How to organize large parties

[smashbro]

So, just got back from college (if any of you actually remember me, I played D&D for the first time a month or two ago for class) and brought up the idea of playing D&D with my friends. more popular than I thought it would be.

As of now, there are 11 people who want to play, which is a freakin huge party if i'm not mistaken. I'd like everyone to have a good experience and play the same adventure; I'm planning on making a campaign for all of them, and it would be nice to have a consistent storyline.

so, what do i do? I can either:
A) play through the same adventure twice, with a group of 5 and 6. smaller parties are good, but what happens if recurring_character_1 dies in one adventure but not the other?

B) play two different adventures so each has a level 2 adventure, one for each group. smaller parties again, but much more work for me, including running them on two different nights. also, all of us are really close friends, so it would be best seeing funny antics with everyone in one party.

C) tweak the adventure so that there are 2 tasks that can be going on at once so the groups split up, and both of those working toward a similar goal (ex. group_1 looks for the chest of great treasure while group_2 looks for the key of great unlocking). some downtime for people, but gets everyone together, they know the same story that's going on, and has none of the bad things from A&B

[smashbro]

I'm leaning on going with C, but I'd still like input/suggestions.


also, I want to give them items to start out. I plan on giving each of them a potion of cure light wounds (cause it's kinda helpful) and then have them pick one more item from a list. problem is, I need a list of items. any suggestions? they don't have to be very useful, but more of a morale thing that everybody has something different to start.


so far, i just want to use a bag of tricks, so i'm open for ideas.

[theForce017]

I am new to DMing so I personally could not deal with 11 or so people all at once trying to do things and not have someone feel left out so Option C would be out for me.

As for Option B, if you have a lot of time on your hands and have some great ideas for multiple campaigns then possibly write up both. This would be too much work for some (including me).

I am a fan of Option A just for the fact if you are writing a campaign and something doesn't turn out the way you planned while running it with group One, then switch somethings up and make it better. If a character dies in one group and not the other, just write in a fun way for them to join the group again (assuming new character vs resurrection) and continue on as before. This is also very helpful (beta testing the campaign on one group) because if one group does something you didn't expect, then you will have something written up for the next group if then happen to try a similar task.

Good luck whatever you do! :roy:

[Allanimal]

When I started a campaign for newbies a year or so ago, about 8 people said they were interested, and after a while, I was down to 4. For some, D&D just wasn't their thing, others could not commit to the meeting times or real life got in the way.

So what I am saying is that your 11 players may be smaller after a short while, so if you choose B or C, it may be that you get lopsided party in one of your splits. This may make the player light party have a much harder time and it could be harder to reshuffle players between the groups. With A, I think it would be easier to reshuffle.

As far as different events happening in the two groups, you can adjust as needed. You are the DM after all, you have infinite power! All NPCs can have family or associates to take on the role. You can even do it in the universe where the NPC didn't die. Maybe the guy retired and his son took over the family business. I think with some creativity,you can work it out.

[King Atticus]

I like the idea of having them all in one campaign but split into 2 groups undertaking different objectives. I would probably run the 2 groups on seperate nights just for expediting purposes. But I would plan regular mega-sessions where the 2 groups meet up and make some massive encounters so they get the best of both worlds 1) getting to play with all their friends and have a good time 2) have their regular sessions where they could actually get through things in a fairly stream-lined fashion and not get bored waiting for 10 other players and a commensurate amount of bad guys to take their turns and 3) It will let them mix and match the party. If they don't like the flow with the current group the next time the 2 groups meet up they could do some swapping and try a different compination of players in the respective groupings. It will make more work for you but could turn in to a really cool campaign idea with lots of interweaving plotlines.

[Combat Reflexes]

I'd go with assigning another DM and having two parallel groups. 11 players is always too much to handle, so you're better off splitting them into two groups: each 1 DM and 5 players. Voìla!

ps. this may cause some problems if you don't have mature players!

[smashbro]

ok, yeah, i could definitely see some people not sticking with it, but I'm thinking at least 4 are going to stay with it. if people do drop, enough to make one party (i'd max out a party around 8 i think, though I prefer around 6 people in a party) then yeah, i'd make up some reason for both groups to meet if I chose option B.

@theForce I'm somewhat new too, but I've been running games for them for a while now (like mafia, where they have to wait for me to go through night actions and all hat) so even though a big group will be a hassle, they're used to waiting for me, and would be fairly willing to since they like the way my games turn out. It will take a lot of work to juggle that many people, but I can try it at least once. two campaigns would be lots of work for me, especially since I don't want to have to buy any books, so i'm looking for free adventures online. right now I'm planning on writing a few myself for them, which is fun, but very time consuming.

@Allanimal yeah, I know what you mean by parties getting smaller, and I wouldn't be surprised if some people flaked. But yeah, I didn't even think of using one as a playtesting group to have more planned for the other.

@ King Atticus I like that plan a lot actually, best of both worlds and all. thanks.



alrighty, right now I think the plan will be close to what King Atticus suggested. First night I want everyone together, and the group will split up into two smaller groups (one group has to rescue the ally, the other has to find out where the Big Bad is hiding) and even though people will have to wait at times, I do want everyone together for the first session. should be enjoyable enough, and the last fight has multiple stages, so either they can split up or will just have an easier time with the enemies.

second session is more on the dungeon crawl side (as opposed to being in a town) but oddly, there are supposed to be 2 Big Bads, but one is only mentioned and the characters are supposed to fight only that one. ... so I'll probably add to that adventure, and run them on separate nights (unless I can figure out a way for them to be run simultaneously and have one group affect the other). I'll decide that once I see how the large group goes.



but yeah, thanks for the input everyone!

[smashbro]

I'd go with assigning another DM and having two parallel groups. 11 players is always too much to handle, so you're better off splitting them into two groups: each 1 DM and 5 players. Voìla!

ps. this may cause some problems if you don't have mature players!

I'm the only person in this group of friends who actually knows how to play in the first place. :smallannoyed: so while I would love to have 2 DM's, that's not going to happen for a while at least. 11 is a lot, but hopefully not everyone will be able to make every round, or some people will probably lose interest.

mature players...lol. I know what you mean, but I feel like they'll be willing to pay attention to what the other group was doing for a little while at least. it'll be a lot of juggling for me, but I'll give it a shot. also, anyone who does become immature though the waiting probably isn't going to stick with the game anyway.

[McSmack]

I've DM'd quite a few games. The most I've ever DM'd for was 9, with half of them being inexperienced players. My wife was playing DM assistant (for large parties it's nice to have an assistant to do some of the bookeeping, initiative order, and whatnot) even though she'd never DM'd before.

With 11 inexperienced players you're going to have a very tough time keeping immersion, flow and interest up. While in combat each player is going to have to wait probably about 10 minutes for their turn to come around again. That can get boring really quick.

And bored players drop out.


I think your best bet is to split them up and run two separate games. You don't necessarily have to keep everyone apart for this, the other folks could just be hanging around, or playing Munchkin or something at a different table. This will allow for some socialization to occur. You could have game night be the same night each week and just alternate which party's game you're running.

Here's some tips that I've found help a lot with a large group of players:

Start them at low levels, 1-3 probably. New players can get swamped with all of their options very quickly. So it's best to keep things simple.

Avoid traditional or premade dungeons, as they typically have very cramped spaces that make it hard for enemies/players to move around.

Keep your bookeeping simple.

You'll want to use lots of lower CR mobs during combat (larger single villians get screwed because they get attacked 11 times before they get back to their turn). Instead of keeping track of damage to each individual mob, let each mob take two hits, or one really good hit. If, say, goblin #1, takes a hit, put a mark next to his name on your notes. Mobs die if they get two marks.

Make looting simple. Instead of rolling up random treasure give them straight gold piece values for stuff. Ex. You find a chest of coins and gems worth about 500g instead of You find a chest containing 123g, 25s,18c, 3 smalls pearls, etc. Do this for mob loot too. You loot the bodies of the goblin raiders, you find an assortment of short swords, crossbows, and leather armor, all told they're worth about 200g. This makes it easier to divy up the loot amongst the party.

When possible, let the next player know that his turn is coming up so that he can be deciding what to do while the current player is rolling dice/moving minis, etc.

When possible handle individual roleplaying stuff out of session. You can do this via email, texting.IM's, whatever. Ex. Bob the paladin wants to talk to the head of the church about thing unrelated to the current quest. Tell the player that you'll roleplay that out after the session so as not to hold things up.

After a few sessions see if anyone wants to be a DM trainee. Then make them your assistant.

Delegate some responsibilities to players who have nothing to do. If you have a player who's character has died, or isn't with the rest of the party, give him an index card with the monsters stats on it (or just hand him the MM) and let him control the mob for the fight. If you think he's not playing fair you can direct him. Doing this keeps the player from getting bored, alleviates some of your workload and helps train future DM's on how it's done.

Try to keep out-of-game table talk down since it both drags down the flow and tends to grow expoentially with the number of players. Take five, every hour or so to give folks a chance to chat/bio/get snacks and drinks.

[theForce017]

McSmack: With 11 inexperienced players you're going to have a very tough time keeping immersion, flow and interest up. While in combat each player is going to have to wait probably about 10 minutes for their turn to come around again. That can get boring really quick.

This is a very good point but depending on who you play with, the time between turns could be longer. I played with a group of players who didn't think about what they wanted to do before their turn came around and when he/she was controlling 4 elementals as well, his/her turn took 10 minutes alone and that was really boring and slow. Word of Advice, have the players think about what they want to do before hand for the fact that encounters get really long.


McSmack: Delegate some responsibilities to players who have nothing to do. If you have a player who's character has died, or isn't with the rest of the party, give him an index card with the monsters stats on it (or just hand him the MM) and let him control the mob for the fight. If you think he's not playing fair you can direct him. Doing this keeps the player from getting bored, alleviates some of your workload and helps train future DM's on how it's done.

Really like the idea of that by the way. Thanks, will definitely try to use this when possible. I hate having players bored, this is suppose to be fun and relieving a monster to a player can be really helpful as well. (So long as you ask them to be unbiased in who they attack :belkar: