Dungeons And Dragons: 10 Essential Tips For New Players
1. Don't Split The Party
Like a holy scripture engraved on the walls of every D&D forum in existence, this commandment is universal, but especially important for unexperienced players:
DON’T SPLIT THE PARTY.
These blasphemous splits occur when certain characters within a party decide they want to do one thing, whilst another group wishes to do something else entirely. This can be a common dispute, but should never go as far as resulting in a party split.
Not every character will be involved in every D&D interaction, of course, and sometimes parties will divide for short periods of time. For example, perhaps the stronger builds in the group will march into combat head-on, allowing for the stealthier members to sneak around the battlefield and organise a flank.
This sort of thing is fine, but splitting the party occurs when two or more groups go galivanting off on entirely different ventures and therefore have to divvy the DM’s attention. This can lead to sessions where one group is completely uninvolved for hours at a time, or even lead to the games being split to separate nights, ruining a large part of the social aspect of D&D.
Splitting the party is an organisational nightmare and is almost never worth it. Much like “that guy,” it’s best to be avoided.