D&D 5E What's the largest number of PCs you've had in a session?

[Jack Hooligan]

I'm considering running two separate groups through Storm King's Thunder at the same time and they would cross paths a few times, but pretty much end up playing the campaign in parallel. The combined sessions would end up with 7-8 players though. Ugh, that's a lot. I prefer 3 in a group. 4 max.

So, for anyone who's run a large party...what are the secrets? How does each character get a fair amount of screen time?

 

[commandercrud]

I've DMed for everything from 1 to 10 PCs. Definitely prefer 1-3 most. Can tolerate 4-6. Will never willingly do 7+ again.

 

[Lem23]

I was a player rather than a GM, but a Bushido campaign way back in the day that I was involved with had a total of about 30 players all together. I don't think we quite got everyone at the table at the same time, but for some of the bigger events (big battles, etc) we had over 20 at a time.

 

[iserith]

I've run up to 6. I prefer 4. I usually settle at 5. I think the game works best with 4 PCs, 5 PCs is doable, 6 PCs is iffy, and any more than that is unacceptable. What I generally do is have a pool of 8 players with only 5 seats in a given session and the players work out who will take the seats that session. This means I never have to worry about cancelling sessions. If I can DM, there's a game.

For larger groups, the key thing is to make sure each player is cognizant of the others and shares the spotlight by being ready on their turn, pithy in their dialogue, and not throwing up roadblocks to other people's ideas (which leads to lengthy, often pointless, debates). If they buy in on that notion, then everything should go okay. This works for smaller groups, too.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Had a few 5e session with 9 players. It takes players being willing to actually help keep things moving and keep including each other, rather than each being passive 'waiting their turn' or being too eager to be doing things.

I prefer smaller groups for modern games, right around 4-5 being smoothest... but if I could get another 15-16 player group together willing to play Rules Cyclopedia or AD&D 2nd (without many optional rules) I'd be down at the drop of a hat because I miss those days.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

We played 4e with 10 players (!).

Our regular 5e table has 7 players, its not too bad, but most of my players are really casual, so no one uses complicated build with 5 active features that must be calculated each round!

A party of 2 champions, 1 arcane archer, 1 cleric, 1 eldrict-blast-spamming warlock and 2 thieves an go through many encounters pretty quickly.

 

[Burnside]

I just finished a Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign with 7 players last night and will be taking them through Curse of Strahd next. It's not ideal (I actually prefer 3-4 players) but it's not THAT bad. I normally would not want to run big groups, but so many people are desperate to play during the pandemic and I don't want to turn people away (I do cap at 7, though). The two main things I've learned:

1. Combat has to have a timer or it will take forever. I try not to be a fascist, but if a player takes more than 20 seconds to decide what they are doing on their turn, I then start a 30 second timer which always gets them to pick up the pace.

2. Absolutely make an effort to include hooks and opportunities for every player, but also recognize that with 7 players, depending on the length of the session, it's quite possible that not every player will get a standout moment in every session (just try not to let that happen to a player for two sessions in a row).

3. Allow the players to solve some of the pacing and focus issues themselves. If you can tolerate a rough session or two, the players will learn from themselves that analysis paralysis will grind a session to a halt. As a DM, I can become impatient when players spend 45 minutes or an hour trying to plan something, because I know that whatever complex plan the players come up with won't survive first contact. Planning and decision making can be even more tortuous for a larger group. But most players will notice this is, and in the long run the dynamic will be more successful if you let the players solve it rather than imposing a "solution" on them.

 

[aco175]

In 5e we have 2-3 players with maybe one running 2 PCs. I also generally throw a NPC in to round out the party if needed so there would be 4-5 PCs.

2 years ago we played in a convention game with 15 PCs and 3 DMs which was fine for a convention once, but not if I needed to DM. It started as 3 tables all traveling through a series of rooms and traps collecting stuff before battling each other in a giant arena at the end. The more rooms you went through earlier meant you could have better stuff (items), but also meant you used more of your power and HP. It was a fun one-shot.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think the largest group I ran for was about 11 people, and that was just untenable. The game just starts to break down exponentially after six PCs. Seven is doable, but even then there are still cracks starting to show. When a player has to wait 20-30 minutes for their turn to come back around in combat, maintaining excitement is incredibly difficult.

Still, the tricks I learned for dealing with large tables:

• Players have to know what they're going to do on their turn, and be ready for it. Sitting there while someone just stares off into space when they have the past 20 minutes to decide on something kills momentum. It feels bad to do this, but if people can't tell you what they want to do right when their turn comes up (them asking questions is fine), it may be that you have to tell them that they take the Dodge action and forfeit their turn.
• Maintain some sort of initiative outside of combat. For example, describe the scene, then go around the table (virtual or otherwise) asking each PC what they're doing.
• Designating a caller isn't a bad idea when it comes to making group decisions. Asking for a show of hands can also work. Just letting people debate forever will, well, take forever.
• Most important combat encounters will need to have either increased numbers and/or increased HP. Larger parties really do punch above their weight and otherwise a fight may be over before everyone even gets a chance to act. The one equalizer are monsters with AOE attacks.

 

[Jack Hooligan]

I do run Theater of the Mind games, so I anticipate that will continue to help keep combat brisk even if the player count is larger than I'd like.