Help! How would you run this multi-team battle?

POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN THE RESPONSES BELOW


I need to be able to set up a Gladiator fight in 4e that has four different teams fighting against each other.

The PC party and three others.

I have read the Dragon articles on Gladiator games and I will use some of the stuff there, like Working the Crowd, but how would you do this battle?

Would you run it round-by-round as a full pitched battle? That's a lot of monsters to manage.

Or would you run it like a skill challenge? Part of the deal is that before the battle, the PCs can try to use diplomacy to get the teams to like them, maybe even promise to go after the other teams first.

I am not sure how I want to run this, so I am reaching out to the boards for some thoughts.

BTW - , so some spoilers, if you have them, please use Spoiler Tags.

My players are about to show up to Hollowfaust to play in these games in my own 3.5e game. (and it might just happen on Halloween!) I like your idea to use skill challenges for some of the pre-game discussions. Consider that idea stolen!

I'm running a group of six, a co-DM, with the potential for two more players. I fear a very slow combat between individual players actions so I have been trying to think up my own solutions. On Paizo's boards I found some ideas how to run the individual teams so they are not push overs, but nothing about keeping the pace of the fight up.

My first plan was to give the one team per DM to manage, but I doubt that will improve the pace much. Depending on how the pre-game discussions go I am considering splinting us into two mini sessions with each of the DM's working with a subgroup of the party (each take 3-4 party members and have a team fight them only). This could keep the rounds shorter for the individual players. We might get out of sync in rounds between the groups, but I'm not too concerned about that. I might want some sort of mechanism to allow players to tag out between teams.

I am not sure all of the players will want to join as gladiators. Another twist on that same concept is I might further break the fight up into some one on one / two on one action and have some of the players take roles as the other teams. At least one of the non-gladiators I expect will have fun playing every round in the stands making round by round bets. Skill challenge fun for him now! Hope that helps.

Looking forward to seeing some other ideas.

It's possible that I may make the entire first combat a skill challenge. Then when they move into the later rounds, against single teams of opponents, then run these as normal combats.

I will certainly be interesting....

Teams going round by round would be tournament style. Having them all go at it at once would be royal rumble style.

Would you want this to take a good amount of time during the game, is it a plot event, is it just something new to try?

What is the purpose of your gladiator battling?

You may want to grab some old WWF/WCW/ECW wrestling to get an idea of "working the crowd" in this day an age, and think in terms of not wrestling, but actual intent to kill and survive as most gladiators did.

For example, one way to work the crowd would be giving the crowd to decide if a fallen opponent has their life spared as a combatant, or to end their life. The crowd decides what they want to see happen.

Yes, I am aware of a typical gladiator style tournament, but this one is set-up as sort of a hybrid. The first round is a battle royal style fight with four teams fighting against each other at the same time. The subsequent rounds are more standard ladder style events.

The first battle isn't really a plot point, more for the "fun" of running a unique battle (note, this is a 3.5 adventure being converted to 4e). This is why I don't have a problem running it as a skill challenge, and then if they win, moving them into a typical team combat.

The bulk of the RP part of the adventure is about things only semi-related to the tournament.