Hello everybody, I think I've created a monster.
For I think two months I been advertising that I planned to do a campaign and it just couldn't get off the ground. I got three players tops and none of them was willing to be a fighter.
Then Saturday after wrapping up an Iron Kingdoms session where my character was killed off and I was making a new character, someone asks if he could join my campaign. Shocked I said sure. Then one of the few guys I got interested came with a friend and asked if his friend could join. I said sure. Then two more guys came...
Yesterday morning I went over Saturday in my head and I just realized I have SEVEN players possibly. The poor guy running my Iron Kingdoms thing has done this for years and can barely handle five. I'm a rookie and I got seven.
Please Help...
I play in a group with 9 of us. The biggest tips I have are:
1)Whomever is DMing has to make sure via e-mail we have enough players on a given week.
2)For those players missing a session, we roll off to see who will handle said player that session. If a player misses repeatly we consider taking his/her character out of play in fairness to those who can make it.
3) Since there are many players and not all are 'into' the plotline, a summary is crucial.
4)The DM should maintain an experience list. This way if experience is awarded and someone is missing, or inattentive, they don't lose out. It also avoids mistakes.
5) Also have a standard character sheet for all characters, this will help players understand a missing players sheet.
We hand off DM responsibilities, so no one DMs for more than 6-7 months at a time. We are currently running 2 separate groups of adventurers, one a high level (15-16th level) in a home brew campaign, and another (6th level) in a Greyhawk campaign. With so many DMs there are rule challenges, but the final rule applies 'Whomever is DMing tonight is right.' Lastly, with this many players tell them the group is 'closed' to new players. If you're in a hole, stop digging. If you think there are too many players, don't allow any more.
I have caped the game I DM at 8 players. I have been DMing for 20+ years. 3 of the players are new to roleplaying so I and the other veteran players do a lot of teaching and coaching. Any more just would be to much for me. A few things I do to make the game run smooth:
1. Be prepared. I am currently using the shackled city adventure and spend a good amount of time creating stat card for npc, more as a way to study npc capapilities and weaknesses
2. Keep charachter sheets. I keep PC sheets now because with this many people eventually somebodies gonna miss a game. usually we can get a guest player to sit in. Sometimes a player will ask another player to play his characters.
3. Level up on your own. I encourage my players to take home thier sheets and level up at home. That way more time is spent playing and with 8 players we need all the time we can get.
4. make a call and move on. In my opinion it is better to make a mistake on a ruling than to not make a ruling and stop the flow of the game to discuss and look up rules. If you run a fun game players will forgive such mistakes.
5. Be loud! When you have 8 players and a number of spectators being loud is a good thing in getting everyones attention.
6. Limit supporting cast. With a party of 8 a group of adventurers doesn't need any more support. I love to make NPC that interact with PCs as allies so this is a hard one for me.
7. Always do a synopsis of the previous game at the begining. I t may take time but with a lot of players it is a could idea to refresh where everybody is at.
8. Get players help. I have my players keep in contact and fill in those who miss a session, so I don't have too. they also set up and break down our game table.
9. Use intiative cards. They really speed up play. I use them to keep initiative order, monitor enchantments and special conditions of characters. It is the most innovative idea in gaming ever.
10. Quite when you are tired! It is good to take a break after an intense combat. But Dming is a taxing past time, with a large group it is even more so. So when you start getting grumpy and forgetful it is time to pack it in and go home. Personally we game for 2-3 hours at a time, 4 hours is a marathon game for us. (to put it in context we start around 9pm on a Wed. After three hours it is already midnight).
Thank you for your advice, but as I said I have about seven players.
Any advice on how to amend the campaign with that.?
I'm currently running Age of Worms with seven players, a few of whom haven't played much D&D before this campaign. I run it at a gaming store, so there's plenty of chaos around us, too.
Prior to each session, I tend to re-type the major NPCs and sometimes I'll add a bit of power to someone, but I haven't found it necessary to change much. When I did increase the power available to a couple of NPCs (beyond the kenku maze in TFoE), it almost became a TPK. I guess I've increased the number of low-level grunts a few times so everyone will have something to do... In general, I recommend starting with what's written, but keep reading ahead and try to think about how everyone can be kept involved. You may want to widen a couple of hallways so that people aren't stuck in line in 5' halls in some adventures, but I've actually done relatively little of that, too.
You will need to add additional encounters and extra treasure. Actually, for my group, I decided that I'd just have them level up at specific story-appropriate times, rather than tracking exact XP. But I have needed to add in more treasure, because they're splitting the stuff they find across more folks.
Some things I've done to make it easier to manage:
- Limiting animal companions etc. Unearthed Arcana has some alternatives.
- Restricting classes to those in the Player's Handbook
- Requiring prestige classes, and any non-core feats/spells etc. be cleared with me prior to being used.
- Everyone has to have their own copy of the Player's Handbook so they can look up their own rules references.
- Use initiative cards (numbered cards) which I hand around as we determine initiative.
Yeah its still an open question to me whether or not the AP as written will hold up. At low levels having more members in the party is great, but at highter levels they will be way behind in levels if you run it through as is. By the same token if you give them expts to keep them up with the levels listed for the adventures it will be way too easy.
Here are some things I would do_
1, Make sure that they only get to use the standard point buy or just roll 3d6 six times. Its cruel but if your PCs ability scores are too high they are really going to roll over things.
2, Like the above said, make every square 10 feet not 5 so you get some mobility.
3, I wouldn't change the levels or equipment of anybody or even the treasure in any of the encounters. The only thing I would do is add more grunts. Most of the encounters provide stats for the Grunts, there just aren't very many of them. So add more, at least double the number in every encounter.
4, If you are going to allow druids and rangers animal companions make the PCs responsible for knowing their stats and running them in the same detail they do their PC, If they can't handle this get rid of the companion and give them some other bonus like maybe a feat or an increase in ability scores.
5, No Cohorts
6, With this many players its going to be just impossible to run things without using a battle mat and miniatures, there is just too much to keep track of.
7, the most important thing- STANDARDIZE- i.e. come up with a consistent set of ways you run things so that everyone knows when its time to make what kinds of decisions, so stick with rounds and go through the entire thing round by round.
8, If you decide that running things round by round in detail is too much make them make decisions before hand, like a standard marching order, and a standard power up suites for all of their characters.
9, Consider co-dming it with someone else, one covers the combat mechanics-looks things up etc.... One handles the storyline....Alternate this to aleviate boredom. With something like the AP you could even alternate running a PC. The adventures really don't tell you much about the next adventure.
10, Cheat, yes Cheat, if there is an ambush central to the story fudge the PCs spot roll. Only do this once in a blue moon however cause otherwise its just not fair.
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7 is fine. I dont see your dilemma. I, currently, play with 7, each playing with two characters making 14 player characters. My games arent balanced and there are frequent deaths. I would rate my campaigns 'expert' and if one does not play 'expertly' then one pretty much plans for deads. It is the best way to learn, after all. I wont allow my players to bring in another player until both of his/her characters are killed. My players skill runs from 'beginner' to 'expert.' Note: the expert player has yet to die in my campaign. I will admit, that all players are frothing at the mouth with the complexity and experiences they are having but i am concerned that i may have ruined them for normal d&d'ing gamplay. Not a week goes by where they dont beg me for 20 hour sessions. I take it as quite the compliment. Special note: my games are multi-level, non-linear, and allow all D20 classes, races, etc. Makes it all the more challenging and mysterious. My 2 cents.
Thoth-Amon
My campaign has 8 players. Two are my two oldest sons, and this is their first major game/campaign. My oldest son also has one of his friends playing too, and this is his first time playing. Then I have Three very experienced players, and two semi-experienced (and one of them, this is their first time playing 3rd Edition).
We tend to have more time spent on 'teaching', but we still manage to have some fun. When DMing, I tend to make adjustments on the fly (although, I already have an idea ahead of time of the 'type' of adjustment I am going to make). Since I have eight characters, most of my adjustments tend to be in increasing the number of monsters in an encounter, or increasing level/HPs to help offset. If I find that the group is slicing thru my monsters very quickly, then I tend to pad their HPs a little, make the fight a little more worthwhile.
So basically, make sure you read through the material at least twice (the more the better) - then imagine how your characters are going to react in each encounter - then decide if something would be 'too easy' for them - and if so, then start thinking off several ways to enhance that encounter. I also pay close attention to what my players think and discuss - and on ALOT of occasions, I tend to play off of Their thinking....giving a clue here, or disproving that there, etc.... Just be flexible enough to deal with Any situation that may arise - and most important of all....Have Fun doing so.
-Drake
6
:-)
With 4 players my group picked up 3 NPCs.
As for secondary books, yes if the DM has one.
If you cannot buy the DM a copy you don't want to play
that badly enough.
The initiative cards are a great idea.
I'm going to print off some.
Then I will upload one to the AOW picture site.
Actually, if you have that many then
1. Relax the "Don't break up the party rule"
Let the ones with a high sneek scout while the klanking tin cans oil their armor.
2. If you have D&D figurines, throw in some 'guest stars
and extras' only when everyone shows up. Add their CR
seperately to the XP.
3. If anyone uses an absent player's character to put them
in harms way, take over the character and have them hang
back.
4. A good rule is either send your character with someone
else, miss out on experience, or help the DM keep current copies of all characters.
5. If you add treasure consider things both the bad guys and
characters can use. Magic or exotic material weapons are good.
You would be surprised how popular that Admantium dagger will
be. Boots of speed or a wand of cure light are very sweet.
If you allow exotic classes, you might add items they can
use. The psionic sword may not fully benifit the orc, but
it's still a really nice sword. Note that some D&D figures
come with their own treasure. If some clown has a gazillion
copper pieces have them buy a weapon or something before
the game. Otherwise you may have to give him a bag of
holding just to carry it.
MattW and Sir Kaikillah (sp?), thanks for the summary & tips...gave me a couple ideas.
The group I DM is just starting 'Prince of Redhand' this weekend and the number of players average 7. We do things a little differently in that missing players have their characters kept busy (ie. if a wizard missed a session of Spire of Long Shadows, he'd remain at Manzorian's citadel to assist with research). This adds incentive for players to show up (ie. they don't want to fall behind) and speeds up our play as everyone only has 1 character in front of them. Our sessions tend to be 3 times a month, between 6 and 10 hours long.
A few points I'll reiterate/make:
1) Preparation! With more players it becomes more important to be 'on your game'.
2) Make use of the players to assist. We alternate duties, such as keeping track of initiative cards or looking up spell descriptions.
3) Set breaks. It's disruptive when someone takes a break in a battle & everyone's waiting for that player to return to take their turn.
4) Pay attention to all your players & tailor your approach to their moods, etc. Dungeon 131 has some useful tips under "Dirty Little DM Tricks" that discuss this.
All in all, a larger group can be quite manageable if everyone's on the same page. Some are there to socialize more than play, maybe someone's having a bad day, but if you can get everyone excited & participating your job will be a lot easier.
J-
I think six is a reasonable maximum and four is perfect. Seven is too many. If you have too many, eliminate players -- there's no good way to make it manageable.
People will have their opinions, but every additional player is that much less time for the others. And think about combat -- how many players and bad guys does someone have to wait for before he/she can act again?
Regards,
Jack
I think six is a reasonable maximum and four is perfect. Seven is too many. If you have too many, eliminate players -- there's no good way to make it manageable.
People will have their opinions, but every additional player is that much less time for the others. And think about combat -- how many players and bad guys does someone have to wait for before he/she can act again?
Regards,
Jack
I was afraid of this. Kicking someone out does not sound like a good way to get this started.
Would splitting them into two groups and alternating Saturday nights betweeen groups be a dumb idea?
Don't worry, he's just responding to the topic title.
Some people can't handle more than 4 players.
With 9 characters creating one monster that's a match for
all of them almost guarentees melee experts will get killed.
A monster that big can kill with one attack.
Larger numbers of smaller monsters works pretty good.
So does splitting the party intelligently.
Leaving out anyone who doesn't show up for the session
or having them do research or something when you catch
up with them later should also work.
Try running one session with the larger number.
Then if you can't handle it either eliminate problem
players or split the party.