D&D 5E The ultimate comeback! And a need for advice...

[Warpiglet]

It is hard for me to overstate the difficulty I have had in finding a group. My lifelong friend and i have been doing two player once a month.

I was really feeling down about this. I will admit it. I have good things in life but prefer DnD to almost all other leisure. I just do. I have since I was a little kid nearly 4 decades back!

I was looking in our local comic book stores and game stores for flyers. I was told that their adventure league games are full. All that after my work schedule changed and allowed me to be there for their normal time. So I drove around listening to tunes. Screw it. Time to buy a sixer and pound some brews I thought. So I did and hammered a few.

Out of nowhere after years of drought our old group, long separated by grad school, marriages, births and other priorities the old crew found themselves available to play! Pennies from heaven!

Now we have literally 8 possible player characters (some of our kids are big enough to play now!)

But my pal was going to run Storm King's Thunder. Can a group of this size be accommodated? Should we split the party into two or can he raise the challenge rating?

Anyway it is is good dilemma to have...this has been many years in coming!

 

[iserith]

You might consider what I do for my campaigns: Have 8 players in your player pool, then have a max of 5 PCs per session (minimum 4 to play). Sign up is first come, first served. At least some portion of the player pool is not going to be available for a given session - adult life being what it is - so it will be rare (in my experience at least) when someone has to sit out of a session. With this setup, if the DM can play, there's a game which is good because I'm usually the DM!

On those rare occasions where more then 5 players can play, you could accommodate that many players with some adjustment on the DM's side of the screen to the difficulty level of the challenges and some good spotlight management. For the players, everyone needs to understand and agree that they need to be on point with deciding what to do and resolving their actions quickly. I find the best way to convince someone to do this is to explain how it affects THEM i.e. your next turn will come back around faster if you Get 'Er Done on your current turn. If everyone thinks the same way, having 8 players won't be too bad. (Though this is a good practice with groups smaller than 8 players, too.)

 

[Oofta]

Another option is to have co-op DMing. Designate someone (perhaps on a rotating basis) as a sub-DM. Have someone else run a bunch of your monsters including rolling their attacks and damage, keeping track of HP and so on while you run the game and direct their overall tactics.

While I agree with [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION], and find smaller groups more fun, this might give you an option on those nights when everyone shows up. Have a sub-DM can help with the die rolling and monster management, but you still lose something in the RP process.

A related note is that in general I find that large groups tend to take care of themselves in that people inevitably drop out. Not all DMs are going to work for all players and vice versa and it's best just to recognize the fact. Just like some people prefer Survivor over Supernatural, you can't please everyone.

Good luck!

 

[transtemporal]

Yay for you man. It is a lot of fun getting the old band back together!

Yes, any adventure can accomodate a large group. Just double, triple, quadruple the encounter size. Or chuck some other giant-themed monsters in.

If you haven't played in a while, is it a good idea to start with Storm King?

 

[Ath'kethin]

Kudos for you! I'm amazed that everybody still lived close enough together to make the reunion possible.

 

[discosoc]

You should be fine just having all the monsters start with full health rather than the average value listed by default. Eight players are still going to cut through individual monsters, but it will keep them from clearing the board before the monsters even get to act. And really most fights feel best if they end within 3 to 4 rounds anyway.

I prefer this method for larger groups, because if you simply add more monsters to the encounters, you're just slowing down what's going to be an already slow-ish combat with 8 players.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You can make 8 players work pretty easily, depending upon party composition - melee types take up a lot less table time than full casters, for instance - and player personalities - some need more personal attention and face time than others.

So, as a conventional-wisdom rule of thumb, D&D may work best with 4 or 5 players, but if you have 3 or 4 low-maintenance players happily RPing simple PCs, a total of 8 is no problem.

 

[Warpiglet]

You can make 8 players work pretty easily, depending upon party composition - melee types take up a lot less table time than full casters, for instance - and player personalities - some need more personal attention and face time than others.

So, as a conventional-wisdom rule of thumb, D&D may work best with 4 or 5 players, but if you have 3 or 4 low-maintenance players happily RPing simple PCs, a total of 8 is no problem.

That is reassuring. I think we have figher, ranger, paladin and...warlock, cleric, cleric, druid and 1-2 unknown.

Well, we will see how it goes. I am trying to get one friend to play a lizardman barbarian and maybe a rogue for another. We will make it work. Cannot look a gift horse in the mouth!

 

[woonga]

I'm currently DMing for a group of 7 (8 on occasion). I was terrified to jump into things with a group this big, but I've found it's actually working out ok. I'm a relatively new DM and I know there is much better advice out there but I'd recommend the following for my 2c:

• Expect to get less done: You might have grand plans for a session, but with more minds at the table everything will just take longer
• Make the most of the time you have: With such a large party, they get very bored with the combat if it doesn't stay dynamic and meaningful. This means I spend extra care planning the encounters, but I also need to read the table to know when to cut things off or adapt when things start to drag
• Encourage efficiency: Having a PC think about their turn while the person ahead is acting is crucial. Having PCs roll both their attack and damage dice at the same time is a small thing that adds up. And with so many players at the table, definitely recruit a helper or two to manage things like intiative tracking so you can focus on more important things
• Try to make each person feel important: This will vary between groups I'm sure, but with the large group I'm running I'm very conscious about keeping everyone engaged. It can be hard to make sure everyone gets some of the spotlight when you have so many players competing for it! I make a big effort to prompt players every now and then or do "cut-aways" to have certain members get to provide input or simultaneous action while another player waits for their action to resolve in RP scenarios. I've also had a ton of success by covering the play table in butcher paper and leaving a big tub of markers out on the table. We have a strict no phone policy (outside of spell reference), and so when a player might otherwise drift off, they tend to pick up the markers and start doodling. The cool thing is that this almost always tends to be something directly related to the game (anything from a sketch of their character, to a full comic documenting the session). This gives everyone a productive way to stay tuned in without just sitting there, and the results can be really awesome take-aways to snap a picture of and send around after the session.

And I can't stress enough- try to avoid phones/laptops! I know this isn't always possible, but with such a large group having a screen in front of you can make it super easy to disengage and become distracted. If the group buys into it, it can really make a difference.

Overall, just read the room and adjust. Feedback from the players after the session is always great. See what they like, don't like, what bores them, and keep tweaking.

Good luck!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Congrats on getting a group going again after so long! I'm currently playing through Storm King's Thunder in a group that's got nine players. I feel for the DM running it, but he's doing a great job.

I think getting group consensus is important, as is people staying focused and being ready when their turn comes around in combat. The sessions are also short, which I think helps as well – it keeps things condensed and focused (again with that word) on immediate goals.

As far as the challenge ratings, it’s been a mixed bag. Some encounters have been easy, while others have been thrilling, skin-of-our-proverbial-pants victories. The frequency matters, as sometimes we have short/long rests, and sometimes it's just, boom! roll again for initiative.