives way underneath your feet. You lose your balance, stumble and bump into something. You look up and see a metallic head with three glowing green eyes glaring right at you.
Player: “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!
DM: “Meanwhile outside the manor…”

We can look for opportune cliffhanger moments like the one above to keep ratcheting up the tension. When we use moments right before or after a dramatic resolution to move the attention to another group, we keep players on the edge of their seats. It also helps us to time our cuts and transitions. By frequently looking for cliffhanger moments to switch between characters, we make sure that no single group is left passive and off-screen for too long. DMDavid recommends to set a timer for 4 minutes to remind us to frequently cut between the split party groups. While we don’t have to adhere to a strict timer, looking for cliffhanger moments to cut between groups keeps the pace of the encounter naturally high. We know this technique from film and writing, and we can use it effectively to navigate a split-party situation.

Split the party: Separate sessions

The players might also decide to split the party for a longer stretch of an adventure. They might decide that one half will travel to the capital to ask the inquisition for help while the other characters try to slow down the cultists’ ritual. These separate events might each require an entire session to play out. In these circumstances, increasing the tension, and jumping between cliffhangers won’t work as well. We might not be able to realistically keep increasing the tension for a day’s worth of travel. When such a situation comes up, we can think about not only splitting the characters, but also splitting the players.

If we can get over the organizational hurdle of scheduling, we can run a separate session for each half of the party. In one session, we see how one half of the characters weather the dangerous road to the capital, and try to beseech the king for aid. In the other session, we let the characters deal with the cultists that are summoning demonic servants of Demogorgon. When the players and the characters reunite for the next session, they can share what they have learned, and deal with the consequences of the actions of each separate group of characters.

By splitting the party in real life, we circumvent most of the challenges of a split party. This will not be feasible for all groups and circumstances. It requires an extra scheduling effort, and a scenario in which the characters are split up for long enough to warrant separate sessions. But when these conditions align, we can run exciting games for a smaller portion of the characters without worrying the complications that a split party presents to us as the DM. In the end, running split sessions might even be a welcome change of pace for a long-running campaign.

Never split the party… But if you do, do it right.

Sometimes, in the fiction of our game, it can make sense to split the party. As DMs, we can let the players decide when it is time for their characters to separate. When they do, a few techniques can help us navigate a split-party situation. In fast-paced action sequences, we can switch between the split groups often while constantly increasing the tension for each group. We can keep an eye out for cliffhanger moments to cut from one group of characters to the other to keep everyone at the table engaged. If the characters decide to split up for a longer adventure, we can split the players as well. Running separate sessions for the separated groups lets us avoid some of the pitfalls of a split party while giving characters enough room to play out their individual adventures.

Most of the time, “Never split the party!” is valuable advice. But when the story demands it, we can let it happen naturally, and make the experience of a split party engaging, unique, and memorable.