Is a game with 12 players even possible?

[fearcypher]

Recently I have met a large group of people who all have been interested in playing a TTRPG. So I recommended Pathfinder. Before I realized it we had accrued a group of 12 people. However as nobody else has any experience or materials the job of DM has fallen to me. There is literally nobody else who can fill in the DM role and the time is restricted to one specific date. I want to know if it is even possible for this to be pulled off. And if it can be how as I don't know how to balance something for this many people at the same time. I feel like large amounts of weak enemies would result in a heavily bogged down game but a few strong enemies would easily kill a few party members per encounter.

TLDR; Is it possible to balance a game for 12 people and if so how?

Thanks in advance.

[Theconiel]

Based on my experience, a game with so large a group at one table is possible, but not feasible. Even eight players at one table is too many. It takes so long to complete each turn that each player spends most of his time waiting to come up in the initiative order. A combat is likely to end even before all the players have had a turn.

I would recommend splitting into two tables. Use PFS modules so each table can have rotating GMs.

[Prux]

fearcypher wrote:

Recently I have met a large group of people who all have been interested in playing a TTRPG. So I recommended Pathfinder. Before I realized it we had accrued a group of 12 people. However as nobody else has any experience or materials the job of DM has fallen to me. There is literally nobody else who can fill in the DM role and the time is restricted to one specific date. I want to know if it is even possible for this to be pulled off. And if it can be how as I don't know how to balance something for this many people at the same time. I feel like large amounts of weak enemies would result in a heavily bogged down game but a few strong enemies would easily kill a few party members per encounter.

TLDR; Is it possible to balance a game for 12 people and if so how?

Thanks in advance.

I would strongly advise against running a group that large. Pathfinder can be a time consuming game and with 12 players you will struggle to get anything done. I was in a game with 10 players years ago (old DnD) and it was a nightmare. Most of the time we sat around doing nothing.

I suggest that you see if there is a Pathfinder Society group nearby that you can all join.

For what it's worth.

Prux.

[fearcypher]

I should probably point out that I know that it's going to be bad but honestly due to circumstances I have no choice.

So I guess the question is more of how to go about making sure that combat doesn't end up as a meat grinder or as an hour long combat at lvl 1. I'm lready assuming a good bit of the game will be RP anyway.

[Jaunt]

You have to find a third option. Or you can let attrition naturally take its toll. I guarantee, with 12 players in a game, you'll have at least half the group quit after one session. The survivors can be your real group.

Ideally, you'd teach two of those players the rules, and then have them run their own groups through some starter modules.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Possible, yes, but not fun.

My advice: make it an open table, and read everything Justin Alexander has to say on the subject at the Alexandrian, since he's done it.

Or, make two groups of six, and alternate.

[skizzerz]

I DMmed a huge 3.5 campaign a while back (around 10-13 PCs in any given session), and settled on the following strategy in order to make the group manageable while still having an overarching campaign/storyline.

First, get a co-DM. This is an absolute requirement. If your players are awesome and up for it, you can rotate DMs although this makes managing a cohesive story much more difficult. If everyone wants to be a PC though this can be an effective strategy by allowing everyone (including yourself) to take turns both being PC and DM. On the other hand, by having 2 dedicated DMs deciding on the storyline, making encounters, etc. you can make sure things are consistent.

Next up, before each session have a vague idea of what you want to get accomplished in that session. Note that everything is going to take way longer, so not much will get accomplished in any given session unless you go out of your way to help speed things along.

For the session itself, I had the entire group meet up at the beginning to decide what they were going to attempt to do that session. If some of them are hanging out at the pub, you can drop in some adventure hooks, others may want to go shopping, some are really quiet and just go with the flow. To effectively manage the large group all at once, do things in turn order even in non-combat situations (clockwise or counterclockwise around the table works well for this). Give everyone a bit of time, maybe up to 3-5 minutes, before cutting them off and moving onto the next player. "I want to buy a suchandsuch, do they have them here and if so for how much?" "I'll let you know when it gets back to your turn, in the meantime you may want to figure out anything else you want to get so you have a full list by the time it comes around to you again. Ok, next person, what are you doing?"

After a short period of doing this (no more than 30-60 minutes), try to encourage them to split into 2 roughly-evenly-sized groups on their own and go off and do something. At this point, you should actually split it into two tables with you running one and your co-DM running the other. The longer you have everyone together at once, the less engaged your players will be because there will be more downtime in between they get to do stuff. More downtime leads to distractedness, distractedness leads to texting, facebook, and youtube, and all of that leads to the dark side players just walking out because they aren't having fun.

Once split off, run it like a normal session for your table (you'll probably have between 4-6 players to deal with which is significantly more manageable). At the end of it, assuming the group planned for it before splitting up (e.g. "hey, let's all meet up again at the inn by sundown"), bring them all back together to do the session wrap-up where they can do things like distribute loot, etc.

If they are traveling as a full group instead of splitting up, still go with a 2 table strategy, however allow the flexibility of players moving between tables. Perhaps they're being ambushed on two fronts, and half the group is working on the front enemies while the other half is working on the back enemies. Say it takes a couple rounds to move from one side of the battlefield to the other to allow the tables to be slightly out-of-sync as far as round count, but still give the option for PCs to move between fronts. You can also use 2 tables for non-combat things such as one group going shopping at the weapon store and then the magic store vs the other group hitting up the pub to gather information and then sneaking around the warehouse district or whatnot.

[Lanitril]

This is one of the only times I'll recommend this. Split the party.

Split it into 2-3 groups. Only Gm those 2-3 groups separately. They're in the same world, and they can move between groups, but make sure you only rarely Gm the whole group at once. If you do get a co Gm, maybe you guys can run each group simultaneously, and keep notes between eachother in a chat or something, but if one Gm is running a game for 12 people at once, it will be extremely difficult.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Honestly splitting the group into two groups of six, swapping groups every session (or every two sessions) is the best choice. Anything else just won't be satisfying or fun for anyone involved.

[SiuoL]

What I would do would either splitting the group in two and have one group playing at each session. Or what I did was splitting the group in 3. 4 players in each group. Each group will have a leader/assistance GM. You concentrate each group, the leader tend to the players. The three group hardly every have encounters together. At most you will have two groups join force. The other group doing other things. Let the leader make other players feel special by role-playing with them. At the end of every chapter, there will be a boss fight, that's where I bring all three groups together for an epic battle. To win those battle, each group has to work out their role in such battle. Three or more objectives will be presented and each failure will make the encounter harder.

Also I always make my players write me an email about that their character did in the last session and have the leaders keep track of what their team did, gain and lost. Then I read it over the week so I may prepare for the next session. We had a scouting group with druid, rogue, ranger and zen archer. Then a face group with Paladin, Cleric, wizard, bard. Also a muscle group of Bloodrager, Two handed fighter, cavalier and warpriest. Sometime they swap members, but mostly back to their own group. All I had to remember was what each groups do, what is the team goal and what the players want in each group. The muscle group just wanted to kill, so I had them fight a lot. The scout group loves exploring and puzzles, face group loves to role-play and politics. It was easy once you got them what the want and change once in awhile.

[Melkiador]

Obviously combat will take a long time, but the bigger problem is the action economy issue will mean they would need to face a similar number of opponents for a fight to not be too one sided.

It may work, if the players play something other than PCs. For instance, if the players played as a pack of wolves fighting off a band of encroaching goblins, everyone's turns would be very simple and short. The wolves could be based off the animal companion version. If you want a little more role play, give the wolves 3 int and their own wolf language, so they can be a little more clever and "talk" to NPCs.

[mmurphy1968]

If you have no way to break up the group or to split the DM duties then I would recommend another game rather than Pathfinder. Pathfinder is rules intensive and can be slow, especially with inexperienced players. If you want to stick with a fantasy game maybe look at Castles and Crusades, it is simpler and combat is quicker so your players will be less bored (hopefully). There are other games where combat is less important and (in my view) role-playing comes to the fore, such as Call of Cthulhu. Because combat is less frequent everyone can participate more easily without just sitting around. However, even with a simpler or less combat oriented game 12 players is still a lot to manage.

The only other bit of advice I can offer is do your best and wait for attrition to happen. Some of your players will show less interest than others and some will get bored because of the group size, this will (hopefully) get your group to a more manageable level.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The first thing to do is to get yourself a couple of assistant GM’s to help you run. They don’t have to have a full understanding of the rules because you will still be running things. Outside of combat much of the game is roleplaying which is actually pretty light on the rules. When the party splits up to handle separate goals they can run the roleplaying portion unless it becomes a combat situation or other rules are needed. Normally splitting the party during an adventure is something to be avoided, but with this many people it will be almost necessary. For example one group could be checking out the local criminal scene, while another could be working the king’s court. Have an assistant GM run one of the groups in a different room. Then when the group gets together they can tell each other what they learned.

If one of the groups get into combat than you can step in and direct the combat. Since there may be a couple of smaller sub groups much of the combat will actually be pretty normal. If a fight breaks out in the bar that the group investigating the criminal scene the only ones you need to worry about are the ones that are part of that group. The other group can still continue to roleplay if they are not in a combat.

When the whole group is going into combat have the assistant GM’s run the monsters as instead of you doing it. Your job will be to keep the combat moving instead of figuring out what each monster is doing. This will allow you to use larger groups of monsters without booging down so much. The group’s size will actually allow for some tactics not normally seen in many games. Shield walls with reach weapons as a second rank become possible. Also characters that are wounded may be able to be rotated out of the line for healing. Teamwork feats could be very useful for the martial characters. Use of the aid other will also be a good tactic. Basically the uses of real military tactics are now not only possible, but actually very useful.

It would probably be better to split the group up, but you have stated that is not really feasible. This solution is probably the best I can think of. It will also mean that two others will be getting a crash course in how to GM a game.

[SmiloDan]

I would suggest splitting the party into two groups of 6. Separate the two parties, but have them sit at the same table. Each group will alternate being heroes and monsters. You would GM the BBEG of each encounter.

So it would be 6 PCs (players 1-6), 6 monster "N"PCs (players 7-12), and a BBEG.
The next encounter would be 6 PCs (players 7-12), 6 monster "N"PCs (players 1-6), and you running a BBEG.

I'm assuming this is for a one-shot special event.

[John Kretzer]

It is possible. The problem is not necessarily balancing though. It just dealing with a group that large. I know GMs who can. It also depends on the people in the group.

I would not recommend it for new people and a GM who has not tried to do so before. Break it into smaller groups.

[fearcypher]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

I wish I could switch systems however due to monetary constraints PF is all I have available. Having a few assistants might be useful my only real issue is going to be the combat as I've dealt with a large group of roleplayers before but that had no system or rules so it was easy to manage. I'm a semi experienced DM in the fact that I've been doing so for about 2 1/2 years. Not a ton of experience but enough to get by.

Attrition is probably going to be a large factor. I could split it up so one person is running some form of roleplay while I run some combat and more rules heavy sections.

I'm optimistic about this but the idea of managing this many people is really crazy to me.

[Claxon]

Option 3: Take the second most experienced player, have them become a GM, and split the group in two.

6 players is effectively the maximum for having fun at a single table, IMO.

[Tacticslion]

I have words, advice, and experience, but not now: I'm on a phone and that won't really let me talk to you about it in a non-typo-ridden way sooooo... dot for now.

[fearcypher]

Claxon wrote:

Option 3: Take the second most experienced player, have them become a GM, and split the group in two.

6 players is effectively the maximum for having fun at a single table, IMO.

I do plan on eventually getting someone else experienced enough to DM but currently everybody else is the second most experienced player so that idea is kinda gone. I'm pretty sure that I can do this but I figured I should come here and maybe get some extra advice.

[Otherwhere]

Make sure you have help. Have one person track Initiative so you can stay focused on your NPCs and mooks. Assign someone else to be the "rulebook" guy - someone with the book(s) or PDFs or Internet access who can look up rules when a question arises.

I've run a group of 7, and combat took forever. And only 1 of them had a pet/companion! (Thankfully, none of them were playing a Summoner!)

You know that 12 is too many. Be sure to be clear about that with your group when you start. If they still want to play, and you're still willing to bite the bullet and run it, at least everyone knows what they're getting into.

[Boomerang Nebula]

fearcypher wrote:

Recently I have met a large group of people who all have been interested in playing a TTRPG. So I recommended Pathfinder. Before I realized it we had accrued a group of 12 people. However as nobody else has any experience or materials the job of DM has fallen to me. There is literally nobody else who can fill in the DM role and the time is restricted to one specific date. I want to know if it is even possible for this to be pulled off. And if it can be how as I don't know how to balance something for this many people at the same time. I feel like large amounts of weak enemies would result in a heavily bogged down game but a few strong enemies would easily kill a few party members per encounter.

TLDR; Is it possible to balance a game for 12 people and if so how?

Thanks in advance.

Playing Pathfinder according to the full ruleset will be difficult and a little tedious because for most of the time players will be sitting around bored waiting their turn.

On the other hand, have you ever been to a corporate run: Murder Mystery night? Effectively what they do is run a rules light RPG for really large groups, routinely 20 or more people!

There are a few things they do to make sure it works.

1) They follow a loose script, because all you need really is the illusion of choice, and sometimes you don't even need that.
2) They run the game more like a show where the GM is the performer and players are the audience. That way when a player is not directly involved they are still enjoying "the show".
3) They really ham up the acting, you know villains with diabolical laughs, squeaky sounding princesses and so forth, it is way over the top, so that everyone has a laugh and nobody feels like they have to be any good at the game to participate.
4) They quickly work out who are the extroverted people, that will also go along with the story and they encourage them play the major roles.
5) Players are invited to act at appropriate parts of the story, it is not a free for all like a normal game. You decide when they get to do something according to when the script allows it.
6) There are no complex rules to bog down the action.

On that last point I recommend you hand out a few twenty sided and twelve sided dice (since they are the most exotic looking) to the audience/players and just use those. Whenever a player does anything get them to roll the D20, if they number looks high enough they succeed, otherwise they fail. But regardless of whatever they roll, make it sounds awesome. That is enough to convey the spirit of the game to a bunch of newbies without getting bogged down checking characters sheets, making calculations or looking up rules in the book. Plus the preparation time will be almost negligible, all you have to do is write a description of each character (no stats required) and have a loose script to follow and you are done.

Over time your group will reduce in size and you can start incorporating more and more actual rules into your campaign as the group becomes a more manageable size, until eventually you are simply running a standard Pathfinder game.

[TheNine]

Its probably a good thing they are new. Whenever i deal with big tables its the experianced players (i've found) that get impatient with new players not having an idea what to do.

Plan it so the worst advice ever is actually good advice... find a way to split the part up some. Find a way for team sneak to go behind enemy lines for something important, have team fighters hold the line as it were while they do so, make some form of mage to keep the casters busy. If you make it something where everyone has a chance to shine but somewhat independant of one another it will help.

Boomerang Nebula has some awesome points use them. It is almost inevitible that there will be some player shrinkage, but I used to run games for kids at the local library (3.5 mind you and greyhawk) but they werent exactly rules savvy and had short attention spans. Granted the most i usually dealt with 8.

Pregame guidance is a bit key too, if they are new players make sure they sort of get the gist of what their strong suits are. Pick spells for them let them learn those spells, let that change out and vary as they learn and grow. Have them start to plan their move ahead of time, while tactics might hurt it will speed up combat.

Good luck!

[MrCharisma]

These are just a few things I think would help with a huge group like this:

1. Railroads are your friend - Don't bother giving them hints, by the time someone works out the plot hook and tries to follow it, someone else will have gone the other direction with half the party. When you need them to move, move them.

2. Make the game fairly light on combat - Combat is where the time crunch comes in, and where everyone gets bogged down. Mystery and intrigue based games don't tend to leave everyone waiting for their turn to come up, they can just butt in whenever.

3. Give people a time limit on actions - Especially in combat. 1 round = 6 seconds, make the players decide in 6 seconds (maybe 10, 6 is really short). If they don't decide, their character is gripped by indecision and must wait a turn.

4. Pre-roll everything - pick 2-3 players who you trust to be arbiters and have them watch other players' attack/skill/whatever rolls, that way you don't have to wait for the roll on top of everything else.

5. House Rules to save time - When you roll a Critical Threat, you have to then roll to confirm ... skip that step, it's auto-crits for everyone. Add in the rule of cool: Player:-"I throw my broadsword at the enemy" ... *rolls a Nat 20* ... GM:"He's dead, don't bother rolling for damage".

Sorry if I'm repeating anything here, but that's my 2 cents.

[Malag]

Wow, 12 players. Imagine yourself talking to 12 people in a small room and whenever you aren't talking with them, they will talk between themselves. Do you realize how much hot air, talk, distractions and agony to keep their focus on the game, is there to please 12 people? It's basically impossible job. Sure you can try for several sessions, but in a long run, you will burn out completely.

My suggestion is to tell other 6 people to make their own group. It's not cold, it's not heartless, it's not uncaring or unfriendly, it's simply realistic. You cannot provide good amount of fun for 12 people. I have learned this multiple times as a GM and a player.

[LazarX]

Yes, it's possible, because I've seen someone simultaneously GM two six person tables.

I wouldn't recommend it as standard operating procedure though.

Your first priority beyond all others should be breaking in a new GM. That's of course assuming half your group doesn't wander off when their attention span hits it's limit.

[fearcypher]

Honestly I want everyone to be able to participate in the game. So my idea was to do some form of mystery intrigue inside a city that was relatively combat light. I'm expecting high attrition rate and a my plan is to train another DM ASAP anyway so i'm glad i had the right idea there. I usually houserule out anything that takes too much time anyway so that shouldn't be an issue. The time limit thing is a good idea but im thinking something closer to 15 seconds because they are pretty new. I really like TheNines idea of splitting them up in combat to let them really shine.

Anyway first session is later today I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Good luck on the session, and... I was going to note that you're probably not going to get twelve people consistently. Life has a way of rearing its ugly head and you'll need to adjust for half your group not being there, a different half each time.

[Warhawx]

I had a game with 11 people. Each combat turn took about half an hour.

[Kobold Commando]

As a tangentially related question, what systems CAN handle 12 players? The only one I know is Dread, though that many people means you'll have a relatively high mortality game.

[Manji-Kuu]

I dunno about this... Personally I am new to Pathfinder and TTG in general. I started as my Fiance really liked the one game she played and asked me where she could play more. I had a bunch of friends who loved gaming and figured I'd start.

We jumped straight into Rappan Athuk when I snagged a PDF copy for $40 and ever since our PC count has varied, from running this 6 player adventure with 3 players to 9. The only real problems I notice is lack of sleep and space since we meet in a tiny room. I prep before every game, yet everytime one of my players makes my want to TPK. This is because I just have to answer his questions that come out of left field. Our group has always been a bit dark and semi... odd (probably not the word I'm looking for)... but he has asked questions ranging from: "Can I rape my dying opponent?", "If swing my penis at the troll can I get an intimidation boost?", (and my favorite) "Can I make everyone worship Asmodeus if I become mayor?". As I said I'm just starting out as a DM and Player, and some of the random stuff he's tried have been crazy difficult to pull off while still keeping everyone involved.

My final point though is a game can be played with that many. it just depends on if you can get the group to focus. Yes combat draws out. However, my players are plotting during every step just to cause max damage. I will admit I have sacrificed some rules and combat for good story more, since I prefer the story, but I find no one complaining amongst my group apart from our tenth person who has since quit because the game was to... gamy? He didn't want to play just talk and was upset we all wanted to play, so we kinda forget to invite him now.

[KainPen]

it is do able, I had a ground of 14 before, I normally run games with a group of 8.

one options for doing this make up your own story but take maps and encounters from pre made adventures. this will speed things up for you.

ignore XP for leveling just level the group when you adventure says they should be x level.

double the size of the rooms in each map. if it says the room is 50 by 50 make it 100 by 100 this give more room for players and creatures to move around.

Ignore difficulty, make the game easier, it will be easier on them and you. this can be done by making all characters 25 point by or doing the add give them max hp per level.

Creatures since you have a huge party increase the numbers double, but reduce their hp, by 1/3, this will make the game go faster with the large group and make all the pc feel powerful. as they will all have a creature to target or help out with and defeat them quickly allowing everyone to get a turn. only make boss battle challenging. double the number of boss creatures max out hp on them.

remove complex unneeded rules like AOO even the ones from reach ones, they slow things down, charging, mounted rules and mounts abilities to attack.

treat mounts as a speed increase to the player only.

ect. and explain to the players since the group is so large you are cutting out some of the rules and features to speed up play and so they all enjoy it.

let them do crazy stuff that is not in the rules. don't even worry about if there is a rule about it, or a roll. Say rouge wants to jump off a hill and stab some one in, let them do it and give him sneak attack for it don't even bother with the acrobatic check.

basically don't get hung up on rules are trying to make it difficult, but be fair and consistence in any rulings you need to make.

[Manji-Kuu]

I tried the ignoring of XP... I tried being religious(lol) with XP cause the cleric leveled up to much compared to everyone else. He always shows up. I think he missed once on a day his work called him in as he was driving over.

as for leveling them and stats... I have been nicer since this is everyone's first game. The ability roll was a D10+9 and health gets a reroll if you roll a 1 (D12-d10) or a 2 (d8-d6). So far everyone has kept just ahead of being killed thanks to the spell casters and the lucky potion find.

As for HP I have lowered Boss HP and increased the minion HP in some situations... If only because the description and planning involved were good. We have a gunslinger who was hidden high up in a tree while the party ambushed some bandits... the bandits were about an epic challenge rating compared to them. He said he wanted to wait till he knew who the boss was before firing. After a few turns in combat he described his setting up of a shot. He didn't take it till the boss stood back from the others to shoot an arrow at the sorcerer. when he rolled a 19 and... I wanna say added it up to like 30~ish against the Bosses Touch rating of 10 and he rolled max damage. I just gave it to him.

I also don't play with map size. I have gone back and forth from no battle map to drawing out a detailed map. The only time they complained was when they were surrounded by trapped door ways and pit falls and the creatures would push them back into those. I still have yet to kill anyone which I blame on them avoiding RA and staying in the wilderness. If you've seen South Park they act like the kids leveling up. They've been grinding against small stuff despite me shoving other things their way.

I actually plan for the Second of Orcus to attack their secondary base today. It's gonna be good to see them panic. I am hoping to get one or two of them today.

[Irontruth]

Kobold Commando wrote:

As a tangentially related question, what systems CAN handle 12 players? The only one I know is Dread, though that many people means you'll have a relatively high mortality game.

Dread is supposed to be a high mortality game.

The Heist is a Burning Wheel scenario for up to 20 people. I've never played this scenario though, and Burning Wheel isn't exactly a game I'd recommend for a GM to learn in a week or two.

Really, the simpler the system the better. Any game with just a couple of mechanics is going to be faster and let everyone participate more often. This was nearly 20 years ago, but I played a game of Mechwarrior in highschool and we had some 18 people participating in the game, but not everyone showed up every session. Except for one night. It was awful. I took PART of my turn then I went to the kitchen and made myself pancakes. I finished eating them. It still wasn't the second PART of my turn (that game split movement/actions into two phases).

A lot of LARPs are designed for very large groups (20+) but can work just fine as tabletop games for semi-large groups (10+).

Mind's Eye Theater
L5R LARP
Star Wars LARP

3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars would work. It would be chaos, but that game is awesome with chaos and it's kind of the point.