D&D General Expanding a 3-player campaign to a 6-player with 3 newbies

[aco175]

Go light on making the campaign epic and make it more fun for the new players. Also remember that you are now going to have 6 players and that you may need more adjusting to the flow of the game. Combats may take more time or giving each player some shine-time may be harder. Your adventures fleshing out backstory become longer for everyone to hit it. Go easy on yourself to make it better for you as well.

I would recruit an experienced player to track initiative- off your plate
Another to look up rules or spells- off your plate.
I have the players roll monster damage against themselves, but some find this abhorrent.

 

[Eltab]

Pull out Phandelver or a classic "starter adventure" for the new players. Figuring out the rules and the mechanics of a new game is its own task - whether CandyLand or D&D. Invite the existing players to join as "mentors" both in-game and out. Everybody gets new L1 characters.

If you want a limited objective, the haunted house near the beginning of Saltmarsh will work. Combat, exploration, investigation ... and a few dangling threads if they want to come back to it later.

 

[Yora]

I think the old players making new characters is a very good idea. Especially if the players are already on for it.
The three old players will be doing a lot of the work teaching the new players the game, and that's always so much easier if everyone has comparable characters. Giving new players higher level characters to start with greatly increases the learning curve. And when the new players with new characters look to the old players to see how it's done, it's best when their characters are comparable. 1st level characters trying to follow the example of 4th level characters probably won't work out so well and lead to avoidable problems.

I think the other players have the right idea. Having everyone start with new characters will make it easier for the new players to learn the game.

 

[Quartz]

Any thoughts or tips?

Don't have a session zero. Create some characters for them then have them join the game. Get them going straight off, but let them know that these are temporary characters that they can change if they don't like them.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Lots of excellent points here, but if you are going to put any of them into the current campaign at a lower level, consider level 3 going to level 4 soon afterwards. It's not too far off, and depending on the class and subclass choosen, it wouldn't be too much extra information or features to consider for new features (especially for classes like Fighter etc.)

 

[Jmarso]

Lots if good advice to pick and choose from here.

If I could only pick one piece of advice, it'd be DEFCON 1's

 

[Benjamin Olson]

With that many new-to-the-hobby players, and the existing players committed to including them, just switch to a new, short campaign with everyone at level 1. They are just going to get overwhelmed trying to catch up on the existing campaign while learning a new complicated game, and the existing campaign won't really be the same with that radical and abrupt a shift in the players.

When that campaign resolves you can see whose still playing and what they want to do. By that point integrating them into the original campaign as level 4 characters probably won't be so daunting. They might not understand level 4 of a new character class but at least they have a basic feel for the game and the table. And at that point everyone will need to be reminded what had happened in the paused campaign so they're all on somewhat even footing.

 

[ad_hoc]

How many 6 player games have you played?

That is a lot and I think should be your biggest concern.

Personally the most players I will ever play with is 5 though I prefer 4.

 

[Stalker0]

But if too many characters change, we might as well start a new campaign.

So lets here, as this is the first fundamental question. Do you and your existing players want to start a new campaign? If so that is the easiest way to go.

Assuming the answer is no....one thing you want to talk with the new players on.... its their job to make characters that will work with the existing party. Aka probably not a good idea to bring in a dark wizard in a group of paladins...etc. Unless you are forcing the group together through plot, the old characters are effectively inviting new members into their group..... and realistically they aren't going to do that if the new players completely clash with their style. So to avoid those issues up front, I would take the new character ideas and run them by your vets to see if they think there would be any conflicts here. If the answer is "hell no I would never adventure with such a person"....then the newbie might want to rethink their concept.

In terms of level, personally I would just make them 4th.... there really isn't that much in 5th edition to pick up between 1st and 4th. Its 5th where you get crazier things and 3rd level spells that have more of an impact, but 4th level I think is just fine for even newer players to pick up.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

I am going to take the advice that many of you wrote: In the introductory one-off ALL players play with new characters, at level 1. I will create some 8-10 pre-made level 1 character sheets and they can grab one (creating 6 new character sheets with newbies takes all day, and I want to play the game, not create char sheets). I will place that one-off in the main campaign-setting but at a geographically different location (i.e. they learn a little about what is wrong with the world, but won't encounter the same locations/NPCs).

The 3 "veterans" indicated that they would like to keep the story going, and also keep their existing characters. And I think I should respect that request. In addition, I spent a fair bit of time to come up with the story so far, and would not mind to keep it going.

So, after getting to know the game with a one-off, we will have a "session 0.1". The three veteran players are allowed to keep their characters (if they still want that), and the others must ensure that their characters will fit in and get along with those existing characters, and also have a motivation to at least start following the main storyline (there is no railroad, so the group can take any random turn at a later stage). Looking at the group, I actually foresee very few problems with this, but I will not skip this session 0.1. At the session 0.1, the newbies will have to create their own character sheets, and we will also roll stats at the table.

Then I will ask the 3 veteran players if they mind if we run the 3 newbies through a little mini-arch before they encounter the rest of the party. Maybe some quick combat against a few kobolds at level 1, and then level up to level 4. If players grumble about sitting out for a moment, then we will level to level 4 immediately.

How many 6 player games have you played?

That is a lot and I think should be your biggest concern. [...]

It's outside the scope of this thread, but you are very much right. I'm both worried and curious to learn if I can handle 6 players. I have experience with 5, but I am aware that one extra player is not insignificant. However, my experience is with 5 rather loud and chaotic players, and this will be 6 more lawful and calm players. (Note that I really mean the players' alignment, not their PCs' alignment). My estimate is that it's going to be fine. But we should probably evaluate this after a few sessions.

Approaching it from the other side: it's one group of friends and it's not easy to kick out just one person out of a group of 6, so I am going to try it. I gave the players a disclaimer already that it's also my first time with 6 players. Again: we should evaluate how it goes.

(also, in the OP, I should have written "my main worries that I'd like to discuss here are:")