Table of 10

[Baron Opal]

How the hell do I run a table of 10?

Criminy. I've ended up with a table of 10 players. There has been a slow accretion over time and now I don't know how to run the game. Any game. Anything really challenging becomes a giant cluster as it takes a half hour to run around the table.

I tried to trim the players on a last-in / first-out basis, but I've gotten several emails asking me to reconsider or other deal-making. The upshot is, it has become a social endevour. Everyone gets together, we visit for a few, game an hour, eat a big meal together, game for three more hours, and then we go home.

And everyone tells me what a great time they had.

Holy Christmas, we barely did anything!

The game before last we had four people show up. I knew this ahead of time, so it wasn't people being flakey. And the game cooked. A lot was accomplished and it was rewarding to me too. I do enjoy the games when everyone is there, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated because I have to give 5-10 minutes of exposition to remind most people what happened two weeks ago.

I even offered to run an extra time each week, splitting the player base in two. Nope. Not the same without everyone. A couple people did offer to fade into the background when it was their turn to host, but that lessens the load by one.

Arg. Blessed with a bounty of riches, I am. And I don't know what to do with it.

 

[Sammael]

Well, generally speaking, I have discovered that four is the ideal number of players for me. Six is manageable but hard, and I am decidedly incapable of running the game for more than six people.

Having said that, here's what I'd do if I absolutely had to run a game for more than 6 players at a time:

• Disallow any animal companions/special mounts/familiars (replace them with bonus feats if needed)
• Ban all summoning spells
• Ban any other complex spells/effects that require a lot of adjudication (especially of the polymorph subschool)
• The above three point to basically banning druids; oh well
• Limit the amount of time per player per turn in combat
• Limit the trivial roleplaying encounters (shopping, traveling, etc) to a minimum, and try to get all housekeeping between sessions
• Use as much benign railroading as you can get away with (because the time it takes 10 people to agree on ANYTHING - like which inn to go to - is measured in HOURS); still, try not to take away the important choices (i.e. don't force them to go on a quest if they don't want to)
• Force them to be of compatible alignment and behavior (to avoid party in-fighting...)
• Use minis or tokens for combat
• Try not to use too many opponents at the same time (better to focus on 2-3 more powerful creatures), so as not to take away game time from players (they are taking too much game time from each other anyway)
• Enforce the "no two players may speak at one time" rule

At least, that's how I'd do it...

 

[BASHMAN]

I recomend you use a faster game system. DnD 3.x is for a party of 3-6. It cannot handle 10 players, unless you are willing to explore 1 dungeon room per session. Not as slow as HERO, but slow.

Basic/Expert edition D&D could be the way to go. No initiative fuss-- the party goes first, or the monsters go first. When it is the players turn, just go around the table instead of any sort of number order.

No attacks of op, weird grapple rules, etc to bog down play.

No umpteen prestige classes, feats, or skill tricks to twink out characters and create rules issues.

 

[STARP_Social_Officer]

How the hell do I run a table of 10?

Criminy. I've ended up with a table of 10 players. There has been a slow accretion over time and now I don't know how to run the game. Any game. Anything really challenging becomes a giant cluster as it takes a half hour to run around the table.

I tried to trim the players on a last-in / first-out basis, but I've gotten several emails asking me to reconsider or other deal-making. The upshot is, it has become a social endevour. Everyone gets together, we visit for a few, game an hour, eat a big meal together, game for three more hours, and then we go home.

And everyone tells me what a great time they had.

Holy Christmas, we barely did anything!

The game before last we had four people show up. I knew this ahead of time, so it wasn't people being flakey. And the game cooked. A lot was accomplished and it was rewarding to me too. I do enjoy the games when everyone is there, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated because I have to give 5-10 minutes of exposition to remind most people what happened two weeks ago.

I even offered to run an extra time each week, splitting the player base in two. Nope. Not the same without everyone. A couple people did offer to fade into the background when it was their turn to host, but that lessens the load by one.

Arg. Blessed with a bounty of riches, I am. And I don't know what to do with it.

Ten! Ten!
Ye Gods man, Ten!
Ten?!
What the...TEN? TEN?? TEN!!
There's your problem, buddy!
Sorry. Groups of more than 5 are totally unviable, as you have no doubt seen.
If you must have that many, have four or five "regulars" and the others as "semi-regulars" who can show up as story or lack of regulars demands. There's no way 10 players can function.
No way.

 

[Bagpuss]

Can't you split into two groups, and if you want to meet, do so social only not for gaming?

 

[Ry]

I think this might be a job for OD&D (1974)

I can't believe I just wrote that. I may have a diaglovirus.

 

[DragonLancer]

I've done the ten player thing once, and that was enough. Seriously, either split them into two groups (and get one guy in the other group to DM), or be polite and say that 5-6 is your max players. Ten players is too many and you'll burn out far too quickly.

 

[Ry]

I have this little idea about 10 players being able to do something TRAP style GMless. With cards. But 3.5e is probably too complicated to add this as a layer on top. Must... keep... thinking...

 

[BeauNiddle]

People are probably turning up for the social aspect rather than the gaming aspect so they seem happy to advance the story slowly. Double check your expectation of what the group should be acheiving - are you trying to force a more complex game onto them than they want?

On the mechanics side I find it helps greatly to have one player assigned to initiative. Rather than the DM trying to keep track of what people are doing and when you worry about what and let somebody else deal with when. Whilst your resolving one person's action it is the job of the time keeper to remind the next person up to prepare. Hopefully that cuts down on people going 'oh is it my go, whats going on?' and forcing you to spend minutes recapping for them.

Other than that what is taking the time? Is it people not being ready on their go, is it general chat at the table, is it lack of space (trying to find pieces of paper / dice / room to roll them), etc.

 

[Goobermunch]

Here's another option:

Promote one of them to co-DM. I once ran a group of 14. 14! Through a d20 Star Wars game. The game ran very smoothly and people still talk about that game. It just takes some preparation (and a willingness to ad lib).

We ran the game every other week. That meant that my co-GM and I would meet between sessions for 2-4 hours to do the prep work. We split the GM-ing duties so that one of us handled the world and the NPCs and the other dealt with adjudicating player actions. For player actions that were complex, we'd occasionally have to take a break and talk over results, but by and large, you can use the RAW to figure things out.

When we ran that game, I was the primary author of the story. However, my co-GM's input helped evolve the story into something much better than it would have been without his help.

If you can do it, you should give it a try. Running a group that size can be a lot of fun. It can also transform into something epic.

--G