Neither the innkeeper nor the drunk needs a backstory unless it is, for some reason, important to the PCs. So, for the vast majority of NPCs, just make something up on the spot if you feel it's necessary. If you're introducing an NPC's interesting background every session, or more than once per session, your story probably isn't about the PCs anymore.
To enliven NPCs and make them seem like real people, I prefer to give them brief anecdotes rather than having them share complete histories. An innkeeper might say, "The first time I told that joke about the milk maid and the 'rooster' I was just a wee child. It cracked up the patrons back when my grandfather owned this inn, and it still does today." Done! That's all he needs to say.
Walk into a bar, wherever you happen to live, and start asking the bartender about his "backstory". Where were you born? Where did you go to school? Do you have any siblings? Do you get along with them? Riiiiight. That's not going to turn out so well. Also, it's just not how real people relate.
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Whenever you need to redirect players back to the real meat of the game, just say something like "you spend a significant amount of time listening in on the dwarves, but don't hear anything else of interest." That will always always get them to do something else.
I've run a game with 9 players before and it was honestly chaos, especially the battles. A single round is 9 turns not including the bad guys. If you want to keep it balanced, you're looking at either 1-3 very nasty bad guys (which can be tedious), or 8-10 bad guys - and then you have about 18 turns per round. It can be very easy to lose track and it can take a very long time.
The most ideal party group is 3-5 people, especially if you want them to keep coming back. The less the better, because the fewer people there are, the more their say counts for something.
Ways to speed up combat:
1. Each player gets one and only one combatant at a time. This includes cohorts, pets, eidolons, and combat familiars. This effectively bans them. This is rather draconic, but never, ever more than two combatants. Leadership is banned, of course. No summoners. The cavalier is fine if he runs his mount as just a mount.
2. Each SIDE is allowed one & only one summoned critter at a time. This is a special exception to #1. However, you must be completely familiar with that critter before you summon it.
3. One player, an experienced player with a simpler PC, and one who pays some attention- runs Init. He not only tell you when you're up, but who is next.
4. You must be ready on your turn. You have to have the page turned to that spell, maneuver, etc. If not, you delay until you are ready.
5. If you are reading email, texting etc, and your turn comes up, and you are not ready- you lose your turn.
Next- level everyone all at once. Skip exp. When it’s time for a story Level-up, do it.
Oh, and one more thing. Do NOT let anyone split the party.
I think I'm honestly just not that great at making things up on the fly when I'm caught off guard.
For example, I described a tavern once, complete with several games of chance (was prepared for them to join) and skill, a hag in the corner (who would offer a quest), the barmaid (who serves drinks, and can also offer a mini quest), and two dwarves argueing in the corner (for atmosphere, and affect perception rolls to hear which was important.)
Unfortunately, instead of ordering a drink or playing a game, they spent 20 minutes eavesdropping on the argueing dwarves. The players got the point when the dwarves arguement degraded into "durka durka, durka durka durka, blah blah blah"
How should I have redirected them back to important parts?
Make it clear that the unimportant parts are unimportant. I have that "problem" occasionally also (players fixating on uninteresting things) — only it's not actually a problem because it's easily resolved, like so:
DM: There are ... <insert description of scene here> ... , and also some dwarves arguing in the corner.
Players: Oh? Arguing about what?
DM: Sounds like they're arguing about which brand of ale is best.
Particularly Inquisitive Player: I listen to them and see if they start talking about anything else!
DM: They don't.
Rest of players: Ok, nothing to see here. Now what was that about a hag...?
And so.
Of course, sometimes having inquisitive players is fun. I once had a PC spend four hours (real-world time!) following an NPC on a trip to the market. The NPC in question was indeed involved in any number of evil plots... but villains, as it turns out, still need to go grocery shopping. (Not, like, evil grocery shopping. Just the regular kind.)
Some might call that DM trolling. If anything, it did drive home the fact that not everything that goes on in the game world is part of the plot.
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Whenever you need to redirect players back to the real meat of the game, just say something like "you spend a significant amount of time listening in on the dwarves, but don't hear anything else of interest." That will always always get them to do something else.
You have two good choices, and describing an insignificant conversation for an hour isn't either of them. The easy solution is what Avatar-1 said, simply tell the players that the conversation is insignificant.
A slightly more difficult solution is to make the conversation significant. You could move one of your planned quests over to the dwarves, or even just have the dwarves redirect the players toward your planned quest giver.
"Hey, Bombo, what was that old hag bothering you about?"
"Well, Bimbo, it turns out she lost her cat, and she's looking for someone to find it."
A very important part of running a successful RPG is giving the illusion of choice. As a player, you want to feel that your character can do anything they choose to. As a GM, you don't want the party to separate into four groups, and you never intend to let the action "I swallow the moon!" succeed. So, what is a GM to do? Metagame!
If you have a party who wants to quest, and two quests prepared, then subtly push the characters toward one of them. Perhaps the barmaid serves them a round of drinks and complements their weapons & armor. Oops! A conversation about the fact that they're adventurers ensued? Well, in that case, it's only natural that she would ask them to help save her father from the troglodytes!.
Did the party choose to help the barmaid? Yes.
Could they have chosen to take up knitting instead? Yes, kinda.
Would knitting ever have entered they're minds? No, probably not, if you never bring it up.
If they players are allowed to do everything they ever choose to do, then they have total freedom, no?
Let's go back to the inn.
You have three major activities prepared for the PCs: the barmaid's quest, the hag's quest, and bar games. Which do you think the players would enjoy most right now? Now, trick them into choosing that activity!
- Bar Games -> The dwarves stand up, go to the game of strength, and start drunkenly trying to best each other. Your barbarian goes and shows them both up. If the barbarian doesn't quite catch on that he can join in the game, then the dwarf who beats his buddy calls out, "I could beat Bimbo with one hand tied to my beard! Is there any real competition in this joint?"
- Barmaid's Quest -> Dwarf says, "Penny the barmaid is having an off day. That's the third drink I've seen her spill tonight! She's usually good, but she really seems distracted by something."
- Hag's Quest -> Dwarf says, "Since when did old women start hanging out at this tavern? She gives me the creeps, just sitting there, nursing one drink, staring at those newcomers like she's deciding which one to eat for supper."
So, you had three things prepared, but the party wanted to listen to dwarves? No problem!
How much detail is too much detail? This varies per group, and per encounter. With a group this large I would keep it short, they'll have enough to say to each other.
Does the innkeeper need a backstory? Hardly, as said above.
What about the drunk behind the inn? As said above
Does anyone have a chart for coming up with random 'conversations' between npcs? (Its come up before, believe it or not.)I don't, but I'm pretty good at making this up. If you think it's necessary you can make one up.
Any tips on keeping the suspense up with such a large group? Try to prevent that they go of in to much different groups. This costs a lot of time in wich a lot of players have nothing to do.
If you have the time it might be a good idea to split the group into two separate games (on separate days). This will allow everyone to play (and have more time to actually do stuff w/out competing w/ eight other players!) but make it less chaotic for you. I once ran a game w/ seven players and it was nuts, nine is just crazy.
I once had a GM who had two groups in the same game world. He had one group traveling around being bad guys (ie, evil campaign) and a second group following along behind them as the good guys (righting the wrongs they were causing). Now, he was a very experienced GM, but it allowed a lot of people to play in his game (at separate times) and was really cool when we got to have the big showdown at the end of the game.
Alternatively, you could have the group head in two separate directions trying to stop all the bad stuff happening. :)
A few ideas:
1. Encourage players to purchase multiple dice, of different colors. In this way, they can roll all their attacks at once, and resolve them.
2. Have a dry-erase board. Write everyone's initiative on this, and place it in front of your DM screen. This way, they know who's coming up next.
3. If PCs play a companion class, one companion per person limit...an animal companion's built into the class. Just remind them that "animals are animals" and can't really do much outside of tricks.
4. Remove Leadership (it's a headache).
5. For first-time, be careful with certain classes. Jacobs doesn't allow the summoner in his home games, so that may be a class to tackle down the line, instead.
6. Encounters will need more than one BBEG for action economy purposes. I'd suggest at least two, with minions.
7. Ask experienced players to pair with less experienced ones. Require this, politely. Emphasize that your job is running the game, and with that number of people don't have the time to help them with the numbers. Therefore, they need to rely on their teammates.
8. Set the tone early. You probably don't want a lot of minmaxing--that's more for experienced groups and moreover, focused groups (as not every experienced group likes to minmax...some are ardently against it, it's a personal taste thing). If you have a 'cruncher, take them aside and ask them to keep the other players, and you, in mind. It's easier on you, especially with that large of a group, if things are more equal/even. If they need a crunchy way to contribute, assign them as an assistant or helpful mentor to the other players.
5. For first-time, be careful with certain classes. Jacobs doesn't allow the summoner in his home games, so that may be a class to tackle down the line, instead.
8. Set the tone early. You probably don't want a lot of minmaxing--that's more for experienced groups and moreover, focused groups (as not every experienced group likes to minmax...some are ardently against it, it's a personal taste thing). If you have a 'cruncher, take them aside and ask them to keep the other players, and you, in mind. It's easier on you, especially with that large of a group, if things are more equal/even. If they need a crunchy way to contribute, assign them as an assistant or helpful mentor to the other players.
Yes. No Summoners.
And, I suggest you give a 20 pt build but with NO points given back by buying stats below 10. That will give everyone a nice build without encouraging Min/Maxing.
If you allow a Druid you should allow a Summoner. Disallowing summoning and calling spells is probably a good idea but personally I'd still be happy to play a summoner even if I lost access to the Summon Monster SLAs.
If you allow a Druid you should allow a Summoner. Disallowing summoning and calling spells is probably a good idea but personally I'd still be happy to play a summoner even if I lost access to the Summon Monster SLAs.I disagree. with a group that large, Summoners as a class should be banned off the hat as a PC choice. ESPECIALLY if either the player or the GM is a novice. In fact, you should be requiring anyone who's going to be casting summoning spells have their summons prepared on index cards, by restricting them to the subset of the list for which they have done so. You have 9 players... the last thing you can afford is to let anyone be hogging game time by dealing with multiple creatures or time wasting combersome mechanics.
Eh, might want to reread what I wrote. I said disallow summon spells but allow Summoners who use Edilions. It would be very similar to allowing animal companions using classes like the druid.
If you allow a Druid you should allow a Summoner. Disallowing summoning and calling spells is probably a good idea but personally I'd still be happy to play a summoner even if I lost access to the Summon Monster SLAs.
Right, good point. Allow neither.
(There are druids who don't get a animal companion, note).
A new DM should NEVER allow a summoner and a large party shouldn't have one either. Two strikes.
I was considering making people roll their stats, and also their race and class. (A roll twice and pick one method)
Don’t roll, not for such a large party, not with your being somewhat new. Use the method I suggested.
You can just say only two classes per PC, except a PRC, and only one of them.
I did...I would still disallow Summoners because the Eidolon is a mess of traps to deal with for someone who's only GM 3 games in their life. Even more to the point, with NINE people with one party, the last thing you want to do is encourage the use of classes that expand that number.
Yes, too true. Time after time after time we have had threads with a troublesome Eidolon. Most of the time it’s because the Player and the DM don’t understand the rules and didn’t triple check the build. Still, even with three rules masters and a HAL computer, it’s way too easy to Min-Max a eidolon who will steal the spotlight from the real PC’s and also make it hard to for the DM to design encounters which will challenge the Eidolon without killing the PCs. Summoner is a poorly designed and badly balanced class. A Very cool class, true. But NOT one for anything but a very experienced DM with a mature and reasonable player in a no more than 4 PC game.
Druidzilla is just as bad as a summoner in my opinion. Hence why I said 'if you allow a druid'. My personal opinion is no animal companions/cohorts/ect at all in a 9 person group, might seem unfair to some players but in this case I think it's a fine rule and players should (hopefully) be understanding to the reasoning.
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Nine is a VERY large party for even an experienced GM. My advice is to keep your adventures really straightforward (no political intrigue or complicated mysteries) and when you run encounters, be sure to include either environmental hazards which affect everyone on the map or large area-of-effect hazards.
Discourage animal companions or summoning.
Maybe look into splitting your gaming group into two smaller groups?
Ill check on splitting the group.
The first few sessions are planned (encounter-wise) since the group is chasing a comet (which is only the most recent of several with more to come), so i can get a good feel for their chemistry.
Ideally, even though the players are of every alignment, theyll be believers in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
There will be some serious 'intrique', but not political in nature... They may discover the local priest, although divine, isn't quite as holy as he lets on.. That sort of thing. The clues are scripted as parts of encounters, but discrete - they may never discover the truth about several things.
A large group might actually be a plus for the story, since its more likely that someone will, for example, notice the scribbled note on the floor in an ancient language.
Umm, do you mean you have evil alignments in the party?
New GMs should never allow evils, or even CN. Trust me on this.
