D&D 5E New Lost Mnes of Phandelver Campaign: 10 Players!

[Yenrak]

So this is the story about what happened when an old school DM gathered a group of players together to run D&D in the latest edition.

Before I go into the details of whay happened, I thought I'd provide some background. Think of t like a psychological treasure map to what you'll get next.

I was the dungeon master on a campaigne that ran for about six years The players were my 3 brothers and a few neighbor kids. We played AD&D. We started with Keep ok the Borderlands, ran through Village of Homlett and Temple of Elemental Evil, Against the Slavelords, G1-Q1, etc. Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Tspjcanth, etc. If you could have bought it in an 80s or 90s FLGS, we ran it. Part about of my ,mid was I'm Greyhawk for all the years we played and ever since.

We're back. I'm running a new group with Fifth Edition rules. It consists of one of my brothers, his two sons (both teenagers), a friend and his high school age son, three other high school kids, and my 8 year old daughter.

This weekend we ran through the first parts of The Lost Mine of Phandlver. It was a blast. I know it's a very old "module" by today's standards. But if peopl are interested, I'm happy to talk about how it went and what we learned.

 

[Immoralkickass]

I'm glad the players enjoyed it, but i personally would not want to play in a party with more than 6 players. Also, I wouldn't play with children.

How did you manage? What did you do to tailor the module for 10 players? How do you keep everyone interested and give everyone spotlight time?

 

[CydKnight]

It's one of the oldest but not too old to be discussed. I ran Lost Mine of Phandelver recently with 4 players and it went well. I also noticed that it is currently an on going campaign at my friendly local gaming store on Thursday nights. Though a shorter campaign, I think it is as most of the other longer published campaigns.

You are braver than I running a group of 10 players though. I don't know that I would be comfortable with more than 6 especially just getting back into the game after a decades long hiatus.

Our campaign has continued in the same regional setting around Phandalin and the Sword Mountains. Since they are basically now heroes in Phandalin, they've decided to stick around by making the town home base. As they level, they do seem to venture further and further away though.

 

[Yenrak]

Thanks for your comments and questions.

I'll do my best to describe the things I did to account for such a large and diverse group (two forty year olds, six teenagers, and an eight year old).

Running a game with ten players was challenging. I understand that typical games are now usually run with four players and adventures are designed around that number. I hadn't done too much planning for how too convert LMoP to deal with the larger party because I figured I could wing it. If encounters seemed to be going too easily, I would just add more monsters or give them some advantages that they'd naturally have when fighting on their home turf. I meant that literally: as a back up, I figured that I could give monsters a second die roll to account for their knowing the environment better than the players.

Back when I was running a 1st edition Greyhawk campaign, however, we often had games with six or seven PCs. So I was used to running larger groups. And I'm a pretty performative DM, which helps keep people involved and focused.

I made some adjustments to LMoP. I decided to move the location up to Icewind Dale, mostly because I am planning on running Storm King's Thunder next. But, also, I thought the bleakness of IWD fit the story well and would make for fun atmospherics. It's the Badlands of Faerun and Phandalin is, let's face it, Deadwood. More specifically, Phandalin is a mining camp set into the woods south of Bryan Shander. To get there, you take the Eastway then turn off onto a trail into the woods.

We begin our tale in Bryan Shander. The players are gathered at the Hooked Knucklehead. I had each player write their character name, class, race, armor class and passive perception on an index card. As each player hands in his or her card, the character is introduced to the rest. Who are they, what has brought them to Bryn Shander and what is their relationship (if any) with the rest of the PCs. Everyone is encouraged to make this a first person narrative, to start talking in character.

This went well. The bard decided he was a traveling musician and was playing the knucklehead. A cleric of Oghma was in town to build its first library and bring knowledge to IWD. The rogue was on the run from authorities in Neverwinter. A fighter type said he was looking to get work guarding scrimshaw shipments.

I put the cards down behind my DM screen and roughly in front of the players. With this many players, I knew I wouldn't be able to easily remember names or classes. So now I just looked at the cards to get the relevant info. This did result in a comic moment later when I kept calling one character Jimsomes. He asked why I called him that when I called everyone else by their character names. It turned out he had misunderstood my instruction and written his real name--Jim Somes-- on the card.

Into the Knucklehead comes an angry dwarf and a human fighter type. They scan the room before marching over to a table of the loudest drunks in the place. They're yelling at the drunks but also at each other. The drunks had been hired to escort a wagon of supplies to Phandalin but the human had agreed to pay the, in advance. Instead of showing up to pick up the wagon, they had gone and gotten plastered.

Quickly enough, one of the PCs jumped up and offered to be the replacement crew. There was a bit of haggling over the price. The dwarf insisted that no one would get paid until delivery this time. And so our group of petty criminals, bouncers, musicians and a librarian set out on their first adventure.

This is long enough for now. In my next post (spoilers!) I'll explain what happened to the party next and some techniques I employed to keep everyone involved and make combat move quickly.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm glad the players enjoyed it, but i personally would not want to play in a party with more than 6 players. Also, I wouldn't play with children.

You wouldn't play with kids?

Most of us started as kids. Kids playing this game is what grows the hobby. How could you reject the idea that someone wants to play with kids?

 

[pogre]

You wouldn't play with kids?

Most of us started as kids. Kids playing this game is what grows the hobby. How could you reject the idea that someone wants to play with kids?

I have three sons that love to play rpgs and other games with me. However, it is a different game with kids playing. I play in an adult game and I run a combination game much like the OP. They're both great games, but very different. I can very definitely see why some people would prefer not to have kids at the game table. Immoralkickass said s/he did not want to play with kids, s/he did not reject the idea of playing with kids.

I may be in the minority on this one too, but I don't see myself as having an obligation to grow the hobby. I don't really understand the argument.

 

[Immoralkickass]

You wouldn't play with kids?

Most of us started as kids. Kids playing this game is what grows the hobby. How could you reject the idea that someone wants to play with kids?

I have nothing against kids, I don't hate them, I just think D&D is not for kids. Think about it, many of the nightmare players that we don't want to have around pretty much have the same trait: being childish and immature. D&D requires a certain level of maturity, and most importantly, playing with like-minded people. Sure, you can tailor your game for the kids, but you have to be able to stomach the wacky and crazy stuff.

With children being children, they are a curious bunch, and more likely to treat a game with vast amount of freedom with 'What happens if I hit the guard with my axe?' 'What happens if I kill everyone?' They will poke and prod at everything until the game (or the DM) breaks down.

 

[happyhermit]

I have nothing against kids, I don't hate them, I just think D&D is not for kids. Think about it, many of the nightmare players that we don't want to have around pretty much have the same trait: being childish and immature. D&D requires a certain level of maturity, and most importantly, playing with like-minded people. Sure, you can tailor your game for the kids, but you have to be able to stomach the wacky and crazy stuff.

With children being children, they are a curious bunch, and more likely to treat a game with vast amount of freedom with 'What happens if I hit the guard with my axe?' 'What happens if I kill everyone?' They will poke and prod at everything until the game (or the DM) breaks down.

I have seen MUCH more of that type of behaviour from adults than kids (especially when playing with adults). Adults often feel self conscious about taking things too seriously in a way some kids don't. As for playing with "like-minded people" being most important, Oh Heck NO! Best games ever involve a mix of personality types, experiences, etc. IME. It is good to have similar expectations about the type of game, but playing with very different people is often much more interesting than a homogeneous bunch.

That said, nothing wrong with knowing your preferences, even if I think it's good to check test them occasionally. Nobody should play with anyone they don't want to.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Well for me, it depends more on behavior than on age. I actually don't even know how old the people are I play with, but if someone misbehaves, I'll kick him out, adult or not.

I can see that D&D has pretty dark themes, though I never had nightmares from it myself yet, even though I'm actually strong on imagination.

The good thing about having 10 players is that it doesn't matter if 1-4 don't show up.

And I definitely don't consider LMoP old. It's still one of the (if not the) most popular official APs for the most recent edition after all.

 

[Yenrak]

I literally started playing D&D before I could read. I was in kindergarten and my friend's father had a game going with some older kids in the neighborhood. One afternoon, he ran us through the module they were playing. Something about cloud giants. Maybe rescuing a baby cloud giant. I can't recall exactly.

I was thrilled. It was exactly the sort of imaginary game I played all the time on my own but it was played with a group. A shared imagination game. My buddy, who could already read, explained that if I really wanted to play I had to learn to read. So I set myself to reading immediately.

I have three younger brothers. Each of them was playing D&D as soon as I could get them to sit still, listen and talk.

I started my own daughter playing a version of an RPG when she was three. I would lay out a dungeon with blocks, populated it with monsters and treasures (treats like raisins and grapes wrapped in tin foil). Her dolls were characters.

Playing with children is really fun.