D&D and AD&D - 10 Players?

[wingsandsword]

The very first D&D game I was in was a 2e game, where I was the last player to join, and I was the 10th. It was hard to make room for us all at one place, we gamed at the house of one of the players, the only one that had a table that could seat 11 (10 + DM). We never used minis, and with that many PC's all crammed into one place, we never would have been able to really.

It was hectic, combat took forever, and the DM vowed after that to never have more than 6 PC's in a campaign. I'll agree with him, having seen a larger group and smaller groups, I'd say 5 or 6 is the ideal group size personally, with 4 being a practical minimum (I've run games for 2 or 3 PC's, but it's definitely suboptimal).

 

[sniffles]

I was just reading this thread out of curiosity. I wasn't roleplaying in the "olden days"; I got into AD&D just a couple of years before 3.0 was released. The biggest group of players I've ever played with was 8, at which point it just became unmanageable. We currently have an ongoing campaign with 7 players, and we often find that several people have nothing to do for most of the session. Sometimes we roleplay amongst ourselves, but generally we don't want to miss out on witnessing the action, nor do we want to have our talking distract the GM. I can't imagine running anything with more people than that.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

The largest group I have ever run was 17 players. It was quite chaotic. In older editions, there was a party leader who would get the actions of other PC's from their players and relate them all to the DM. Now, players are too vocal and PC's too individualized, with too many possible differentiated actions governed by feats and skills for that to work.

DM

 

[Gentlegamer]

Yeah, the Party Caller is a position that most gamers today have no idea about. The emphasis on indivuality in modern RPGs would make such a position tough to handle for them.

 

[Glyfair]

Yeah, the Party Caller is a position that most gamers today have no idea about. The emphasis on indivuality in modern RPGs would make such a position tough to handle for them.

Honestly, in my experiences no one used the role anyway. It would occasionally be discussed (especially at conventions), but no one actually wanted to give up the communication with the DM, and no one wanted to be responsible for that position, too.

It might just had to do with the local gaming atmosphere. Maybe in some areas it was standard.

 

[Gentlegamer]

We used Party Caller in my AD&D groups, not all the time, but often, especially when there was 6 or more players.

 

[Endur]

Multiple PCs really depended on the GM and the size of the group.

When I played in a group where we had 3+ players in addition to the GM, then each player ran one PC.

When I played in a group where there was 1 GM and 1-2 players, then sometimes we had the players run multiple PCs to give a full party.

My major campaign from the 80's met once a week on Friday evenings. We had 1 GM and anywhere from 3-15 players. We met at a gaming store and anyone that showed up played with our regular Gm. In addition to the PCs, we also often had various NPCs along too.

This was back in the old days when parties could have conflicts. It was not uncommon for party members to kill each other (for loot or other disagreements or being magically controlled).

 

[Terwox]

What exactly did the party caller do?

 

[Glyfair]

What exactly did the party caller do?

In theory, told the DM which direction the party was headed in the Dungeon. Also, he'd say what each party member was doing ("Fingers will check the door for traps.") in some games. If the DM needed any details, he'd ask the player involved.

Of course, in addition to the "caller" there was the "mapper" position. That's something that's almost never seen in the current environment.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

Yes, there was the caller, who would get the actions of all PC's from their players and announce them to the DM. Also, the mapper would take the DM's descriptions and map the dungeon on graph paper. In the age of mini's, I just have a huge grid sheet that takes up the whole table and it gets drawn out either as they go, or in advance and revealed as they go. After the DM got the actions from the caller and checked the mapper's take on things, he would make any necessary die rolls and/or ask for clarification or resolve any actions with either the caller (if nothing untoward happens) or the player of the apropriate PC. Example:

DM: "Okay, 'Fingers', as you slide your hand along the edges of the door, you feel something prick your index finger. <rolls dice> You start to feel a bit faint, either from loss of blood... or something worse."

Caller: <looks at player of Cleric PC> "'Calithus' why don't you check out 'Fingers' since he is looking a little pale. <Cleric player nods> 'Calithus' goes over to 'Fingers.' Does he seem to be visibly wounded?"


etc.

Thsi is the way it worked (in theory at least).

DM