Planning a once-off for a fairly large group

[Steamsaint]

I'm planning a once-off for a fairly large group (there's at least five out of a potential eleven or so), only some of which would have played before. I was wondering what tips playgrounders would have, and plot hooks you've used for fairly short once-offs before.

Yes, I'm considering splitting them into two groups; there's one other guy who has experience with DMing.

I'm also creating their characters for them.

[Vangor]

Prison. Nothing beats escaping a prison of sorts for necessity to work together. Besides, this will introduce the mechanics to many folks, which will get the game off the ground much faster. Newer players take tons of time getting acquainted with the concept of roleplaying, finding your way, doing whatever you want, and so forth. Being in a dungeon, though, is familiar to enough people, and the concept is pretty straight forward.

Include other NPC prisoners, too, and you get some roleplaying dialogue and feeling of questing everyone would be comfortable with as a nice break from hack-n-slash.

Don't need any story as to how you were captured. Don't need a back story as to who your character is. Don't need any reasoning as to why they captured you. Works.

[Vance_Nevada]

I'm planning a once-off for a fairly large group (there's at least five out of a potential eleven or so), only some of which would have played before. I was wondering what tips playgrounders would have, and plot hooks you've used for fairly short once-offs before.

Yes, I'm considering splitting them into two groups; there's one other guy who has experience with DMing.

I'm also creating their characters for them.

Honestly? You'd probably be better to split them into two seperate groups and run on two nights rather than run an 11 player game. Nothing will put them off DnD like "Thanks for taking your turn Bob, we'll come back to you in 30-45 minutes".

Adventure wise - a nice, simple, run of the mill one. The village mayor wants you to go kill the bad goblins that stole his Plot MacGuffin.

[TheCountAlucard]

Biggest group I've ever played had nine PCs. Humorously, each of us had created some stripe of caster independantly of the other players, in what was supposed to be a "low-magic" game. :smallamused:

What game system are you using? That can certainly make all the difference.

[bokodasu]

Are you married to D&D? For big groups who don't know the rules like the backs of their hands, I'd definitely scrap it for a rules-lite system.

That said, there are tons of fun one-off hooks; sail from Port X to Island Y, protect the caravan, jailbreak, survive the disaster (volcano eruption, earthquake, ship damage, zombie outbreak, dragon strike, etc.), catch the crook... anything that's fast-paced and time-limited is good.

Stay away from "solve-the-mystery" - it can get bogged down and boring quickly. If you're going to do it, do it dinner-theater style - have multiple motives/means set up and make the culprit whoever the players think it is.