The start of the jam is almost upon us. Time to throw mud at the wall! What are your ideas when confronted with the theme: Never Split the Party! For myself, the most obvious paths to take are either:
- Encouraging a party not to split
- Forcing the party to split up
Sidenote: maybe the partymembers could split? like they are oozes or something?
There's a lot of examples in video games where either path is take. It Takes Two is a famous example where 2 players often have to take their own path with their own challenges. Chained together is another duet game where the opposite happens: both players are stuck to eachother! The challenges from either scenario can have interesting implications for a TTRPG scenario:
- AOE attacks change in effectiveness
- Kidnapping partymembers changes in impact
- Spreading hazards, like fires, threaten split parties differently
- Environmental shift might permanently split the party or huddle them up
I think having these kinds of effects could affect player agency. I like providing advantages to players for the behaviour I want to encourage, and find that often prevents them from feeling railroaded. Food for thought!
Let's hear your ideas :)