Never Split the Party: Difference between revisions

== Comics -- Books ==

* ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' has used this exact phrase occasionally, the most memorable being when they discussed ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' movies.

* One of the early [[DC Comics]] for ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' had a fictional story about aliens transforming into humans. This causes tension within the Mystery Inc. when Fred orders a split up. For once, they '''don't''' split up {{spoiler|As usual for the [[Scooby Doo]] and his friends, the aliens are fake.}}

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The trope gets its name from a joke amongst [[Tabletop Games|tabletop role-players]]:

'''A:''' All of them. '''Never Split the Party!''' }}

* In more dungeon-crawly games, splitting the party screws with the [[Game Master]]'s balance (i.e. two [[Player Characters]] stumbling into a fight tuned for five). Plus nothing spells headaches like a GM trying to run two games at the same time, one on each half of the table. The inverse, [[Let's Split Up, Gang!]], is lampshaded in many RPG groups as "... we can ''take'' more damage that way."

* Wizards of the Coast (the publishers of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'') used this phrase in [http://www.wizards.com/dnd/neversplittheparty/index.asp an advertisement] for ''Dungeons & Dragons'' products.

** The exception is those running ''[[Trinity Universe (game)|Adventure!]]'' who ''love'' it when the party splits up, because dramatic editing rules assure that the split party will rejoin up at exactly the right moment. Chase scene? A car with the rest of the party comes flying out of a side street, sideswipes one of the pursuing cars, and open up tommy-guns on the others. Fight scene? They swing in on a chandelier with sabres! Shoot out? One of the masked gun-men ''is'' the absent member of the party, and the moment the major villain unmasks himself, so too will the "henchman".

* ''[[Mutant City Blues]]'', a low-powered sleuth game, presents an interesting technical reason to keep the party together. When everyone are playing uniformed detectives it's not very easy to conceive of 4+ detectives all working on the same case in the same scene. But the system says that clues on the scene are automatically (or semi-automatically) available only to those with the right skill off the long long list, which is only feasible to 100% cover with the whole party. Therefore, if 2 detectives go one way and 2 other go the other (which would, in real life, make perfect sense), the first group on their scene will automatically miss all the clues tied to the skills of 2 other detectives, and vice versa, possibly rendering even a relatively straightforward case unsolvable.

* ''[[Ico]]'' flat out requires you to be paired with Yorda, because any length of time separate from her allows the shadows [[Damsel in Distress|to take her away]] more easily if you don't fight them, if they take her completely, [[Nonstandard Game Over|the game ends.]]

* Also particularly useful in RTS games, where in some cases splitting your army will lead to certain defeat as you can't concentrate enough firepower in one area.

{{quote|"D.B.U.T.T! Don't break up the team!"}}

** Subverted later. "Sometimes you have to, er, [[Let's Split Up, Gang!|break up the team.]]"

* After awhile, this becomes key in ''[[League of Legends]]'' (and by extension, most MOBA games). Late in the games, the key damage dealers can either insta-gib one champion or unleash massive sustained damage on the entire team if allowed to live. However, they also crumple like paper if caught alone. Being down that champion is a major blow, such that one mistake caused by splitting the party can decide the game.

* While it doesn't enforce it, in [[Metal Gear|metal gear online]] it's a bad idea to split up from a group if you are going to enter combat. If you don't have coordination with the group, then you are a lot more likely to die because the enemy will most likely come in a group when you face them. Unless you are going for a stealth attack, you will always benefit from a team mate or a couple of team mates in combat. In certain areas it lends its self better to split up and sneak rather than stick around for an outright assault.

 

 

== Real Life ==

* This is what the expression "defeat in detail" was invented for. Breaking your forces up into units spread out too far to support each other lets even a numerically inferior force attack your units separately with the advantage of numbers in each encounter.

** Sun Tzu mention this on the sixth chapter of his book ''[[The Art of War]]''. In the moment of ignorence, the enemy force will likely split his army into several units in hopes that they'll cover more ground, but this'll just bring the opportunity for the other side to use his whole army to crush these units one by one.

* And, of course, there's the [[Older Than Feudalism]] military credo, [[Divide and Conquer]].