This article won’t be very helpful to readers who are visually-impaired. I apologize for that, I know I have at least one reader who falls into that category. Maybe if you could get someone to describe the diagrams to you…? I tried including such descriptions, but found that the meaning of the article became buried. If I think of a better approach to this problem, this article will be revised accordingly, without notice.

It’s long been accepted game wisdom that you don’t split up the party. Lately in the Adventurer’s Club campaign, our plot structures have evolved in such a way that we do so regularly without significant concern, and I thought I would share with you this wonder-structure in today’s article.

Writing The Personal Subplots

It starts with a series of personal subplots – one per adventurer (i.e. per PC). These are outlined in paragraph form and then subdivided into a roughly equal number of parts. One or more of these subplots may lead into the main adventure, which brings the PCs back together, or the subplots might simply define the context. These are normally limited or even interrupted to keep the spotlight moving from PC to PC – 3-to-5 minutes is normal, 10 minutes is the absolute maximum. On rare occasions, we may employ a 1-minute window and keep jumping back to that character at the end of each other segment, so that’s the minimum.

There is a factor that needs to be taking into consideration in assigning these timings. We have 5 players, so a three minute window for play equates to 3x(5-1)=12 minutes in which the player may be doing nothing while waiting for his turn in the spotlight to return. Add two minutes to that, and you get 20 minutes.

We encourage vicarious participation by the players – if one of them has a suggestion, it’s up to the ‘focal player’ whether he “hears” it or not – as a way of filling those gaps – and our players have learned the hard way that we often drop hints and clues in these vignettes. Furthermore, because the PCs spend a lot of time in each other’s company (the main plot) and are often mutually-dependent at such times, what affects one group member in a vignette often has domino-effects, ripples, or splash-effects on the rest.

Our experience has been that a ten-to-fifteen minute gap between turns under the spotlight is a sufficiently-rapid rotation that it keeps the players interested and doesn’t leave enough time for them to forget the details of what was happening the last time we looked in on their characters. And it’s worth noting that we only go to the longer windows when the importance, the relevance, of what is going on is (or should be) blatantly obvious to the players.

Some scenes occasionally end up running over-time, but the objective is to keep that spotlight moving. If a player has an elaborate plan to put in place, they should write it down when the spotlight is off them!

While these character sup-plots are usually standalone, they can connect with each other to form a broader secondary narrative spanning many adventures. Characters can recur, slowly building up a “personal space” for each of the characters to occupy.

When it comes time to flesh out the sections of the character subplots, our preferred technique most of the time is to write the complete subplot, in however many parts for a single character, all in one sequence, then progress to the next PC, and so on.

So at this point, we have this:

Plot Structure 1
Note that these are a metaphoric representation of the adventure, everything is actually written in a list/paragraph format, as described in other articles.

The red boxes were pre-done and the blue arrows indicate the writing sequence. By employing a consistent format throughout, line counts that are approximately equal translate into gameplay that’s approximately equal.

Of course, sometimes things don’t line up this neatly; because we are careful only to break at dramatic, cliffhanger moments, or when the PC is about to spend a lot of time doing nothing of any significance, sometimes a PC might get 6 shorter parts or 4 longer ones.

It’s also important to note that the ambition is to have the total playing time devoted to each PC work out approximately evenly – so if one plotline breaks naturally into four parts and another into six parts, that simply means that the six-part plotline’s parts have to be written in such a manner that they are shorter. If necessary, we will hand-wave inconsequential parts of the plotline, permitting characters to have acted “off-camera”.

Sequencing The Personal Subplots

The plan is that each player will deal with his subplot for 2, 3, 4, or even 5 minutes in extreme cases, before we move on to the next. With an average around the 3.5 minute mark, and 5 PCs, a block of 5 parts translates to roughly 17.5 minutes per part – so, if there are 4 parts to each, that’s about 1 hr 10 of play, if 5 (as shown), it’s about 1.5 hrs play, and if six, about 1 and 3/4 hours.

We then spend a bit of time working out the ideal progression – which PC goes first, which second, and so on. Depending on the pacing, dramatic effect, and content of each part, this order can vary from row to row. We’re also not afraid to link events in one part with events in another, either through explicit reference or by shared interaction.

Where events in successive parts are closely linked in time, we find that bringing them closer together in the sequence has a psychological impact that helps maintain that sense of pace. Where there is a bigger time-gap, putting a bigger interval between parts helps convey the impression of time having passed.

If I adjust the diagram to show the sequence in which these might get played, the results might look something like this:

Plot Structure 2

The first couple of rows gives the sequence A1, B1, C1, E1, D1, E2, A2, B2, C2, D2. The sequence has clearly been manipulated to E1 and E2 closer together. Things get a little more complicated in the third line, where the sequence runs E3, C3, D3, A3, B3 – which means that C2 and C3 are close together, as are D2 and D3 – though slightly less so than the E1-E2 proximity. This can also be viewed as increasing the interval between A2-A3 and B2-B3. The fourth row also brings A4 and B4 closer to A3 and B3 respectively. At the same time, E3 and E4 are about as far apart as we can get them, and D4 is almost as far removed from D3.

It’s also worth noting that even though A1 started the adventure, it is A5 that leads to the main adventure. If we were doing this “for real”, the A plotline would be the last one we worked on for that very reason.

Writing them in logical sequence by character makes continuity and plot flow smooth; playing them in this sort of modified round-robin sequence gives each character equal screen time while maximizing the dramatic elements within each plotline.

Similarly, if it becomes necessary or simply likely during the main adventure, we can employ the same technique to split the party into multiple concurrent plotlines. Quite often, we won’t know which PCs will be doing what, only that collectively, they have to be in two or three or more places at once.

Using Player Knowledge as Character Knowledge

You can use this structure for character A to get a clue as to what’s going on in their plotline from what’s happening to character B. This is achieved by conducting all these subplots at the gaming table, in full earshot of the other characters. Rather than let the game stall, we are also reasonably happy for players who are not involved to kibitz, or make suggestions – or, sometimes, share a joke at the featured PCs expense, as suggested earlier!

Not Always

When we feel that the circumstances warrant, we may skip the personal plotlines and go directly to the main action, and – on one occasion – we had personal plotlines occurring in between parts 1 and 2 of the main plot (because we wanted to give the impression at the end of part 1 that the adventure was over). Setting them slightly asychnronous relative to the each other on the campaign timeline means that if one PC wants to consult or involve another, that can usually be accommodated, as well.

Our plot structures are dynamic, and we freely manipulate them in the service of giving the players the best fun that we can. And we try hard not to be predictable!