Brand New D&D Club - Help!

[Lawrence]

Hello.
I am brand new to GITP and am relatively inexperienced with D&D compared to most of you guys. Let me explain.
About 3 years ago, I played my first campaign of D&D. After only 2 more short stories, My older sibling, who owned a set of books and introduced me to the game moved away. He left me the books, which are my current set (3.5). 1 year ago, my brother was in town so I decided to try to DM for him, as he hadn't played in a while. Even though I hadn't played that much, I ran a short campaign and everyone involved (members of my family) seemed to have a good time. This past summer, I felt like playing some more so I got some of my friends involved. None of them had played before, so i seemed to be an expert in comparison. I did a lot of studying and planning, and we successfully started a weekends - only campaign. Now school has started back up (we are all in high school) and my group still wants to play. They convinced me to start to make D&D a club at out high school. The club was approved and now we have started. We recently had out first meeting, and 15 people showed up. Total, we have around 20 people but i know that we will only have around 15 during any given meeting due to scheduling. I am going to be a DM along with our teacher sponsor. We will have another teacher there to help us as well. We decided to split the members into 2 groups due to size, and are planning on making the campaign mostly role-play since the group is so large. I will be in charge of a group of 8, which is really big for me or anybody.
I could use any advice that the community could give me on how to make this thing work.
Thanks guys! I'm glad to be here and am looking forward to hearing your advice!

[Morphie]

Do the teachers play or know about the rules of the game? They might be able to help you out with running the game if they do.
Find some pre-made adventures and run them with your group, give your players access to the core rulebooks and ask them to choose the classes they find more appealing to play, but keep it simple. It may sound hard at the beginning but eventually the group will read the books, love the game, and understand the game mechanics, so eventually everyone will contribute to a good gameflow.

My group has 7 people, 6 PC's and 1 DM, so I never played with that many people, maybe you could have one of them as a DM assistant, to help you with the rolls and taking care of the initiative and all of the other stuff, he might even play a DMPC and help the rest of the party if they're feeling lost or don't know what to do. He might eventually feel confident to assume the DM's role, so you can divide your players into groups of less people - 5-6 is balanced, IMHO.

Good luck :smallbiggrin:

[GreenETC]

I would also mirror Morphie's sentiment of trying to search for more DMs. Ask all the players through a questionnaire or simply asking what their previous experience with D&D and roleplaying is. Look for those with decent experience and try to see if you can get them to become "Assistant DM," not for planning or setting things up, but for ensuring that the players understand what to do while rolling, how the rules work, and etc. It will make your job easier and will potentially allow you to find more DMs to be able to split the groups up even more, even possibly in the same game, considering that with 7-8 players, the possibility of splitting is high.

Overall, I'd recommend adapting a module in such a way as to make it easier for multiple players, and focusing on the roleplaying to get them started and into it. Most campaigns are set for 4 people, so adapting up to 7-8 means you need to account for the sheer number of actions and the lack of space. Small enclosed caves and dungeons are going to be a problem, so try to do something like a farm town or a war, where open spaces are readily available. Personally, one of my favorite modules for lots of players and ready roleplaying is Red Hand of Doom (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171284), which has an extensive network of reasources here on GitP. It's a nice open world with lots of cool things, and a great introduction to the typical things in D&D, plus it actually has dragons, something all newbies want to kill.

Also, try to stick close to the standard fantasy idea, since it's what most people are familiar with. On top of that, make sure you create a reasonable way to keep this group together, either by making them a guild or under contract by a king, to maintain the group dynamic, while watching for problem players. Good luck, and have fun fostering more in-depth play.

[ArcturusV]

It's hard, if you're as relatively new as you say, to really find "balanced" encounters with such a large group. Remember that most published adventure modules presume a 4 man band, at least that I've seen. So if you run a published adventure as is, your group will steamroll stuff pretty effortlessly. Even so just the ability for 8 people to gang up on a single target at a time makes combat even wonkier and harder to make really challenging, memorable battles.

What I'd suggest is similar to what Morphie said. Pick two of the group to be your "assistants". You can help teach them how to DM (So they can run groups as well), but their primary responsibility is to run enemies.

This leaves you with a group of six players, which is a lot more managable. And you are forced to build "Mob" encounters to give your helpers something to do (Which is a good idea, 1 vs 6 never goes well for the 1 monster).

So you set up encounters like... a group of 8 goblins lead by an Orc Warlord. Have each of your Assistants run 3 of the Gobbos. Run two of them and the Orc yourself. It makes combat more manageable for you, and helps your new "Trainees" get used to running monsters and thinking in terms of monster tactics.

[Gray Mage]

I'm going to echo everyone's thoughts about finding more DMs or at least splitting into three groups (I'm assuming the 15 are players, so three groups means 5 players per group).

Also, if they're all beginers, I'd advise a lower level module then RHoD. I've played the Sunless Citatel and found it good, and I'm planning on running the Scourge of the Howling Hord sometime soon. Both are 1st level modules.

You might also want to try and find someone that is experienced in other systems and see if they can DM that. Your club'll be more of a rpg club instead of a general one, but maybe that way you can find someone else to run a game.

[Red Fel]

I'm going to first echo everyone else's sentiments - smaller groups are better for beginners, get the teachers to help if they know the game, consider starting off with published materials and limiting selection to core books to keep things simple.

I would also suggest trying to put together an "Intro to DMing" curriculum. Make it clear to members that the position is both very rewarding and very challenging, in many ways moreso than that of the players, but that it is integral to any campaign. For example, you could put together a group of people interested in DMing and let them rotate one-shot campaigns to give them an idea for how it feels, and provide a safe forum for critique and suggestions. This will ensure that your club will have an ample supply of DMs, that your DMs will continue to grow and be more experienced, and that there will be games available for anyone who needs them.

What it sounds like your club needs right now is smaller groups and more experienced DMs, and setting up a training program will better enable you to achieve both goals.

[danzibr]

Like beating a horse here, but...

I DM'ed for a large group here. Let's see... my mom, my dad, my best friend, my fiancee, my brother and his wife, my other brother and his wife. So 8. And it was *terrible*. Combat was atrocious, but the decision-making was just as bad.

As the others say, it'd be good to get it down to, say, 3-5 players. However, if you do plan on running a lot of people, I have some suggestions:

One turn per player. So no summons, no animal companion (unless mount), no cohorts, etc.
Don't bother rolling for initiative. Have the player with the highest initiative go first, then down the line. Sit the people according to their initiative. Have all the players go first. This way the person immediately to the left of the DM goes, then the next, then the next, etc. Then all the baddies go. Should speed things up tremendously.
Don't allow mixed alignments. All good or neutral, probably. No chaotic neutral. Or maybe even all good for the first time. This should cut down on the decision-making time.

[Lawrence]

Thanks everybody for your responses, I am working with the teachers on implementing several of your suggestions. Just to answer a few questions; One teacher has heavy experience and the other has "medium" Experience. After talking to them, they said that they would prefer to have 2 large groups as opposed to 3, since we are pressed for space. In addition, we did find a few students willing to be assistants at least part of the time - which will help cut down on our numbers. I am going to be checking out the modules you guys posted, and i will see what i can fit in. Thanks for all of the great suggestions!
In a few weeks, I will probably post again to tell you all how it's going, especially if I need more help.
Thanks again! Talk to you all soon.

P.S. If anyone has any more suggestions, I would be glad to take them. I will check this thread once every few days!

[Gray Mage]

About space, I assume you mean inside the school. Couldn't you try and meet one group outside the school?

Also, one thing that might be good is reserving the first session on clearing any questions they might have and helping them make characters, especially if they're starting above level 1.

[Devronq]

I don't know if this is even an option but I highly suggest not playing in a 15-20 group. 4+1dm is best I'd say Max 6 so if it is all possible go 3 group it will make the game far far better trust me.