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Amphetryon
2010-02-21, 03:04 PM
[Casts Begin Stream of Consciousness Rant]
I run a weekly F2F game in a public space, at the request of one of the employees there. One of the conditions for running said game is I'm not to turn away any who show up in a given week to play (or ask any of them to leave unless they're being exceptionally stupid violent). What this means, in practical terms, is that any given week I expect anywhere from eight to fifteen high schoolers to show up for an Eberron campaign with an actual plot, in which some of the regulars are heavily invested. I can point to exactly one player who has made it to every session, out of more than twenty faces that have come and gone in the past couple months.

Players are varying degrees of newbie, from never having played any RPG before to MMORPG-players new to D&D to those that are vaguely familiar enough with the rules to need little guidance in character creation and leveling; I started folks at 500XP to avoid the whole "how are the PCs getting together" conundrum, and everyone has managed to stagger in to 2nd level.

After the second week, I started bringing a few pregenerated characters to each session so that new arrivals have a chance to play the first week they show up. I made no requirements for what classes had to be represented other than via the books allowed, and the party is extraordinarily Fighter-type heavy. Of the more than 20 players I've had, only three have been able to cast CLW, and one of my regulars actually asked to make a new character just so the party could have a Wizard; a second Wizard was added via my pregens the following week. Apparently, the inexperience of the players has them gravitating toward melee-types, to the extent that the player with the aforementioned pregen Wizard made up a TWF combat-monkey when his Wizard died "in order to be a more useful party member." Yes, that was his reasoning.

The last bit there hinted at the tl;dr crux of the issue: It's really challenging to create appropriate level encounters for a variable number of (mostly) inexperienced melee-types whose numbers have ranged from double to triple the presumptive 3.X party size for critter CR. The players are inexperienced enough that none are willing or especially suited to be DM's helper, and splitting the party makes two or more still-too-large groups, one of which is probably lacking an arcane caster and/or any real healing.

Feedback tells me they're all having a good time, and the number of repeat offenders players says I must be doing something right, but each encounter is either a cakewalk or a near TPK, from my vantage point.

Suggestions to improve the situation?

Thrawn183
2010-02-21, 03:16 PM
Well, the best that I can think of off the top of my head is minion type encounters. If the group is taking on "Necromancer X" and his zombies... you can just decide how many zombies to use on the fly based on how many people show up.

Also, match melee with melee, and maybe a little bit of AoE (small stuff like Burning Hands). With the number of PC's you've got sitting down at the table you're going to need a lot of enemies, but you don't want them all to focus fire, or you're going to be dropping at least 1 PC a round. Small AoE's and melee enemies fit this bill pretty well.

You might also want to think about assigning all enemies some scaling DR. Maybe like 1 DR/- per 3 PC's that show up (maybe more, maybe less depending on how well built the characters are), it seems like a quick and easy fix to enemies dropping as a result of eating so many attacks in a round without rendering people useless or trying to guess at just how much to boost monsters' HP.

Glimbur
2010-02-21, 03:18 PM
They'll probably do the best against a lot of smaller creatures that mostly melee, rather than hypothetically CR appropriate baddies that will end up pasting one or two of them before dying horribly. This means really big combats, which are a mess to run. You're probably already doing this.

You could provide an NPC source of healing. I once had a party of a rogue, a totemist, and a warlock. I had them track down a gate to the positive realm and make a pact with a spirit there for healing in exchange for services to be named later. Then after combat I would roll a handful of dice and heal someone by that much. This led to most every combat starting with the PC's at full health, but they ended up in more of a social game anyway so that was fine. You could use a more human solution, but the take-home lesson is that healing doesn't have to come from the PC's if you don't want it to.

tl;dr Goblin tribes, healing laser spirits.

bosssmiley
2010-02-21, 03:38 PM
[Casts Begin Stream of Consciousness Rant]
I run a weekly F2F game in a public space, at the request of one of the employees there. One of the conditions for running said game is I'm not to turn away any who show up in a given week to play (or ask any of them to leave unless they're being exceptionally stupid violent).

That is an unreasonable request to make of a DM in a system-heavy game like WOTC D&D (designed for 4 players + DM).

Attempting to include n+1 people (varying by week) of disparate gaming experience in a single ongoing game will likely only end in tears, tantrums and creator breakdown.

Have you thought of drafting secondary DMs to run casual games for the casual players, or perhaps hiving the more invested regular players off to a separate game?

Or you could switch to a lighter ruleset (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html). Come to the dark side (etc.) :smallwink:

Amphetryon
2010-02-21, 04:32 PM
Well, the best that I can think of off the top of my head is minion type encounters. If the group is taking on "Necromancer X" and his zombies... you can just decide how many zombies to use on the fly based on how many people show up.

Also, match melee with melee, and maybe a little bit of AoE (small stuff like Burning Hands). With the number of PC's you've got sitting down at the table you're going to need a lot of enemies, but you don't want them all to focus fire, or you're going to be dropping at least 1 PC a round. Small AoE's and melee enemies fit this bill pretty well.

You might also want to think about assigning all enemies some scaling DR. Maybe like 1 DR/- per 3 PC's that show up (maybe more, maybe less depending on how well built the characters are), it seems like a quick and easy fix to enemies dropping as a result of eating so many attacks in a round without rendering people useless or trying to guess at just how much to boost monsters' HP.
I am already using a variable minion approach; the 'focus all your firepower on that superstar destroyer' response from the PCs makes them a limited threat, barring crits, and as you've indicated, I can't really call turnabout fair play there, as it leads to piles of PC corpses amongst the honored dead.

I threw a couple of wererats at the party for the DR factor, as well as making them sweat out the next full moon; I'll consider further DR adjustments to my minions as needed.


tl;dr Goblin tribes, healing laser spirits. Tribes of mooks: check. I let one of the first treasure drops include an Eternal Wand of Lesser Vigor, so healing between combats is a very low-priority concern. In combat, every player is clamoring for the party's cleric to simply focus on his band-aid duties, and he seems ok with that so far, even if I chafe at it.


Or you could switch to a lighter ruleset. Come to the dark side (etc.) Keep your dark side cookies, tyvm. I've got too much money sunk into D&D to pick up another system, and the campaign is, as indicated, underway with player investiture.

Touchy
2010-02-21, 04:46 PM
I'd teach the regulars how to DM, swap them around each week to work around a smaller group of players, either in groups of ones-shots or into a more organized open world styled game(As long as they are up to it). Alternatively have them as co-DMs, as others have suggested.

You could also go DMPC with magic types to show them how much better magic types are. I'd do with cleric and druids first, because those would be the most appealing in turns of melee users. Then go on with Sorcerers(Choosing whatever you cast is very appealing), then wizards.

To be fair, I'm barely into 3.5, and martial characters are much more fun, mostly because I don't have to deal with something more complex in turns of the system. They really do appeal to newbies, mostly because more teenagers want to be a badass mother****er than a scholarly man who could easily out-do the rest but isn't nearly as badass.

Starbuck_II
2010-02-21, 04:47 PM
Just throw Cthulhu-type at them. If they are smart they will run and come back later with a weakness.
Either way you get to kill a few. Even better make them roll sanity checks and laugh manically.

aivanther
2010-02-21, 08:36 PM
It's important to remember that if you're new to the system, Wizards DO seem useless as they require a broader understanding of the values of various things including tactics and in-game advantages. If you don't understand the benefits of blindness important spells such as glitter dust then you will SUCK.

Fighters, on the other hand, are simple to be effective with (such as they can be). You just charge and power attack. Boom, you did what you're supposed to do. Or you sword and shield it and tank a couple of oppoents for your dudes dishing out that damage. These are all easy to understand.

It might hep if you take a wizard player in your part through a brief version of Being God or Batman.

Godskook
2010-02-21, 08:50 PM
That is an unreasonable request to make of a DM in a system-heavy game like WOTC D&D (designed for 4 players + DM).

Agreed. I don't see how the OP would ever actually get to the point where you're actually playing D&D. D&D is not a combat-exclusive game. What is it that's provoking all this?

I also don't see how you could possibly do anything other than combat with that many people.

As far as making combat work, plan on having 1 encounter be large enough to force party splits, and then direct the players to do so. Assaulting a fort with 20 men all rushing the front gate might be easy. Having 4-6 hit the front gate, 3-5 hit the stables, 5-7 climb the look-out tower and the remainder try to sneak in before the action starts would be an interesting encounter, and you'd be able to run individual combats for each that are more possible in standard D&D's CR system. If enough players don't show up, simply cut one of the battlegrounds out of the plan.

Thrawn183
2010-02-21, 08:56 PM
Yeah, you could also do something where the PC's have to be in 4 rooms simultaneously. When enemies appear, you're DM'ing 4 normal sized fights instead of 1 mega-fight-of-doom.

Also, have you thought about charming and dominating the PC's? I, clearly, don't know how you handle character conflict, but there's no better way to dull the attack of an onrushing horde of adventurers than turning some of them to the other side!

It might just be time for your PC's to meet their first vampire (and minions.)