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zorba1994
2010-11-29, 10:08 PM
Over the past few weeks, my friends have been pestering me to run a DnD game for them. Normally this would have me elated, however there is a difference this time around: I seem to have too many friends now, and am looking at running a 8-14 man game.

I am a fairly experienced DM, but with one or two exceptions all of my players are complete newbies (and even those exceptions only have a few games up to 2nd level under their belts themselves). Is running this game even mildly feasible? And if so, what can I do to help the game run more smoothly with this obscene amount of players. At this point, my best option seems to be to describe DnD in the most unflattering way possible at lunch tomorrow so that my number of potential adventurers decreases. Also, how should I deal with balancing encounters so that they play well with this many players?

I am planning on running a 4th edition game with a self-penned dungeon.

One idea that I have come up with is to make it so that whenever there are back-to-back player character turns (e.g. Kobold, PC 1, PC 2, PC 3, Goblin) in the initiative, I will have the players take their turns simultaneously.

AstralFire
2010-11-29, 10:16 PM
Six players stretches me, I think you need to put your foot down big time.

I've run with a co-DM for eight players before, where one guy better with mechanics ran a lot of the 'game engine' stuff. It allowed for multiple front combat a lot better, and if you could appoint one or two deputies, this might be feasible...

But I honestly think that any more than 8 you should just say 'no way no how' to. Don't talk D&D down, just be honest about it; you never know if someone you pick to be 'in' might grow bored and you may need a replacement.

valadil
2010-11-29, 10:16 PM
Here are some of my thoughts on running combat for large groups:



1. Time Limits

This is the most obvious answer to the problem of the game taking too long. GM gets a timer and if players don’t finish their action by the time it’s done, they lose the rest of their turn.

The problem with this answer was that most players had no trouble sticking to the time limit. We started out at a minute to get used to the timers and worked our way down to 30 or 40 seconds. I was playing a ranger at the time and I’m not sure my turns ever took more than 10 seconds. Full attack or move and attack. As long as I was ready to take my turn before it began, I could resolve my actions quickly. Which brings us to…

2. Call out who is on deck

In the ideal game everyone is paying attention all the time. I’ve encountered such a game maybe twice in my ~15 years of gaming. People get bored. They chat with their friends or they check up on rules. iPhones are the worst. I don’t mind players who don’t pay attention when they don’t have to, but the game slows down if everyone has to reread the board when their turn starts. “Where’s my mini again?” This problem is exacerbated in a big game. More stuff happens between turns, so those actions you thought would be good at the end of your turn no longer apply. There’s more time between turns, so players have more incentive to goof off. And there are more people to distract each other.

Basically, you want your players to be thinking and planning while they’re not rolling.

The answer to this is solved when calling initiative. When you tell a player it’s his turn, get the next player’s attention and tell him he’s on deck. While the first player takes his turn, the second player has time to look at the board and evaluate threats, dig his character sheet out from under the stack of splat books, and gather up enough dice for his big attack. When you call his initiative, he’ll have an action ready.

Calling out who is on deck is the best method I’ve seen so far for speeding up combat. I even use it in smaller games.

3. Dice

As mentioned in #2, players should gather dice before their turn starts. This is especially true of the d6 hungry characters like fireballers and sneak attackers.

While we’re on the topic, dice should be rolled all at once when possible. If you have a power that lets you roll 2d20 and choose the best one, there’s no reason to roll d20, mention your power, and reroll. That just slows things down for everyone. Attacks and damage can be rolled together, although if you have multiple attacks you may have to designate different colors of dice for different attacks. Use this as an excuse to buy more dice. Gamers love more dice.

4. Reward quick thinking

This also goes back to #2. I haven’t tried this one yet, but I really like it. Give a +1 bonus to any action declared and rolled immediately after initiative is called. This’ll give players incentive to prepare ahead of their turns. The person who suggested this also said that the extra +1 is balanced out by the fact that players will make flawed decisions when forced to rush like this.

5. Sort your players

Again, I haven’t seen this one in practice, but I’ve heard good things. Players have an easier time knowing their turn is coming if you sort them according to initiative. There are two ways to do this and I’m not in love with either option.

You can roll initiative and make them seat themselves in order of initiative. Due to seating preferences and piles of books I’m worried that the re-seating will end up taking too much extra time to really pay off.

The other option is to start with the highest initiative and go clockwise. My concern here is that players will game initiative. Maybe direction should be determined by a die roll? I’m also not super fond of the idea of all NPCs going at the same time.

Both options don’t work out so well when your group likes delaying or otherwise re-ordering initiative.

6. Pre-roll your own initiative.

Title says it all. Since I’ve been printing up my combat sheets I’ve been rolling initiative for them ahead of time. I also write out HP columns in advance. Work done now saves time later. It also gives you a little bit of time to prepare tactics if you know which NPCs are going first and if any will have turns near each other.

7. Appoint a rules lawyer.

Rules lawyers can be annoying, but not when you use them to your own advantage!

Questions come up in games. The issue we had with the egg timer was that people would start their turns and have questions for the GM. Some of them are legit. “What check to I make to swing off the chandelier and land on the enemy mage?” No rulebook is going to tell you the answer to that. It’s something only the GM can come up with. However there are many questions that are answered in the rules. How grapple works. When do conjurations work in an antimagic field. Does my spell bypass spell resistance. That sort of thing. There is no reason at all for those questions to go to the GM. They should go to the rules lawyer who can give an answer or open up a book. Most of the time the problem isn’t so much interpreting the rules as it is knowing which section of which book to look in.

A designated rules lawyer can answer the easy questions for you. This means you won’t get interrupted during someone else’s turn. You won’t have players open their turn with a book and a question. And best of all, the rules lawyer will be too busy helping newbies to question you and your methods during each turn. It’s a win/win/win!

Kingweasel
2010-11-29, 10:17 PM
That's a bad situation!
Just take on as many as you feel comfortable doing and explain to those left out that too many players will degrade the fun-ness for everybody. Then maybe hold a lottery to see who plays.

Maybe make a waiting list and have a "dead is dead" policy.

I know it's difficult, but trust me, the giant party will make for a horrible game.

Gamer Girl
2010-11-29, 10:18 PM
Maybe break up the groups into two smaller groups? Maybe even get a second DM?

gbprime
2010-11-29, 10:23 PM
A - split into 2 completely separate groups.

B - you run 2 separate games on 2 separate nights with parallel plotlines and some crossovers.

Otherwise, if you try to run with more than 8 players, nobody is going to have much fun as they'll all be waiting for it to be their turn.

Angry Bob
2010-11-29, 10:42 PM
Cut it down to size. I did the same thing last year. I was an inexperienced DM, my players had only heard of the game before, and I was retarded and started them at level 5. I let them invite all their friends. In DnD 3.5.

DON'T DO WHAT I DID.

SERIOUSLY.

DON'T.

Safety Sword
2010-11-30, 12:21 AM
Six players stretches me

This is about where I'm at too. Maybe one extra wouldn't destroy things, but combat already takes a long time if it's a good fight.

14 players... sorry, no @#$%^&* way.

Edit: Sorry forgot to also mention that there will be LOTS of downtime waiting for other players to act, it's going to get mighty boring just after your turn.

fireinakasha
2010-11-30, 12:39 AM
I have been in campaigns with that many players. It's impossible.

Maybe if all your gamers were pros, it would be possible. But if most of them aren't heavily experienced with D&D, it will end up taking 45 minutes or more to arbitrate one round of combat (no, really, I timed it once). And gods help you when you give them time to mill around a city.

dsmiles
2010-11-30, 07:58 AM
I've run with a co-DM for eight players before, where one guy better with mechanics ran a lot of the 'game engine' stuff. It allowed for multiple front combat a lot better, and if you could appoint one or two deputies, this might be feasible...

This. It can be done. One co-DM for the minion-y bad guys/rules arbitration, maybe one for the NPCs, but that third DM may not be needed, if you can handle the plot and NPCs yourself. Taking the bulk of the encounters and giving it to a co-DM takes a lot of the pressure off, as long as the two of you work together well.

Psyx
2010-11-30, 08:03 AM
Ask for someone else to step up to bat, and have two separate games.

14 players is just going not going to be much fun for you or most of the players.

Trellan
2010-11-30, 08:14 AM
Might I suggest a West Marches (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/) style campaign? It would fit a group of that size perfectly, and it's a really fun thing to DM.

hewhosaysfish
2010-11-30, 08:19 AM
A - split into 2 completely separate groups.

B - you run 2 separate games on 2 separate nights with parallel plotlines and some crossovers.


C - Run 2 separate games on 2 separate nights without parallel plotlines or crossovers?

Aotrs Commander
2010-11-30, 08:45 AM
My preferred party size is six. Eight players I can manage and am going to be doing so during Christmas. (We can't physically accomodate more than that in the room though...) Heck, I managed to run with 6-7 players with a grossly over inflated party of about a dozen characters...in Rolemaster! So I think it safge to say I'm quite used to heavy workloads in that regard.

Bearing that in mind, eight players is, I think, about the limit. Much more than that and you'll lose focus and people will be waiting agaes for their actions. (It's worth noting most military organisations don't have more than about that number of people.)

Fourteen is way too many for you to handle on your own, especially if they're newbies and thus will need rules help to boot. It'll take ages to whip round the board, even in 4Es admittedly slightly better rate. The only real option here is to split the group in two halves (six and eight, maybe or maybe seven and seven), maybe even into three and run on different occasions. (You could even just run the same module again if the players are all different).

I really wouldn't try to talk down D&D and you're suggesting (as after all, you're trying to recruit people, right, not push them away!) If most of them are new, you want to make the experience as polished as possible, so you want to make sure no-one gets bored; which they will if you have to wait ages between turns; smaller group size is really your only option here.

HunterOfJello
2010-11-30, 08:49 AM
A second DM or the game split into two would probably be best. With 8-14 people, you don't have a party. You have a small army.

I can't even imagine a group with more than four Tier 1 characters in it.

Sipex
2010-11-30, 10:08 AM
If you can do 2 groups, go with it.

Otherwise, explain to your friends that you can only run the game for <number> players and you have already confirmed with <person(s)> ahead of time due to <reasons>. So they have to decide who gets to play after you explain the campaign. You can pull their names from a hat if they wish.


I can't even imagine a group with more than four Tier 1 characters in it.

Not a worry, D&D 4th edition so the tiers are pretty minor. No having to worry about dealing with 4 wizards with every spell prepared (Between them) up to their caster level.

Yora
2010-11-30, 11:07 AM
If I were in this situation, I would make two groups with seperate DMs. But you could also work together with the other DM so that both groups play in different locations of the same scenario. Like two groups of adventurers send to search for two fragments of an artifact required to save a kingdom, or as soldiers in opposing armies that fight in the same war. Just make it so that you wont end up with both groups fighting in the same battles with the possibility of meating each other in combat. :smallbiggrin:

BeholderSlayer
2010-11-30, 11:30 AM
It's not gonna work out well. It will just take too long.

My group started meeting a second night a week because another player wanted to DM a game. He brought a friend. This took our group from 5 to 6. Couple the fact that his DM style resulted in numerous monster entries on the initiative list (I think we had 12 once, 6 players and 6 groups of monsters) and combat just took WAY TOO LONG.

Yora
2010-11-30, 11:34 AM
I prefer to play with 3 or 4 characters. If someone really really wants to join our game, I sometimes allow for a 5th, but 6 is just too much, especially if you play with new players, which I very often do. One or two take the spotlight and basically run the entire campaign while the rest just watches and quite often gets bored and distracted with other things. With just 3 or 4, this is very unlikely to happen.

Birstel
2010-11-30, 04:09 PM
I currently run a group with 9-13 players and have been doing so for over a year. Even got them all through Red Hand of Doom. You definitely need to keep on top of things and not let the small talk get out of hand. I usually don't get through more than one or two encounters a session though.