Notes from the Aleph: Get More Done by Spreading Out the Party

When one has a large team of people to work with, it can make a lot of sense to split them up.

In a novel, movie, or television show, the main characters may be pressed for time, and they may have numerous leads to follow up with. (Did the bad guys hole up on the east side or the south side of town?) If the party splits up, they can cover more ground. Or the Player Characters will have different interests. Some will want to visit their noble peers; others will want to provide charity at the church; still others will want to buy and sell items.  In a game of Ironclaw, a party of Player Characters will all have different Careers, which means they all come from different places in society. Also, the social talents of Ironclaw can give big bonuses, but only with certain kinds of people:

• Carousing works with the bar-going set;
• Etiquette is for nobles and the rich;
• Streetwise helps when talking with criminals;
• Nobility grants privilege to go certain places that commoners can’t even go;
• Piety and Ordainment make it easier to talk with priests, nuns, and religious folk;
• Insider is almost necessary for talking with any tightly-knit clique.

This diversity will definitely encourage the Player Characters to split up … in fact, it may be necessary. For example, the upper class (with their Etiquette) doesn’t often mix well with the lower class (with their Streetwise).

Very often, a group of adventurers will have sneaky types (high Speed, high Stealth, low encumbrance) and tanking types (high Body, low stealth, high encumbrance). There’s no point in trying to be sneaky when there’s a clanking, lumbering giant behind you!

Splitting a party up can be a challenge for a Game Host. The easiest way to manage a split part is to keep some ground rules in mind: set up when everyone is going to rendezvous back together, give everyone a turn, and mind the table talk.

Begin the Split by Planning the Ending: The Rendezvous

As the Game Host, it’s your job to keep the action moving. Whenever the party wants to split up, ask them to set up a rendezvous – a time and place where they will meet. It can be really easy (“Be back at the inn by sunset”) or more complex (“Meet us at the Old Tower by the first of 7th office – listen for the ringing of the Cathedrale’s bell.”) But just have a rendezvous. That way, you know when and where the party is expected to get back together.

With the rendezvous, you should also ask each Player what their character will do. Their answers can be simple, like “I’m going to buy a new suit of armor!” or “I want to find out if there’s any interesting Goals to accomplish.” You can do this quickly if you go around the table, left to right, skipping anyone who doesn’t know what they want and coming back to them in the second round. If someone doesn’t know what they want, they should pair up with someone who does, if just to offer support in case something bad happens.

Keeping it Quick: Rotes and Assists

The rote rule allows a player to max out their dice, but count only half their successes, rounded down. For routine tasks, this can make something go very simply. For example, a character with Mind d8 and Streetwise (d12 bonus) could claim a rote of 12, 8. On any task with a difficulty of 7 or less, they have two half-successes – one success, enough to9 succeed at a simple task.

The assist rule lets one character roll their dice to grant a bonus d8 to another character. When parties split up, they should split up to manage their resources. For example, the gossip-master (Mind d8, Gossip d8, Fast-Talk, etc.) will probably pair up with the dabbler (Mind d6, Gossip d4), if just to provide assistance when gathering rumors. Some pairs might be set up to diversity a skill set – for example, a high-Mind, low Body character might pair up with a low Mind, high Body character, in case they run into some violent trouble. And speaking of trouble….

“Two Guys Rush In” — the Quick Combat Scene

Some characters may not find anything interesting; their lack of progress might be shown with a quick interlude in a cut-scene … or even more quickly, glossed over with a quote. (“Yeah, we checked out the south side, there was nothing there.”) On the other hand, the real lead might run into some trouble, such as a fight. Action stories are full of little encounters where one hero gets roughed up by two guards while “casing” out a place. A quick fight also reminds the audience (and your Players) that the world is a dangerous place.

In many role-playing games, the Host and the Players often don’t want to start a fight because, sadly, in many games a “fight” is a two-hour-plus war-game of setting up a map, accounting for rosters and hit points, moving pieces around a battlefield, etc. If the party is split up, this can mean that only half the Players are “doing something” – that is, fighting the fight – while the other half just watch.

Ironclaw helps you keep the drama high with its quick and dynamic combat system. If two Player Characters get discovered snooping around, the Game Host can tell them they encounter two surly thugs at Near Range. Roll initiative! Remember that the combatants who start the fight act first – only a Focus can interrupt an attacker. Without a proper leader, most combatants won’t be able to take more than one hit before becoming Afraid and fleeing the scene. (In fact, beating up a thug can be a lead in itself, if the players chase after him, using Shadowing and the like – see the Spot Rules for more details.)

“You’re Not There!” — Table Talk and Character Knowledge

With Ironclaw, when the party is split up, naturally the characters can’t communicate with each other … or even see what each other are doing. However, if the Players are still in the same room, they will be strongly tempted to yell advice to one another. There are two schools of thought on the best way to play this.

One is to split the Players, physically, into two rooms. The Host games out what’s going on with one group of Players, while the other group waits their turn. The other-room strategy can build up dramatic tension, as each Player wonders exactly what is happening with their unseen comrades. However, the other room requires some logistic planning — namely, a soundproof wall between you and them – and it can be boring if it goes on too long.

Another way is to keep all the Players at the same table, with the assumption that the Players can’t really know what’s going on now … but they will most likely rendezvous later and be brought up to speed on what happened.

When Characters are physically separated, but the Players are not, you may have “table talk” – Players giving advice to other players, even when there’s no clear way their Characters could be communicating like this.

Some Game Hosts don’t mind table talk. After all, in the context of the game, the characters hang out with each other for hours, days, or even weeks at a time. They could easily have gotten to know each other and to have talked about how to handle dangerous situations. Table talk could represent a character’s advice. … Some table talk can be a bit much, though. Very specific advice, such as whether emeralds are red or blue, might be a bit much for some Hosts to handle.

When you’re the Game Host, we recommend that you use the method that you think works best for the time. Try splitting the players into other rooms one time … another time, caution them against table talk.

Getting Messages to Each Other

In Ironclaw, there’s no telephone service. Getting messages to people will be difficult, and often a source of dramatic tension. (“Why isn’t Hendrick here? Did something happen to him?”) Larger cities will have lots and lots of people with the career of Messenger, usually called a page. For one or two orichalks, a page can deliver a verbal or written message to anyone else in the city, and with their Skills and Local Knowledge, they can get there pretty fast. Naturally, the fastest pages are the sky folk: Bats, Ravens, and Sparrows.

When your Player Characters hit the big time and have purses in excess of 50 Ð, you should encourage them to use pages when they have to send quick messages to each other. It’s cheap and easy. It reinforces the genre. (“Hey, it’s a fantasy world!”) And when your players get split up in the wilderness, it reminds the Players when they’re no longer in the civilized world.

Keep it Quick, Keep it Simple, Keep it Fun!

Most Game Hosts have no problem running a combat, with the Game Host setting up the battlefield and then going round the table, asking each Player in turn to do something every six seconds of game-time. If you think of party splits the same way – with the Game Host setting up the rendezvous when the party will re-join, then going around the table and asking each Player in turn what they will do over the next three or four ours of game time – you should be able to handle a party split in no time at all.