Loremaster Howlin |
So the campaign i run at my school usually only has 4 to 5 players in it at a time.
easy enough
however for some reason one of my friend brought his friends to the session this week and last, convincing them to play.
and while two of the new players are okay, the rest are incredibly disruptive while together.
I would prefer to have a smaller group, but my school is small and the session i run is the only one they could go to, and i don't want to be THAT GUY who tells them not to come anymore.
Anyway, so half of the total party is made of calm, experienced, or undisruptive players that actually role-play.
the other half makes asinine irrelevant comments and frequently gets everyone off track.
this would be manageable in a small group of 3 to 5, the the party has 13 (enough to be a private mercenary group) and no one else wishes to be DM.
help?
Kthanid |
I don't think there's any magic solution... you have to bring up the issue with the group and discuss it.
Maybe starting with the calm half and hearing their opinions and ideas, or just the guy who brought the disruptive guys.
Or maybe just throw subtle to heavy hints that the game is not progressing, that doing certain things needs time spent with just this or that character while the others wait and get bored, and so on. But asinine people tend to not understand that way.
Kileanna |
13 players is too much! Even if they were experienced gamers it would be difficult to handle.
Maybe have one of the experienced players become a GM for part of the group and have two running stories? That would help to learn a bit more about roleplaying and maybe become better players.
If you cannot, there's nothing wrong in telling them that you cannot manage such a large group and you'd rather stick to your former group. Encourage them to start their own gaming group if they want.
redcelt32 |
I only run big groups and have been GMing for close to 30 years..and I still wont run a group bigger than 9. 13 is way too much, even for mass combat scenarios, which are less forgiving of large parties. You need to at a minimum break the group in half and run 2 parties yourself at different times. Ideally someone else GMs the other group, and you get yourself a co-GM that can do sidebar conversations and encounters to help out. There is nothing wrong with telling them "no", due to the numbers. You can even make them divide themselves in half, rather than you doing it.
Like the excellent posts above said, there is no magic solution that wont be hard for you to choose. However, my experience is that if you try to run a group you cant handle, EVERYONE gets their fun ruined, rather than just a portion of the folks.
My 2 cents :)
crit confirmed |
Is it possible you would GM two separate games running the same story? The original group of players would give you your fix for good role-play, while you could let anarchy reign in the other. Obviously, there would be some deviation, but you can punish the asinine players without destroying the rhythm of your original campaign. Could make for some great stories.
Wheldrake |
Sounds like three groups, not one.
You can't run a session with 13 players. Can't be done, even by Mr Superman DM. Sure, you can go through the motions, and maybe run a few battles, but it's not going to look much like a role-playing game.
You've had the best advice in the posts above:
- run different sessions with different people (5-6 MAXIMUM!!! 3-4 is better.)
- get one of your more serious players to DM part of the group.
This said, if you can live with more of a tactical combat game or "skirmish" game) and less of an RPG, you could organize your 12 players into 6 PCs vs 6 guys who run the monsters. You'll need to prepare character sheets or monster cards for each of the guys running the monsters, and you'll need to be neutral enough to sit back and let the monster players use whatever tactics they want, while you simply manage setup locations, terrain, adjudicate rules disputes and such.
However, if you're satisfied running skirmish games instead of real RPG sessions, there are other far simpler rulesets that will do the job for you.
Daw |
Suggest that your friend who brought his crowd GM for them.
There are ways to make it work, but the players have to have buy in, which your disruptive players probably won't have. You can break the group down to 3 man fireteams that act together. This will work for high action, which can be maintained for a game or two.
I ran an eight man game for a year and a half, and it just got to be too hard to keep up. The complexity gets insane.
Darksol the Painbringer |
So the campaign i run at my school usually only has 4 to 5 players in it at a time.
easy enough
however for some reason one of my friend brought his friends to the session this week and last, convincing them to play.
and while two of the new players are okay, the rest are incredibly disruptive while together.
I would prefer to have a smaller group, but my school is small and the session i run is the only one they could go to, and i don't want to be THAT GUY who tells them not to come anymore.
Anyway, so half of the total party is made of calm, experienced, or undisruptive players that actually role-play.
the other half makes asinine irrelevant comments and frequently gets everyone off track.
this would be manageable in a small group of 3 to 5, the the party has 13 (enough to be a private mercenary group) and no one else wishes to be DM.
help?
Problem is you have more than 3 times what the game recommends for a party size (which is 4 people). While having a surplus can be managed (6 or even 8 players can be done reliably), 3 times more than usual isn't a surplus, it's more like excessive bloat. (Not trying to exaggerate the situation, but that's just how the math works out.)
You also proposed that half of the players are calm and on-task, while the other half is hectic and distracting. The answer to this is quite simple: Split the difference. Take your total, and split it into two groups to play separate campaigns.
Denote one of the hectic players as the GM for the other hectic players, who run their own campaign, and you can GM the calm players, and run your own campaign. This means that everybody is playing the way they want to play (the clowns play with the clowns, and the tranquils play with the tranquils). Most importantly, nobody feels left out, and the tables are more customized to the playstyle that they seem to enjoy. (Some groups enjoy messing around more than playing; it happens at our table more than I care to admit.)
If the other group doesn't get anything done, who cares? As long as they're having fun, that's what's important.