Running a game with lots of party members

[Zhentarim]

Is it a bad idea to run a game with 9 party members? I have the “Way of the Wicked” Pathfinder Adventure path, and I have 9 submissions which all look pretty good. I’m running the game as a slow paced, 1 post per week game, since I get pretty busy sometimes, and don’t want to overwhelm myself with too much in the few precious moments I’m not doing business. Is there anything I need to keep in mind if I take on 9 players?

[Vaern]

It kind of depends on the kind of game you want to run. A giant party might be fine for a casual game but, overall, I'd recommend against it for a number of reasons which mostly just come down to game balance.

Challenge ratings for encounters are meant to be balanced around a group of four players, and scaling up your encounters to accommodate for a group of more than twice that size can be tricky. The intuitive thing to do would be to just double the number of creatures in the encounter, but that more than likely will just create a whole host of new problems in practice. Rather, anything added to the encounter should be specifically put there with the party's composition, strengths, and weaknesses in mind.

The party will have a lot more resources at their disposal. The standard party composition consists of a divine caster (healer), an arcane caster (utility/blaster), a skillmonkey, and a frontline martial character. The loss of one of these characters, or even the resources they provide, sets the party off balance and puts them in a dangerous position where they may not be able to complete their next encounter.
For example, the party gets ambushed while resting and the cleric, who has no spells left for the day, is unable to heal the rogue who is left bleeding out at the end of combat. Later on in the dungeon, they are unable to detect or disable a trap because they no longer have a rogue.
With a party of nine people to spread four characters' worth of responsibilities across, there's likely one or two other people in the group who can step up and take the place of someone who has died or run out of spells. The stakes are much lower, and the atmosphere game is overall less tense and dramatic.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing to have in a casual setting, but it can result in your players seeing and treating their characters as expendable which is something that you certainly don't want if you're intending to take the game more seriously.

There's a handful of other problems to throw in the mix like scheduling and the fact that combat would drag on forever if you were actually sitting around a table playing this game, but by your "one post per week" comment I'm guessing it's all going to be happening online which should basically take those issues out of the equation.

[Kurald Galain]

Frankly, I would run two campaigns (of the same source material) simultaneously.

I find groups of six people already slow down gameplay too much, and nine would be worse. That's aside from the fact that adventure paths are usually designed for four characters.

[Biggus]

Frankly, I would run two campaigns (of the same source material) simultaneously.

I find groups of six people already slow down gameplay too much, and nine would be worse. That's aside from the fact that adventure paths are usually designed for four characters.

Yeah, I'd split it in two. I played in a group with six regular players and that worked ok, but when occasional players came and it got up to seven or eight things got slow and confusing. Also even with six regulars there was somebody absent as often as not.

[Aotrs Commander]

I run with average party size of 7-8 characters (on table top, as part of our weekly games); nine is, I think, a bridge too far for me personally - partly because of the issues of needing the majority of those people to turn up every week. We did it for a couple of weeks in 4E (I wasn't DM). We had nine players over eight characters at the start of Rise of the Runelords, but two of them shared a character (as they didn't turn up that often).

Some things to bear in mind, from my experience.

1) DO pre-plan all the encounters. "Double (plus a bit) the number" of monsters often doesn't work because there is sometimes not enough space (esepcially if extras like summons or animal companions are involved). Use the excess to build, I would strongly recommend, fewer-but higher level NPCs (e.g. an encounter of Just Giants or something - add a cleric or oracle or something, or ranged attackers.) Combained arms is the way to do this, since you need to keep a sharp eye on bit count; also be prepared to run more than one encounter's worth at once if running an AP or something, even with the boosts. Remember that your players are likely to have more casters, so make sure your NPCs have plenty of access to dispels. (More critical in PF, since PF made the very silly move to nerf Dispel Magic by taking away the area dispel until higher level; seriously, consider putting it back.)

1a) Here is my Defiant template. Use it liberally, especially on boss or single-creature encounters where you can afford to easily slap two or three on. With the enhanced concentration of fire you WILL have to do something like this to address the action-economy of boss creatures; extensive use of Defiant in my games has been extra-ordinarily successful in making for better fights). It is also trivial to add, even on the fly (you just increment the monster's hit points). Alternatively, I suggest maybe looking at 5E legendary actions, though aside from their existance, I am afraid I don't know anything more about them.

Defiant Creature

A Defiant creature is one that is extremely hard to kill. They cling to life (or unlife) with a tenacity unheard of by lesser creatures. The reasons are many. They may be chosen by destiny, favoured by some higher power, powered by some unspeakable ritual magic, driven by their sheer bloody-minded will to survive or they may simply be preternaturally fortunate.

The Defiant Template can be applied to any creature, hereafter referred to as the Base Creature. This template can be applied multiple times.

All statistics are as the base creature except:

HD: A Defiant creature always has maximum hit points. A Defiant creature’s hit points are divided into blocks, with the base creature’s maximum hit points forming the first block. For each time this template is taken, it gains an additional block of hit points equal to its maximum hit points. When one block is reduced to 0, damage transfers immediately to the next one.

These are not temporary hit points and are treated as regular hit points; if the creature’s Constitution is reduced (or any other stat that applies to it’s hit points), the base and the blocks are all reduced accordingly. Effects that reduce a creature’s hit points to 0 or 1 (e.g. Harm, suffocation) instead reduce the current block’s hit points to 0 or 1. Effects which likewise function on current hit points only treat the current block’s hit points. The creature’s HD remain unaffected.

Defiant creature hit points are indicated with the format x+x, where x is the base creature’s maximum hit points, with each block being separated by the plus sign.

Temporary hit points are not counted as part of the blocks, i.e. the creatures only gets them once. They thus are not lost when a block is sacrificed, nor do they count as a block themselves (and so cannot be used with I Got Better). Temporary hits are listed first in stat blocks in the notation y+x+x.

Special Qualities: As the base creature plus the following special ability.

I Got Better (Ex): Once per encounter per template application, if the Defiant creature fails a saving throw, it can reroll its save as a free action. Each time it uses a reroll, it takes a cumulative -1 penalty to attack rolls, skill and ability checks, opposed checks and saves.

At the end of its turn, as a Swift action, the Defiant creature can expend one full block of hit-points to negate any one negative condition, power, spell or other negative effect currently affecting it. This effect on the creature (only) ends immediately.

Any time the Defiant is subject to a non-hit-point-damaging effect that kills it outright or leaves it otherwise Confused, Cowering, Dazed, Helpless, Nauseated, Paralysed, Petrified (or similar), Polymorphed or Stunned, it may expend a full block of hit points to negate that portion of the effect.

A block of hit points expended by this power must be one that is completely undamaged.

CR +1 for each template application.


2) I VERY STRONGLY recommend (never mind if any of the players winge) pre-rolling all the iniatives before the session (or even the campaign) starts. I just do it on a spreadsheet; you have have the players roll a load of dice if you want, but I don't think it's worth the effort myself. That extra five minutes you waste collecting the rolls from the party, rolling your own an putting into an order? Yeah, move that outside of the session, the round sequence is already slow enough, especially in something as complex as PF1. If you're more generous than me, you can adjust you pre-rolled iniatives as much as you like if the PCs get iniative changes ((I just tell 'em hard lines, either pick it at level one or the start of a bit I'm writing, since I'm not going through and adjusting it again for the sake of probably one round in every combat).

3) Have a DM's screen; doesn't matter if you don't use it, it is there so that you can print up a little piece of paper with each chareacter's name on it (and do yourself at LEAST 8 "monster #" and I would advise "NPC #" as well); at the start of the encounter, line them up your left to right, (or right to left from the player's perspective) according to your iniatives, and that tells everyone when it's their turn, and how long they have to pop off to the loo or the bar or whatever before their go comes up (and with nine players plus NPCs it WILL taek time to go arouhnd the table). (Encourage the players to use the time to plan their actions for next round, within reason.)

4) If you don't already do it, I would very strongely recommend that the DM keeps at least a copy of the character sheet (if the DM doesn't have all the character sheets already). With nine players, you will get people not turning up because life some weeks. And you WILL inevitably have breaks between sessions where you are in the middle of combat so you can't fade anyone to the background.

5) Also worth bearing in mind, the more players you have, the fewer you can afford to have be away at once before having to cancel the session; we cancel usually if there's less than four players in our 7-character parties (as that's the point each ploayer's controlling more than two characters.) You might also need to point out to the players that they will have to take turns in running more than one character at once in the combats.

6) Also recommend a party buff sheet, or a little card with the most regularly deployed buffs on it you stand in front of the DM's screen (below the initiative cards) and juts put them out as they cast those spells. (This may apply more to 3.x, where you might have bard song/Elation/Good Hope/Bless etc etc.

[exelsisxax]

Slow-paced PbP with 9 players? I feel like taking 10 years is probable at that point.

[Zhentarim]

Slow-paced PbP with 9 players? I feel like taking 10 years is probable at that point.

A whole decade—that is a long time.

[magwaaf]

Is it a bad idea to run a game with 9 party members? I have the “Way of the Wicked” Pathfinder Adventure path, and I have 9 submissions which all look pretty good. I’m running the game as a slow paced, 1 post per week game, since I get pretty busy sometimes, and don’t want to overwhelm myself with too much in the few precious moments I’m not doing business. Is there anything I need to keep in mind if I take on 9 players?

my last campaign was a party of 16 players lol

[Saintheart]

Speaking as a guy who runs PbP exclusively and who runs with more than 4 players mainly because I like as many people as possible to have fun:

Most of the comments here are talking about FtF games. That's a very different experience when you have a lot of players. If it's FtF there's a lot more time pressure to keep everyone engaged and keep all the numbers straight in your head. But in PbP there is much more expectation that you get combat and rulings right because you have larger scads of time to do so. It's a different kind of pressure.

It is doable to run a campaign with 8 players. It's more of a challenge, but particularly if you've got players who are keen to amuse themselves interacting with one another as well, it can really get good. My first big long 3.5 campaign was Red Hand of Doom with 8, wholly in PbP. It took about 5 years to finish, and by the end of it people were drifting out for various reasons, but at least I did finish. And it was an absolute blast because I had at least two or three memorable characters ranging from a fourth-wall breaking bard to a pirate cleric to a winged elf, whose posts were just a pleasure to read. Most of the advice in the handbook comes from my experience running it against a lot of players.

In terms of general advice when running with 8+ players in 3.5 in PbP:

(1) Combat is horrendously slow. If you've got a 1 post per week requirement and assume that everyone dials in and provides their actions accurately, that's possibly a full month to finish the average D&D 3.5 fight of 4 rounds or so.

(2) Same goes for dialogue scenes between PCs and NPCs, because nobody can crosstalk and replies only come as fast as you respond to them. Group planning -- "how do we assault this castle", etc -- also takes a horrendously long time because it's harder to get a quick consensus for anything.

(3) If you're running with 8+ players I very strongly recommend you pick up and use a decent bit of battlemapping software such as MapTools, crotchety though the interface is. Round-by-round updates using a battlemap make things so much clearer.

(4) As others have said, a party with more than 4 players by definition has more resources than the standard CRs of opponents assume. And CRs themselves are already dodgy pieces of inadequate guesswork that you would be well-advised to throw out and just eyeball for 4-man groups, let alone a brigade of 9. Beyond the resources, though, what a pack of 9 brings to the table is a near-unassailable advantage in the action economy stakes.

Basically, forget about solo monster encounters. They're tricky enough to challenge a 4 man party without it getting very swingy. A battle where one side gets to do nine different things (or 18, really, if we're counting move actions and standard actions) against the monster's one or two isn't a fight, it's a future guaranteed funeral for the side with only two actions. From here on, your fights will have multiple opponents and ideally multiple groups of opponents appearing across the fight rather than all at once, in order to force the party to split its artillery up between more than one target and because parties are more taxed by a steady stream of opponents than they are one big mob all showing up at once. My rule of thumb tends to be that it should be at least one monster opponent for every PC, although the monsters need not be doing the same things and certainly don't have to be the same monster.

[Zhentarim]

Speaking as a guy who runs PbP exclusively and who runs with more than 4 players mainly because I like as many people as possible to have fun:

Most of the comments here are talking about FtF games. That's a very different experience when you have a lot of players. If it's FtF there's a lot more time pressure to keep everyone engaged and keep all the numbers straight in your head. But in PbP there is much more expectation that you get combat and rulings right because you have larger scads of time to do so. It's a different kind of pressure.

It is doable to run a campaign with 8 players. It's more of a challenge, but particularly if you've got players who are keen to amuse themselves interacting with one another as well, it can really get good. My first big long 3.5 campaign was Red Hand of Doom with 8, wholly in PbP. It took about 5 years to finish, and by the end of it people were drifting out for various reasons, but at least I did finish. And it was an absolute blast because I had at least two or three memorable characters ranging from a fourth-wall breaking bard to a pirate cleric to a winged elf, whose posts were just a pleasure to read. Most of the advice in the handbook comes from my experience running it against a lot of players.

In terms of general advice when running with 8+ players in 3.5 in PbP:

(1) Combat is horrendously slow. If you've got a 1 post per week requirement and assume that everyone dials in and provides their actions accurately, that's possibly a full month to finish the average D&D 3.5 fight of 4 rounds or so.

(2) Same goes for dialogue scenes between PCs and NPCs, because nobody can crosstalk and replies only come as fast as you respond to them. Group planning -- "how do we assault this castle", etc -- also takes a horrendously long time because it's harder to get a quick consensus for anything.

(3) If you're running with 8+ players I very strongly recommend you pick up and use a decent bit of battlemapping software such as MapTools, crotchety though the interface is. Round-by-round updates using a battlemap make things so much clearer.

(4) As others have said, a party with more than 4 players by definition has more resources than the standard CRs of opponents assume. And CRs themselves are already dodgy pieces of inadequate guesswork that you would be well-advised to throw out and just eyeball for 4-man groups, let alone a brigade of 9. Beyond the resources, though, what a pack of 9 brings to the table is a near-unassailable advantage in the action economy stakes.

Basically, forget about solo monster encounters. They're tricky enough to challenge a 4 man party without it getting very swingy. A battle where one side gets to do nine different things (or 18, really, if we're counting move actions and standard actions) against the monster's one or two isn't a fight, it's a future guaranteed funeral for the side with only two actions. From here on, your fights will have multiple opponents and ideally multiple groups of opponents appearing across the fight rather than all at once, in order to force the party to split its artillery up between more than one target and because parties are more taxed by a steady stream of opponents than they are one big mob all showing up at once. My rule of thumb tends to be that it should be at least one monster opponent for every PC, although the monsters need not be doing the same things and certainly don't have to be the same monster.

I had a 10th person show up, and I ended up splitting the party into a Lawful Evil Green Group and a Neutral Evil Blue Group with 5 players in each. The two groups share a main ooc discord channel, each with their own sub-channel specific to their group.

[HouseRules]

A Referee (OD&D term that becomes Dungeon Master) should be able to handle 20 players in the same campaign world.
A campaign world could have 3 DMs, and 50 players.
While a single DM could handle 20 players in a campaign world, not all players are part of the same party.
It is best to split the 20 players into 4 or 5 parties.