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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7974908" data-attributes="member: 6776133">Only you can say how best to organize your play group. I’ve done 8. I can do 8. I hate 8. I prefer never to go more than 6 (including myself). For table management in combat - there are some very old practices and some new ones that move things along. At 8 players, I use side-initiative every round. The party’s scout rolls a d6 + dexterity modifier and I roll  a d6 + the fastest monster’s dexterity modifier. Whichever team wins acts immediately and then the other team goes. After that, we roll to see who goes first in round 2. Etc. I also use a Foreman. The Foreman serves as the party’s representative to the DM. So all 8 players can brainstorm and discuss, but nothing is officially declared until the foreman says “Player A does this, Player B does that, etc.” The foreman does not decide how the players act - this is important - they just declare those actions to the DM. The actions can be as simple as “attacking, dodging, casting a spell.” This seems stupid but in practice your foreman keeps their side running smoothly. I use a marching order. The scout is always up front and is always the target of any traps. The anchor/guard is in back and I always attack that position on the baddies’ first turn. The middle positions do the searching and mapping and all related checks. For 8 people, you try to put 2 in each of the 4 spots. Why do I bother doing that? It front-loads a lot of decision-making. I know who I’m rolling against traps, I know who I’m attacking, I know who I’m describing the room to (the mapper), and I know who’s searching for traps and monsters and who’s searching for treasure and secrets. It’s the same every time. The guards know they’re getting attacked first, so they know they need to move up and take dodge actions or ready for incoming attacks. Etc. And I also use flat damage for monsters. I tend to like one monster per player in a fight (or 1 tougher monster per 2 players). And flat damage speeds that along. TL/DR - table management with large parties focuses on streamlining the process of declaring and resolving actions and relies on a sort of standard ops (marching order) to assume a lot of the routine decisions. You don’t need to split. Just stick hard on ops.</blockquote>

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