How to handle a large group?

[DMBlackhart]

As the title asks. A bit of background information however...

My current 3.5 D&D group is currently 5 strong, with 2 more joining next week (for 7), and a potential 8th coming on board later on. I also expect one or two others, for a likely outcome of between 7-10 players.

Personally, I've never had a group over 5 players, my "comfort zone".
How do you, individually, handle such a massive group? I like to try to give everyone opportunities to shine, which has been made more difficult. I also am having a tough time challenging them, as they have proven to be able to take down CR 9+ creatures with only a few scratches.

The group is all level 3, in the Forgotton Realms setting. No varient rules have been used.
The party is comprised of...

Sorcerer (half-elf)
Rogue (half-elf)
Druid (wild-elf)
Cleric (human)
Archivist (human)
Bard (???)


The bard and one or two others will be joining us next week. So, advise on how to keep everyone interested / not become overwhelmed / let everyone have their special moment / keep things fun but challenging?

[LTwerewolf]

You'll need to adjust CR of your encounters. This doesn't just mean stronger enemies, but can also mean you need to add in more of them. Be careful with adding monsters that are too much regardless of how many PCs you have.

[killianh]

With a group of eight, and with the types of classes the party has chosen I would say up the EL by about 2 above the party as a normal match. As for keeping thing interesting that will involve (slightly) more effort on encounter design to balance between impeding certain players in one encounter while boosting or creating positive situations for others. With a largely caster-based group you may find it difficult to create scenarios that one of the party members don't have a spell available for. Your party already has three of the Big boys (
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=1ff4hote7lka297vmeff1kpjh5&topic=4938)

To make things a bit easier to set up try using this (http://legionofgeeks.com/encounter_calc.php), this (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm), this (http://www.monsteradvancer.com/), and this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010320b) to help find the approximate ECL of the party and speed things up.

One thing I've found that helps is if the party has someone to be the spokesperson for the party so that IC conversations can be concluded quickly without taking away from everyone's involvement. Get them to roll any dice involved with an action together (attack roll and damage at the same time for example), have their main spells and abilities on cards so they don't waste time flipping through books to try and remember what "that one spell they saw once" does, and delegate tracking initiative and damage and anything else you can to party members so that they can keep involved even when it isn't their turn (and it makes life easier for you).

One last thing I would recommend watching out for is your casters. Any one of your current caster (with maybe the bard as an exception) can break your game balance and do everything for the party, leaving other members out which can make a game drag.

Best of luck and I hope that helps

[Mirakk]

I've run 10 player games before. It was interesting to be sure. A few observations I've made from my experience with that.

1. We used 2 DMs. One handled setting description and general rules related stuff. The other handled movement and placement of things on the battlemat, and use of the dry erase board for Initiative/HP tracking etc. Sharing the workload for this magnitude helped a lot.

2. Naturally, you'll have 2-3 players who will dominate the conversations. In a group this size, it's very easy to end up with players who sit back and let others make all the important decisions, only interacting when pressed to do so. I made it a point for different NPCs to take a liking to a party member, and speak primarily to them. (A halfling would prefer to talk to the halfling, the ladies man would tell the men to butt out while he "conducts his business here" etc). This ensured that everyone had a chance to be the party's face, and make decisions.

3. The people who aren't talking much IC may have a problem remaining engaged and resort to talking about work or something they read about on the internet etc... Asking everyone to refrain from Out of Character conversation as much as possible seemed to work. Before having a sit down talk with my players about this, it was a problem. I'd have to explain everything twice, and then 10 minutes later someone would be confused about why we're taking the ship's captain prisoner etc..

4. This brings me to my next point. With a group this scale, it's honestly hard to provide a lot of detail to your players. It seems like there's diminishing returns on how well you can describe an area. Herd mentality inevitably kicks in and they just clomp through the dungeon not wanting to "hold up the group" looking for anything or talking to NPCs. You're going to have to be the one who throws them a bone when there's things to look for, or people to talk to.

5. One thing I found that was actually a little helpful was having someone take notes on names, places, and events that happened during the day's travels. They would then go online to a FB group that I'd made for the campaign and re-write it all for people to read. It seemed like this was the greatest way of communicating it to the players. Once they were at home and reading it on their own, there were fewer distractions so I think more information sunk in that way.

6. Prepare for long, long sessions. Mine were something like 6-8 hours with a group this size, with 1-2 major encounters per session with some RP in the beginning and middle. The session usually ended promptly after loot/xp of the 2nd encounter.

[hoverfrog]

First thing, first.

Cost. Who is paying for the pizza because 8 players plus DM can get expensive for snacks and drinks?

Space. Do you have a big enough table? As DM you are called on to move little figures around the board to show combat and such. If you've got a table 10' x 6' to fit players, snacks, character sheets and dice mountains on are you going to be able to reach the middle to move figures around without knocking everything over? Can people still walk round the table when they need the loo?

Noise. With nine people talking and more time between turns are attentions going to wander to the latest movie or the football match? Nine mouths munching isn't exactly silent. Is that low murmur going to distract the people involved in the action. Does everyone speak clearly so that they can be heard by everyone else? Someone who speaks quietly may not be noticed among the hubbub.

Time. Sessions will achieve less because more people are acting. If you spend a round preparing for combat then that's eight actions. If you spend five or six rounds preparing then that could be a half hour. It might be worth cutting corners and saying to people to just make a note of spells or items prepared. You'll have to trust the players a bit more but it saves time.

Something that always takes time in my group (usually 7 players) is initiative order. With eight players this can take an age to sort out in the first round. Get some index cards and put the character's name, AC, hp, immunities and key information on. Better yet get the players to do this for you. Do the same for monsters. When you roll initiative just put the cards in order and put a "new round" card on top. When someone acts put the card at the bottom of the pile. No note taking and nice and simple (until you knock the pile of cards over). You can also write on the cards when people cast spells on themselves.

Record keeping. Don't bother with record keeping for PCs. Get them to do everything themselves and if they forget to note their XP one week then they don't get it. Don't track their HP. If they take damage that knocks them down then they should say so. Sure they might cheat but most people won't. You could designate a party record keeper or Chronicler. As a player I tend to fit this role. He keeps track of equipment that we've purloined, magic items not given out, party treasures, etc. He also records information about NPCs that we've interacted with, deals made, threats given, and places visited. I do it so that the DM doesn't have to.

[Dictum Mortuum]

[QUOTE=Mirakk;138780621. We used 2 DMs. One handled setting description and general rules related stuff. The other handled movement and placement of things on the battlemat, and use of the dry erase board for Initiative/HP tracking etc. Sharing the workload for this magnitude helped a lot.[/QUOTE]

That's my suggestion actually. Try to break into two parties that do stuff concurrently, they can be allies or enemies, etc. We have tried this before and it led to interesting results (e.g. one party killed the dragon and looted his lair while the other party planned an ambush to steal the hoard from the first party).

[Kelb_Panthera]

There's been a lot of specific advise, so here's something a bit more general.

Organization is key. Always have everything ready to go before you begin play. Extensive, well organized notes and prep work will be your best friends.

If you actually get all the way up to 10 players, break the group in two if at all possible. Trying to Dm for twice the people of your comfort zone is likely to turn DM'ing into a chore. If someone has already expressed interest, or your group regularly switches DM's you might even want to break into seperate groups when you hit 8.

Know when to fold. If, in-spite of the good advice we've given, the group just refuses to be wrangled into playing in a way that's fun for everyone, just declare the session a wash, pop in a movie or something, and try again next week. If this happens too often you may have to cut some players or DM seperate campaigns for two groups.