Group expanding to 7 players - help me manage

[Wednesday Boy]

Awesome thanks! Lately I've been trying to announce "who's on deck", but I don't always remember. I think I'll delegate that task to whoever is tracking initiative for the players (and that way it becomes the players' responsibility to pay attention and be on the ball -- and the consequence of not paying attention and being prepared is simply that your character hesitates during combat, which has its own in-game consequences).

One of my former GMs listed the initiative order on a whiteboard for everyone to see. That let everyone know when they were on deck, so they would be ready to go when it was their turn.

When I've played in larger groups I've noticed the number of side conversations increase a lot, which leads to people not being ready for their turn or distracting the people whose turn it is and in general slowing down play. I would recommend quieting or ending side conversations and keeping the players on task. Without being draconian a little vigilance can make the game go much smoother.

 

[Darkthorne]

My group normally has someone volunteer to keep the iniative chart (we also toss them a handful of xp's like 50 or so) and have them keep certain notes ("let me know when we are at the end of each round or when round three starts") etc. That seems to seriously speed things up and you ( a player) can ask the initiative keeper something w/o interrupting the DM. Also having different colored chips/magnets/identifiers seem to help out immensely ("your warlock curse is purple, fighter's mark is black etc"). You can glance up and see who should have what effect on them. Less record keeping that way.

 

[pukunui]

Thanks, guys!

Having "initiative cards" helps with that - simply a card with each character's name and initiative score on it. You can roll for the monsters ahead of time and create their cards too (or just assume all monsters take 10).

I am actually designing my own initiative cards at the moment. They're going to have a bit more on them than just name and initiative score, though. I'm going to put defenses, hit points, languages, passive scores, and the like on them as well -- mainly all the things that I would normally ask a player about. Not having to ask them should help speed things up at my end.

I used cards in 3.5, but I was just writing everything out in pen and pencil on a 3x5 card and it wasn't pretty, nor was it very easy to find the info. I haven't done it yet for 4e (but I'm working on it -- gotta make use of my design degree somehow! )

If you are going to limit face time for the players then an egg timer is better than a stopwatch as the players can all see the timer.

I used a minute sand clock that i stole out of the pictionary box on my last session to try and speed things up. when a players turn is announced I flip the clock. This has cut down on a lot of meta game tactics time wasting and given an urgency to each players turn. At the end of play everyone agreed they enjoyed the time pressure and the more fluid play in combat.

I was only going to use the stopwatch because it was the first thing I thought of. I have, however, got pictionary so I could do the same thing and steal the sand timer from that. How much time does it give? 1 minute?

The Initiative deck sounds like a cool idea. Another way to do it is everyone rolls initiative standing up and the person with the highest initiative sits to the left of the DM and then the next highest to their left etc. this way you dont take the flavour of variable initiative away by taking 10 but everyone physically knows when there turn is near so they should be ready when it arrives.

I'm going to ask the guys if they'll be willing to try this method next time. Having everyone sit in order so that you know you're next because you're sitting on the right of the person who's taking their turn right now just might help speed things up.

What about making initiative be more like "rolling to see who goes first" as you do in other games? That is, whoever gets the highest modifier goes first and then we just go clockwise starting with them regardless of what anyone else got?

Are u using cards? i made cards with the magic set editor that was on one of the 4e posts. Made some very fun and original cards for everyones powers, magic items and class abilities. Then i made a big battle card that just has the important stats necessary for combat and on the back their skill list, which has reduced the need to look at character sheets down to basically end of the day book keeping.
The cards I printed on normal paper and then slipped them into the see through plastic card covers with a magic card inside to keep them rigid. Even edited a few of the cool fantasy images in photo shop and slipped in the actual faces of the players. (that didnt speed up play but they thought that was pretty cool.)

Yes, I'm using the same cards. The players really like them as they don't have to crack open the book to reference their powers. One of my players is my former graphic design tutor, so he prints out all our cards and things on the school's cardstock for us. He printed the initial run rather large but the guys don't seem to mind, so we've just left the size the same for all subsequent printings.

I'm using different counters from the board game 'Descent' to mark bloodied monsters and pcs and have given tokens to characters so they can mark, signal their prey, and keep track of who is cursed and whose not. some times the stack can be 4 high but it has helped keep clear who has marked what, whose wounded etc. A bit less tracking to do.

I've got some left over colored sticky tabs from when we were playing 3.5 and I was marking up my books like crazy in an effort to speed up having to look things up ... but I haven't needed to use them yet really because we've had hardly any ongoing stuff. We're playing KotS and there's just aren't many monsters that bestow ongoing effects and the PCs only have one or two powers that cause lasting effects. The fighter and the paladin hardly ever mark opponents (in fact, the paladin never does). The ranger uses hunter's quarry regularly, but it's fairly easy to track without needing a visual aid. One of the new guys is possibly going to play a warlock, so we might start seeing more ongoing effects ...

As far as handling 7 people at once and keeping everyone happy, I'm not sure what to say, i think that is something instinctual that you'll pick up from your players reaction. The players good will and helpfulness goes a long way. Anyway good luck and let us know how it goes.

Thanks!

Btw a big G'day going your way from a kiwi in Spain

Cheers. I'm actually American, though. I just live here. LOL.

One of my former GMs listed the initiative order on a whiteboard for everyone to see. That let everyone know when they were on deck, so they would be ready to go when it was their turn.

Yeah, we've got a whiteboard. The players take turns being in charge of it. Doesn't really help with keeping people on the ball, though.

When I've played in larger groups I've noticed the number of side conversations increase a lot, which leads to people not being ready for their turn or distracting the people whose turn it is and in general slowing down play. I would recommend quieting or ending side conversations and keeping the players on task. Without being draconian a little vigilance can make the game go much smoother.

This isn't a problem for my group. It's more indecision and tiredness that keep people from being ready.

That's partly why I want to start putting in a time limit -- not just to keep them on the ball but also to drive home the idea that this is combat! The players might be comfortable just sitting around a table, but if it was real, the characters wouldn't have that luxury. They'd be having to think and act in seconds. So if the players are being indecisive, then their characters can hesitate and be indecisive as well and delay until they are ready (or they're dead).

My group normally has someone volunteer to keep the iniative chart (we also toss them a handful of xp's like 50 or so) and have them keep certain notes ("let me know when we are at the end of each round or when round three starts") etc. That seems to seriously speed things up and you ( a player) can ask the initiative keeper something w/o interrupting the DM. Also having different colored chips/magnets/identifiers seem to help out immensely ("your warlock curse is purple, fighter's mark is black etc"). You can glance up and see who should have what effect on them. Less record keeping that way.

See above re: initiative chart and marking things.

 

[cougent]

The visual effect of the egg timer is great, I used one myself with great results.

I was lucky enough to have actual military players in my 2000 - 2004 group, so planning in advance for SOP was second nature to them; but I highly recommend it for any group. They had SOP for entering a room, marching order, attacking a group, attacking a singular enemy, search patterns, etc. This made many situations progress very easily in minutes that otherwise could have taken hours.

I did employ the roll to hit and damage simultaneously also. If they hit they had the damage ready to go (subject to bonus rolls for crits); if they missed then we just moved on.

As a player, I always track initiative on my own, and have ever since AD&D when it was initiative every round. So the entire concept of the players NOT tracking initiative for themselves is just alien to me... So have your players track their own initiative and KNOW when it is their turn and be ready to go. I also did use a whiteboard (when available) to record it for easy reference, I did it for myself but obviously it was there for all to see and probably helped the players as well.

I also have a House Rule of "No books in the game itself". No matter what they are pulling from (and I allow a wide variety of sources) they need to KNOW it forwards, backwards, and sideways IN GAME. There is no "Let me look that up and check the damage" at the table. That is what "prep time" is all about.

Also try to limit sidetracking. My group could easily launch off into 20 minutes of Monty Python, Simpsons, Family Guy, etc. and totally loose track of the time and the adventure. As they were having fun, I wanted to just let it run its course but soon found that course could take quite a while, and then another 10 minutes to get reoriented back to the adventure and half an hour just disappeared. So we decided to limit the sidetracks to whenever I detected we were off track, I just reset the egg timer and when it ran out we went back to the adventure. This allowed 3-5 minutes of jocularity depending an my astuteness level for that night.

Finally, everything above was discussed and agreed upon by the entire group so that none had any problems with implementation. Whatever you do to speed things along, make sure your players are OK with it so they don't feel rushed or slighted by the efficiency tactics.

 

[pukunui]

The visual effect of the egg timer is great, I used one myself with great results.

Cool. I'm gonna try the pictionary timer. It's a 1-minute thing, eh?

I was lucky enough to have actual military players in my 2000 - 2004 group, so planning in advance for SOP was second nature to them; but I highly recommend it for any group. They had SOP for entering a room, marching order, attacking a group, attacking a singular enemy, search patterns, etc. This made many situations progress very easily in minutes that otherwise could have taken hours.

Lucky you! This is probably where my group is the weakest. They are no good at planning/tactics. They just blunder from one encounter to the next and just plan things at the spur of the moment depending on how badly things are going for them (which is usually the case).

I did employ the roll to hit and damage simultaneously also. If they hit they had the damage ready to go (subject to bonus rolls for crits); if they missed then we just moved on.

This is one of my rules and most of the time they do it but sometimes they forget.

As a player, I always track initiative on my own, and have ever since AD&D when it was initiative every round. So the entire concept of the players NOT tracking initiative for themselves is just alien to me... So have your players track their own initiative and KNOW when it is their turn and be ready to go. I also did use a whiteboard (when available) to record it for easy reference, I did it for myself but obviously it was there for all to see and probably helped the players as well.

What do you mean by tracking it on your own? Do you mean that each player keeps track of it themselves or that the players as a group keep track of it on their own? If you mean the latter, my group is supposed to do that already -- one guy takes responsibility for the initiative whiteboard each session, and that guy is supposed to be the one who calls out who's up and who's up next and so on but I usually find myself doing it anyway because the others are too slow.

I also have a House Rule of "No books in the game itself". No matter what they are pulling from (and I allow a wide variety of sources) they need to KNOW it forwards, backwards, and sideways IN GAME. There is no "Let me look that up and check the damage" at the table. That is what "prep time" is all about.

This is an interesting one. I'd love to be able to get to this point, but I don't think my group is quite ready for it yet.

Also try to limit sidetracking. My group could easily launch off into 20 minutes of Monty Python, Simpsons, Family Guy, etc. and totally loose track of the time and the adventure. As they were having fun, I wanted to just let it run its course but soon found that course could take quite a while, and then another 10 minutes to get reoriented back to the adventure and half an hour just disappeared. So we decided to limit the sidetracks to whenever I detected we were off track, I just reset the egg timer and when it ran out we went back to the adventure. This allowed 3-5 minutes of jocularity depending an my astuteness level for that night.

Again, this isn't really a problem for my group. It's more tiredness and indecision that slows things down. People either don't know what they want to do, don't know what they can do because they still haven't learned the rules properly (and, for most, it's simply because the game isn't the most important thing in their lives -- fancy that!), or aren't really paying attention because they're trying not to fall asleep or because they are asleep.

Finally, everything above was discussed and agreed upon by the entire group so that none had any problems with implementation. Whatever you do to speed things along, make sure your players are OK with it so they don't feel rushed or slighted by the efficiency tactics.

I always try to be democratic about things with my group. Funnily enough, they seem to prefer just being dictated to, though ...

 

[Scribble]

Make a "turn stick" whoever has the "turn stick" can do his/her actions or have the spotlight. Pass the "turn stick" arround the table, and only the person with said "Turn stick" may talk, unless of cource they require interaction.

Aww man... This will lead to piggy getting his glasses stolen and then a large rock to the head.

 

[pukunui]

aww man... This will lead to piggy getting his glasses stolen and then a large rock to the head.

LOL. D&D Lord of the Flies-style.

 

[Rhenny]

Great ideas. I love the no books at the table rule. DM's rule is final. Don't sweat the rules too much...it slows down play.

I also love the time limit idea.

I DMd a game of 3.5 online using OpenRPG, and my group got up to 7 players at one time - 6 of them were scientists so they were very analytical. After 2 years, I've passed the DMing off to someone else, but while I was working on that campaign, I learned a lot.

1st, for quests and campaign, try to make sure you hook most of the players with each quest. I found that if I threw out a bone, and the story only directly applied to 1 or 2 of the pcs, the others would follow, but they would not have as much enthusiasm. When the entire group felt like they were doing something for the prince, or if they each knew that there was a compelling reason for them to go into the ruins or across the mountains to a hidden fortress, they were all more motivated.

2nd, when the group begins to analzye and talk strategy too much, I would throw something new into the moment to accelerate their decisions. In the DMG it talks about having the action come to the PCs, well, with 6 or 7 deep thinkers, it is often necessary to force them to act.

3rd, let the ideas that the players have influence the way you design or improvise. A lot of the creation and motivation ideas often come directly from the players, so I didn't have to think too hard to determine what each character would enjoy.

4th, I'd think seriously of having lots of monsters run away when they get bloodied. When you run an encounter, you should make it an exception for them to fight to the death. Even elite or solo monsters would much rather run, regroup and then attack the pcs when they least expect it.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

 

[pukunui]

1st, for quests and campaign, try to make sure you hook most of the players with each quest. I found that if I threw out a bone, and the story only directly applied to 1 or 2 of the pcs, the others would follow, but they would not have as much enthusiasm. When the entire group felt like they were doing something for the prince, or if they each knew that there was a compelling reason for them to go into the ruins or across the mountains to a hidden fortress, they were all more motivated.

Yes, this is a good idea. I always try to give everyone a reason to go on the adventure.

2nd, when the group begins to analzye and talk strategy too much, I would throw something new into the moment to accelerate their decisions. In the DMG it talks about having the action come to the PCs, well, with 6 or 7 deep thinkers, it is often necessary to force them to act.

With my group, it's not so much that they analyze and talk strategy too much. It's that they are too indecisive. This is a good example of what happens in a typical gaming session ...

Me: [description of hallway ending in a closed door]
Players: "Uhhh ..."
... some time passes ...
Me: "So is anyone going to go through the door?"

It's a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.

3rd, let the ideas that the players have influence the way you design or improvise. A lot of the creation and motivation ideas often come directly from the players, so I didn't have to think too hard to determine what each character would enjoy.

Definitely. Sadly, most of my players aren't willing to or can't afford to invest much time in the game outside of game night. No matter how hard I try ...

4th, I'd think seriously of having lots of monsters run away when they get bloodied. When you run an encounter, you should make it an exception for them to fight to the death. Even elite or solo monsters would much rather run, regroup and then attack the pcs when they least expect it.

Yes.

I hope this helps.

Yes. Yes it does. Thank you.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello pukunui,

Some good advice so far. I'm currently DMing 7 players in a 3.5E Age of Worms campaign where the characters are 14th/15th level. This takes me more hours to prepare than is actually spent gaming - but the end result is worth it (and I do enjoy the preparation).

Perhaps the best advice I can give is most likely not the thing you want to hear... but heh. To begin with, expect things to go wrong. Expect players to be occasionally bored. Expect that you are not going to accomplish in a gaming session anywhere near what you want to. Expect to get paranoid that players are getting annoyed at you or each other - they are. Once you have a few sessions under your belt though, you will work out what's working and so will the players; they will help you heaps. Some of the things will work, and others won't.

At the end of the day, you'll either get things cracking well enough that everyone has a hoot, or it will always feel like your stuck in low gear with the game not reaching its potential. Give it a go, and if it does not work out split the group into a smaller one and go from there.

However, from experience having 7 players glued to their seats for 10 hours straight is an amazing feeling when you can get it right. Best of luck and I hope your game works out really well.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise