DMing Big Party Advice

[Slayer Lord]

This fall I'm going to be DMing my first campaign and in my poor judgement and reluctance to turn anyone away I now have about 8 or 9 people playing as PCs. They're a bit of a rowdy bunch and for about half of them it will be their first time playing D&D (or in the case of one, first time offline).

One of the players, who has some DMing experience, has offered to take part of the group on a seperate portion of the campaign and I with the other, and though I really appreciate his offer I feel that it might make for an interesting challenge as a first time DM.

Any hints or tips on managing a big party? Techniques for getting everyone to shut up so I don't lose my voice trying to yell over them? Or should am I completely nuts for attempting this and just take up my friend's offer?

[Rei_Jin]

Oh man, DMing for a group that big as your first time... you're in for a rough game.

Step One: If you are using any houserules, have them printed out beforehand.
Step Two: Have the character creation rules printed out beforehand. This includes stat generation, allowed races/subraces, allowed books, etc.
Step Three: Make it very clear that rules "discussions" are not acceptable at the table, and especially not mid-combat. Questions are fine, arguing with the DM is not.
Step Four: If everyone playing the game is friends, then give them a space to socialise BEFORE you start playing. This will help get a lot of the noise out of the way before you start.
Step Five: Make sure that everyone knows that as long as others are speaking, you won't speak. If they actually want to play, they'll learn to shut up. Remind them a few times, but not too often.


Remember, D&D is a social game. The more people you have at a table, the more social it is, and the slower it normally runs. If they end up just talking around you, don't feel like you've failed... in fact, it can be a success, as it means that they're enjoying themselves.

The DM is there to facilitate, not dictate, and if the players want a slow game so that they can hang out and tell dumb jokes, then that's what they want. There's nothing you can do to change it, and the harder you try, the more you and they will get frustrated. Just take it easy, and if you need a breather to work through something, say so rather than just muddle through it and get flustered.


Edit: Also, if you have new players to the game, see if you can have a pre-game session with them so that more experienced players can help them get a handle on character creation and some of the basic rules. I'd recommend having that happen at least a day prior to the first actual game session.

[Absol197]

All of Rei_jin's advice is good advice. I'm currently running a game with 9 players, too. Some other good advice that I found helpful, particularly for running combats:

--Get a small magnetic dry-erase board with moveable markers for initiative. They have them as 4th edition extras, or you can make your own with a trip to Target. Trying to keep track of initiative in your head (or on a piece of paper) with that many people is a nightmare otherwise, especially if you have people holding or readying actions consistently.

--Come up with a rule about actions. The one I use is, "you have 20 seconds to declare your action, or it becomes "holding your action."" This may seem extreme, but if people aren't paying attention to the battle, and don't have their actions at least somewhat thought out before it gets to their turn, it can end up taking 20 minutes or more to do a single round of combat. You'll end up having your entire session be one combat that takes up a minute of in-game time.

As an addendum to the previous comments on D&D being a social game, Rei_jin is right. Trying to force people to stop having fun to focus on the game won't make help at all. If things start to get too far off track, suggest a 10- or 15-minute break. People can talk and get stuff out of their system, and then focus back on the game.

Also, this is something I did for my players, and everyone found it extremely helpful: I collected the character sheets, and then over the week before the next session, I compiled and printed off a sheet of special abilities personalized for each character (spells, spell-like abilities, class features, etc.) that required some action or was otherwise not a static ability, including a box for anything that had a number of uses per day or that needed to be prepared. The sheets included the ability name, the action required to use it, the range, the duration, the save type and DC, and as detailed a description as I could give so that it all fit on one or two lines. It was a lot of work, but it helped a lot, especially for the newer players (we had a fair number of newbies, too). Not only could the players look for everything in one place, but we didn't need to spend precious game time looking up the action, duration, range, exact effect, or material components of particular abilities (the player of the psion in the group found it particularly helpful, as I put a box for every power point, and he could just mark them off, without having to do math in his head. When he ran out of boxes, he was out of pp). Also, building the sheets gave me a very good idea of what each character could do, which helped me build encounters.

Also, as you have a lot of newbies, you've been given a wonderful opportunity to have a big impact on how they develop as gamers. Do you like the combat and mechanical aspects of D&D, or do you like the roleplaying and story aspects? Whichever you like better, you can shape how they think of the game by explaining the character creation process in those terms. Since I always believe that the gaiming world needs more roleplayers than rollplayers, if you agree, instead of trying to get them to pick a class first, explain how the races fit into the world you're running, and get them to come up with a story first, and find a class that suits the story.

[Thurbane]

As above.

Plus, encourage the players to have their actions planned in combat before it hits their turn in initiative. Also, ask them to try and be familiar with any spells, items, feats or anything else they are using. Not having to flip through books as it hits their turn in combat will help a lot.