Is it possible to play a multi-player game with separated characters? perhaps a forum play by post game. i want to play a role-play driven game and have the characters meet up midgame.
I am using a halfbaked homebrew system spiced up and polished by myself to make the rules easy and still concise sacrificing depth because it will be mostly roleplay
pic unrelated
Sure, but I find it works better if you run one-on-one sessions at another time than with the main group.
Have the player whose PCs aren't present play NPCs, the NPC is important make sure a good roleplayer who's good at taking your hints play them. Anyone can play goofy minions. Make sure you spend ~15 minutes max on one half of the party before doing stuff with the other half.
I once ran a game of five people in which I did a solo adventure for each one before hand. Each adventurer captured an artifact or some intelligence of importance and then where chased by the bad guys into the same building.
The first group game started something like, " player A you crash through the window and the ninjas flood in behind you, player B you breach the ceiling and the mothmen chase you into the building, player C, you're spotted as you stroll through the door and a few patrons stand to surround you. player D your scroll teleports you and the goblins into the packed room. Player E you emerge from the floorboards, the dire moles hot on your heels. You all meet in a tavern roll for initiative."
One on one sessions leading to the meeting is going to be best for what you want to do, imo.
Later on, once the game, tone, and characters are established, I find it easier to allow the party to split and go back and forth between groups, focusing at most 15 minutes before switching back. You do this during a dramatic revelation or time limited encounter, and you can ratchet up dramatic tension something fierce.
>>48303432
The problem with splitting the party in a FtF game is, the DM's basically running two campaigns at once, and half the players are legitimately checking their phones while you run the other half. See: any cyberpunk game and netrunners. If you have someone you can trust to co-DM, so everything's happening at once, it's less of a problem.
Play-by-post avoids this; your only problem is balancing challenges to the size of the smaller sub-party.
>>48303432
>multi-player game with separated characters?
If you feel like making the GM split his attention and time between all the different groups. I've been in games like this where I showed up for like a 7 hour session, but only got to play for 1 hour because every single PC was off doing his own thing in-game.
If split party and everyone is present do it by turns, or just make different sessions
Sometimes my groups splits up. Then we get like, 15 mins before the GM goes "alright, I'll get back to you in a bit" and does the other group.
And this is fine, because we actually care what the other group is doing, so we pay attention.
>>48303432
You can absolutely do that but be prepared for it to fucking CRAWL. If speed isn't an issue, you do you.
>>48310329
This.
But having players control nonhostile npcs when their characters aren't there can help.
As can shadowrun style 24/7 group skype calls, because then the PCs who aren't there can still give advice.
>>48303432
The issue you run into is that when you do anything with one person/group, you're not doing anything with the other people.
I don't mind down-time during a game at all - I can read forums or talk to people or play a handheld game. But some people get bored with waiting and for them, such that spending a large amount of game-time where their character is more or less completely unengaged leaves them not having fun. And since most people play the game for fun, that kinda sucks.
