My rule on splitting the party is simple: if I encourage it or do it, you'll be fine, if you do it against my advice, you're basically dead.

My first D&D session: “Okay let’s split up the party” Two minutes later: *sound of us being owned by bandits* Next session: “Okay so we’re starting over with a new plot”

One of my favorite sessions was in Pathfinder. I was playing a bard and my friend was a rogue. We ended up saving a town from a group of zombies that was meant for our full party of five, and surprisingly only lost one villager. Our group still calls it our El Dorado session.

"Dont let some guy on the internet tell you how you should play" - some guy on the internet telling me how I could play my game

One of my favorite moments in DnD as a DM was when my players decided to split the party. There was a massive orc and goblin encampment defending a small opening in a cave that my players suspected held the item that they were after, and it was in a canyon with an elevator that went down. Only thing is, they all knew that they weren't stealthy enough to all go through the encampment, and that they needed to get the item before it was used by the orc shamans. So they decided to send in the ranger and rogue from the canyon to sneak into the encampment, steal the object before the orc shamans finished their ritual involving it, and the rest of the party, the cleric, barbarian and sorceror, were going to climb up the canyon walls, secure the elevator partially as a distraction, and they were all going to try to escape from there. And you know what? They pulled it off and had a blast doing so. I would spend about 5-10 minutes with each group before switching to the other and we all had a blast. That was 6 years ago and whenever that group in the rare moon is able to get together to socialize for a bit, that session still comes up as we lament in our inability to play as often as we did then. That was my first time splitting up the party and gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to DM afterwards, and I've only done it a handful of times afterward. Everytime it does happen, though, I get a bit of an adrenaline rush as I prepare to improv essentially two DnD sessions.

MATT, YOU'RE TEARING THIS FAMILY APART!

A big part of this channel is me just giving folks permission to try things they might not otherwise try. So folks will watch this and they'll say "Ok, but HOW?" Even though I've done my best to explain how, "the principle of rising action," etc... But really you just need to see it. That's what the stream will let us do!

After 3 years of playing D&D, I finally had a roleplaying experience. My character and my friend's character went shopping and talked over frozen yogurt. It was awesome.

Okay. The thing about splitting the party in DnD specifically is that it has the tendency to expose one of the few, true weak points in the system's design. There's this weird incongruence between game mechanics and storytelling, where the latter can reasonably call for or be enhanced by the party to splitting up, while the former punishes them for doing to in almost 100% of combat-based situations. DnD's action economy means that more people is more power-- in often dangerously exponential ways. For proof, look no further than one of the most popular 4th level spells in the game; after all, what is "Banishment" if not "split up the enemy party: the spell?" So. We know this. But, we're DMs-- our games are our own creation. So how do we fix it? One answer-- my answer-- is to adjust the combats I prepare if/when they are encountered by fewer PC's than I anticipated. I know that for some people, this messes with their verisimilitude; they want their world to be as deterministic as possible, a living, breathing place that the PC's simply encounter as it is. And while I respect that style of play, I know my group. I know why we show up to game, and it's for the story. So if, bottom line, I can tell a better story by altering what's behind that door-- AND, if my players either don't know or don't care I did? Then why should I feel bound by decisions I made with less knowledge-- about who's playing, what they can do, and what will make things suitably dramatic for them-- than I have now?

I've split my party.. I gave them NPCs that they played as for an encounter or two. They liked having control over their new allies and I didn't have to scale down the baddies.

"When you don't have to worry in town, for instance" I let my party split, somehow half alerted the royal guards in an assassination attempt to the mayor, the other one triggered a shady gang and started fighting. I went insanely crazy

Twice as difficult, twice the experience. Much foe, much honor.

Usually I find the issue with a split party is that the DM hasn't designed for a smaller party and thus they end up wiping against previously made encounters.

"There is as much to learn from failure as from success." Now, there is some wisdom. :) Good video. Please keep them up.

Great information as always, Matt. What I really appreciate about your videos and insight is that it makes me think about things more deeply and consider trying things that I previously might not have been open to doing. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and inspiring other DMs! 👊

I needed an Uncle Matt video tonight. Thank you, kind sir.

I've had a situation like this in my recent game and while I'm not particularly happy with how I've managed it (I'll get to why in a moment). I won't get into the very detail. But basically one party split to find their sorcerer friend (a player who was missing the previous session) in a weird freaky tower, while the other two members of the party were saving a city from a siege by weird robots, with the help of a small army of retired (and mostly crippled) adventurers. We ended the previous session at the point where two of the players were just reaching the weird tower. While the other players were quite literally charging on horseback into battle. It was great, I was amazingly happy with how things have unfolded that session and I was super hyped for the next session. We play every 2 weeks online so I had some time to decide if I want to play the games separately or both at once. In the end I've decided on simultaneous action with some switching in between. I've created some battle rules and we started with the siege. It was going alright and I've explained the nature of the various battle rolls to the players. I've also asked one of the players involved to read up on mounted combat rules to act as a helper for me (I totally recommend doing that to interest newer players in the more specific rulesets btw). We did some rounds, I've announced ahead of time that we'll do 3 rounds of combat, and after those 3 rounds we'll roll for "battle" with modifiers depending on how well they've performed in those 3 rounds. They seemed to like the idea and it all went rather alright. The fighter player had a blast being a beast, and the bard player felt useful because HAVING A BARD GIVE A WHOLE ARMY A BOOST IS AMAZING. We cut to the 2 fellas at the tower and quite intentionally the speed changes from high-octane battle action to this slow crawl and exploration of a weird malformed tower. The players were cautious and there were no real combat encounters (as all the units were off sieging a nearby city duh) . I've focused on creating eery atmosphere and the players did a fantastic job of tossing some in-character banther between one another. I ended on them finding their sorcerer friend and him failing (rather spectacularly) a reflex save against a tentacle about to eat his face. I did this back and forth about 2 more times each way and afterwards the players return from their successful rescue of both their friend AND the city to exchange stories of that transpired and decide on what to do next. All in all the session was a success. **HOWEVER** This might be the nature of my play (we play online with maptools and talking over discord) but hearing the other players talk about what they do or watching tokens move around in maptools is not as engaging as being there in person and being fully engaged. For my uses I **Should have** created something for the players to do quietly while I was running the narrative for the other group. The battle group could have been left off with a tactical situation to figure out a resolution to, and the tower party should have been left with some puzzle they could figure out without having to ask me for details. All in all I still l think this was a success. And I frankly recommend any confident DM try it. It teaches you a lot about the players at your (physical or virtual) table, and what is the best way to keep them engaged.

This could just be me but it seems like the noise suppression or something is getting a little aggressive and cutting off words. It's not enough to be unintelligible and I may just be whining but it produces a weird effect that sounds very odd.

Haha love the running taboo theme of the latest videos. This one was especially comprehensive with covering the pros and cons of STP. Really appreciated the two sine waves analogy advice. I have a future video topic suggestion. Could you talk about different types of playing groups? Like generic private home groups, beer and pretzels, adventurers league, other game store pick up games, one shots, campaigns, west marches, online groups, streaming, professional groups, etc. There’s so many ways for groups to form and approach playing nowadays. I’d love to hear your experiences, pros, cons, and advice for DMing and playing across this spectrum.

I’m currently playing through Lost Mines of Phandelver, and we recently did Cragmaw Castle, which is a kind of mini-dungeon in the middle of the adventure. We were outside the castle for a while deciding what to do, and eventually we decided to split the party in half, with all the beefy melee fighters going to the front gate to create a distraction while the other characters snuck in a side entrance looking for the dwarf we were there to rescue. This approach actually worked (miraculously), but it had the unintended effect of turning an entire dungeon into one huge encounter, where half the party had a no-holds-barred brawl in the front, and the other half snuck their way through the back. By the time we met in the middle, we had basically cleared the whole dungeon, aside from the Boss’s quarters, which the sneaky half wisely decided not to investigate alone. We were helped by the fact that the sneaky party inadvertently released a caged owl bear, which massacred almost a dozen goblins who the front party had pushed back by setting a door on fire. Eventually the two groups met in the middle, somehow none of us had died and we had cleared the whole dungeon aside from the boss! It was maybe the most memorable dungeon run I’ve ever been a part of, and would never have happened if we hadn’t split the party. I say go for it, as long as you’re willing to accept the consequences, it can be very fun.

For the "switching cameras" technique Matt talks about, I find it's always best to cut just before or as the climax of a particular point of action comes about.

Matt, your videos are always very informative and well spoken. Thank you so much for making them and for making me a better DM! Side note: your hair is slick as hell my dude.

Last time the party split it was a Starfinder game. I run 3 people in one location in the city and 2 people on the opposite side of the city. They were finding hidden cell towers all over the city giving off an evil mind control signals. I played an hour with 1 group until they hit a battle. Then 45min with the other group then they hit a battle. At that point with their communicators I allowed them to talk in real time as I set up what I called ( a mega combat) I rolled initiative for everyone in 2 separate battles. But ran it as 1 continous battle scene switching the POV from one group to the next depending on whose turn it was. I guess this would only work if your split party has simultaneous battles but it was pretty great! The one with 2 party members got the objective and ran from the enemies just escaping by jetpack one unconscious brought back to 1hp and the last PC at 3hp ...I almost killed 2 PCs that session. Very epic we all remember

My god yes. You really nailed something that had been bugging me for the longest time! Couldn't really put a finger on it until now. During my last campaign, Skies of Mythos, the players had besieged the holy tower of their former companion turned self-proclaimed god. Turns out the guy has laid out his tower like a series of challenges, except there are many routes one can take to reach the top, where they all reunite. Half the party goes one route, half the other, eventually splitting up again until there are three groups of two people, each in their own, crazy adventures, culminating with some character specific highlights of the campaign, where everyone's development finds a satisfying conclusion. Now, one of my players stated that this one thing was what he had disliked the most about the campaign, claiming that he had lost so much goodness because we had to split up (we were on discord and roll20, so many a mini-sessions only had the two direct participants present). Now I think this is because of how the party is, player wise. They are not so much for telling, for recounting in a role-savvy, satisfying way, they want to be there period. And that's ok. This means, however, that while me and you (Matthew) both really like retelling the cool events, and believe it adds panache to the story, it isn't necessarily true for all players. But perhaps there's a way to make it work, even for them, that's the cool thing about role-playing games, right?

i remember a handful of parties where as the small statured feytouched woman with a high intelligence and high charisma, that i had to separate from the party to speak with the local nobles because noble descent, and often had to buy pretty clean clothes and a special bath and beauty treatment for these things i mean, i was allowed to keep a dagger inside my sleeve as the party rogue for in case of the risk of combat, but i had to do all the diplomacy at the party and make allegiances that helped the group out, because lots of people dumped charisma and had no social skills, in addition to carrying a walking armory. so they usually assumed me the one they were charged with protecting. even though i was a rogue in spidersilk clothes. because spidersilk is amazing.

It is difficult, but my group has been split for 8 months and our two groups have been playing once a week (Sunday and Monday nights) and I am so excited because this week they are finally going to regroup! It is going to be epic!

Started my first game as a DM 2 months ago we are on our 11th Session thanks to your help Matt! This video came out at the best time, I run a two party campaign from session 1, there are two factions in my setting and each party contained the opposite of the two, the fought, argued, stole, and lied to each other it's great but recently they have started to fight more often and combat is 'nearly' impossible. I find that most times I end the game exhausted, agitated and even the RP has suffered because with all the new choices my players talk so much but I don't get to hear what they are doing. One day a party becomes a background party the next they are the heroes, your video has really helped me figure out its not my fault, thanks man your wisdom always guides me in such dark times :)

I’ve come back and watched this one for years. I’m now comfortable running A, B, C, D plots and splitting the party up individually. They love it, and it allows for me to do things like capture one. Confront them individually, talk to one and let them share previously unshared opinions. I think most importantly, it lets us share a character’s backstory with the audience but not the characters.

Man, how I have missed hearing the Colville Voice (tm)

My experience with splitting the party goes hand in hand with the current map they're on. They tend to stick together during roleplaying sections, but split when combat nears. I then proceed to manage the different small groups at the same time according to initiative rolls and then they manage to come together by the end for the boss fight. Most of the times. One time one of my players literally was looting at the other side of the dungeon while the party fought.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom as always. So thankful for the return of consistent videos!

TIL Shibboleth. What a great word! Thanks, Matt!

Funny you should mention rising action and it being difficult to run a split combat. Recently had half of my group imprisoned and ran the group inside and outside of the prison simultaneously with a 10 minute timer that had me switching between groups frequently. Eventually both groups got into combat and i had them all roll initiative. I set up two white boards and ran the combats simultaneously like they were in the same room. Technically the timing was off and it would have taken the outside group considerably longer to get into combat if each group was on real world time, but a little handwaving of the world's rules made for a very dramatic night when they both fought guards to eventually meet up in the center and all escape into the night. I was told later that it was the most intense battle I've ever run as the cleric was so focused on rushing to the aid of the other half of the party to heal the paladin who was down to around 5 health.

I believe he's mentioned the City of the Glass Pool story in another video before. It sounds oddly familiar

Just noticed Matt is wearing a tshirt for John Carpenter's The Thing! Favorite movie! Go Matt

I think Chris Perkins in Dice Camera Action does a good job with handling the party being split on numerous occasions, and as you mentioned, switching between the groups at dramatic moments to heighten the tension until it’s their turn again. While it’s fun to joke around that you should never split the party, there are certainly some golden moments that can come from it. I like your idea about the city map, as I do have the player or two that decides they want to try to be everywhere. Sounds like a good idea to show them that they aren’t nearby.

Another video from this beautiful man!

Is the audio a bit odd for anyone else?

Thank you so much for these videos. You are an inspiration and super helpful! Keep up the amazing work!

My favourite trick to pull as a DM is that when the parties split especially if it's one character alone, I will have the other players run NPCs in the area, some the most inspired moments ever.

Don't you know, you never split the party~

Ahhh, the controversy!

Great practical advice! This is definitely something that will influence my campaigns! Thanks for this video and all the rest, Matt!

My 3 player party split up last session in an rescue mission on a cloud giant castle. One player decided to go distract the countess while the other players would go for the rescue while the countess was distracted and I swapped between them as you said and it was fantastic. It was super dramatic and the players loved it.

"I've been doing this... since 1988... " Wait. You mean I started playing D&D *before* Matt Colville? That's disturbing. I started with the Red Box and playing during recess circa 3rd grade.

dual combat is not as hard as you think, you already ran combat with a team against multiple enemies, just use a single initiative table and go round in that order, it just has the enemies and friendlies fight same as always, but without the teamtactics they usually ignor... i mean.... utilise

Thanks for this video Matt. After 20 years dming I now do various forms of party splitting very frequently. It adds lot of tension and player choice. Sometimes it's as little as 1 player scouting so I just whisper to them online or pull them into another room in person

I just loved this video! I never thought about when I should shift focus from one group to another. I was just doing this on instinct, but now you've given some goals to improve this. Thanks!

Hey, I love your videos. The content is amazing 11/10. I have a suggestion on how the quality of the video could be improved though. You should EQ the audio, the 's' sound is extremely prominent so maybe tune down the high frequencies :)

You said 'mature' players a bunch, but until 6:51 I did not realize you meant 'mature' vs 'newbie' not 'mature' vs 'wangrod'.

That is some good lighting. Makes you look quite statuesque, bronze like even.

Dming a split party through separate combats is actually really fun. You get to leave them hanging on the edge of their seat over and over again, doing a round or three for one set, then switching to the others, and back again.

Must have rolled high initiative to be this early

Well, I have to say, I ran a two combat Encounter with the two Groups at the Table at the same Time. Why? ... because the Player decided to split up. Not because they knew what was going to happened, but just to see what would happened. It was interresting, I created some really nice Cliffhanger during the Battle while switching from one Group to the other. And as a Bonus, the small Group saved the bigger Group, by accident. Without my doing they killed the Necromancer just in that Round as the Undead in the Celler were killing the bigger Group. Taxing but Rewarding in the End - Not in D&D btw. ^^

When I was a Master DM at a shop back in the mid-80s, we came across a scenario like this, where we split a party and ran 2 different games for a short time until they reunited. The way we handled it was by having another DM step up and run one of the sub-parties. It actually worked out great, it was a lot of fun.

In one of my games we ended up with two GMs, that was pretty fun because it made it possible to somewhat separate the party to do different things in town or even on different part of a ''battlefield''. That is an unorthodox way to split the party that made it really interesting in the end

Nice, one of my players always sticks to the "never split the party" rule, even if it can be advantageous, i am eager to know what do you have to say about this

Think the whole idea of 'never split the party' is because most encounters are tuned to be against a full party. That in itself is 'meta' gaming, a good dm would balance the fights if they decide to split. This builds trust with the DM won't completely punish the players for trying something different.

I've known about the "dont split the party" trope for nearly a decade. All of my friends did, we shared memes about it, etc. Friends and I finally get into a campaign of our own, and at two separate instances in the game we deliberately split the party -The first time we split the party it, half the party died as one group TPK'd. Everyone in that group made new characters for the next session, and the campaign went on. -The second time we split the party, BOTH groups got TPK'd and the campaign ended. If only someone had warned us not the split the party...

So happy you touched on this Matt. I absolutely love when the party splits. It’s so much more interesting. It also gives you a chance to see characters that don’t interact with each other as much get forced to work together and develop their relationship.

I've often found that splitting the party is like dividing by zero. Impossible without first making things complex.

I think you're wrong about those Twitch videos being "less entertaining" - you have a voracious audience, myself included, who would LOVE to digest any and all of your content. Much love!

The videos in the new space just have a new fresh vibe and style. And, even though I haven't been able to catch them, the streams are a really great way of doing things for a channel like this. I really feel that this amazing channel is in the elbow of an exponential curve. And it''s .3 seconds from taking off. Really love your stuff Matt

D&D is in the minority of games where people are deathly afraid of splitting the party, I've found. In my Shadowrun games the party always splits before things 'go loud.' Even in CoC, Pathfinder, etc I've never heard the 'don't split' mentality given for good reason other than sloppy DMs or players. Great video, I hope this makes rookies and vet D&D players less afraid of splitting up, even if temporarily. The best stories I have in my groups are when everyone segments themselves to their specialities and meets up later to high-five about it.

I keep apologizing to you every time I have to pause the video. What does that signify, I wonder?

There's a fairly simple way of running multiple combats simultaneously, when the party is split. When the first group triggers a fight, the scene with them shifts to the other (or next, in the case of multiple splits) and their narrative pauses -- you'll want to make a note regarding roughly how much time it took to get there. You then go backward in narrative time to the moment the split occurred, and roleplay the events that occur with the new group. Repeat this until all groups have triggered a combat. Then simply roll Initiative for all groups and treat it as one giant fight. As each group finishes their respective fracas, they go off-camera. Once all groups are done, resume the normal course of split-party narrative switching until the next fight.

One thing that my DM did when splitting the party was ask the other players to play friendly NPCs who ended up fighting alongside the good guys. All their NPCs ended up dying but it was really a lot of fun and a great way to keep everyone engaged. That inspired me in my own game when we also ended up splitting the party. In one larger combat I asked the players who were not there to play hostile NPCs, one had a low level bad guy and the other a mid level 2nd Lt character. This made the combat really interesting and much more difficult because the player controlling the 2nd Lt. had her do things which made complete sense and were dramatic but were also things that never would have occurred to me.

I have run two simultaneous combats successfully one time. It was a nautical adventure with a party of 8; in the climax of the campaign, half of them had run their ship against a huge warship that was empowered by ritual casters on shore and the other half had to infiltrate the dungeon where the casters were set up in order to disrupt the ritual. I believe the reason that it worked is that the two scenarios were so fundamentally different in play that it didn't feel like one long string of Initiative, and because the two enemies were connected, the things that happened in one combat had direct consequences on the other.

Does he ever breathe

Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about really minor things to do with lighting and sound on these videos.

I've had a grand total of 2 experiences with splitting parties. Both of them were fun. One was a one-character mini-adventure because one PC had gotten way behind in XP, so I had her fight in a little arena and get a decent amount of XP to herself as well as hinting at a character who could have been a lead-in to a backstory adventure. The other was a hilarious incident in VtM where the rest of the coterie got into a big fight but one member botched a Drive roll, got into an accident with an angry drunk and the drunk turned violent. There was a wonderful comedic effect as we switched back and forth between a high-octane fight with a massive body count and a comical wimp-fight between a blood mage with too many witnesses to use his powers and a drunk who couldn't get through said mage's soak dice.

Your lighting seems a little intense (you're a little washed out--maybe the fill lighting is too bright, or perhaps the lights are just generally a little too harsh), but things are looking great. Also, good treatment of what is, to many, probably the scariest scenario to DM.

"Don't let people online tell you how to play" -Matt Colville, online

Props for having a copy of The Campaign for North Africa. I wouldn't have thought that was your jam!

Wow, that editing is on point! The good old video clips are back and I appreciate them so much. It takes so much time to get this 1 second clip into a video just for funsies! Great work of you and your team. I'm glad to be a big backer of your content and can't wait for it!

Video suggestion/request: Don't be mad at your DM if your party starts raising your voices in the middle of the dungeon/labyrinth/Underdark and arguing, and this attracts one or more "wandering monsters". The DM didn't force you all to argue, and if you all keep stopping the campaign by arguing about anything in dangerous territory, how are you surprised that your actions attracted the attention of a "wandering monster" encounter. Especially if you end up the slaves of the Drow... ...again.

Constructive criticism Matt: I'm not a lighting expert, but the light seems so vibrant that it kind of takes me out of the experience? I don't know how to word it, really.

I've actually done a split the party for separate combat, though it was more of a pseudo split. The basic scenario was that the players (3 of them) were trying to defend a fortress. The fortress had 3 main hallways that were its entrances, and the villains were sending in their 3 elites to take care of the group. Each of the 3 villains entered down a separate tunnel, forcing the players to split up to fight each one 1v1. It actually worked out pretty easily since I just had the single initiative running for all 3 fights so the players in real time could see each other holding the line, knowing that if just 1 of them failed, it was effectively a game over.

This looks like someone crafted a perfect Matt construct out of pure gold, the lighting just feels that way

MAtt. You are a dirty tease. covering your mouth like that before telling us the book will be available in weeks. Just mean. ;)

Oh no. The major thing this video did for me was just get me exciting to hear your bit on fudging! (Largely because you have told many of these stories because and they're super useful, but I knew them). But yeah. I'm hyped for next week and really loving the new studio and videos! Keep it up Matt.

In my first campaign, I was a half elf druid. The world was sort of like a JRPG in a jungle setting which was being invaded by mechanical beasts which were related to the disappearance of magic from most of the sentient races, unless you had an artifact. Me being a neutral good druid dedicated to the balance of nature, it was my primary goal to restore magic to the world. These mechanical beasts appear via portals and leave via portals even when killed. We had just killed a few of them, and I made a quick decision to jump into the portal. I was in bear form, so no communication, but the rogue was quick enough to follow. Unfortunately, that's where the campaign left off and was never picked up, but even though we probably were gonna end up dead or forever stranded, it was worth it, because my character finally had a lead in restoring magic to the world.

Matt...you've been a huge inspiration for me. And I've been GMing for over 25 years. THANK YOU

Love that shirt Matt! The Thing is one of my all-time favorite movies. Those guys split the party....look where it got them.

In our last game we were a split party, and our DM pulled it off beautifully. I'll admit that my character was the wild card. The DM and the thief thought I'd just tag along with the thief, but after 2 sessions of the thief being grandiose and all about himself, I was getting tired. So instead of going off with the thief (whose mission was to shut down the gatehouse portcullis) or with the paladin (whose mission was to rally the NPCs into an army) I had my druid go before the fighting force and cast entangle, and that managed to take out a lot of extra enemies near the gates. From there we each had our separate places in battle, and it I was very happy with the DM, who gave us each fair time to complete out parts of the story.

I could watch a video on this man just talking about what he had for lunch and I would enjoy it. NEVER STOP

Players committing to a character is my favorite thing. I dm for a group where the bard’s flaw is that he gets bored and wanders off, and he has gotten himself into so many interesting situations. His player knows I wouldn’t just murder him but hearing ‘this is a bad idea but it’s taking too long he’s off’ has become the cue that something fun is about to happen. Luckily the rest of the party loves watching his exploits unfold so I can run his part and then jump back to them looking for him

Wow! I just got back from watching the Twitch stream about running evil characters. It's really great and I think it would probably be worth posting on KZfaq for folks. It has a lot of the stories from your gaming history that I've wondered about, and a lot of the insights you share could really help new gamers.

Thanks matthew not only has your videos gotten me back into D&D but they've been a big help with my first time Being the DM :)

Loving the new set up. Loving all the content. Thanks, Matt.

Whoa, I've done something Matt Colville hasn't done. I've run up to 3 combats at the same time. It was exhausting, but doable. I have a largish group though, rarely running less than 7 players, and often as many as 9, though a few times up to 11, so often a minor combat can turn into several smaller combats if people spread out. But when they split (often in cities) they almost always get into trouble, so I often have to run multiple combats. Keeping control of the table, that rising action Matt talks about, is extremely important in these instances. Some games I'm not great at this, and it feels like nothing really happened, like everyone just kind of did a couple things, then we all went home, and my players are usually still happy, but I'm very unsatisfied. When I control the pace of things, that's when one persons actions will dovetail with another's and it feels like pages turning in a book, its a certain kind of magic. It feels much more real, and things happen naturally. I have a few of the translocation players, it can be pretty funny how they try to finagle ways to explain how they happen to be everywhere when interesting things happen (or when treasure appears.) One thing it can be hard to pace is shopping and social interactions. If the players scatter, it can be hard to pace that right so everyone gets something neat to do. Sometimes, if my players have't gotten to play in a while, they have trouble paying attention to what other people are doing, and that can make those players feel as though their actions are unimportant. What Matt was talking about, getting fun from other players actions even if you don't get to "do anything" that is the mark of a great player, a real member of a group. In my opinion, a good player is an interested player. Not just in what the DM has to say, but in what the other players are doing and the experience they are having. The last thing that really makes splitting the party easier, is patience and brevity. Try not to dither, or dally. Know what you want to do, and try to get it done in a reasonable time, a little self indulgence is okay, but too much is cutting into other PC's time. And when you're waiting, be interested and aware of what you want to do , so when the DM gets to you, your thing happens instead of everybody looking at you, and you're hemming and hawing. Your DM wants to get to you, they can only process so many things at once. A really good example of larger group play, is Critical Role, they split up all the time, and are usually great about encouraging players, even when their character isn't involved. It just makes the game more fun for everyone.

This video reminded me of a game I was playing once. We were in a dungeon that used to be some type of prison after defeating the stone golem guards, my character attempted to take a short rest while two others went to investigate a suspicious jail cell and the last player investigated a trapped giant purple worm. The DM managed this by telling the two characters (and us) major backstory via an ancient storm giant prisoner who was in the jail cell. Then very thoughtfully and comedically cut to the player who was investigating the giant purple worm, who the DM knew would inevitably release the giant purple worm. Which woke up my character. We were all super engaged and it worked out exactly like how you said. Thanks for the advice because I'm always looking for new ways to engage new and old players!!!

This new office makes your hair so shiny and majestic.

I Just want to thank you for all your hardwork on your content. I played 3.5 when I was a teenager and have a bit of experience being a DM. Recently a group of friends have shown interest after I acquired the players handbook for 5e, I was the only one with experience to run a game but it had been years and this was a new system. We've run our first game which went well and I've ordered additional books. You've really given me a lot of insight on how to make things more fun not only for my players but also for myself.

It’s awesome to see weekly videos and twitch streams from you again. It feels like awaking from a long, Matt-less hibernation! Thanks for all the sweet content you make. Can’t wait for Strongholds & Followers!

Matt, you’re the best. I played lots of D&D prior to discovering your channel, but I never dreamed of DMing until I started watching your videos. Now I’ve watched them all, many multiple times. Cheers

The party was level 5 when they ran into the BBEG. She force caged half the party, surprised the strength based fighter with her higher strength, then decided to retreat through a telwport spell. She cast it too close, however, and two party members jumped after her. As they recovered from their jump a fireball hurls towards them, taking them to low hit points, and the BBEG smiles as she closes the door of the jail cell in her stronghold. Their escape was then conducted via text message as more of a sneaky segment, where I would use my dungeon tiles to describe the basics, add on with text. It worked really well and the next session had them rejoining each other quickly.

Found you through 5E roundtable discussion podcast, love your enthusiasm and glad you made this channel! :D

I think this used to be much more of a skill DM's possessed back in the day when characters by necessity weren't always together. Back when you had to seek out a person to train you and spend a lengthy period of time training with them to acquire your new level, back when spellcasters had to hunt down spell components to make their spells work, back when it took so much longer to heal naturally if you didn't have magic to aid you, there were frequently times when parties weren't all in the same place at the same time. Which meant that DM's used to be running split parties in one form or another a lot of the time. And sometimes it was just by necessity. In a similar case to yours, We spent most of a session one night with my character breaking into a nobleman's compound, in order to retrieve an item. You can't sneak in with an entire party into anyplace, so it was my character that went alone and everyone else had to just sit and watch. It was a great evening for us, and a huge turning point for our party, but with a different group of players it might not have gone so well. And I do miss those days back in school when we could play all the time. When I was in junior high we played in the AVA room after school almost every day, but more than once had to kick girls out of there because it was during the buildup of the Luke and Laura thing on General Hospital and they wanted to watch the tv in there because they would miss the program while they rode the bus home.

Hey Matt, you talk about never having run two combats at the same time - I do that on occasion. I just use one initiative ranking for both combats, and either have both maps on the table, or have a smaller map that can be lifted on and off the table easily. Essentially treating them as 'one' combat. It worked well in a large assault scenario where one half of the party was infiltrating a palace, while the other was engaging the city's forces to create a distraction. Events and reveals that effected one combat also affected the other tangentially, and that kept everyone interested. It's much easier if at least one of the combats is simple or simplified somehow. Like playing one half out in just one dimension, only noting the distances between combatants, rather than having a map. Also in the palace I used your portcullis splits the party tactic to split one team even further, and reveal that their crucial intel was a plant, and it went well. They hated me for it hehe.