Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="OnlineDM" data-source="post: 5289493" data-attributes="member: 90804">I'm definitely an advocate of limiting the number of players in your game to the number you want.  You're the GM, and that means you're in charge.  You don't have to be a jerk about it, of course, but it's perfectly okay to say, "I'm sorry but we already have the five-player party that I'm going to be running.  You're welcome to sit in or be an alternate, but there's no room in this campaign for more players right now."When I started my online game, I intentionally recruited more than the five players I wanted, figuring that online players in particular might flake (they think a new game sounds like a good idea at the time, but they can't make the schedule work, etc.).  I thought I had seven, but I actually had eight (one guy had his girlfriend playing, too). As the size of the group became clear, I started looking for ways to scale things down.  Fortunately, several of the players were interested in starting their game at higher level (I wanted to start at level 1), so we played one session with eight players with the understanding that this was a one-shot and that we would subsequently split into two groups.I've since had other players express interest in joining the game, but I've held firm - friendly, but firm.  One player sat in to watch one week and played as an alternate the next week when a regular player couldn't make it.  Another player has a friend who wants to join, and I've offered him the same arrangement (lurk and maybe play if someone else can't).  I'm happy with the way it's worked out.</blockquote>

Verification