Post/Author/DateTime	Post
karga909 09-13-06, 12:48 PM	Our group has recently been faced with the wonderful advantage of having a lot of players. A LOT. Specifically, we had a regular group of 1 DM and 6 players, and we felt really lucky for that. But we've got about 6 other players of varying experience who have heard about us and are banging down the doors to play! 8 players might be ok, but no way for 12. Two experienced DMs have thought about letting everyone come and running a campaign with 2 DMs, where the players are split up most the time into 2 groups. Has anyone done this? Any hints, any ideas, any comments at all? Any thoughts would be welcome on how to pull this off and have it be fun for everyone involved.
cmnossaw 09-13-06, 01:20 PM	I have never played in a group with more than 5 + 1 (DM). but that may change in the future. We tried a 2 DM thing when we had 5 players 2 DMs but you eventualy get the DMs clashing about how the campaign should turn out... should this boss die here, should this princess be evil or good...yadayadayada. in our group one DM made the storyline and ran NPC encounters. then other just concentrated on fights and whiped our butts all the time >_< but it was a new exp, although a failed one. What you could do is run a HIGH turnout game (people die left and right) that would make it even out in the end, you cant play kid gloves with 12 players >_> ever.
Molydeus 09-13-06, 01:37 PM	I once had a game where I was DM and I ran about 9-10 players. The extroverted ones ended up playing and the introverted ones were there to tell me what they did in combat (which was usually just "i hit the closest one"). Its a horrible idea to have too many players, but how was I supposed to say no to somebody who wanted to play D&D with me? If the DM is willing, he should spilt the group in two and run both games himself on different days, and then for special events have the two groups run into each other or perhaps interact with each other somehow. Its fun for everybody when they can write letters to other players or come across evidence in the game from players in the other group. That makes it all the more fun when the two groups finally come together to defeat the evil dragon they have been separately trying to find.
Bulletproof_Condom 09-13-06, 02:41 PM	Any hints, any ideas, any comments at all? Any thoughts would be welcome on how to pull this off and have it be fun for everyone involved. The double-sided dungeon crawl. Set it up so that Party A and Party B enter opposite ends of the same dungeon at the same time, see who gets to the powerful item of legend in the center first. Then when they both get there and start arguing over the item, hit 'em with a giant boss fight. Try to figure what would be appropriate for a dozen powerful adventurers. How about an ogre swarm? Ooh, ooh, I know. An ettin fighter. Two DMs, two heads, fun roleplay.
Yaeri 09-13-06, 05:07 PM	Ooh, ooh, I know. An ettin fighter. Two DMs, two heads, fun roleplay. :) :D Genius!
Jacilla 09-13-06, 07:16 PM	Our group has recently been faced with the wonderful advantage of having a lot of players. A LOT. Specifically, we had a regular group of 1 DM and 6 players, and we felt really lucky for that. But we've got about 6 other players of varying experience who have heard about us and are banging down the doors to play! 8 players might be ok, but no way for 12. Two experienced DMs have thought about letting everyone come and running a campaign with 2 DMs, where the players are split up most the time into 2 groups. Has anyone done this? Any hints, any ideas, any comments at all? Any thoughts would be welcome on how to pull this off and have it be fun for everyone involved. Been there, done that. Although I only had 11 players. I had a DM assistant who would run part "2" of the adventure I'd planned. We did a lot of different things, like having one group approach underground while the other came in through the front door or spilting up the band of bad guys and having the ranger in each track the separate baddies instead of letting one set of (they were hobgoblins) baddies get away. How many times has someone wanted to go left, when another wanted to go right? With the 2 DMs this is possible and with that many players there's not so much of a chance that the PC's running off in another direction will end up dead, or that one part of the group sits idly by while the other is being DMed. It's a little more work for the primary DM but not impossible (just remember to increase the BBEG's stats as the group increases in level or the 2nd DM will really be in a fix when it's attacked by more powerful PC's but DM2 knows the BBEG needs to survive the battle, yes, I did that, my bad). After the inital exploration we always had the entire group meet 'in the middle' for a huge end session battle. A few hints for making the game run smoother; first, keep ooc chatter to a minimum. Secondly, find a way to get everyone's attention when they get out of hand (I used a whistle, after a while all I had to do was pick it up and everyone stopped talking : ) ). In battle we used the 'on deck' method ie; when one PC's name was called to declare their action, the next one was also called as 'on deck'. They were expected to be figuring out what their next action would be so that when it was their turn they were ready. This really helps moving the battle along quickly (or as quickly as possible with that many people.) Another thing we did, that I often forget to mention is having an experienced player helping out the inexperienced ones. This prevents the "which die do I roll?" type questions as the oldbie just shoved the proper die in front of the newbie and said "roll this." Another thing that comes to mind is that I made it clear to all the players before hand that with a large group the game, especially battle, would move more slowly and asked that they all commit to a slower running game. Oh, and when they were doing the 'in town gathering information' thing I'd sometimes have them roll initiative too, just to be sure that everyone got a turn asking the questions or whatever that were important to them. Kept the 'louder' players from outshinning the quiet ones. It can be fun, but it's also exhausting, so be prepared for a good nights sleep afterward : ) not that that's a bad thing. Good luck.
Lord_Varos 09-13-06, 07:54 PM	My advice, having participated in such a campaign: Watch, watch, *watch*, your time compression and expansion. One DM cannot, for instance, say, "Okay, eight hours pass and you wake up," unless the other DM is set up for such on his own side. And if one group spends a lot of time in combat and one does not, then the less-combat party will advance time faster than the more-combat party. Also, such groups work best when at odds, or at least non-cooperative. The game gets easier if one group has spells, items, and support from the other, no matter how seemingly small the help is. One good way to ensure this doesn't happen is to make the groups' alignments bad together. For example, an (average-ly) Chaotic Good party does not work well with a Lawful Neutral group, or even a Lawful Good one if they stress the Lawful-Chaotic axis.
PortapottyPunk 09-13-06, 08:16 PM	I'd have to say that the best tip is to practice using co-operative play before hand so that they can get used to co-DMing
melak 09-13-06, 08:29 PM	excellent idea i did it once one thing i would suggest is agree on scenery and events way before hand at least the ones both DMs will be using because if there is a discrepency there it will be bad and kind of take away from the being in another world feeling.
scout989 09-13-06, 08:43 PM	My advice from experience: Have a DM and a DMs helper, not two DMs. The helper can, as was mentioned above, run part of the game when the party splits (or whatever), but unless both DMs are extremely good at working together, the campaign will suffer from having two of them. After all, the DM is god- and how many gods like another god horning in on their territory, anyway? ;)
Jacilla 09-14-06, 03:41 AM	After reading some of the subsequent replies to this thread I'm thinking I didn't stress enough that I made the adventure, the whole thing, keeping in mind that there would be two groups most of the time. This included mapping dungeons and writing up encounters. I'd then give the DM helper the material he needed to run his part of the adventure. Which is why he one time, and only one time, ended up with stats for the BBEG that hadn't been leveled up. Just thought I'd add that during the grande finale battle he'd keep track of initiative and monster health while I did the descriptive phrasing, ran the monsters attacks and kept an eye on the battle map.
Andrew_980 09-14-06, 03:06 PM	What i have seen done fairly successfully is to have one Dm and the other help keep track of numbers in combat, since that is where it bogs down the most. The DM make the combat decisions and rolls, the helper tallies modifiers and writes em down, lets the DM know when the monster drops, and looks up rules.
Sinner6 09-19-06, 03:15 PM	I once had a game where I was DM and I ran about 9-10 players. The extroverted ones ended up playing and the introverted ones were there to tell me what they did in combat (which was usually just "i hit the closest one"). Yup that was my experiance as a player in a large, 15 or so, group. Let me set up the situation, college, a group with around 5 complete newbs first campaign ever, 5 introverts who NEVER talked, 5 ultra powergamers. After about 3-4 hours of the power gamers, hogging the DMs attention like needy two year olds begging for this or that magic item, we finally left town ( one poor newb introvert didn't even buy food rations, the DM then decided he was to busy to track food so that it was on your honor, a few of the power gamers the instantly erased the rations off their character sheet and put the gold back on) to go track down some orcs or something. We traveled for a half day and setup camp. I ( a halfling rouge ) was hit ( and critted ) by a goblin in a surprise attack. "Down goes fraiser!" Fine that is no big deal, I went grab a candy bar having missed supper. I get back 15 minutes later, combat is still going on but my character was stopped from bleeding to death but is still out cold for the rest of combat. I say "no prob" and go upstairs (we were in the activity room of dorms) to talk to a girl. I lose track of time and come back downstairs TWO HOURS LATER. Combat hadn't ended yet! For some reason I never gamed with that group again. The DM did as well as he could but group that large without help that size of group is unmanageable. I think a co-DM or DM helper would have made things 1000% better. Also some sort of ordering system or crib sheets would be required. I tend to be of the mind that ONE DM gets to do the MAIN story stuff and the 2ndary DM is just their to help mechanics ( combat, routine shopping, ... ), and can do lesser story stuff ("specialized" shopping, tracking down local rumors, feeling up local contacts for info, expensive spell compants or perhaps magic item locating ).