So I'm gearing up to run SCAP with a large group of players who are new to D&D, and I'm hoping you all can give me some ideas. There are 9 people who want to play, and after I gave them a range of ways to handle the big group they unanimously settled on an arrangement where everyone will have a character of their own, but when they go adventuring they will take a group of 6 while 3 stay behind in the city or basecamp. This means that they'll have to take turns as spectators, but they were cool with that. I'm also hopeful that having a bench to draw on will help them survive despite their newness to the game.
Anyway, the good thing is that this lets me mostly run the AP as laid out in the book, but it presents problems with handing out XP and treasure. My present plan is to not keep close track of XP but instead to level them all up at set points so that everyone's character remains viable and roughly equally powerful. (I've seen the thread on this method here which was very helpful.) And where XP costs of item creation and spell use are concerned, I'm going to allow players to accumulate item creation and spell use points just as was suggested on that thread. I also intend to just add half again in coin and items to every treasure trove they find so that the people left back at basecamp can get a share of the loot as well and keep them all on track for wealth/level.
My question: does this all seem reasonable to you, or are there additional problems I should expect to turn up? I've already learned a ton from this board, so I figured I'd ask!
I'm running a SCAP campaign with 7 PCs. I use both techniques that you've listed. The XP method ensures that a PC can meet the challenge rating of the adventures even when they can't regularly attend playing sessions. At the beginning of the campaign, I had each PC submit a short story describing the character's background, and describing his/her goals for the character, including any desired magic items. This help me decide which items and when to add beyond what was already in each chapter.
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So I'm gearing up to run SCAP with a large group of players who are new to D&D, and I'm hoping you all can give me some ideas. There are 9 people who want to play, and after I gave them a range of ways to handle the big group they unanimously settled on an arrangement where everyone will have a character of their own, but when they go adventuring they will take a group of 6 while 3 stay behind in the city or basecamp. This means that they'll have to take turns as spectators, but they were cool with that. I'm also hopeful that having a bench to draw on will help them survive despite their newness to the game.Anyway, the good thing is that this lets me mostly run the AP as laid out in the book, but it presents problems with handing out XP and treasure. My present plan is to not keep close track of XP but instead to level them all up at set points so that everyone's character remains viable and roughly equally powerful. (I've seen the thread on this method here which was very helpful.) And where XP costs of item creation and spell use are concerned, I'm going to allow players to accumulate item creation and spell use points just as was suggested on that thread. I also intend to just add half again in coin and items to every treasure trove they find so that the people left back at basecamp can get a share of the loot as well and keep them all on track for wealth/level.
My question: does this all seem reasonable to you, or are there additional problems I should expect to turn up? I've already learned a ton from this board, so I figured I'd ask!
I ran my SCAP with between 7-13 people, depending on how many people showed up. The combats were chaotic, and sometimes I had to shout above the general din to get attention, but it ran pretty smoothly. They never did win in the end, but everybody had fun. Let me know if you need pointers.
Greystaff, I think it was your earlier post that originally inspired my strategy for dealing with XP and levelling, so thanks for that. I like the idea of asking them to say what sort of equipment they want too; I think I'll use it. Though with mostly new players, they probably have a very limited sense of what's out there.
Sinclair, the chaos was part of my reason for letting everyone play who wanted to, but restricting them to 6 active players at a time. That way we can hopefully keep things moving along and not let things get too chaotic, though every once in a while I'm thinking about throwing a souped up melee that will let everyone get involved (especially once they have learned the ropes and can decide what to do each round pretty quickly.) But I also hope to keep the players who are stuck on the sidelines involved by giving them the mapping and note-keeping jobs that usually would distract the active players. I also like it that with the big group it shouldn't be a problem when one or two players can't make it to a session.
Anyway, thanks for your responses, and I'll post again with more questions when things get started in January some time and I find out what I'm really up against.
My party is composed of a wide mix of ages, from 10 yrs - 46 yrs. It has been a challenge to make each session challenging and interesting for everyone. The kids all want combat; the adults want more role-play. To give everyone a litte of what they want, I've been using hybrid live/play-by-post gameplay. This gives the adults the opportunity to interact, investigate, and ask questions. They use the information gathered during these interludes to drive where the party goes and what it does during live play. The play-by-post has helped keep connected those adults who have been absent from live play due to business.
This technique might be useful for use with your large party to keep those on the sidelines connected to the play.