Players splitting up is always a problem. Long down times of not getting to do anything lead to boredom etc...

Players splitting up is always a problem. Long down times of not getting to do anything lead to boredom etc. Splitting time action by action makes the stories become fragmented and feel confusing and schizofrenic. How do you solve this?

There are times when it's reasonable or even unavoidable to split the group up, but both the players and the GM should do their best to minimize the occurrences and durations of these. The game centers around the main group and people who peel off from it unnecessarily get abbreviated coverage, if any at all. I'm not going to waste everybody's time running two separate, full adventures just because one person can't stick with the team. If there are 4 players and 1 goes off by himself, he gets an absolute ceiling of 1/3 as much time devoted to his progress as the others (and though that technically gives each PC an equal allotment of time, a significant amount of what happens to PCs in a group is a shared experience, allowing them to accomplish more), and quite likely significantly less than that--maybe just a few dice rolls and a quick overview. Once people learn that they're mostly taking themselves out of the game by leaving the group, they'll be far less inclined to keep doing it in the future.

Of course, you need to let your players know the approach you'll be taking up front, so they know what to expect.

the characters are part of a hive mind

There are plenty of games where it's not even assumed that the characters act as a group, and they work fine. Spend more time working on what you do and say in game actually legitimately interesting, rather than thinking of the game as a series of puzzles that need to be solved. That way the players who aren't "active" can still be an entertained audience, rather than a participatory one.

Explain this to players ahead of time so they only split up when its necessary.

this

we also have frequent smoking breaks when I take a player aside and we talk shady business/intrigue with villanous NPCS.

>How do you solve this?
Switch perspectives constantly. Groups with larger counts of people get slightly more time, to discourage lone wolf behavior.

Yes, but it still slows down the time from A to B.

Do the same thing that movies and series with multiple PoVs do: switch the cam on a roughly 10-minute basis. Do cliffhangers, it's a bit counterintuitive at first, as the logical thing to think is to assume that if you take away the spotlight at a moment of greater tension, it's gonna ruin the perception of pacing by the actors, but the trick is to hint at incoming tense moments, then switch without actually starting the scene.
E.g.: reveal the face of the Villain, then switch immediately, giving no time to declare actions.
This way you will keep your off-the-spotlight players constantly yearning for continuation. It's bad when done incorrectly, because it feels like unfulfilled promises of interesting stuff, but you need to keep your game tight and it's gonna work just fine.

Players or characters?

Maybe you should play a game of Everyone is John.

I usually just remind them that the encounters are balanced for all of them being together
The threat of death is usually enough to keep them together

Splitting the group is fine if you give both groups a shared objective. The party defends a shrine while the wizard and sorceror activate the arcane mechanisms that guard the shrine.

>Always a problem

Not always. My players seem capable of patience- a couple were even content to have their characters just take a break while the others got into trouble elsewhere.

Also
>Schizofrenic

At least pay attention to the words that are underlined in red when you post.

These are problems? My group often has us going our own way on our character's individual business. Not all the time, but it isn't uncommon. We also move into fast-motion often enough, describing our actions over the period of time and making rolls for them, and paying more attention to a particular action if we have to. It works out just fine. If a character is doing their own thing, the others will wait and watch the scene. It's fun, our characters tend to have interesting things going on.

But then again, we don't play DnD so actions don't boil down to talking to this town's local innkeep or shopping or chopping up goblins, and there are only three players so we have more time to divide.

Whenever players decide to split the party. I stop the session and schedule game sessions for each subset of characters. This has pretty much ensured that the PCs stick together.

You must suck real bad if more game is a deterrent.

>schizofrenic

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>stop the session
>more game
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That's what I do with my group. They split up constantly, and they never complain about it, they're on the edge of their seat waiting for the action to resume, and listening to the action of the others players.
Sometimes I also do a sort of "two games at once", orally I address on player, and on my laptop I address another player when I'm not speaking. It takes a bit of time to get used to the multi tasking but it run smoothly now

just go around the table and ask each PC what they're up to. you'll get the knack of how long those time frames should last and what sort of limited dice rolling you should do in each turn to avoid long delays

I hadn't realized greekfire was deployed by infantry like that.

It's cool. Imagine how dangerous that shit would be though? You'd have to have balls of steel carrying a pack of that stuff into battle.

Also as grenades

I find smaller groups eases a lot of this and keeps people more interested and engaged in general.

Personally I have come to view the "magic number" as three players, it keeps the game more intimate and moves briskly and if they make reasonable characters everyone has a role and something to offer, as well as a time to shine individual and in a synergistic way with other members.

Does anyone know what's tattooed on his fingers? Crackman is my favourite superhero.