Post/Author/DateTime	Post
wother 04-19-04, 01:29 PM	alrighty then, long time no see from all you folks... gotta love it... anyhoo right to the question/problem/situation at hand... I am a realativly experienced DM. 7 years isn't anything to scoff at, then again I still haven't seen it all... for instance: I am about to start a campagn with 10-14 players. I am used to a group of 2-5. You see my dilema? I am asking for advise, tips, warnings, anything that might help me run this as smooth as possible. I already have a co-DM (my friend) that offered to help, so I accepted. most of the players are new to the game/genera so I will be teaching alot... Last but not least, I can't spell, so lay off... Wother (but you knew that...)
danielinthewolvesden 04-19-04, 01:41 PM	One word- Don't. The noise level, boredom, and the cross talking will make the game a nitemare. You have a Co-DM? Have two games. In a large game do have a board or something where you can put cards or something so that all the players can see where their initiatives are. This way they'll know who's next, and hopefully start planning. Also, the players will nudge each onther on with this. But really- don't. One of the games I play in is an 8 player game, and it's a bit too much. It's still fun, but with a couple more players it wouldn't be...
Autosponge 04-19-04, 01:45 PM	If you have new players I'd break up the campaign into two groups. Most DM's wouldn't try this with experienced players, much less with all the chatter about rules and characters from the newbies. You're making a big mistake by going forth with this and the people who will probably suffer most are the new players--not what you want to do.
wother 04-19-04, 01:45 PM	wow... that was fast... thanks. you say don't, I see it like this, they all want to play. I have a feeling that some of them will break off and my friend will end up DMing them anyway, but It will start with all them together. I'm just looking for what works to keep a group that large together.
Roland the Crownbreaker 04-19-04, 01:59 PM	Don't be afraid to pull people aside. Don't allow one person to take all the roleplay time session after session. This means more than one party face. Make sure there are at least 2 divine casters in the party. (if you have 14 people try 3) Otherwise the one will be nothing other than a "healing monkey" and will grow to despise clerics. (being a walking first aid kit is one of the most un-fun things I can imagine. No player know likes it) People who don't have fun tend to leave the game. While you might intend to prune the size of your group a little, it should not be based on players leaving due to bad experiences with a chosen class. Have your players do things in pairs if at all possible. (this works to sharply reduce time spent with only one person "on camera") The group I am in has a total of 10 people. And the DM runs a "DMPC" as well. (we rotate DMs but do not rotate to a different set of characters) We have managed to stay together for 12 years so far. While I am only one of 3 of the original players still there, we never seem to be lacking for replacements. (we seem to have a waiting list of people who want to play) My DM must be doing something right............ (on an end note, it is difficult to run for large groups if you never have before. I doubt I could run easily for a small group, as I have always dealt with large ones......)
newbDM 04-19-04, 02:06 PM	We used to group like this every saturday ... 14 people soemtimes as low as ten but mainly 14... We had a Co Dm as well, but for the main part it ws okay (We're all old Highschool friends) The coolest thing though when we started was starting the group together with different objectives for each group... then spliting them off and having them play against one another. It was the funnest thing for us that we did, as in the end the bad guys turned out to be the other group.. the final combat of the campaign was a huge fight between both sides...was lots of fun... was some arguements but man we still talk about tha today... Though for good roleplaying I agree with the others just don't do it... New players naturally stay quiet, and the loud mouths get all the Roleplaying chances, eventually the Quiet new players turn into nothing more than Combat Machines.
sculyblast 04-19-04, 02:08 PM	I think it is the best not to dm a game with more then 6 players but with such a number of players you can do really great things you know.. If I would have access to that number of players I would make a trifromation of dms (me and two other guys) you can really discus the Campain Idea and have players not being stuck to play by one dm.. like the first Dm says what happens in the temple while the other is handeling the docks destrict of the city It takes a lot of organisation but would be really great but it is only an Idea
Autosponge 04-19-04, 02:27 PM	The main problem with huge parties is that encounters are very deadly for individuals but the party succeeds. Basically, it's like this: 12 lvl 3 characters are a level 3 group, but their actual EL (if they were monsters) is more like 10. So if you throw an ogre at them, they'll generally kill it before it gets an attack. If you throw 3 Ogres at them (1 Ogre for each level 3 party of 4), someone is going to die (because the Ogres will team up on a couple targets who will not be able to take all their damage, plus their reach makes for nasty flanking opportunities and AoO). So the biggest thing you have to prepare for is keeping combat challenging and letting the players know to do so means that front-line fighters will die--often.
hivemind[MVGC] 04-19-04, 02:38 PM	I've been running an every-other-week Forgotten Realms game for over a year now. It started as six players, and rapidly grew to eleven. The group hit epic levels a month ago. I took a session off to ponder what to do. Here''s my problem: You can't run an epic game for more than five or six people and still have time for a life. There's no "epic monster manual". There's a few things in the ELH, but you're going to spend a lot of time advancing monsters, giving monsters class levels, etc. Compound that with the issue of there being no software available to make epic NPCs, and it's a paperwork nightmare. We did OK until they started needing CR40 things to challenge them. Levels 5-16 or so were a lot of fun. I made sure to give one player the spotlight each week, drawing inspiration from the character backgrounds I require them to turn in at the start of play. I'd say go for it, but work towards an endgame where you can slpit the party. That's what I've done. The group split 6-5, and one group meets on Monday nights now, the other group meets on Tuesdays, still every other week. The Monday night group heads north to fight off the Tanarukk invasion led by the Tanarukk Paragon, and the Tuesday group is headed to Thay to recover piece #3 of an ancient artifact (levels 10-20 consisted of them recovering the first two pieces, one from a big green dragon, another from Undermountain). The 4th piece is held by said Tanarukk Paragon, which will lead later to a nice reunion session where they can all come together again and tell each other about their adventures. Then I'll find a way to split them again.
danielinthewolvesden 04-19-04, 06:09 PM	Originally posted by wother wow... that was fast... thanks. you say don't, I see it like this, they all want to play. I have a feeling that some of them will break off and my friend will end up DMing them anyway, but It will start with all them together. I'm just looking for what works to keep a group that large together. True- some may well leave, and then you'll have a smaller game. But the wrong ones might leave.:b:
Steelwill 04-19-04, 07:37 PM	I would definitely recommend that you do not run this group at this size. It is beyond unwieldy, and will result in nothing but regret and dissapointing gaming. I attempted to run a group that was 13 people. It turned into a nightmare and lead to the demise of that gaming group. It can be difficult to coordinate 4-5 people...well double the people, double the agony. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough that its a bad idea to try to run a group so large. Do yourself and the group a favor, and split them into 2 separate groups. You'll be glad later. My 2 cents, hope it helps.
MoogleEmpMog 04-19-04, 07:55 PM	It depends on what you want to do with the game. If you want to run a roleplay-intensive campaign with 14 people new to pen-and-paper RPGs... good luck. On the other hand, 14 PCs makes for a nice squad size for a 'tactical' game. It won't work for every group, but my advice would be to run a military-based campaign. My inclination would be to use d20 Modern, but D&D works just as well. You and the co-DM run DMPCs, who will be the 'officers' of this unit (perhaps one could be a religious official or political officer, the other the noble or military officer). Your campaign then revolves around the PC squad's missions against other military-style units. Combat won't be nearly as deadly, since your PCs will mostly be facing similarly-sized groups of properly challenging humanoids. Of course, each player in your group will have his own specialization - the medic or cleric, the scout or rogue, the brawler or barbarian, and so on - and the officers, playing it smart, will call upon each to do his thing at different times during the campaign (thus allowing each player a chance to shine in or out of combat). As the campaign progresses, add in more and more roleplaying to go with the rollplaying (and don't neglect roleplaying while in a combat situation - involve your players in the drama as well as the dice). Eventually, you may want to split the group, but you may find that this system works extremely well and stick with it. The best part is, it gives the DMPCs an in-game reason to take leadership roles and gives the DMs an excuse to teach the other players the game, both rollplaying and roleplaying. (I do agree that you need multiple clerics, druids or bards, though)
astute1 04-20-04, 09:57 AM	I wouldn't bother, it's not worth the aggravation you're going to feel. My last campaign went from 6, to 8, to 10, and back down to 6, and finally now, to 4. And with 4, it's the best. Everyone feels like they have an impact, there's no 3 hour fights with one monster, and it cuts down cross talk and wasted time by a lot. My next campaign I'm putting a cap at 6 players, and I'm trying to cut the number down to 4 (without insulting any of my friends!) Trust me, small parties = better. We've even found that three and two person parties play really well, compared to 6.
zaymot 04-20-04, 12:16 PM	Speaking from personal experience here, I would say it all depends on you and your ability to maintain control of the campaign and situations. I have been a DM/GM for over 14 years now and in Germany I had a group that ranged from 8 - 12 players. When you get into larger groups you just have to work a bit harder. Having the ability to "multi-task" and listen to several conversations at the same time helps. In one campaign I have 9 players and they ended up splitting into two groups when they decided to tackle two objectives at the same time. Now that was difficult to run without the other players getting bored. Here is what I personally do to prepare and effective run large groups. 1) Ensure that my multi-tasking abilities are up to par (Trained by reading a book, driving a car and talking on a cell phone...just an example, please DO NOT try this yourself). 2) Give all your players a 6X9 index card for them to jot down what their character(s) will do on their initiative. Do not hold up the initiative because a player does not know what they will do. If they do not know, they lose their turn that round. 3) Be sure that you as a DM follow Step 2 as well. Its not good for a DM to not follow their own rules. 4) Make sure the entire game sessions is not based entirely on one character, unless the other players are having fun watching and listening. I did have one game session (about 4 hours worth) that was all centered on one character and the rest of the group (8 other players) LOVED IT!! 5) Try your best to listen to all IC conversations. If you have trouble doing this, ask your players to try and take turns so you can give them all your full attention. I can listen to 3 conversations at once without to much difficulty. 6) As it has already been stated here, try to keep the party together as much as possible but if their characters do need to do something that the rest do not want to (i.e. casters need spell components, tanks need armor and weapons, clerics need to visit their churches, etc), try to make sure there is more then one character going. 7) Try to have everything pre-planned. I don't mean have a set script and do not allow your players any room to make changes but you shoudl have all your "pre-determined" encounters completed and ready to go so there is not looking for information through out the books. 8) Ensure all your players have all their character(s) information readily available to them since they should not be looking through books as well. I hope this helps you. As I said before, it all depends on what you feel you can handle. If you want to try it, go for it but make sure your group understands that you have never run a group of this size. That way they can be understanding and might offer you some help. In any case, good luck and may the fates smile upon you and your group. Zaymot
wother 04-21-04, 01:54 PM	thank you for all your sound advice... I thank you all. There is hope, the 14+ group downsized to a 7-10 group... I am happy. my co-DM and I are looking forward to starting Saturday... wish me luck. Wother (but you knew that...)
Brand Finbuck 04-21-04, 09:34 PM	Honestly I dislike DMing more than three dedicated players. It's too hard to focus storyline attention on more than three. Things tend to slow down, cross-talking boosts, roleplaying declines. People get out of character. Now the most I've ever DMed was 9 at a time, and it wasn't too bad. It does require an alteration to how you approach the game, and it also requires bigger encounters (and sometimes bigger than just double, as ranged attacks will crush more monsters before contact than you might think).
Dragonsbane1313 04-21-04, 10:08 PM	Ok, I was too impatient to read the other replies in this thread, bo I dont know if someone has said this but..... As a DM with a lot of players myself, and as a player in another large group (with 10 people), something that works really well is that my DM and I use/create adventures that make situations where the part could split up. Some people dont agree with splitting up, but I dont mind at all.
Quenditar 04-21-04, 11:00 PM	My current group is 9-12 PCs - some people play more than one (the first one was a good idea, then it snowballed; this is a BAD precedent). It's very hard to manage, and I have to applaud the valiant DMs who have dealt with this mess. Anyhow, tips: 1. For encounters, don't use one large monster. Use multiple weaker (but not too much weaker) ones. One large monster could be beyond the PCs' abilities even if the CR is right. 2. Strictness on initiative depends on how tight a ship you're running. Battles are going to be long no matter what. If your players are honest, let them pre-roll their attacks and damage. It saves a lot of time. 3. Remember to insert a fudge factor for group inexperience/stupidity/random weirdness. Our group wasn't as strong as the numbers indicate because it was ill-coordinated and many of the PCs were ill-made. When your best ranged threats are an enchanter sorcerer and a cleric, you have problems (okay, that was because the evocation-happy wizard had been turned into a rat earlier that session - IC and OOC vendetta, long story).