Help! I have too many players!

[Alzrius]

Yesterday, I started running a new Pathfinder campaign. The group consists of a mixture of old and new friends, and a few friends-of-friends, and we're running the Kingmaker Adventure Path.

The problem is that, while last night's group consisted of five players, we've now reached a total of seven people expected to play, not including me (the GM). And quite frankly, I'm worried about managing a party that size.

To illustrate how we got here, some friends and I were player's in another guy's Pathfinder game. It wasn't very good, and we were all getting discouraged - however, we met a former player (who'd since left that group) and some of his friends who were also gamers while we were all at Gen Con. We got to talking, and decided to set up a new Pathfinder game, with me as the GM.

Now, initially, our group size consisted of five players - three existing friends of mine, and the two new guys. Five PCs was easily within the range of what Paizo's pre-gen adventures are built to handle.

However, things started to grow more complicated when we all got together to make characters. One of the new guys had a sister who wanted to join...there wasn't any discussion or anything, just a sort of general acknowledgment that she'd be playing too. I didn't want to say anything and seem like I was on some sort of GM power-trip or generate bad feelings, so I just nodded and that was that.

Fast forward to yesterday, our first session. One of the new guys (the brother of the aforementioned sister, in fact) couldn't make it, so it was just a group of five. We played through the first third of the adventure or so, and a good time was had by all.

Except, about halfway through...the sister's boyfriend showed up, Core Rulebook in hand, and started rolling up a monk. He didn't get around to finishing his character before we broke for the night, but again, there was that sort of general acknowledgment that he'd be there next time. I asked around after the game - after she and her boyfriend had left - and found out that nobody had known about this ahead of time...she'd apparently texted him during the game and invited him to come and play.

So now, there's going to be seven players at next week's game. And, frankly, I'm a little unnerved about that.

Why? Well, I run pre-gens because I don't have the time or energy to homebrew a game, but with that many players participating in an adventure written for a party of four, there's going to need to be adjustments made.

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the implied compliment that so many people like the game I'm running, but I'm honestly not sure what to do. Seven players are, collectively, a glass cannon...they can dish out an impressive amount of damage in one round, but any monster that could effectively stand up to that could bring down any single PC with comparative ease.

I don't want to start killing PCs (I fudged a few rolls, and monster tactics, last game to avoid just that), but it seems like I need to have them face harder-hitting monsters to stand up to their total damage-per-round, which increases the risk of PC death.

Worse, when the total XP is divided seven ways, instead of four, it means the players won't be leveling at the rate they should be. This won't be a big deal at first, but I can see it spiraling into an issue at the higher levels. Will the increased party size help take care of that, or should I move them from the medium XP track to the fast one?

Finally...I'm not sure I like the permissive atmosphere of "anyone can join the game." While I think it's old-fashioned for the GM to have some sort of veto power regarding new players, I don't think it's out of line for the group to discuss the matter first, so I can at least bring up issues of party size, etc.

I haven't said anything because we're all friends, all fairly decent role-players, and nobody's ruining anyone else's fun. Everything is great, except there's more PCs than I think the adventure easily accommodates. Am I worrying over nothing, or should I say something? And if so, what do I say without engendering bad feelings or coming across as a control freak?

 

[Glade Riven]

Since you have nearly double the players, I'd suggest just doubling up on the bad guys and boost the HP on the boss so he can take a few more hits. This will add a little more exp. and challenge without having to monkey too much with the adventures. One thing I've done is snag the "minion" concept from 4e to use in Pathfinder and use them to help control the battlefield/combat pacing.

Or you can be slightly rude and put your foot down about new people just hopping in without asking.

 

[Nagol]

First thing is tell the whole group that you think you at at or slightly beyond your limit of players for DMing. If the others haven't DMed, explain that prepping, controlling and most importantly responding in session becomes much harder as the group grows. Else, you may find the group growing again.

There is an excellent chance you'll lose 1-2 platyers in a few weeks as quickly as you got them.

As for how to handle the group capability, increase the number of opposing critters to 50% - 100% above the default module amount. If it is a single critter, consider giving it a weaker sidekick (1 CR lower), or advancing it 1 CR via the rulebook to account for the extra capacity in the player pool.

 

[coyote6]

Advancing something one CR is probably going to take more prep time than just picking another monster.

IME with new groups, getting people to stay in the game is tougher than getting them to agree to play and show up once, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some attrition.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

If there is anybody else who is willing to DM, you might think about splitting into two groups.

 

[IronWolf]

First, I would likely go ahead and start the game with the seven players. There is a good chance that one or possibly more than one will drop - especially if they were picked up via casual text invites.

With that said though I would certainly state to the group that you feel seven is pushing the limits of party size and that all future player additions need to be discussed as a group. I'd even go as far to say the DM has ultimate veto power. You are the one putting the most work into it and if you feel the larger amount of players is going to increase your workload (and it is possible it will) then your say should count for a bit more in my opinion.

There are a couple of threads on the Paizo forums for helping with larger party sizes you might want to look at:

paizo.com -- Running Kingmaker for 6 players

paizo.com --Adjusting KM for more than 4 players

The easiest way is to probably boost the numbers of critters they encounter and possibly boost their HP a bit to allow the enemies to take a little more damage without necessarily increasing the damage output they do. If you get into applying templates, changing out the entire critter for something of a higher CR you are generating a lot more work for yourself than just adding another one or two of something and bumping the HP for each critter up a bit.

As for experience, the easiest way to deal with that is to boost it up a bit for encounters since you are increasing the numbers fought. Since you are running Kingmaker there is experience awarded for exploring hexes. Bumpt the default amount up by 50xp or 75xp depending on whether you end up with a steady 6 or 7 players.

Another option for XP would be to keep things the same in amount of XP, but switch your party advancement to the fast track. The AP assumes a medium track advancement, but since you will be splitting the XP more thinly moving your advancement rate to faster might help balance that. Note, I have not done the math on that to see how well that tactic will scale.

 

[Sunseeker]

Increase mobs(in numbers) and increase their heath a bit, maybe give them all a +1 to their damage. It's not going to break them, but they will hit harder for sure. Also, increase XP by 50%, I dunno how "tracks" work, but the game is obviously telling you when X amount of people should level, well, just make it so they get enough XP to do that, it's just a number.

Or tell people they can't play. Or that you can't run a game with that many people. The downside is of course, while you may lose a couple of "friends of friends of friends", you might also lose some "friends" and a regular, and end up with less people than you wanted. ex: you'd probably lose the boyfriend, followed by the sister, and then possibly the brother, and with that kind of a loss you may even lose one of the other guys, leaving you with 3.

 

[Jor-El]

Man, I feel for you. I have a similar issue myself. I've got 8 players right now. 8!

It's hard balancing encounters too, because upping the CR isn't always possible, and just increasing the opponents isn't always easy either, depending on the adventure site, especially if you're dealing with cramped quarters. Its a very difficult balancing act that I'm still trying to work through.

Of course, then you have issues of how long a turn takes when you have 8 players to go through!

Every once and a while someone might not make it to a game, but they're pretty dedicated, and they wouldn't think of splitting into 2 groups either, because they really enjoy everyone else's playstyle. We're all friends too, so the idea of only 1/2 of us getting together at a time just doesn't fly!

Then I have 2-3 other folks standing on the outside wanting in...

 

[Piratecat]

One of the new guys had a sister who wanted to join...there wasn't any discussion or anything, just a sort of general acknowledgment that she'd be playing too. I didn't want to say anything and seem like I was on some sort of GM power-trip or generate bad feelings, so I just nodded and that was that.

Except, about halfway through...the sister's boyfriend showed up, Core Rulebook in hand, and started rolling up a monk. He didn't get around to finishing his character before we broke for the night, but again, there was that sort of general acknowledgment that he'd be there next time. I asked around after the game - after she and her boyfriend had left - and found out that nobody had known about this ahead of time...she'd apparently texted him during the game and invited him to come and play.

Woot, I get to be the hardass! My opinion is that no one can take advantage of you without your permission.

You're the DM. If you feel you can't run a good game with seven players, I think it's incumbent of you to speak up and say that, asking that the extra player (or two) wait until you have a better feel for the campaign. That way six people have fun and two are disappointed, instead of eight people being disappointed.

If you just aren't comfortable with that, do some site reading on ways to speed up combat. I ran 3.5 with seven players for a long time and had a lot of fun, but you do want to make sure no one is getting bored during combat.

 

[S'mon]

Do what you think is right. You're the DM, rule with a rod of iron!

That said, I think 7 players is ok, though it's the most I'm happy to GM 3e for long-term.

My advice would be: Do nothing, don't fudge die rolls unless you really must, don't alter XP awards, don't increase monster numbers. See how it goes. Chances are your group size will fall again later. Chances are the reduced XP will balance the increased power from the bigger group - if not, increase monster numbers (NOT toughness) and treasure to match.