D&D 5E Strategies for Big Parties

[I'm A Banana]

So I'll be starting Curse of Strahd with a party of 8.

Hoo boy.

Any advice? (I've got a few tentative early ideas, but happy to learn!)

 

[GuardianLurker]

Speaking as someone who's run 8 (now down to 6)...
1) To achieve the feel of any give "challenge" level in the DMG, use the value for the next level up.
2) Ignore the CR "synergy bonus" when building encounters. Just use the straight XP values.
(And yes, those bits of advice stack.)
3) Bump your monster's HP up. A LOT.
4) You're better off using (big, little, little) than (5x little), where "big" is roughly equal to "2x little".
5) Don't forget to double loot totals. The easiest way is to give the monsters all individual treasure, which the published adventures generally don't.
6) Sprinkle in a couple of Revivify scrolls and 100 gp gems (for Revivify) in the loot just in case you get the balance wrong.

 

[Daern]

Have the characters make little table tents with their character's name, class and AC. Use team initiative.
Large packs of Wolves! (maybe use Mob rules: 1 in 4 wolves will hit every round. Just roll randomly to see who gets bitten)

 

[Ganymede81]

One trick is to use a conch or talking stick. Whenever someone wants to do something in the game, they take the conch and announce it. If someone else wants to announce an action or interact, they take the conch and do so. It helps keeps people from shouting out at once.

Another trick is, if party members want to split up and investigate somewhere else beyond the current room, just say "ok, you leave the room" and end the scene for them. You can then finish up the scene in the current room without needing to stop, update the map, and describe a new scene.

 

[LapBandit]

I've DMed up to a party of 10 and it was a terrible mistake. If you can, run it for two halves of the party individually.

 

[Warbringer]

Give people tasks to do

1. Keeping notes on the action
2. Mapmaking
3. Tracking initiative

Anything to keep the out of game chatter down or it will be a nightmare

 

[I'm A Banana]

Have the characters make little table tents with their character's name, class and AC. Use team initiative.
Large packs of Wolves! (maybe use Mob rules: 1 in 4 wolves will hit every round. Just roll randomly to see who gets bitten)

Fortunately, doing this over VTT, so quickly referencing name, AC, and initiative are pretty easy.

But, on the other side, there's no body queues or anything for seeing when someone is done talking or about to speak or anything....

 

[Rhenny]

Rent out a venue or have the party in a restaurant. You don't want to clean up after it. Just kidding.

When I DM for large parties, I often throw out opportunities for the PCs to interact with each other especially while I'm thinking about what's happening in the game. It gives me a breather so that I'm not trying to service all of the players all of the time.

This of course, slows the game down, but on the other hand it adds to the story and the social element in the game.

As for combat, I like to divide and conquer. Well..not really in order to conquer, but in order to give each player a more meaningful way to participate. Instead of fighting straight ahead...a lot of the times I have foes come from different angles and locations to surprise or engage some of the back-line PCs, or I introduce another problem that a rogue or wizard can deal with while the others are engaged in something else.

The table management issue is huge too. I try to get players to make quicker decisions and stress that the monsters are not always going to make the most optimal decisions so players should not feel compelled to agonize over the most optimal decision either.

Sometimes in social interactions or exploration, I still have the players take turns. This helps the shy ones keep in the game and it prevents one or two of the players from taking over.

 

[Bad Fox]

So I'll be starting Curse of Strahd with a party of 8.

Hoo boy.

Any advice? (I've got a few tentative early ideas, but happy to learn!)

Personally, I would have made some tough choices and trimmed the party down.

Maybe someone out has the ability to run a party this big effectively, but I have never seen it. No matter how many tricks you use, there's just too much downtime for the individual players.

Regardless, good luck with it. Definitely use every tip you get to keep gameplay moving as fast as possible. A big challenge will be to keep things from slowing down to the point that some players feel sidelined and get bored.

 

[Sunseeker]

When I had a larger table I had to dump initiative and instituted a fixed turn order. Sure, people could rearrange themselves each round, no biggie, but otherwise we just went clockwise (this was at a table, for online you may want to go alphabetical or in some other regular order). I applied these turns out of combat as well to ensure that everyone got a chance to do something without figure out when their turn was going to be.

As for combat, typically I doubled whatever I would have thrown at a party of 4-5. For boss fights....MORE MINIONS!

Beyond that, not much really needed to be done.