DMing large groups. (Halp)

[Sekhmet]

In my DMing experience (about ten years now), I've typically played with smaller groups (2-4 players) and I've had great success with it.

At the end of the month, I'm moving to Chicago to be with my wife (who is in the Navy) and five of her shipmates have expressed interest in playing the game, though two are relatively new an one has never played.

I've never DM'd a group of six before, and I was wondering if you who have could give some tips on how to make sure everyone gets equal playtime and spotlight, so that all of them enjoy them game and be included without feeling left out.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

In fights, to compensate for the extra PCs, include lots of extra monsters. Do not make your few monsters stronger. Doing that results in the few monsters getting gang-tackled by the PCs, while more, weaker monsters means that the PCs have to spread their attention around, and thus each player can feel like they are more directly contributing to the overall success of a combat. Additionally, it tends to spread the damage around the party a little bit better, so you don't end up with a few very powerful monsters all focus-firing on the same PC (the opposite view of what the PCs will do if you just run a couple strong monsters).

As an example, if you would normally run a fight against 5 kobolds for your normal-sized party, do not compensate for your larger group size by running a fight against 5 orcs. Instead, run it against 8 or 10 kobolds.

If you are going to be using a battlemat, use big rooms. Even in a normal-size party, it's very easy to end up with a situation where people can't move around easily. Double the number of players, and the "trapped in the corner by your own party" issue is magnified.

Keep things moving quickly. Enforce a "You have 1 minute to decide your move" rule, and make the character delay when they aren't ready. If you let people's turns get drawn out, it can easily be 10 or 15 minutes in-between players' turns, and that makes combat get boring. Rulesets which either cut down on turn time *or* make you pay attention during other peoples' turns are even better for this.

In service of the above, get a set of initiative cards or a similar turn-tracking device.

To help you handle the larger number of weaker monsters, consider borrowing the fighter squadron rules from Star Wars Saga Edition (essentially, a group of monsters acts together on the same initiative count, and each monster beyond the first just does an automatically successful aid another on the primary monster's attack roll). This makes your dice rolling faster, and also makes it so that the monsters are doing a little bit more reliable damage per round.

 

[Sekhmet]

That is a really interesting idea (squad based combat), but wouldn't that cause some players with low to medium ACs to be affected far more readily than ones with higher ACs?

The Rogue or Druid with an 18 will feel the effects of Aid Another far more than the Fighter with 22 or better.

 

[Sekhmet]

AWWWRIGHT DOUBLE POST FOR DOUBLE POINTS.
/cough.

 

[Gilladian]

Six players for 3.5 or pathfinder is getting towards the edge of manageability, but not past it. Give it a try!

If you want to try a simpler rules system, especially for a few "one shot" or short scenarios, just to test the waters, try Microlite20. It's a simplified version of d20 that strips away a lot of the complexity, more like "old dnd".

MicroLite 20 | The Adventures Just Begun...

 

[d12]

My regular group has 8 players plus DM. Here are some things I find handy when running groups that large:

1. If one player or two players want to dominate the roleplaying bits and be the "face" of the party then let them. Don't insist on input from eveyone unless the players do.

2. If one or two players want to dominate the out-of-combat strategy bits, let them. Four of my players really could not care less if they party goes left, right or center at the tunnel intersection. If the player who usually decides such things says "left" then that's where the party goes unless someone objects.

3. Encourage character diversification. The warning about room size is a good point but sometimes people get clogged up anyway. Encourage at least one character to be an archer or ranged specialist character of some type. Encourage everyone to have a ranged option. Also have them find a few items that allow for increased mobility (a wand of dimension door for example).

4. Houserules. I use a homebrewed version of minions from 4th edition from time to time. This gives more targets for all of those PCs. I also allow a type of "second wind" once per day (standard action, heal 1/4 of your own maximum hp). This prevents the party from feeling like that "have" to have 2 healers.

5. Preroll badguy initiatives. If you know the party is likely to encounter the Ogres in Forest, then have their initiatives ready. And yes, as an earlier poster suggested, in mixed groups it is good to have all the zombies go at the same time and all the ghouls at the same time.

6. Hand out jobs: give one player the task of tracking initiative. If someone in the group knows the rules REALLY well, put them in charge of resolving other player's questions about attacks of opportunity or a bull rush or a trip attack. All those people can work to your advantage if you put them to work.

And the nice thing about 6 players is that if 1 or 2 can't show, you can still play.

 

[frankthedm]

Seat the players in order of initiative bonus clockwise from the DM. the party gets one d20 initiative roll and then acts in order based on that roll. Do just one roll for the enemy group as well. This not only saves time, it reduces Skipped Action Syndrome and lets players plan and enact their tactics better.

Any player that does something to change initiative tick changes their seat,

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

That is a really interesting idea (squad based combat), but wouldn't that cause some players with low to medium ACs to be affected far more readily than ones with higher ACs?

The Rogue or Druid with an 18 will feel the effects of Aid Another far more than the Fighter with 22 or better.

... No?

I'm not sure what your question is, exactly.

 

[Greenfield]

My normal group is eight people, seven players and a DM. we actually feel a bit light right now, since we're down two players.

The idea of adding more monsters to encounters is a good one. Normal encounter CR calculations are based on the idea of a party of 4. Bump critter counts by half for a party of 6.

One important thing out of combat is a thing I try to think of as "the spotlight". Some players will grab attention. They just will. Try to plan missions so that each character gets his or her turn in the spotlight. Use story hooks to draw different people in, in turn. Everybody can't shine all the time, so make sure you give each of them their time center stage.

For initiative management... I cheat. I went to the hardware store and bought some sheets of metal flashing. It's used in roofing. You want steel, not aluminum.

Next I laid out a battle reference sheet. Notes on what different conditions mean, and space to note spell effects. Down one side I laid out a column of numbers, from 1 at the bottom to 30 or so at the top. Expand the type face until this column is nearly as tall as your flashing sheet is long.

Print out the sheet and glue it to the flashing. (Hint: Round the corners slightly with some tin snips, then sand off burrs.) Finally, lay down a sheet of clear laminate on it, so it's plastic coated.

I have little bits of magnetic rubber with player names on them, and a few extras labeled things like "NPC1" and "Monster 1".

I use these to mark the initiatives as they're rolled. One extra marker as a "pointer", and we're ready. Place the player's markers on their Initiative count as they roll, and roll for your monsters. Now start the counter at the top and work down. The pointer helps keep me from losing track. I just slide it down to the next person.

I also warn the player who's next in line, "You're on deck", so they can be thinking about their action ahead of time. I use a wet-wipe marker to note conditions like "stunned". I can move markers as people do things like hold or ready actions, and I can pull the markers off to the side when a monster goes down.

 

[MadLuke]

In my opinion, the most important thing is to avoid time wastes for rule discussions. To achieve this goal you should start with a few sessions of very role playing dedicated and none of combats or other complex manouvers (or at least very few of them).
By passing time you'll be able to increase count of combats or ability & feat checks and so on. As many player well know the rules (not the DM only) as better the game will be.

Bye, MadLuke.