Dming advice please.

[Little Beast]

Hi everyone. I am currently dming a party of 4 players who each have 2 characters. They all started at 1st level and are now 6th level. We are running this campaign with Rappan Athuk in mind for the near future. I have never attempted a campaign this large before even though I’ve been gaming for over 30 years. The players are pretty well versed in our system (3.5) and have built some pretty tough characters.

I have multiple issues as dm and need some advice.

1) This party is big! And diverse. Bard, barbarian, cleric and 5 multiclass characters. I’m used to a round of combat taking some time but it takes up to two hours to get through a single combat. Am I just being impatient to think that we could get more done in a night?

2) I’m trying really hard to track everything going on in combat but it’s getting difficult. I’m using a dry erase board for some stats like initiative. Please, some tips on condition tracking and such.

3) There is much chaos in communication. I want the party to succeed so I told them to talk freely amongst themselves. The problem is talking over another person or interrupting another player or myself. I’ve lost it a couple of times already because of this. Tips on communication between humans please.

I know there aren’t rules involved here, I just need some advice from experienced dms. I don’t want to be a control freak but I feel that I need some tools for managing a campaign like this. Thanks for any help.

[exelsisxax]

Hi everyone. I am currently dming a party of 4 players who each have 2 characters. They all started at 1st level and are now 6th level. We are running this campaign with Rappan Athuk in mind for the near future. I have never attempted a campaign this large before even though I’ve been gaming for over 30 years. The players are pretty well versed in our system (3.5) and have built some pretty tough characters.

I have multiple issues as dm and need some advice.
I think see your problem.


1) This party is big! And diverse. Bard, barbarian, cleric and 5 multiclass characters. I’m used to a round of combat taking some time but it takes up to two hours to get through a single combat. Am I just being impatient to think that we could get more done in a night?
You might be an impatient person, but 8 characters is definitely too many, especially if any of them have companions of any kind. Shrink the party.


2) I’m trying really hard to track everything going on in combat but it’s getting difficult. I’m using a dry erase board for some stats like initiative. Please, some tips on condition tracking and such.
Yeah, 8 characters + allies is hard to track. The large number of enemies required to even threaten such a group of course adds immensely to the cognitive load. Shrink the party.


3) There is much chaos in communication. I want the party to succeed so I told them to talk freely amongst themselves. The problem is talking over another person or interrupting another player or myself. I’ve lost it a couple of times already because of this. Tips on communication between humans please.
Too damn many characters probably isn't helping, but this seems like a player problem. Tell them to stop talking over eachother? Basically just complain about it. People problems get solved by talking to those people about it, so you've got to go do it.



I know there aren’t rules involved here, I just need some advice from experienced dms. I don’t want to be a control freak but I feel that I need some tools for managing a campaign like this. Thanks for any help.

Well, hopefully my advice is informative even if it is "don't run a campaign like this".

[Zombimode]

1) This party is big! And diverse. Bard, barbarian, cleric and 5 multiclass characters. I’m used to a round of combat taking some time but it takes up to two hours to get through a single combat. Am I just being impatient to think that we could get more done in a night?

Is there a particular reason for your Setup (4 Players with 2 characters each)? I mean, you DO have 4 Players, so giving Players more than one character is not needed.


2) I’m trying really hard to track everything going on in combat but it’s getting difficult. I’m using a dry erase board for some stats like initiative. Please, some tips on condition tracking and such.

If you are not extremely limited on cash, FantasyGrounds (available on Steam) has proven to be a very worthwhile Investment. It is a Software developed for playing over the Internet, but it Comes with a combat tracker that is incredibly handy for a meatspace GM. With this tracker, tracking anything combat related becomes almost automatic including later changes to the initiative order (through use of ready, deley, or stuff like White Raven Tactics). If you prepare Encounters, Setting up the initiative order is a matter of one click.
It also has some other Features useful for meatspace GMs.

[AnimeTheCat]

Hi everyone. I am currently dming a party of 4 players who each have 2 characters. They all started at 1st level and are now 6th level. We are running this campaign with Rappan Athuk in mind for the near future. I have never attempted a campaign this large before even though I’ve been gaming for over 30 years. The players are pretty well versed in our system (3.5) and have built some pretty tough characters.

I'm not familiar with the campaign, but most adventures/campaigns aren't designed for play with more than 5 players. I'm sure you've already done it, but I will recommend looking through the whole adventure/campaign book/pamphlet/path and making sure you've scaled the encounters up. A secondary idea is one I'm going to steal from BoredAsUsual in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?539483-Problem-Player) thread. She is running a game where the players have multiple characters but only play as one of them in any given game. I would like to think it works as something of a party select type system from games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc. I could be off there, but essentially each player selects one character and that's the character they play as for the session. That can solve some of your below problems as well as making it so that you may not have to go through the campaign and scale up encounters.


I have multiple issues as dm and need some advice.

1) This party is big! And diverse. Bard, barbarian, cleric and 5 multiclass characters. I’m used to a round of combat taking some time but it takes up to two hours to get through a single combat. Am I just being impatient to think that we could get more done in a night?

Big diverse parties aren't innately bad, but they do innately extend combat. I suggest getting a sand time (if you're in person) or figuring out a way to display a digital timer and give each player one minute to determine their actions for a given character. I know that may not sit well with some people, but in game, that's 6 seconds. You can't have drawn out strategy conversations in 6 seconds. A minute is generous in that regard. In another light, it does put a sense of urgency and rush the players even a little, while also speeding up combat. If they don't come up with an idea, they go with the last thing they said they were thinking about doing (don't take a turn away from them).


2) I’m trying really hard to track everything going on in combat but it’s getting difficult. I’m using a dry erase board for some stats like initiative. Please, some tips on condition tracking and such.

One thing you can do is group the initiative. If you don't use the first suggestion I stole from BoredAsUsual, have each player roll initiative only once, using either inititive score. This can serve as a buff to characters with lower initiative, but then you keep track of half of the initiatives you originally were. I use this for enemies. I'll group them together and have them go at once. I typically try to group enemies by initiative score though. If the pary is fighting skeletons and zombies, i'll roll two initiatives and have them go on their respective rolls (even if I'm using 3 skeletons and 2 zombies).


3) There is much chaos in communication. I want the party to succeed so I told them to talk freely amongst themselves. The problem is talking over another person or interrupting another player or myself. I’ve lost it a couple of times already because of this. Tips on communication between humans please.

Get a stuffed animal, sceptar, sword, or other object. You hold it as the DM. When you present it to someone they have priority and they are the one talking. All other conversation should either be a) very quite, b) non-existant, and/or c) non-disruptive to the conversation between the DM and the player with said object. During battle, unless the player who's initiative it's on addresses another player directly, they are treated as if they have the object. Let them know that should they interrupt, there will be consequences. These can range from in-game (if the person is "in character") to out of game removal of snacks! (if they player is just being disruptive in general). You've gotta set your rules and punishments for breaking the rules. You've gotta be the DM (Dungeon Momma... sorry... I couldn't help myself)...


I know there aren’t rules involved here, I just need some advice from experienced dms. I don’t want to be a control freak but I feel that I need some tools for managing a campaign like this. Thanks for any help.

I hope those ideas help or at least get your own juices flowing to have your own ideas.

[Darth Ultron]

A lot of preparation helps. Make lots of notes and write everything down.

It is an huge help to have a copy of each character, then you don't have to ask ''what is your X?". Also you can make charts of things like ''all the base ACs'', ''all the flat footed ACs'' ''all the will saves'' and anything else you might need.

You might want an action time limit. Mine is six seconds. That is how long a player has to say what a characters actions are. If they miss it, the character takes no action that round.

The ''talking'' is a social problem. You can try to ''talk''(haha) to people about it....but again, my way is more direct: talk out of turn and you loose your action, and do it enough times your out of the game. You might not want to be ''that harsh'', but it does work. Amazingly motor mouth Matt is quiet after missing 25 turns....

[Telonius]

Time limits are something I really, really don't like to use, but with a party that big it might make sense. Get yourself an egg timer. If the action isn't taken in 1 minute, they hold initiative. If they haven't figured out what they want to do by the end of the round, they've basically lost their turn. (6 seconds is a bit too short, I think. Yeah, it tracks with the length of an actual round, but people sometimes need a bit of time to decide, and not everybody is good at snap decisions. We don't require the Fighter's player to actually swing a sword; I think we shouldn't require him to make a judgment his character would in the same time frame).

Four players isn't usually unmanageable, for communication, but it does seem like they're taking it a little (a lot?) too far. Random chatting and strategizing is for when you're out of combat. The timer will probably help with that. Remind the players that the DM needs to be able to hear what action they're taking. (Personally I have an easier time with this; I have a severe hearing loss, and wear hearing aids, so the players tend to clam up when I let them know I'm having trouble figuring out who's doing what).

Some other possible time-savers: Index cards for active spells and effects. Helps a lot to speed up the math, if people aren't all shouting to remind them, "Hey, I had Prayer up!" "Inspire Courage!" "Didn't you get a +2 from ..."

[Geddy2112]

I second having 8 characters being way too many. You have a table of 5 (4 players and you as DM) which is fine, but 8 characters in a combat is an absolute nightmare.

A whiteboard helps, you can write down buffs/debuffs as a simple + or - X, or if you know conditions and modifiers really well, "inspire courage" "invisible" and the like. Also, make your players do it themselves. I have to babysit my own monsters and all their weird SLA's, plus a horde of mooks, and know and manage three times the number of enemies and NPC's that the party has. I also have to do this for multiple encounters a session. Your players have two characters, and really they should only have one. They can track their own bard buffs, spells they cast on themselves and the like. If they forget, it is on them.

I am fairly generous when giving my players time to describe their actions, but they have to start describing a clear path in about 10 seconds or they get skipped. Some spells and mechanics can take a long time to resolve even with vet players, but even then I want to know "I cast phantasmal killer on the X" or "I use great cleave on the horde of goblins around me" pretty soon so we can get the show on the road.

In a party of 4 you must have some seriously talkative people to have a problem. I normally see that in groups of 6 or more. A good way to nip this in the bud is to not repeat yourself. If they miss things because they were talking, their loss. It also works if you ever have players that would rather play candy crush when it is not their turn.

[Elkad]

I like big parties. And big fights.
My table often has 8 players at it. Plus companions, cohorts, familiars, etc.
As the DM, I tend to counter the action advantage by using lots of mooks on my side of the screen, so I'm no help at all. All my fights are big.

Use an initiative tree (your dry erase board will work. Mine is metal-backed and I have magnetic strips with character names and "Bad1, Bad2, Bad3, etc" on them to stick to it).
Call the initiatives out every time. "Alice, your move. Bob, you are on deck." "Bob, your move. Joe, you are on deck".
Better yet, put a well-organized player in charge of the initiative tree.

Get ruthless. When you get to Bob, if he doesn't know what his player wants to do within about 15 seconds, say "Joe, you ready? Yes? Bob, you are holding your action. Joe, go."
You need to cut a little slack here sometimes. If the whole battlefield just changed because more badguys appeared or a big BFC just got laid down, the next couple guys are going to have their planned action spoiled, so give them a break. But in general, people should take their turn immediately. Or at least say "I'm casting Black Tentacles, hold on while I check the range."

Use status markers where you can. I use poker chips (the cheap plastic ones with the interlocking edges) in various colors stacked under minis. White=Invis, Green=Haste, etc. A tiny die next to a character indicates how many Mirror Images it has up. Or his altitude in 5' squares.
For long ranges, stop counting squares. Use a ruler. Round in favor of the player if it's close.

Write party-wide buffs on the Initiative board, so everyone can look up and see "+4 from bardsong, +1 from Haste (expires round 7)"
Make status effect posters and pin them to the walls so you don't have to flip to find out what Nauseated does every time.
Print all the Grapple pages and put them in a bright pink folder.

As the DM. Don't use 8 completely different monsters for one encounter. Use 2-3 types max. It's a LOT easier to manage 9 orcs and a troll than it is to manage 2 orcs, 1 goblin, 2 kobolds, an ogre, a rust monster, and 2 war dogs.

TRUST YOUR PLAYERS. Write the AC of the monsters on the initiative board, at least after the first successful hit. Same with SR and other static defenses. Who cares if Lisa the Barbarian uses that to optimize her Power Attack penalty? Tell them the attack bonus of the mooks and make them roll hits on one another. (You have to have some fun, so keep the damage dice for yourself.)

Fast-forward through the mopup phase of some fights. BBEG is dead, there is a bunch of slowed and entangled goblins left? Break initiative, every goblin gets a free swing, and then he dies.

But above all, accept the fact that combat is still going to be slow. If that's OK with your players (and you), that's fine. Don't forget to take a break before combat. "Everyone roll initiative. And then we take a 5 minute break." If your players spend the 5 minutes in the restroom line working out a seekrit battle plan, great. (Even better if you listen in and turn it against them occasionally because the "evil wizard scried on them and heard their plans")

[Little Beast]

Awesome!!! That is all some very welcome and seemingly very sound advice. Thank you all so much. Happy gaming!

[xyamius]

When dealing with a developed party that started large instead of taking them from 8 and cutting them to 4 if they have gained multiple levels together. It would be better to just have the party start over.

Why is that as a party ventures forth and levels they purchase and pass on feats, spells, prestige classes, skills and gear so as to better function as a party. That is unless everyone in your group is bent on all for me screw the rest.

By start over i don't suggest at level 1 again since that removes all the time and effort those players just spent leveling and adventuring.

I suggest it would be better to just go Gestalt at this point since you have 8 players all with 4 pc's that way they can just combine the classes into one and it should still error on the side of the players while accomplishing what you had set in mind. If you do this don't forget you will need to drastically adjust the monsters that the players have been fighting if needed since you just cut the dice they roll in 1/2 making an encounter that could have been an easy win for them a tough fight now.

By killing off the pc's you run the risk of loosing player(s) or upsetting them as they see tougher and tougher challenges tossed at them causing DND to change from a fun activity to the DM vs the Players. The Dm's job is a tough one it's to entertain by telling a story and giving an adventure for the players to enjoy. If it ever turns into DM vs the Players that is when I suggest there needs to be a break and see if someone else will run the campaign or a different campaign to allow the stress of DMing go down. Heck take a break from dnd as a group and go out kareoke, do board games, movies, or something else if needed.

Every campaign doesn't have to be epic set or world ending either. Some can be just RP.

Never forget that DND has always been about a group of friends and sometimes strangers getting together to have fun in a fantasy setting and enjoy each others company.

[Fizban]

Time limits are something I really, really don't like to use, but with a party that big it might make sense. Get yourself an egg timer. If the action isn't taken in 1 minute, they hold initiative.
I also support timers (I have a 2 minute one which is usually a bit long for people that are actually ready), but holding initiative becomes a problem. Instead of having a clean turn order, it means that the problem players go from taking too long to jumping in randomly between other people's turns, and if you're actually running it according to the delay action, they're moving their own turn every time they do it, so you have to re-write the turn order again. If necessary you can give some sort of refund like +2 attacks next turn (what I do is make their action stand still and full-defense), but if taking too long doesn't actually skip that turn it's going to muddy all the turns after it.

If you're not already doing it and you insist on keeping 2 characters per player, sync their initiatives. Each player must control all of their stuff at the same time, else madness. You can have them take the best or worst or average or whatever of their initiatives, but don't have any player taking two turns in the same round.

Speaking of small bonuses, I would recommend pushing your players away from them. The only thing worse than a small bonus you forget, is a small bonus that people have to keep reminding you about, so much wasted air-time. Take all those little +1's out of Haste, they don't matter. Get rid of Bless, Prayer, etc, they're just a hassle. Allow only buffs or minute or 10 minute/level duration, which the party casts at the same time so they end at the same time: buffs are up, or buffs are down, here's the grand total, and if the grand total isn't at least a +3 you're wasting my time.

[ksbsnowowl]

Instead of having a clean turn order, it means that the problem players go from taking too long to jumping in randomly between other people's turns, and if you're actually running it according to the delay action, they're moving their own turn every time they do it, so you have to re-write the turn order again.

Get one of those magnetic white-boards people put on their dorm room doors at college. Draw a linear grid numbered 30 - 0 (probably two or three columns). Get magnets with the PC's names. When someone delays, just take their name off the board until they are ready to come in, then stick their magnet in their new spot in the initiative.