About to DM for a larger group than I normally do

[Typewriter]

The DM of the group I'm playing with has decided to take a break for a while and I'm getting to run a campaign for a few months. At the meeting where we decided who was going to be running what I think 8 or 9 people showed up - meaning I'm going to have 7 or 8 players potentially. Now - it's unlikely that they'll all be showing up to every session but does anyone have any tips/advice for dealing with a group that large or do you all think it won't really make much of a difference? I think the most I've ever DMed is 5 players before.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I did something like this. Have the players nominate a spokesperson. After discussing things with the party, they tell you what the party will do whenever party-wide decisions are necessary.

Explain up front that the party cannot separate overly much for time and management reasons. Two groups, fine. Three or more, or individuals running off by themselves? Not okay. If the party must split, dedicate about 5 minutes to each group before switching so as to not bore the others to tears.

You may need help running combat encounters. Enlist a player that's good at math to help with things like tracking initiative if you don't use computers to do so. Come prepared with a lot of scratch paper.

Set a limit on bickering and be firm about stopping it when it happens. You think it can be a problem in a normal group, watch what happens when there's nearly double a normal party. Have fair rules to prevent it up front, at the beginning. Things like 'No PvP', 'Put the lives and wellbeing of the party above any other roleplaying concerns', and 'If all else fails, roll off. No arguments past it, no grudges'. It sounds heavy-handed, but you risk factionalism with a larger party. Do what you can to prevent it.

[Typewriter]

I did something like this. Have the players nominate a spokesperson. After discussing things with the party, they tell you what the party will do whenever party-wide decisions are necessary.

Explain up front that the party cannot separate overly much for time and management reasons. Two groups, fine. Three or more, or individuals running off by themselves? Not okay. If the party must split, dedicate about 5 minutes to each group before switching so as to not bore the others to tears.

You may need help running combat encounters. Enlist a player that's good at math to help with things like tracking initiative if you don't use computers to do so. Come prepared with a lot of scratch paper.

Set a limit on bickering and be firm about stopping it when it happens. You think it can be a problem in a normal group, watch what happens when there's nearly double a normal party. Have fair rules to prevent it up front, at the beginning. Things like 'No PvP', 'Put the lives and wellbeing of the party above any other roleplaying concerns', and 'If all else fails, roll off. No arguments past it, no grudges'. It sounds heavy-handed, but you risk factionalism with a larger party. Do what you can to prevent it.

That makes sense. Combat I should be fine for (I've run some large scale combats in 5E with lots of moving parts and don't usually have problems) but I'll definitely have an emphasis on keeping groups together and ensuring that they have avenues of making decisions that don't rely on hour long debates - I like those ideas.

[stoutstien]

9 has been my max. combat was the only real bog down until i instated the 5 sec rule for action selection. i also moved most mobs into 3-5 strike teams so it uncluttered combat. once we got in a groove it actually made encounter building more fun due to scale and randomness. I 2nd the idea of using a 2nd dm splitting crunch/narrative. If you are going to have players on and off the table session to session make sure everyone is ok with an another person controlling them or have a guild house concept to park them at. might be a locally way to use down time activities.

[pdegan2814]

Two simple things to help keep combat flowing would be to: at the start of each player's turn give a reminder to whomever is "on deck", so they can be ready to go right away. If people are dawdling in combat, threaten a timer on their decision, after which they default to no movement and the Dodge action. :)

[BillyBobShorton]

If they are mixed bunch who will not all make the "main party" consistently, all the intiative speedup and party spokesperson advice or any other general "dealing with a small platoon party" in the world won't save you from the frustration and chaos.

The best thing to do is plan something open and simple. Like they get to a town, all go around and buy stuff and interact with shopkeeps and steal and slaughter 12 commoners in a bar. The usual sillyness for a throw-together game. Next day maybe some bad guys show up-like 35-50. Raiders with a big boss and 2 sub-henchmen. Give them a few short encounters hunting the town, then one big long ass battle full of quick kills, creative deaths, and some building chase/western shootout stuff. And make the 3 BBEG's significantly stronger so those take a few rounds to drop and possibly take out/KO some PC's.

The group gets to have fun RPing, being goons, exploring a town, and being heros. Build the continuing story from for for whoever returns. Trying to run a dungeon or quest with a cluster of non-committal players is a mistake, IMO. Too much for a big pile of ppl who will be waiting forever and missing out on a lot as 1 or 3 inevitably try to steal the show and do everything, solve every puzzle, negotiate with every NPC, find every trap, use some feat or powergame tactic repeatedly to "show off their chops", etc.

Put them in very general sutuations where they all take turns going around and doing stuff. Then, combat.

That's my advice and I guarantee it'll work. And you'll have way less stress and more fun too.

[Puh Laden]

When the group I'm a player in started Curse of Strahd, we had 8 players.

Now we have three regulars, two pretty regulars, and two less regulars. This is the DM's second campaign, but everyone's relatively experienced so things go smoothly and no one takes forever (though I always take a little longer trying to decide between the cool move and the practical move :smallbiggrin:). Even when we had eight, things went smoothly. The way my DM does initiative is he has us all roll and he rolls for the monsters. Then he goes down the line asking for initiative; he doesn't ask who's going first, he just asks each player individually what their initiative is and writes it in an appropriate space in the paper.

[Kuulvheysoon]

What I've done is write names on clothespins, and clip those to the top of my DM screen to represent the initiative order.

[Hyde]

Especially if this isn't going to be long term, I'd probably do away with initiative, and just go around the table. It's a little chaotic to tell people that they're next, and a little exhausting each round. "The person next to me is going, and I haven't gone yet, so my turn is next" is the kind of simple you need. Split your monsters in half and have half of them go in the middle of the players.

I'll also encourage the time limit on turns that was mentioned. I was in an obnoxious game where it was literally 40 minutes between turns (I gave up).