They split the party! OH NOOOoooooooooo!

Well, “don’t split the party” is actually one of the old-guard adages I completely disagree with. If the ranger isn’t scouting ahead and foraging for food, why do you have a ranger? If two things need done at the same time, why not split up? The dungeon master — at least, when I’m the Dungeon Master — isn’t the enemy of the party. The DM is the person setting the difficulty and running the world. It’s that person’s job to make the game playable and to balance the two different cameras, so to speak. Split up? Ok, the enemies have fewer hit-points, or they patrol in fewer numbers, or the rest of the party is close enough to hear the commotion and can get there in (say) two rounds. When it makes sense to split up, do it.

Hell, my current party’s ranger split off with the party to escort an NPC safely home. It was trivial to have a different character meet up with them in town so that he had a place at the table still. It literally made zero since for his ranger not to offer to escort the NPC in the given situation, and that character will catch back up soon(tm).

I’m also never afraid of contriving means of quick (at the table, not necessarily narratively fast) transportation to get people regrouped if they suddenly realize that splitting the party wasn’t helpful the way they thought it would be. I see my role as a DM to be more of a lubricant to the story rather than someone imposing arcane rules and cackling over the charred corpses of people who disobey rules like “Don’t Split The Party,” which, frankly, I don’t see written down in the PHB.

New Job

My new job as a delivery driver is really nice. My afternoons consist of driving around town and listening to music. I also get paid more in tips than I *ever* made as a teacher, so I’ll be able to invest in my own comic again, which will be super nice. I work in the early afternoons though, so that means the comic will now routinely be updating on Monday in the late afternoon / early evening, since Zach’s art schedule can’t really change to suit my work schedule.

Kickstarter

I did a test print of the paper minis for our patrons. Those came out decently, and I’ll be sending final files to the printer later tonight. Zach is still illustrating monsters, and has (I think) two left. After that, we have some dungeon maps to create, and then I’ll finally be able to ship these babies out. It will feel amazing. 🙂