So those of us who are TTRPG players, we've all come across the notion to "split the party" at some point. As a DM I've never outright warned my players that nothing good comes from this, but rather let them learn lessons on their own. I've only once seen splitting the party succeed and that must have been due to divine intervention... (me).
Anyway the best/worst story of splitting the party happened to be one of the games I was running as DM. Two thieves decided to scout ahead of the party, and during which the mage decided to go invisible and walk down a side corridor of the cave they were exploring. At the end of the main tunnel the thieves discovered a darkened cave/room that seemed immense. I had them both roll their hide/sneak rolls and an extra roll I didn't tell them why, both of them failed that roll.
Back to the main party, suddenly the walls on either side of them opened up and disgorged a horde of undead of various levels. The thieves had unwittingly tripped a pressure plate that set off this trap. It was designed to trap the PC's in the big room ahead but instead they were quickly overwhelmed and surrounded by ravenous undead. The fight there lasted about 10 minutes, but everyone was killed except the two thieves ahead of the group who could hear the fighting but were too chicken to help out. As soon as the undead horde was finished feasting on the main party they started down the main tunnel towards the thieves who took off running, abandoning all pretense of stealth.
One more failed detect traps roll later and they'd triggered another pressure plate that lit up the dark room, revealing a chasm stretching across the middle about 100 feet wide and out of the chasm rose a tri-headed dragon. Roasted thieves was on the menu...
So that left the mage, who was blissfully unaware of anything happening as he was partially deaf. He wandered down the side passage to a small glass encased room which happened to be the dungeon control room. From there he could observe the entire dungeon, open pits and spring traps... basically do whatever the hell he wanted. Didn't help that he was already neutral evil to begin with, and he waited in the room until he spied the main badguy, activated some traps and watched him die. Then set himself up as the new ruler of the mountain.
So he survived, but the party and adventure were done with and that character retired to his dungeon of doom.
So what split the party stories do you guys have?
Anyway the best/worst story of splitting the party happened to be one of the games I was running as DM. Two thieves decided to scout ahead of the party, and during which the mage decided to go invisible and walk down a side corridor of the cave they were exploring. At the end of the main tunnel the thieves discovered a darkened cave/room that seemed immense. I had them both roll their hide/sneak rolls and an extra roll I didn't tell them why, both of them failed that roll.
Back to the main party, suddenly the walls on either side of them opened up and disgorged a horde of undead of various levels. The thieves had unwittingly tripped a pressure plate that set off this trap. It was designed to trap the PC's in the big room ahead but instead they were quickly overwhelmed and surrounded by ravenous undead. The fight there lasted about 10 minutes, but everyone was killed except the two thieves ahead of the group who could hear the fighting but were too chicken to help out. As soon as the undead horde was finished feasting on the main party they started down the main tunnel towards the thieves who took off running, abandoning all pretense of stealth.
One more failed detect traps roll later and they'd triggered another pressure plate that lit up the dark room, revealing a chasm stretching across the middle about 100 feet wide and out of the chasm rose a tri-headed dragon. Roasted thieves was on the menu...
So that left the mage, who was blissfully unaware of anything happening as he was partially deaf. He wandered down the side passage to a small glass encased room which happened to be the dungeon control room. From there he could observe the entire dungeon, open pits and spring traps... basically do whatever the hell he wanted. Didn't help that he was already neutral evil to begin with, and he waited in the room until he spied the main badguy, activated some traps and watched him die. Then set himself up as the new ruler of the mountain.
So he survived, but the party and adventure were done with and that character retired to his dungeon of doom.
So what split the party stories do you guys have?