Strategies for big gaming groups

[Captain Marsh]

Here's the good news.

For the first time in years I've managed to build a big and consistent gaming group (we meet twice monthly).

We have 8-9 players at the table ever session, in addition to myself as DM. We're also playing at high level, with character level at 9-10.

The bad news is that the games were bogging down, with encounters dragging on.

We use the Pathfinder rules, but we've had to innovate a few house tweaks to make it work with so many characters.

Here are our ideas. I'd love to hear other strategies for accelerating big table play.

1. Initiative. Characters sit around the table in the order of their initiative bonus and that's the order of play every round. The quickest player roles initiative to determine whether the group or the monsters move first and we still use surprise rounds when applicable.

But I find that going "in order" means that everyone knows when their turn is coming, and it also eliminates one big muddle of dice rolling at the beginning of each encounter.

Players don't miss the initiative roll at all, and they feel that going in order of their initiative bonus is fair.

2. Summoned Monsters/Animal Companions/Familiars. Basically, we've bagged them except in rare instances.

I know, I know -- that's a big limitation. But we found that high level characters already have lots of activations and options.

Adding a crowd of additional "NPC" activations to each turn just bogged things down too much.

There were times when we would have 5-6 additional summoned/companion/familiar units moving in each turn, nearly doubling the size and complexity of our table.

Obviously, characters that lost these abilities/options were compensated with bonuses in other areas.

3. Action penalties. If players aren't ready on their turn, with a firm grip on what they want to do and a clear understanding of the mechanics of their action (spell DCs, etc.) they drop to the bottom of the initiative order.

If they're still not ready when we reach them a second time, they can still move but they lose their standard action.

At high level, I've found that players weren't always understanding their powers.

They wanted to do a lot of at the table book research. This penalty solved that.

4. Dice Rolling. When possible, characters throw all their to-hit and damage dice at the same time. (I know, this is an old trick, but it really works.)

So there are some of our tricks. It's great having a big group again and with these strategies we've kept things lively with everyone engaged.

-Marsh

[Kolokotroni]

My group can often get a pretty big as well, we max out at 10 people but we arent always all there.

Something we do. Initiative is public written on the board. Someone other then the dm is assigned to track it. Generally it looks something like this written on our wite board or on a blank peice of paper visible to everyone:

Player 1 18
Monster 1 17
Player 3 15
Monster 2 15 (lower dex)
Player 2 12
and so on

This way the person who isnt the dm calls out who's turn it is including monsters. For surprise or stealthed monsters the monster is written but not identified in the initiative order.

For players not knowing what we are going to do, they delay untill they decide. Simply, Player 3 the wizard's turn comes up, he hasnt decided which spell he wants to cast. He automatically delays. Monster 1 goes and Player 2 is starting their turn. Player 3 anounces he has decided his spell, Player 2 finishes their turn, then Player 3 stops delaying and goes.

Another important feature, no takebacks. Unless a player tries to do something that is actually illegal, once he says he is doing something he does it. "I try to grapple the monster" "he is out of your reach, see look at the map" "oh... well then i uh, i move instead" "No you try to grapple the monster and fail". Takebacks have always caused the most delays in my game, more then animal companions or summons.

If you are happy with your outright companion/summon bans and it works for you great, at my table we require all things to be printed or written ahead of time and that their actions be simple and fast, or they too delay. A druid without a companion just doenst work for me, but if it does at your table, great.

The dice rolling we also try to go with, color coded dice are great for this and it works really well for iterative attacks. Another suggestion is if anyone is using fireball spells to reduce the dice rolled by four times+ any left overs. So wizard fireballs for 5d6, roll 1d6 multiply it by four then roll the left over d6. At level 10 he rolls 2d6 multiplies by four then rolls 2d6 and adds the two together. We find this alot faster then trying to add up 10d6, but it leaves in a little bit of the randomness that can make those spells more fun.

[paul halcott]

We have seven players in our game. Thankfully, none of them have ever been found of the companion/familiar/traveling zoo, so that is less of an issue. One Wizard uses Summon Undead from the SC, but only for the big conflicts.
One thing we do is we use a big white board. (You know, like the kind in schools). As the DM, I use a dry erase marker to post relevant info, and since its magnetic, each player has a magnet for their pc. For initative, They get placed in order and everyone can see where they are in the rotation. Its easy to slide the marker up or down if they ready actions. We have found that simple step allows everyone to keep focused on where they are and that helps keep things moving. The cleric knows he has two people in front of him because he can see it clearly on the board.

[Urizen]

I'm being a dittohead here. Definitely have an erasable board on hand and have someone from your group assigned to assist in keeping track of initative.

However, there are some concerns with regard to metagaming in the first round when everyone can anticipate the order of attack. In that case, make sure everyone has a pencil and initiative cards and write down their rolls and hand them to you. You sort them out along with your mooks' rolls and then read them in order as they go while someone else writes them down on the board. After the first round, then everyone will have an idea as to the order's expectation by seeing it on the board and go from there. Also, it'll be easy to switch up the order in case someone does something that changes the order of initiative.

[Jagyr Ebonwood]

Urizen wrote:

I'm being a dittohead here. Definitely have an erasable board on hand and have someone from your group assigned to assist in keeping track of initiative.

Ahem. ;)

[dthunder]

Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:

Ahem. ;)

Have this. It really is pretty awesome.