Newbie here with a question for all........

[Mark]

Welcome!

I'd opt for a completely contrived scenario...

Teleportation accident!

Next time the group teleports (or planewalks or etc.) hand them all their new character sheets. Have these prepared in advance and make them up based on the current characters and collect their old character sheets. Do this by taking the 18 characters and melding them into 9 characters. Take the high level ones and half their level (roughly). Add to them the low level ones so that the group is composed of 9 characters of equal levels regardless of who previously played who (they should all be multi-classed now). If possible, try and allow each player to retain their highest level character, or at least one of their previous characters. I'm guessing that you will wind up with 9 characters of tenth or twelfth level.

They're going to gripe, of course, but let them know that it is a fluke scenario that they can hopefully be smart enough to rectify if they work together as a group. Think nothing more of it and enjoy the game in its much easier format.

 

[Protean Victor]

Surefire Way To Scare Off All Your Players

If what you're trying to do is alienate everyone you game with by all means do as suggested above. I mean no harshness towards my peers on the board, but I was devastated by the support provided for the 'teach the players a lesson' approach. In My Ever So Humble Opinion what seems to be going on is a serious communication problem.
I am by no means a GM of 12 years experience, however I consider myself a serious student of the craft. So now I offer my advice to you, Kargin el Tomath:
1. Talk to your players before you take action. Let them know of your displeasure with the way things are going and discuss with them possible ways to adjust the situation to everyone's best interests.
2. Do not let your players push and pull you everywhich way. From the outside the situation smells afoul of pushy individuals taking serious advantage of a GM whose mastery of the rules is not quite acquired. Rather than punishing them I suggest discussion once again. If Those You Game With refuse to treat you with respect I would bow out gracefully. Trully if they do not respect the effort you're putting into the game they are probably not the type of people you should be gaming with.
3. For more information on communication in roleplaying I suggest the following website: Burning Void Roleplaying Resources

 

[Mark]

Re: Surefire Way To Scare Off All Your Players

If what you're trying to do is alienate everyone you game with by all means do as suggested above. I mean no harshness towards my peers on the board, but I was devastated by the support provided for the 'teach the players a lesson' approach. In My Ever So Humble Opinion what seems to be going on is a serious communication problem.

I'm assuming you're not addressing that to my suggestion of reining the game in to something the DM feels that he can handle, are you?

Naturally, just killing off random players would be an unfair way to handle the situation but if the DM has a monster of a game on his hands and its no longer fun, there isn't much choice but to dial it down somehow. As long as it is going to be dialed down, why not also regulate it to some degree by equalizing the levels of the characters? If a solution needs to be enacted, why not one that makes it ultimately easier for everyone involved?

What other options (aside from summary roadside execution of individual characters) would you think might be worth attempting? He's in a tough situation. The players don't want to start completely fresh and the DM has found that he lost the reins of the game. My suggestion is a comfortable middle ground that reduces the levels but allows the players to retain the best of what they've acomplished thus far, IMO. I see that your opinion is long on reproach and short on approach. Throw us a bone, brother!

 

[Lord Ravinous]

Ok..

Here is my actual game based, non-divine, no splat book required way of thinning out your over population of Characters...

Have their ventures and slayings of powerful beings(Kloth) attract the attention of the proverbial "Big Bad" of your campaign and have him hire some assassins to "deal" with them, and the surviving characters, if any, would have to keep a low profile and in the end uncover their nemisis's identity. Hopefully this is something you can play off of...or have them all Plane Shifted to Hell where they'll be tortured for the rest of their lives.

 

[Protean Victor]

Apology For Above Pretentiousness

I offer all the following bone: At times my intellectual pride gets the better of me. I sought to help with only curt suggestions. I trully didn't have a handle of the situation. The below hair-brained zanniness is a sincere effort on my part in order to offer reperations.
What I would do: Seek out a time beyond the usual time that I game and talk to the players as a whole and individually in order to get a better hold of the situation. I apologize if its allready been done...Just a humble suggestion if you will forgive my past transgressions.
One Other Possible Solution: Set up an encounter with an ancient artifact that provides a peek into the memories of their ancestors, giving the chance to introduce an ultimate flashback and a chance to introduce the tension involved with lower level play. If you introduce some foreshadowed snippets into the session this should be quite enjoyable for most of your players. Perhaps the preceding session could be initiated after the above climatic encounter with the dracolich. It should be perceived as a reward, after all.

 

[Mark]

Re: Apology For Above Pretentiousness

I offer all the following bone: At times my intellectual pride gets the better of me. I sought to help with only curt suggestions. I trully didn't have a handle of the situation. The below hair-brained zanniness is a sincere effort on my part in order to offer reperations.
What I would do: Seek out a time beyond the usual time that I game and talk to the players as a whole and individually in order to get a better hold of the situation. I apologize if its allready been done...Just a humble suggestion if you will forgive my past transgressions.
One Other Possible Solution: Set up an encounter with an ancient artifact that provides a peek into the memories of their ancestors, giving the chance to introduce an ultimate flashback and a chance to introduce the tension involved with lower level play. If you introduce some foreshadowed snippets into the session this should be quite enjoyable for most of your players. Perhaps the preceding session could be initiated after the above climatic encounter with the dracolich. It should be perceived as a reward, after all.

No problem, PV. I like your suggestions better than mine.

(Mine being a bit contrived, though possibly effective enough to work well.)

 

[Undead Pete]

A couple more ideas

Three ideas, one will kill a few characters, one will "retire" the 19th level one, the final idea will just start at square one.

1) Have them all fight their Evil Twins - exact stats, etcetera. Give them a taste of their own medicine. They could even be in an Advanced illusion where each of them are actually fighting one another.

2) Have the 19th level guy approached by the minion of his/her patron god and offer him/her a job....which would exile the PC to NPC status, but give him/her something to brag about.

3) Come up with a "season finale", play it out and RETIRE all the characters.

One other suggestion... When new PC's are introduced into an existing group (whether through a new player, or a character's death), don't have them come in at 1st level! Especially if the other characters are so much higher.

Look at it from the players POV. Would you find that fun? Not me.
I have a house rulethat new players start with 80% of the XP of the character with the lowest XP in the group. That way, they are a bit behind ( a couple levels), but not an insurmountable amount.

 

[Protean Victor]

Gratitude

I would like to extend thanks to Mark and everyone else on the boards that attempt to understand the issue before taking reactionary measures.

A bit tongue tied...It's 2 AM over here.

I could certainly learn from observing the members of this community. I apologize once more for my tendency to jump the gun, to speak rather than listen. Hmmm...That's going in my signature from now on.

 

[Mark]

Re: Gratitude

I would like to extend thanks to Mark and everyone else on the boards that attempt to understand the issue before taking reactionary measures.

A bit tongue tied...It's 2 AM over here.

I could certainly learn from observing the members of this community. I apologize once more for my tendency to jump the gun, to speak rather than listen. Hmmm...That's going in my signature from now on.

It may well be something that sets the EN Boards apart from a lot of what people find on the Internet. Of course, we all have our bad days, myself included, but I think most everyone here tries to be civil the majority of the time. If not, we get you drunk, pants ya and put you on a bus to Sandusky (MI) with no money or identification.

Good to have you aboard!

 

[Pielorinho]

Protean Victor's advice is wise. Listen to PV!

I'd definitely talk to some of them individually, at first, to get a sense of their mood. If you can talk with them individually, there's less chance of it turning into an us-vs.-them situation.

And you might hear some concerns that won't get brought out in a group discussion. Jeff might really like his current character, but by talking with him one on one, you'll learn that it's really the dour dwarven fighter archetype that he likes, and you can reassure him that he can play another character with that archetype.

Billy might be frustrated with keeping two characters separate; you can ask him whether he'd prefer that he (and everyone) played just one PC. Dolly may be afraid that you're gonna go back to sending goblins and kobolds at them; you can assure them that you've got an unusual scenario lined up for their 1st-level adventure. (Get a cool one, btw -- there's no excuse for kobolds-in-a-mine). And PJ will probably just leave the group in a snit no matter what you do.

But talking to them individually, I've found, can help a lot when making difficult group decisions: you'll have a better idea of what people are interested in, and you'll be able to propose a solution that meets folks' needs and minimizes the chance of turning it into an argument.

Daniel