[Pirates of Drinax] Splitting the Party?

[Putraack]

My game of this is currently on hiatus, but I was thinking about it some last night. Neither my group nor myself is used to Traveller games, and I wonder if the times that we ended up "splitting the party" drained off a little of the mood at the table. At one point, 1 PC took a scout and headed into the Imperium to do some negotiating, 2 PCs went recruiting, and 2 more stayed behind to repair and renovate ships and bases. These activities took about 10 months game time, and there was a bit of time for them to sit while I worked with one player at a time, and a bunch of things that were left to between-session emails.

I'm currently musing about the idea of restarting, with the up-front statement that the group will spend some time split up, and that players may want more than one PC, so that "adventure" can happen where one group or another might be. A bunch of the planning and calculating should be done away from the table by email. I suspect a lot of that may fall to 1-2 players, with the others along for the ride. I've done that in other games, so I'm surprised it took so long for me to make the connection to Drinax.

Thoughts? Is splitting up to different stars a common thing in Traveller, and I just didn't know or notice it?

 

[Ifandbut]

I'm still new to Traveller and GMing RPGs in general, but as a general rule I say that if the party is going to be split for more then a game-day or 2 then just fast forward things. Do one or 2 dice rolls for the major decisions that come up then hand wave everything else.

The only time when splitting the party is really important is when one group is sneaking into a secure facility or the group is in a "dungeon" and a trap or something goes off and forces them to work independently or find a way to get back together.

 

[Dagrill]

My game of this is currently on hiatus, but I was thinking about it some last night. Neither my group nor myself is used to Traveller games, and I wonder if the times that we ended up "splitting the party" drained off a little of the mood at the table.

Thoughts? Is splitting up to different stars a common thing in Traveller, and I just didn't know or notice it?

What I tend to do is give the other players positions in the crew of the ship that goes off and play each element independently, so as to keep them involved, but I have a fairly small group anyway.

Regards

David

 

[DickNervous]

I thought the first rule of role playing, as a player, was "NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY!" Every time I have ever done that it has not ended well..... so I would probably kill them all. :rofl:

But seriously, in that situation it almost becomes like running 2 small groups.