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So starting next week, I will be running a campaign for seven players. I have never run a game for a group that big, and I have only played in one group that is that size. That group had twelve players and that seemed rather unwieldy. So what I want to know is how would you run a game for a group that big, and just how big is too big?
I have run for seven, eight, and (once) nine players. It is a challenge, but it is one that you (as DM) can handle if you are experienced. DON'T play favorites. Give everyone a chance to shine. Realize that the game will move slowly, and don't try to force it along faster. In a group that size, inter-party character (and player) interaction is one of the main themes. Go with it. Scale your encounters (slightly; I mean don't throw a CR 9 critter at the group if your players are 4th-5th level), but increase the number of minion beasts, and provide a fun gaming environment. You will do fine, if you tailor your game to their expectations.
Master Arminas
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Playing favorites will not be a problem. Two of the players are guys I have thrown dice with before, but that's it. One of the others is the DM for our weekly D&D Encounters game, and another is a girl who just started showing up to Encounters this week and is joining because she wants to play a catfolk character. The other three players are friends of one of the first two, but I have only communicated with them on-line.
Each GM has their own limits (My limit is 5 and no more).
If I had to, I would break the group into multiple groups (of 3-5) each getting one game session a week.
So starting next week, I will be running a campaign for seven players. I have never run a game for a group that big, and I have only played in one group that is that size. That group had twelve players and that seemed rather unwieldy. So what I want to know is how would you run a game for a group that big, and just how big is too big?
Avoid using single or even only 2-3 opponents for encounters. the group size will be overwhelming with action economy. I also suggest using max hit points for foes, and possibly dropping the augmented simple template if you are using premade products. Adding extra creatues to every given encounter can help also.
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I have played an epic end of game campaign involving 12 members, after having all members who had to leave the table with their characters return for the final massive naval battle.
To be honest it wasn't all that bad, I wouldn't do it regularly. What I am trying to say is, there is a game for every table you just need a DM who can run it.
1-2 is generally too small, good for play tests with multiple characters or characters with leadership feat but that s about it.
3-5 is optimum, small enough so every gets an adequate amount of attention and not too much time is detracted in mixed communication.
6-8+ is something you need to have a formula for running the game efficiently.
Some of the techniques I use are;
1. During combat you have 1 minute to declare an action or you miss out, you're character has been stumped for what to do this round (it happens).
2. Characters with multiple attacks may *in sight of GM, mostly for fumbles and crits* pre-roll their attacks and simply declare the results come their turn.
3. All spell casters regardless of prepared or spontaneous, must make their own spell cheat sheet with the spells they most commonly use readily available.
4. As DM have your own cheat sheet with the PC's AC, CMD, Perception, so that you can make your attacks as the turn is going round.
Some of the techniques I use are;
1. During combat you have 1 minute to declare an action or you miss out, you're character has been stumped for what to do this round (it happens).
2. Characters with multiple attacks may *in sight of GM, mostly for fumbles and crits* pre-roll their attacks and simply declare the results come their turn.
3. All spell casters regardless of prepared or spontaneous, must make their own spell cheat sheet with the spells they most commonly use readily available.
4. As DM have your own cheat sheet with the PC's AC, CMD, Perception, so that you can make your attacks as the turn is going round.
I have used 1 a lot, for 3 I sometimes give a spell list, or get them to make a cheat sheet.
4 is used sometimes used for when it's a complicated battle.
Once ran a game of d20 OGL 'weird war' called zeit der toten.
Basically was a 10 man squad of paratroopers dropped into the middle of an outbreak of the Nazi created Lichhoste disease 10 days before D-day. Group ended up grabbing their local french contact and turning the nearest farmhouse into a fortress.
11 players. Hand drawn maps. Waves and waves of zombies. Loadsa random critters I statted up (mutated exploding zombie cows anyone?). Players that died came back as special zombies. Involved virtually the entire gaming club for a few months with people dropping in an out. Campaign ended with the last survivors hiding in a bomb shelter as the Luftwaffe bombed the town.
Was absolutely crazy. But good times.
But if ya want some actual depth in a game, then 6 is kinda stretching it.
Current group is 6 players and 1 DM. I, personally, wouldn't want to go any larger than that. I wouldn't want to go much smaller than that either, though, so 5-6 are my limits I suppose.
I have DM'd a group of 12 or 13 players and it was a madhouse. I won't do that again. I also played in a game that had 2 separate groups that played at different times (same DM for both groups) where the two groups were pitted against each other in the race to the mcguffin. The goal was to have the two groups reach it at the same time and have a big battle royale, but the game got dropped before that happened.
5 is nice for me. If one can't make it, I still have 4. I ran a group of 12 players for about 3 years. I wish I could have those years back. Such a waste! People cheated/ bent the rules horribly. Had to be a hard @ss to keep them in line. Combat took forever. eg. 7 players= 7 minutes if they got their game faces on. Plus 2 minutes for you to complete your turn. ie about 10 minutes to complete one combat round. 4 rounds = 40 minutes and that's if everyone are experienced and cooperative gamers. People will get bored in between their turns. Perhaps have them roll dice for you to keep them engaged, etc.. Then you have the kill stealers as well. THen the DPS in your group starts getting pissy...etc.... Man, I wish I had those passed 3 years back. Combat will draw everyone's attention, but it can get boring if that's all you tend to do.
Plus, think about keeping Player's options limited. Min-maxing PCs will overshadow other PCs and that will cause it's own strife. Limit what and who they are to keep things simple. It works better in the long run for you and the group. Best of Luck!!! Plus, if you have important game notes/ points of interest- make sure they are introduced to a few people in the group. In that size of a group, people might forget to share important Game Facts about the major storyline.
just my 2cp
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Six is my outer limit. I find it works best with 3-5 players.
+1 except I went to 7 on one special occasion.
Monte Cook wrote some helpful articles on DMing large parties, but honestly you should be doing two large groups as opposed to one supergroup.
Helpful stuff part 1
Helpful stuff part 2
Helpful stuff part 3
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I've been GMing for a group of 7 for several years now and the biggest problems come up when one player just doesn't have enough to do. Plan ahead so that every player can shine at least once during the game session.
The action in a battle will go slowly. I use an initiative board so that everyone can see when their turn comes. I try to remind players when they are up next so that they are prepared on their turn.
Don't let people slow things down looking up feats or spells in the middle of a battle. They can delay if they need to look something up, or use it on the next turn.
You will have to advance the monsters and use more minions to keep everyone busy in a fight. In addition, you need to have everyone's key stats at your fingertips so that you won't slow things down. To accomplish both of these, I use Kyle Olson's combat manager and Hero Lab. I can load the portfolio of my player characters into the combat manager right from Hero Lab, and combat manager has a easy way to advance monsters. Hero Lab also makes it easy for me to audit my player's character sheets.
I've played with a group of 14 (both as a player and a DM); not fun. Even running for my current group of 8 things could be better- people always seem to be talking over one another and someone ends up unheard/unhappy. I have trouble running for more than 5 or 6 hours with that many people before I have a massive headache. My favorite group was a group of 4, and I'd honestly prefer to not run for more than 5. Past 7 players I deputize a couple of them just to get through the night- 1 aids in combat keeping track of initiatives and damage, 1 keeps track of the detailed notes and timelines of everyone's actions when the group splits between dungeons and during downtime.
My experiences agree with the majority here.
2 is just too few for most things
3 can fly; problem is, you're down to 2 if one player can't make it.
4 or 5 is just right, IMHO
6 starts to become hard work, the odds that a player is goofing around or distracting others seems to increase exponentially with the number of players. It still can be done, but is a lot harder than catering to just four players.
Anything beyond, and I will call for a secondary GM, to keep things running smoothly.
Largest group I played in was 11 players and one GM. Largest group I ever single-GM'ed was 9. Won't do either again.
3-5 is cool. I had a group of 22 once. did not end well.
We have run a group of 7 and a GM for years. The GM and games rotate but the group has remained the same. I actually like that size. Anything 4 or less is dicey.
That being said, much more than 7 is a bit too much.
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I dunno, I really liked my largest group, ever.
Now, that said, we started at five, and worked our way up, so not everything will work the same.
A couple things to keep in mind: realize that just because the game is going slowly for your players, you might not realize it, or, conversely, it may feel more excruciatingly slow to you than to them. The reason for both of those sensations is the same: you're going to be running mental notes on - at minimum - eight characters at the same time (the seven PCs and the minimum one npc foe). In order to keep track you're going to need to: know the stats inside and out of all your npcs (in a battle), have an incredibly precise mental picture of where people are and why they are/what they're doing, write stuff down, use battle maps, and/or all of the above, possibly more than once.
When we played, we had no money for maps, figures, and the like, but I've seen them be incredibly helpful (and also clumsy - it entirely depends on your group, though they're better than not, I think). That basically meant that I was running the 23+ creatures in my head. I usually scribbled out AC, saves, and hit points on a piece of paper, memorized much of the rest in a general sort of way (with a post-it-note to the page in case I needed to flip to it quickly) and ran with that stuff. It worked, but it wasn't always pretty on my side. Keeping track of kobold 1, kobold 2, and kobold 3 (I don't think I ever actually had them face kobolds... regrettable, really) as well as all the goblins and orcs in the battle could be a pain, but I (and most of my players) thought it was worth it.
Listen to Mama Loufing. Mama knows best. (as does The Saltmarsh 6) :)
Ringtail's suggestion about deputizing could be a life-saver, depending on who you've got. If someone's there that you trust to be honest, you can deputize them and help them a great deal.
Just to throw my own history about the size-of-group-stuff:
* Playing by myself is super boring. It's basically making thought experiments. I want a player (or more).
* My one-on-one (as in me and one player) games are great. I love those.
* My two-party groups are pretty good. The characters get to function sort of like a buddy movie where they tend to get very good at complimenting each other. This generally functions quite well. Only once did anything ever fail to work well, and that's because I had both players basically make the same character (the only difference was gender) and neither could figure out what to do with themselves (Despite the fact that said adventure was literally tailored to their exact talents, as a duo... NOT THAT I'M BITTER, GUYS). ;)
* My three-man groups function quite well, and they actually start to look kind of like a normal party.
* My four-man parties work well. Strangely, I've had the most friction and frustrations in this size. Go figure.
* My five-man parties were pretty ideal for "normal" sized parties. I've never had much trouble and the fifth guy can always pick up the slack if number four is missing.
* My six-man parties are kind of like my five-man parties, but with one person juuuuuuust starting to get bored before it's their turn again.
* My seven-and-eight man parties are kind of similar, in that usually a couple of people (two to three) talk (quietly, lest I enervate their characters with no save) while the others do their thing and it gets back around to them. It helps to have a thing that they can get up and go do while it's not their turn or the spotlight isn't on them (and a cafe is a great way to do this).
* My nine-person parties represented the near-maximum size of a single, coherent party. I've had larger in one party, but usually for no more than a session or three (and those were such sessions). Basically, this is the largest stable group I could maintain, mostly due to schedule concerns.
* My ten-through-fourteen-person-parties never lasted too long, as inevitably with that many people, schedule conflicts, delays, personality conflicts, and such, very strange things start to happen. Basically it was all I could do to keep such a party together, and they fractured anyway after a few sessions (I controlled the fracture because I knew it was coming - kind of clear after the first session they wouldn't be together for too long, and besides schedule change was a known entity). We totally owned the entirety of the cafe, however, and an entire wing of Denny's. It was a blast.
* I've not yet run a fifteen+ man party, but I look forward to doing so one day. Maybe.
Anyway, there's a few things that you can do, and my personal experience.
I feel like three to five members is the party size sweet spot for me. If you only have one GM, then six people starts to get to be a little ungainly, unless the GM is just that good.
Note: Games run by multiple GMs can be excellent when properly executed, and splits up bookkeeping.
I like groups between 8 and 10 players. I'm from "the more the merrier" school of play, and everyone gets their chance to act. As a rule, we average between 6-8 players in any given session, as many of our number have been getting increasingly busy with real life (horrors!!!).
I have done up to 8. I prefer six or less, and I don't plan to ever see 8 again.
I start seeing minor issues at 6 players.
Things get significantly hard to manage at 8 players.
I've done 7 and I start to struggle with pacing at that size and the Frazzled to happy fun gaming time ratio begins to dwindle quite a bit. 5 was my 'normal' group size for a long time, so I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
At the moment I'm running 4 person groups in AP's and I find myself really just running a much better game all around. I do a lot of sidework for my campaigns usually(lots of player hand outs, ect) and I feel like I'm doing a lot of my 'better' work because of the smaller groups.
I suppose, over the years, i've known more large games to fail than small ones. I think that is probably a sign of something?
Ideally, I prefer 4 or 5 players. 6 is okay as long as they are half-way organized. A party of 7 or 8 requires a lot of work and a lot of pressure to keep things moving quickly, but I've managed a campaign with those average numbers for about ten months now and it can be done. 9 is too darned many. Especially when they start bringing along their cohorts, undead minions and animal companions.
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I'll ideally do 3 to 6. 5 is probably my optimum group size, as that is where I can keep everything moving with good pacing, and there will be enough skills, meatshields, etc. around to not worry too much about TPKs and such. 2 players can be fun and focussed, but doesn't leave much for Plan B if one goes down. 6 is the max. Beyond that (and I've done 8) I find my attention is too far split and the game slows down too much for the way I and every group I've run like to play. Not saying you can't, though. I just know that I'll feel more like a traffic controller than a storytelling GM.
I would say just be aware of the pacing, the time it takes to do things like combat, and above all, be fair in the allocation of time. If the players are good and cohesive, it can work out well.
My largest game ever was like 19 people. I had 2 co-DMs to keep things rolling along. Basically they were a hit squad running in a special dungeon I designed (and ran as the Return to School Fall Quest 91). It was both of the D&D groups I was DMing for in one GIANT run. Confusing, fun, and frankly not having to worry about a fight being too tough for some characters when the second group could swoop in and help finish a combat.
However now days I tend to stay with 7 or less. I've done some 9 man games for a bit, and I had to institute the "plan your next move or when I call on you in init you're just standing there" rule (which helped).
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Okay, so for those of you who have done this before, how did you handle adventure design? When I worked it out, the party worked out to be APL 3.5. Would you round this up to APL 4 or round it down to APL 3? I tend to believe that rounding up is the way to go since we have a druid and a summoner in the party. However, I am open to suggestions.
So starting next week, I will be running a campaign for seven players. I have never run a game for a group that big, and I have only played in one group that is that size. That group had twelve players and that seemed rather unwieldy. So what I want to know is how would you run a game for a group that big, and just how big is too big?
It's an interesting question. "How big is too big?" is a bit tricky to answer directly, with a single answer that fits all. The best answer I would give is "It depends on the group".
You see, if you have a group with an experienced GM and filled with experienced players who can keep the game moving, then you can get to some surprisingly high player counts before it becomes "too much". I myself have ran games that included up to 9 players in a single session, without real trouble. However, I've seen a lot of games that suffer in the extreme when loaded with players, and I have some observations to share concerning it.
In addition to the above, consider the following mechanical observations.
GMing a large group can be a challenge, but also fun and rewarding!
Okay, so for those of you who have done this before, how did you handle adventure design? When I worked it out, the party worked out to be APL 3.5. Would you round this up to APL 4 or round it down to APL 3? I tend to believe that rounding up is the way to go since we have a druid and a summoner in the party. However, I am open to suggestions.
Not sure if it's relevant, but determining encounters is one of the few places you should round up and is called out as such in the Gamemastering section.
6 is too many in my opinion, most GMs can't handle more than 5, and they tend to step on each others' toes at that point.
Our group usually has 4 players, but being we always have 5 or 6 PC's in any given party we have very little problems adding 1 or 2 extra's now and again. Though 6 tends to be our maximum for various reasons already explained.
To keep the flow going what we decided to do is anyone wanting to play full casters/manifesters can only have one PC while anyone wanting to play melee/skill based character can have two.
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4 players is fun.
5 players is probably ideal.
6 players is a handful but still manageable, flow of game slowed a bit
7 players is usually less manageable and slows things down noticably
8 players is avoidable
Sweet spot is 5 players.
I have GM'ed for 6 players 1/week since 2006.
Again, there are some minor trade-offs with six players in terms of pace of game, and GM-attention to each one is reduced a bit, but still manageable.
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For me:
3 is fast and fun.
4 is fun but often you can get slowed down a bit.
5 is good but a lot of paper work.
6 I am on the verge of collapse. too much to keep track and often too many conflicting interests.
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Something else that I should have listed earlier is the need to adjust the space for encounters. Since GM regularly for 7, I almost always double the area. Remember, the encounter on the map was designed for 4 players, and there are times when it would be impossible to fit 7 in the room with the monsters.
You also need to adjust the treasure the players find. In general, double the amount and make sure that over a couple of sessions, there will have been something special for everyone.
Since I am often running an adventure path, I also adjust experience points. I take the XP for a suggested encounter and divide by 4 to find the amount each player was intended to get and then I give at least that amount to each player. Bear in mind that I've already upped the CR by adding a few minions or advancing the monsters so the increased XP makes sense.
Overall, I think 7 is pushing it. We once had an 8th guy for a little while and it worked out okay because he was such an incredible team player and very entertaining. The point is that handling a big group isn't all your responsibility. The players have to be willing to cooperate and appreciate the potential synergy that comes from so many minds working on the same task. Even one selfish player can really doom a big group.