We’re 25 sessions into the campaign, and with the Battle of Radom being a major milestone, it was time for a meta check-in session.

We’ve introduced a number of secondary PCs – currently, six of my eight players have a secondary character. The original intent was to provide backup options for play when the primary PC is down with injuries, or in case of primary PC death (which we’ve managed to avoid… so far). The cast also has grown with the addition of a number of military/ex-military NPCs who provide useful support or combat capabilities and are usable as “rental” backup characters. All of this worked well for the Radom story arc, as a number of characters wound up injured or in the wrong place. In the long term, though, we can see it causing some complexity issues.

We also have a number of story hooks outside the Ponikla area. Because this campaign may or may not exist in the same continuity as its previous iteration, there’s some player interest in investigating the alleged paranormal goings-on around Krakow. Not all of the PCs have this interest, though. A number have put down roots in Ponikla and are invested in the community’s well-being and ongoing recovery/rebuilding operations in the region.

With the buildup of a plot framework, we’re getting away from the campaign’s original design intent of West Marches-style play. We’re seeing a couple of factors driving this. Because there is plot rather than episodic dungeon-crawls, there’s a tendency to push for inclusive scheduling when everyone can make it. Also, I have not done a great job of seeding the map with dungeon-esque points of interest.

As this post’s title telegraphs, our solution for several of these concerns and interests is to split the party. Six PCs and a small number of NPCs will be heading out into the wilds for an extended expedition (which may well lead into adaptations of the rest of the classic Poland modules: The Free City of Krakow, Pirates of the Vistula, and The Ruins of Warsaw). The rest of the cast will remain in Ponikla. We’ll split our sessions between the expedition team and the Ponikla team as player interest dictates.