The Biggest D&D Game.

[tadkins]

In regards to the number of players, I mean. Typical games tend to be around 4-5 players, right? I started thinking about this recently as I'm going to be playing in a game soon with 8 players + DM (which, according to this DM, more players = more epic, so it should be an interesting experience).

This got me thinking again, and I got an idea for a different type of game that could host 16 players or more. It would be an evil Drow-focused game, where teams of four to five players break off into different Drow houses inside a major Underdark city, all competing with each other. They'd sit at their own tables, each player representing a major figure within their house, weaving together their politics and trying to undermine the other teams. It would make heavy use of the rules regarding houses and other things from Drow of the Underdark.

Like for instance, if one house wanted to ally with another, they could send an emissary from their team over to the other table, with all the intrigue and risks that would entail.

The DM would essentially be there to keep the story flowing, drop some possible adventure leads that the teams could pick up on, and regulate the conflict.

I bet there are other possible games that could be even bigger. :)

[galan]

just no. more players=less time for each one to actually play. battles will be a nightmare, roleplaying impossible. 6 players+dm is my limit, and i prefer 3\4+dm

[Invader]

Sounds like a neat idea but it be hard to implement. Usually games with that many people tend to grind to a pretty sluggish pace especially during combat.

[Amphetryon]

Having run games in an "If they show up to play, you must let them play" environment before, I have to caution you here. Beyond 8 Players is very unwieldy, and the further you go above 10, the worse it gets.

Players can't reasonably engage the environment in-Character in any way outside of combat, as any lengthy spotlight time starts to marginalize way too many other Players' ability to contribute. This, in turn, can lead to disengagement on the part of the Players who are waiting around for their turn to shine, or a multi-person shouting contest as everyone vies for their share of the spotlight nigh on simultaneously.

Combat is equally tricky, as the CR-system gets more out of whack (relative to its shaky definition of "functional") the further you get from 4 Players. Boss encounters don't function as you're likely used to, as the action economy skews so heavily toward the PCs. The usually recommended solution is to pile on more mooks, further cluttering the combat map. This requires that everyone pay strict attention at all times, because such a large group creates a very fluid, dynamic environment. At the same time, Players all need to have a solid grasp on their own intended actions, as well as contingency plans for how those ahead of them in the Initiative are likely to influence the battlefield. All of this can lead to stretching out the combat such that a single round of a fight can take the better part of an hour - more with less experienced Players.

[prufock]

Yeah, 16 players is (probably) not going to be fun for anyone, and is going to be a serious headache for the DM. If you want that sort of interaction, you'd be better off splitting them into 2-4 separate groups, have them play separate sessions that occur simultaneously in-game, and invite one or more members from different groups when there is crossover.

[nedz]

I once ran a game for 15 players — complete disaster.
It didn't help that one player decided to hog the limelight and wouldn't be told.

4-6 is about the right size, or people end up sitting around getting bored.

It's possible to run a game with more characters, where each player controls several, but it's not everyone's idea of a good time.

[Amphetryon]

Yeah, 16 players is (probably) not going to be fun for anyone, and is going to be a serious headache for the DM. If you want that sort of interaction, you'd be better off splitting them into 2-4 separate groups, have them play separate sessions that occur simultaneously in-game, and invite one or more members from different groups when there is crossover.

Ever have some of your Players start up a Pokemon game part way through a D&D session because they weren't getting face-time? Yeah. :smallsigh:

[DigoDragon]

Biggest group I ran was 11 players for two sessions on a quick dungeon crawl. It wasn't very good due to splitting my attention 11-ways. Big groups are hard to manage.
Since then I try to keep my group to no more than 6 players.


I was a PC in an 8 player game, and the GM decided to get another GM friend he knew to help out. Broke up the party in two groups of 4 and ran us in different parts of a very large dungeon. That worked out a little better. 4:1 PC to GM ratio is good and the two GMs were trading notes on where each other's party was.

Funny part was when the two groups met up and the other side tried to kidnapp my character, because they wanted the intelligent fighter on their team. :smalltongue:

[GnomeFighter]

This got me thinking again, and I got an idea for a different type of game that could host 16 players or more. It would be an evil Drow-focused game, where teams of four to five players break off into different Drow houses inside a major Underdark city, all competing with each other. They'd sit at their own tables, each player representing a major figure within their house, weaving together their politics and trying to undermine the other teams. It would make heavy use of the rules regarding houses and other things from Drow of the Underdark.

Like for instance, if one house wanted to ally with another, they could send an emissary from their team over to the other table, with all the intrigue and risks that would entail.

The DM would essentially be there to keep the story flowing, drop some possible adventure leads that the teams could pick up on, and regulate the conflict.

D&D is not the way to run that. With D&D you will end up with lots of stuff you can't do and it getting bogged down. If I were going to do that I would try and do 3-4 groups with 1 GM per group and an overall GM and run it in a rules lite system.

it could work well, but D&D one group could be sat for hours waiting for the GM to finish with another group.

[MrNobody]

I had a 14 players game two years ago... is a very difficult situation to handle because everyone had different goals and such a great number of player prevented me from giving the right ammount of time to each of them.

The solution we found was having 14 players= 2 DM. There was a single plot but at least two directions in which players could investigate. So there were parts split in two and each DM lead a part of the quest. In other parts the re-united group was led by both DM. That was fun since the "other" DM was a great frind of mine and we put up wonderful roleplaying scene.

Still... battle were a real pain, expecially because it was an epic level - high magic campaign and almost every round there was a player time stopping or making 10-12 attack... or more!
Us DM took an entire summer planning the quest but it was worth it.

So... if you want to do something like that i suggest asking a friend to co-DM with you!

[Morph Bark]

If you have so many players you need multiple tables, you prettymuch end up with a game more akin to a larp then an actual tabletop game.

[Regitnui]

I've got twelve people interested in playing. My plan is to split the group into two parties, each doing different campaigns. they're in the same world and influence each other, but otherwise are completely separated. It saves me the headache of keeping track of players, and trying to design dungeons double the size.

[Gerrtt]

I sat watched a huge game (easily 12-16 players, I don't recall exactly how many) at a comic book store once. Basically, half the table was actually interacting with the DM, the rest of the table was just sitting around goofing off and weren't really participating, even though they were there.

I was invited to make a level 5 character and join if I wanted to, but I left knowing that the game wasn't for me.

[Nightraiderx]

I had my ambitious friend that was running a club try to make a D&D 3.5 campaign system where there would be a DM per day and you could go to one of the days for a one-shot (missions). Unfortunately all the DM's had different leniency of rules and my other friend (who optimizes like hell) got permission from one of most lenient DM's to build a space station with a cheeze wizard. And then tried to use it to orbital bombard the Tomb of Horrors instead of going into it. The other DM rule 0'd it out of the question. But the campaign fell apart anyways, the world ended up being ruled by pixies because of the cheese wizard summoned a genie and someone else made the wish that the pixies couldn't be harmed anymore.

It was a cool idea, but the non-coordination and different interpretations of rules lead to it's downfall.... and also letting my friend play ANY caster -.-

[BowStreetRunner]

If you want to do something like this, I would not recommend D&D. There are other game systems that might work better. Long Live the King from White Wolf could probably be modified to employ a Drow theme.

[nedz]

It was a cool idea, but the non-coordination and different interpretations of rules lead to it's downfall.... and also letting my friend play ANY caster -.-

Now now, I'm sure He'd be quite safe with a healer.

[Togo]

If you have so many players you need multiple tables, you prettymuch end up with a game more akin to a larp then an actual tabletop game.

Pretty much. It's sometimes called freeforming, to distinguish from the rubber sword larps, and the events that are basically just costume parties. It's fun, but you need to make sure that there are things to do besides just plotting against eachother and going to meetings.

There are entire conventions with this style of game. It also crops up in odd places, like steampunk events, lasertag* groups, 40k live action games**, and wargaming events.

*You think politics is bad, try opening negotiations in the middle of a firefight
** "I think if we follow my plan we can both get out alive."
"But you're working for a depraved chaos worshipper!"
"Who hasn't noticed that the plan involves him leaving last, and I'd like to keep it that way."

[Togo]

If you want to do something like this, I would not recommend D&D. There are other game systems that might work better. Long Live the King from White Wolf could probably be modified to employ a Drow theme.

I've got that, but never played it. How does it run?

[inuyasha]

Im a DM of a group of 10, sometimes 11. When you try it, it takes a little while, and you will have lots of fun, but it can be chaotic. Dont get mad if the players get off track a little, and for the love of god never let one play a chaos mage...or a VoP Dvati monk...true story

But usually we have 2 tanks (barb, fighter), a druid, a ranger, 2 rogues, 2 clerics, 2 mages (sor/wiz), and its perfect, sometimes one of the players (usually sor/wiz) is the DM, and hes been DMing for longer than me (hes my father) and Im usually either another druid or another rogue. So its not that bad, your DMing 8, im DMing 10, it is very fun

[TheTinyMan]

I ran a nine-player game at one point. My secret - have a second DM, and build up a rapport with the other DM before you're dealing with the full group.

One of us would be narrating plot while the other would be preparing encounters on the fly in reaction to the players. If the party splits (once), no problem - just make sure that you have a way to coordinate the passage of time. Someone wants to get bogged down with rules questions? That's okay, it won't necessarily interrupt the game!

(we were also using MapTool on the TV, including a boatload of macros that I wrote, and I'd statted out about 80 different types of creatures in it. I had nifty macros like "Make full attack for all selected tokens" or "Make will save for all selected tokens," or "all selected tokens take xdy damage." That helped make combat run smoothly. And if the PCs went totally off the beaten path, one of us could draw a crude line-map of the area, and add statless 'generic baddie' tokens, while the other was narrating.)

We did have a group that was probably unusually well-disposed to these numbers, though - a couple of wallflowers who were genuinely happy to lurk in the corner until it was time to call down some lightning, three people who enjoyed the spotlight almost as much as they enjoyed sharing it, and a few who enjoyed participating at a more moderate level. We also had That Guy. But That Guy caused problems in four-person games, too, and as a group we'd become accustomed to dealing with him.

Everyone got a plotline centered around their character at some point or another in the campaign, and no one ever seemed to have any problems with the group size. There were a few times when combat did bog down, but usually because a player was spending a lot of time thinking about their next action.

[TheTinyMan]

lasertag groups

L...lasertag LARPing?! Why have I never heard of this?!

[prufock]

Ever have some of your Players start up a Pokemon game part way through a D&D session because they weren't getting face-time? Yeah. :smallsigh:

Let's just say that even in small groups, I would like carte blanche to smash smartphones with a hammer.

[kernal42]

+1 for multiple DMs.

I (co-) ran one like this about twelve years ago and I thought it went great. We had two DMs and 7-8 players. We would often split into groups, which kept numbers managable, and when we didn't the extra help running a combat was invaluable to keep things moving.

16 players with one DM? If you're not really strict with turn lengths it'll take forever, not to mention the difficulty in having conversations between NPCs and this...mob.

Cheers
-Kernal

[BowStreetRunner]

Ever have some of your Players start up a Pokemon game part way through a D&D session because they weren't getting face-time? Yeah. :smallsigh:

Depends on whether it was supposed to be part of the game or not. Seriously, back when I played Cyberpunk the net-running rules were so cumbersome that our GM just replaced them with a quick game of Netrunner CCG between him and the Netrunner PC.

So throw out the Conjuration (summoning) spells in 3.5 and replace them with Pokemon, and there you go! :smallwink:

[BowStreetRunner]

I've got that, but never played it. How does it run?

A bit like Diplomacy meets Civilization (board game). A lot of people trying to maneuver for power and position, with a few twists thrown in that mean that it's never really over until it's over. Very much a free-form or larp style environment.

[Ailowynn]

Well, it's Star Wars Saga Edition, not DnD, but some folks over at d20radio.com made and ran a con game for 18 players and three GMs: 6 player parties would set out with seperate goals for the same mission, and each group's successes and failures would impact the other groups. I think the ending was merging into one massive battle, but I'm not certain.

[Piggy Knowles]

I'm currently playing in a game with seven players, and even that gets bogged down constantly. Combat takes about three hours or more and the DM needs to more or less force things on us to get us to do anything. We were in the same dungeon for over a year realtime and finally left with a bunch of stuff still undone recently because we were all so sick of being there...

[Togo]

L...lasertag LARPing?! Why have I never heard of this?!

Because some lasertaggers have never heard of LARP.

Lasertag story

I turn up to a new group for an introductary game. I'm in a squad of 12 people. We have laser guns and sensors. We're in a forest to shoot the other squad of 12 people. A simple battle scenario to get used to the equipment. I have an id badge, that has a name on one side and a few facts about my 'character' on the other, like who I know in the unit and where I'm from. Simple enough. The Ref tells us that we're all rookie space marines in a training exercise on an unsettled planet. He takes us through the safety brief, and the rules, as if he were a squad leader in a war film. He's also acting as one of the Refs.

We play for a about 20 mins, and get shot a lot by the other team, and vice versa. Then I notice that one of the Refs is lying down, as if he were a casualty. So I go over to have a look, nearly getting shot in the process, and find out that he's, well, a casualty. Weird. So I call over a medic, and the other Refs sees me and asks me what the heck I'm doing. I point to the fallen ref, and he storms over, shouting about not messing about when we have new people in training, and gets shot, as do I. Our medic comes over, uses the medical system to heal me and the second Ref, but the first one is dead, which.. isn't supposed to happen. The Ref calls on everyone to abandon the exercise, but the other side can't hear him, so he just pulls our team back. He then accuses the last of the three refs of pulling some kind of treachery, and they get into a fist fight, and we end up restraining them both.

The story is getting pretty confused at this point, but we gather that somehow the dead Ref was shot with live ammunition. At this point a second set of people, this time in yellow reflective vests, appear to actually act as refs for the remainder of the game, the electronic system switches from 'infinite lives' lasertag to one-shot-kill lasertag, and one of the original Refs starts screaming about us being infiltrated by traitors. At which point people start really looking at those ID badges, and realise that the information about who we know in the squad might actually be worth something. We compare notes and work out that we all know each other - except that during this process we're now mysteriously down to 10 people, because two slipped away while we were talking. And no one knew those two.

So we do a bit of exploring to find the other squad. We see them shooting, but they're not shooting at us. They're shooting at someone else... This is also where we find a crashed shuttlecraft, a huge prop made out of polystyrne blocks painted to look like a spaceship - about the size of a small car. Needless to say, that wasn't in the minibus with us when we arrived...

Finally we catch up with the other squad, and get into a fire fight with them, because, well, they were shooting at us. We find three survivors who tell us that their squad got wiped out by their own Refs who turned on them, aided by some strange people in camo netting. We decide to try and heal some of the fallen to get some numbers back on our side, and that's when the people in camo netting, and full-body planet of the apes costumes, launch their attack.

We later found out that only 10 of us were actually real newbies trying out lasertag, and everyone else, including the ape-ambush squad who'd taken the precaution of arriving from a different side of the forest so we wouldn't see their cars or the props, were established members of the club pretending they'd never done this before.

On the way home, one of the organisers mentioned that he'd heard I was involved with LARPing. He wasn't sure exactly what that involved, because he 'had never played any roleplaying games' but he had been thinking about maybe giving it a try. :smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

I also ran into a Stargate Reenactment group. Each month they would assemble up their own full-size stargate that they carried around in a dedicated van, dress up as various SG-1 personnel, and go through the gate to meet other members of the group dressed as aliens. They'd play through an investigation style adventure, have a few mock fights with each other, and then go home.

They'd heard of role-playing games, but didn't think it was the type of thing they'd enjoy doing.

[graymachine]

The biggest game I was ever in had 20-25 players in it, spread across 3 DMs that ran 3 separate nights with a lot of players floating back and forth. The premise was that we were a mercenary guild in Sigil and group selected missions posted on a board that took us all over the Planes.

[Arbane]

Let's just say that even in small groups, I would like carte blanche to smash smartphones with a hammer.

Best solution I've heard yet: All cellphones go in a pile in the middle of the table. If anyone picks theirs up before the end of the session or a break, they have to pay for the pizza.


Because some lasertaggers have never heard of LARP.

Lasertag story
(SNIP)


Fun story. Maybe they just prefer sci-fi to fantasy?

[DrDeth]

We’ve gamed with 8+. Here are a few ideas we used:

Only one “character” per PC, maybe two. Sure a wiz can have his familiar but not one useful in combat. Summoning is one per side at a time. (this limits the bad guys too).

Have one player in charge of init. He uses a whiteboard, cards, etc, mot only telling who’s turn it is, but who is next. When it’s your turn, you must be ready, no fumbling for what spell to cast. Page must be open to that spell, maneuver, etc if it may need to be looked up. If your turn come up and you look up from your device and say “Huh, Ok, well let’s see, maybe I can…” the cry is NEXT!, and you lose your turn.

[BowStreetRunner]

When it’s your turn, you must be ready, no fumbling for what spell to cast. Page must be open to that spell, maneuver, etc if it may need to be looked up. If your turn come up and you look up from your device and say “Huh, Ok, well let’s see, maybe I can…” the cry is NEXT!, and you lose your turn.

Would never work in our games. Practically every character in the game is capable of taking actions that completely change the battlefield in one turn. You go and get ready for your turn and the character before yours makes the entire battlefield unrecognizable and you need a minute to rethink what you were going to do. We have 7 PCs all around level 15, plus a bunch of NPCs, and you just can't count on whatever action you were planning still being relevant when your turn comes up.