The trouble of the big party... DM HELP

[Drake2009]

So... ive got a party the size of North America, and its really annoying. We just started up, had 3 sessions of 1 hour periods, and we have BARELY started the campaign. Theres something close to 14 of us, kinda hard to tell when some people leave and come.... There is GOING to be a 2nd DM, but she is new ( I did this last year) and its always hard with so many people... Im not sure im ALLOWED to cut people off, because its a school club.... Its getting annoying, because some people seem to think that its cool to bring MORE PEOPLE!!!! Its really kind of getting annoying, when we have been playing, cause with so many people, theres a lot of shouting... and ive given up on rolling initiative...

[Extra Anchovies]

Honestly, a party that large is large enough that not only game balance but game play is nigh-impossible. My only recommendation is to downsize the group; when you get the second DM, split into 7/7.

Also, on the topic of it being a school club: did you start the club? You probably can't kick people out of the club, but if you are one of multiple DMs (or the only DM despite the fact that another DM could exist), then you should be able to ask people to leave without much backlash. Just don't ask specific people to leave; say something like "hey, this group is big enough that I can't handle it, and the game won't be as much fun for anyone as it could be. Is anyone okay with leaving for the duration of this campaign, or until I have open slots?"

[weckar]

I think the bigger concern (although the group size certainly is a concern) is that you are only managing one-hour sessions. The game will just be slow as molasses that way regardless of how many people you've got.

[Extra Anchovies]

I think the bigger concern (although the group size certainly is a concern) is that you are only managing one-hour sessions. The game will just be slow as molasses that way regardless of how many people you've got.

Indeed. That's the issue that I ran into when I was in a school-hosted gaming club a few (five) years ago. One hour isn't much. Nowadays my friends and I game for up to five or six hours at a time (occasionally more, like when we pull soda-fueled all-night dungeon crawls), and we grind through mid-length adventures in a session and a half. Considering that it took us about half an hour to actually get to playing (waiting for folks to show up, cooking the pizza rolls, harassing the DM's cats, etc), the same progress would take about nine one-hour sessions to get through.

[Amphetryon]

I've run games for groups that size (and up); I agree with weckar that - particularly with that big a group, one hour sessions are just not feasible, as combat rounds alone are often going to take that long. Some tips:


Action Economy is king: With the game's default assumption of a 3-5 person party defining appropriate CR-challenges, traditional BBEGs don't work, as they either get ROFLstomped due to a poor Initiative or nuke half the party by getting the drop on them. Multiple threats work better. Unfortunately, this only contributes to. . . .
Chaos at the table: Everyone talking at once, all the time, about everything game-related and otherwise, makes table management difficult at best. Try to institute a party spokesperson who relays the actions of the party to the DM, or institute timers for folks to declare actions, or both, which ties into. . . .
Attention must be paid: You may come across as draconian for implementing something along these lines, but it's almost mandatory that some sort of rule is in place to make folks pay attention to what the other players are doing on their turns. Otherwise, you wind up with 12 or more repetitions of what's happening, every single round, which is just not conducive to a fun or reasonable day of gaming.
D&D, now with homework assignments: Players who need to keep looking up their abilities are a minor inconvenience for a standard-sized group; they're a nightmare for a group of more than 8 people. Folks should have note cards or other methods of determining their spells, special abilities, summoned monster stats, etc, or the game is nigh-unplayable.

[Abd al-Azrad]

What I would do, is offer 1 free level to anyone's character if that person is willing to DM for a portion of the group.

Then you split the group, not into two groups of 7 (still too big) but into 4-5 groups of 3-4 players.

At the end of every game day, have the players evaluate the DMs and provide constructive criticism to improve their craft. Might be good to provide a survey or evaluation form to keep people focused on the important points.

Now, instead of having an unmanageably-sized game group, you have a gaming school.

[Extra Anchovies]

summoned monster stats

Additional tip: don't allow minionmancers in groups of 8+ people. One planar ally, or one familiar, or one animal companion: that's fine. An animal companion plus 1d4+1 of one summon and 1d3 of another... no. There shouldn't be 15 party members in combat.

[weckar]

Additional tip: don't allow minionmancers in groups of 8+ people. One planar ally, or one familiar, or one animal companion: that's fine. An animal companion plus 1d4+1 of one summon and 1d3 of another... no. There shouldn't be 15 party members in combat.Make them ALL minionmancers, roll out the mass combat rules. Done.

[Extra Anchovies]

Make them ALL minionmancers, roll out the mass combat rules. Done.

Hm. If everyone has one Cohort/Undead Cohort/Dragon Cohort, plus one familiar/animal companion/special mount, plus 1d4+1 summons (either via spells of by UMDing wands/scrolls), that would be, in a party of fourteen, 91 combatants (and that's only in the first round of combat). Mass combat rules indeed.

[Honest Tiefling]

Speak with a club advisor. If the rules are such that you cannot sanely run the activity, get the rules changed. And +1 to getting someone else to DM, 14 is quite a lot of people. If no one is willing to, just grab the 6 or so most polite people who will understand NOT to invite more. And add in a rule that you CANNOT invite more people.

If the club gets uppity, you're the only DM, so ditch. If the club isn't going to enforce rules to make the games workable, then I would not waste your time on it. Grab who you enjoy playing with and make it a private game.

[Crake]

With a group that size, and some co-ordinated DMing, you could run a pretty awesome multi-party intertwined campaign actually. Damn, what I would give for 14 interested players haha, as it stands, I can barely find 4 that can play, ah the woes of getting older

[Drake2009]

Yeah, i made the club, the 2nd dm is coming in next time. I really wish we could play for a couple of hours, but im not sure we can, and the teacher probobly cant stay that late... Otherwise, id probobly just have everyone walk to my house (20 minute walk) and then play for a couple hours, but i dont want to leave the teacher, cause she is really awesome and likes the game... Argh...

[Drake2009]

I was thinking that i might be able to split it into smaller groups... but we dont meet every week. We meet like every OTHER week, but 2 groups split off into one week, and then the other week we have the other 2 groups. So we dont have to kick anyone, but we can have smaller groups.

[Drake2009]

As it is, i feel like i am teaching a class lol. Making the characters was hilarious. I was writing on the board, and taking questions...

[Deox]

With a group that size, and some co-ordinated DMing, you could run a pretty awesome multi-party intertwined campaign actually. Damn, what I would give for 14 interested players haha, as it stands, I can barely find 4 that can play, ah the woes of getting older

You and me both.

[aleucard]

You need, at bare minimum, 3 DM's to make that cluster@#$^ work at all, let alone well. Another thing you need is to coordinate with the advisor on SOME way of getting a session length longer than an hour. Doing it on the weekend or something should help cull the ones just there to take up space, anyway.

[Sir Garanok]

Well it seems there are more problems than the number of players.

You can't play basketball with 20 players like
you can't play dnd with 14 with 1 hour sessions without splitting the group.

I'd suggest making 2-3 groups of different alignment and goals
,that interract with each other and maybe
make a big session once in a while for a massive boss/encounter.

[Phelix-Mu]

I have some experience DMing for large groups, and I find that anything over six people is generally a great way to induce psychopathy in the DM. You should probably try trimming it down. A few suggestions:


- Break the group into two or three parties, and meet with each party at a different time. This will make the session move faster, but it will also load the DM down with work prepping multiple sessions (and lead to early burnout).

- Start mentoring a DM: Give anyone with rules knowledge an ultimatum. Either they help out with the workload by doing their own group, or they get cut. This is ugly, cause cutting people is no fun, but allow them to stay and listen or be note-taker/journal-keeper. Also bad in that you'd be getting rid of people that know the game, but it sounds like this is a minority anyway.

- Ditch 90% of the rules and play freeform. Alternatively, as DM, make all the rolls yourself and give each person a set amount of time to declare actions (30-60 seconds should be plenty...I'd probably allow even less once everyone is used to it). Bring an egg timer and enforce the limit by skipping people that haven't announced what they are doing.

- Play freeform. Sadly, then it's not much like D&D.

[Trasilor]

As a club, you should treat this differently than your typical gaming session.

I would run it as follows:


Create groups of five to six people (with fifteen people, three groups of five is perfect).
Each groups selects one person to be the GM.
Everyone plays in the same universe/campaign world.
The GM runs a premade adventure with the group - use the Adviser to answer any questions during play.
After completion of an adventure, the DM rotates to a new player. DM makes a new appropriately leveled character or levels a pre-existing one.
Current DMs can remain as the DM if everyone in the group agrees.
If more than one group completes an adventure at the same time - players can switch groups. Note, no group can have more than 6 or less than 5. Adjust characters so that they are within one level of each other.
Have fun. This is the most important rule, if someone is not having fun, change something (new group, new character, etc).


Problems:
Besides all the normal problems associated with the game, the other problem you will face is if a DM cannot play. While this is normal for any game (no DM = no play) with three DMs, it becomes even more problematic. I suggest asking the adviser to step in as DM, if such a situation occurs.

Other suggestions to help:

Use Obsidian Portal (or another online resource) to help manage the campaign. Encourage players to make campaign logs etc.
Print out various DM tips. Use the forums if you need to solicit some.
Purchase, download or create adventures (ask adviser for help) for the DMs to run. You can use the same adventure for each DM. Saves lots of time for a new DM.



Finally, encourage players to get together outside of the club to play. Three to four hour sessions are quite common as it allows for more immersion into the game.

[Heikold]

I hate to say it as I love D&D, but by the sound of things you'd be better off with a different (and faster) system.

Have you considered the PDQ system as used in Jaws of the Six Serpents?

It's a lot faster to resolve when it comes to combat and the rules are so simple that both teaching a large group how to play and training up a second DM becomes much easier.

[Drake2009]

Yeah... The club is tomorrow, so i can talk to everybody then, and i am training a replacement, cause this is my last year. I havent started his training yet, wanted him to have some fun before i crushed him with dm responsibilities, but yeah... ill have more news tomorrow.

[Kelb_Panthera]

1 more vote for cut the club up into sub-groups. 3 would probably be best. You don't, apparently, have time to train 2 more DM's so, unless you can convince two of the club members to meet you independently to teach them how to DM, you're just going to have to get them to volunteer and throw them in the deep end, hoping for the best.

I'm also gonna have to agree that 1 hour increments are way too short. Laughably too short. It's cool that you want to include the faculty advisor but if she doesn't have time to spend more than an hour then there's no really compelling reason not to move off-campus and continue without her. You can use the "official" hour to catch up with the other groups, maybe shuffle some players around, and recieve new players if any show up.

[Extra Anchovies]

Idea:

For the 1-hour advisor-overseen segments, teach your fellow members the rules. Give them some system mastery, show them the inner workings of the game, tell them a little bit about character optimization basics (e.g. building feat/class selection around a particular theme, rather than just jumping straight into kobold cheese). Also take some time every now and then to toss out some DM pointers.

Then split the group into three parts, each with a DM, and have longer sessions (on weekends maybe) where the actual gaming happens.

[TypoNinja]

Honestly, a party that large is large enough that not only game balance but game play is nigh-impossible. My only recommendation is to downsize the group; when you get the second DM, split into 7/7.


Even 7 is too large for comfort in my opinion, 5 (plus the DM) is about as big a game I've ever been happy with. At 6 or more its just goddamn chaos, actually finding seats is a problem, making sure everybody can see and hear, enough people are not having their turn at once (or soon) that side conversations start popping up.


Indeed. That's the issue that I ran into when I was in a school-hosted gaming club a few (five) years ago. One hour isn't much. Nowadays my friends and I game for up to five or six hours at a time (occasionally more, like when we pull soda-fueled all-night dungeon crawls), and we grind through mid-length adventures in a session and a half. Considering that it took us about half an hour to actually get to playing (waiting for folks to show up, cooking the pizza rolls, harassing the DM's cats, etc), the same progress would take about nine one-hour sessions to get through.

My weekly D&D game is scheduled for 5pm to midnight-ish. A solid seven hours.... assuming we ever started on time. In something like 7 years, I could tally the scheduled start time being actual start time on one hand, people show up at 5, getting everybody settled and on task is always a process. Especially if the weekly D&D game is the only regularly scheduled event some people see each other at, there's always some catching up to be done.

I literally cannot picture a D&D campaign progressing in 1 hour intervals.


Make them ALL minionmancers, roll out the mass combat rules. Done.

D&D has mass combat rules?

[Yahzi]

I was thinking that i might be able to split it into smaller groups... but we dont meet every week. We meet like every OTHER week, but 2 groups split off into one week, and then the other week we have the other 2 groups. So we dont have to kick anyone, but we can have smaller groups.
The club should split up into tables of 3-5 players each. Then everybody takes turns being the DM. Each player at the table must run an adventure that takes at least 4 sessions. While they are running the adventure, their characters are off on other business (called home for a funeral/locked in jail/drunk in a tavern/whatever).

If you want to help the noobs, write up (or download) some simple 1st lvl adventures. Just google for them, there are lots of free ones.

Eventually the people who don't want to DM will go away, and then you'll be left with the good players. But as long as you are offering entertainment for free (with no work on their part) they are going to take advantage of you. Also, making them DM a session teaches them how to be better players (because they will see how annoying it is when the players aren't paying attention) and just in general teaches the kinds of skills that D&D is good for teaching.

[Nightcanon]

Suggestions:
Split your group up (4 is enough for 3 groups of 3-4 players and a DM)
If you have a majority of newbies, consider ways of simplifying at least for now: start at first level, possibly restrict to Core books, and maybe start with E6 while everyone gets up to speed with the rules

[Zirconia]

I agree, splitting up the group is essential, and with inexperienced people smaller groups = better because they will spend a lot of time puzzling over how to do things each round. With 3-4 in a group, they'll tend to help each other do that, with more they'll tend to have side conversations.

Regarding "club rules", I was involved as an informal advisor to a gaming club that ran into the whole "people want to join "the game" but we don't want them to" problem. Remember that while club rules may require that anyone who wants to join the CLUB is allowed to do so, I will bet you there is no campus or club rule that says "In this club, Drake must run a game, and must accept everyone who wants to join that game.".

If you get argument, use the analogy of a basketball club. Merely joining a basketball club does not mean you get to be the 6th or 7th player on the court during play. You can, however, start another pickup game.

As for how to split them up, start with an announcement that only people who can reliably attend will be able to be in a game. That doesn't mean a lifetime commitment, just the next few sessions. Then ask for people who are willing to run short games, if you provide a module. If you get nobody, add to the announcement the other requirement to be in a game, you have to be willing to pitch in and run a couple. That may trim your group back down to a manageable size right there. :) Be reasonable about it, if this is someone's first time there, or they are super shy, don't tag them to run the first game.

Then, so as to avoid everyone wanting to be in YOUR game, pass the modules to your X number of DMs, and have them run the games, while you circulate to resolve questions. Make sure you don't get bogged down with one group. Once you have rotate through a couple of DMs for each group, do 6-8 total, you will probably end up with at least a couple of people who (1) are willing to DM, and (2) are acceptable to players. Secret ballots/feedback is good here.

I suggest not being too strict about realism, with these short sessions, if someone shows up they pop in with the group, if not, they don't. With cell phone cameras, you can record figure positions between sessions (or assign the DM from each group), use fairly simple fights, maps can be carried away, and assign people to help set up fast at the beginning of each session.

[Extra Anchovies]

D&D has mass combat rules?

Miniatures Handbook gives rules for what basically amounts to turning real D&D into the D&D miniatures game. In my opinion, if you want a D&D wargame, just go back to the roots and play Chainmail.

[Zakerst]

I hate to suggest this but believe it or not if you can get the group to sit down in front of a few roll 20 computers and do most of it in chat and keep people respectful that might help, in particular when it comes to combat it keeps track on init and has a pretty structured grid and fudging rolls is near impossible so long as the DM is literate in its coding.

However I realize as a school club this might not be feasible so another thing I can suggest is keeping track of things on the white board or chalk board as much as possible if you're meeting in the school, and maybe even treat it like a class only calling on people to speak when they raise their hands and stuff. I know it doesn't sound like much fun but use what you have to have what fun you can. Oh another thought maybe post rules about respecting people and the DM's ruling(s) where everyone can see them. While you maybe can't kick people out of the club you should be able to ask them to leave if they're being disruptive/disobeying rules and maybe make a note about how having more people is cool but guests need to be respectful and players paying attention. (sorry if this is too harsh but I've tried playing in an environment like that and found it to be very difficult without a somewhat draconian set of rules)

Finally I also agree that splitting the group into smaller groups is a good idea if possible I'd shoot for 3 because rolling with a group of seven can be hard to say the least and often times character (and out of char) personality conflicts are likely as is inparty fighting. Not to mention all the toe stepping and spotlight stealing that goes on with groups that size and it sounds like you've already got control problems.

[Nightraiderx]

Make the group into a "character guild"

- make everything a one-shot (a simple adventure spanning no longer than an hour maybe 2).
- give rewards to those who are willing to DM the one-shots (heightened status within guild, bonus loot, possibly extra feats and passive exp for DM'ing)
- have areas within the guild house for social interacting and character development.
- ask the players what they would like to see for one-shots (maybe character introspective, trade)
- have the one shots span over a variety of days (so whenever the DM is available, create a schedule and pool to see who's going where).

You'll have to spend more time training system mastery for a bit but when people get competent enough to DM this relieves a lot of pressure on you.
I wouldn't do more than Core for now, and you can even introduce new books and supplements as access quests.

[Ssalarn]

Make the group into a "character guild"

- make everything a one-shot (a simple adventure spanning no longer than an hour maybe 2).
- give rewards to those who are willing to DM the one-shots (heightened status within guild, bonus loot, possibly extra feats and passive exp for DM'ing)
- have areas within the guild house for social interacting and character development.
- ask the players what they would like to see for one-shots (maybe character introspective, trade)
- have the one shots span over a variety of days (so whenever the DM is available, create a schedule and pool to see who's going where).

You'll have to spend more time training system mastery for a bit but when people get competent enough to DM this relieves a lot of pressure on you.
I wouldn't do more than Core for now, and you can even introduce new books and supplements as access quests.

These are all really good ideas. I'd say the big things the OP needs to accomplish are:

1) Limit table size. This game does not work with that many people at the table, for many reasons. Break your current group of 14 up into 3 smaller groups.

2) Use self-contained adventures. Write up one short adventure and then share it with the other DMs. Pathfinder scenarios are designed for shorter games with mixed groups, maybe look at downloading a couple scenarios from Paizo.com.

3) Empower those DMs! If no one is stepping up, give them a nudge. You've got to have a friend in that mix who can read and follow a module, and once that ice is broken you'll probably find more people willing to step up and take a turn running a table so everyone gets a chance to be a player.

[Heikold]

Just thinking about this and I have another suggestion for you:

Go hyper lethal.

No need to worry about offending people by cutting them if you just make the campaign world so terrifyingly dangerous that PCs being killed off is pretty standard.

"Oh look, your character's dead. That sucks. Hope to see you again when we start the next campaign!"

No cuts, no offence, no giant party. As a bonus you scare the rest of your party into upping their game versus the new and extremely dangerous DMing style.

[TypoNinja]

Just thinking about this and I have another suggestion for you:

Go hyper lethal.

No need to worry about offending people by cutting them if you just make the campaign world so terrifyingly dangerous that PCs being killed off is pretty standard.

"Oh look, your character's dead. That sucks. Hope to see you again when we start the next campaign!"

No cuts, no offence, no giant party. As a bonus you scare the rest of your party into upping their game versus the new and extremely dangerous DMing style.

I'd... not recommend this approach to people new to D&D and/or table tops unless they already have experience in more lethal game worlds. Somebody who puts time and effort into a character and a character idea may be put off with a "Oops, yer dead" scenario.

[Ssalarn]

I'd... not recommend this approach to people new to D&D and/or table tops unless they already have experience in more lethal game worlds. Somebody who puts time and effort into a character and a character idea may be put off with a "Oops, yer dead" scenario.

I was going to say something along these lines myself. While hyper-lethal scenarios may be a great way to control table numbers, they're a terrible to foster and promote the hobby.

[LoyalPaladin]

Now, instead of having an unmanageably-sized game group, you have a gaming school.
This is an ingenious idea.

I play with a fairly large group (8 players 1 DM) and it took us a long time to really get our dynamic going. I don't think we could manage a group any larger than it is now. One thing our DM is really good at is keeping our attention and presenting us challenge that don't require us to role initiative. Think Zelda dungeon puzzles versus Dynasty Warriors hack'n'slash.