How to Run RPG games with 6+ players - Great Game Master Tips
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
- Looking at how to run games for parties of 6 or more players at your role playing table. We discuss and answer the age old question of can it be too big ?
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I'll add another technique to use with large groups that works for me: end combat early. When it's clear the group has won the battle, and all that's left is chucking dice to mop up the remainder, just narrate the end of the battle & call it a victory for the group.
Sometimes I add a fun narrative twists:
e.g. Derek & Kate are still pissed from the massive hits they took early in combat, & end up running down the 3 remaining orcs as they attempt to flee.
or
You finish off the orcs, but they were cornered & fighting for their lives & manged to get a few remaining blows before meeting their demise. . Everyone in the group take 3 hit points damage.
-I invented the "shell-shock rule" for my group. We normally run groups of 8-10 so turn time becomes a problem. If you don't tell me what you are going to do in 10 seconds your character is shell-shocked, basically stricken with panic and unable to act.
Ever play paranoia, dude? That's exactly how it works there.
I call it, "paralyzed by indecision."
I love this idea i think i may use it with onlywar in some cases
Cool idea
So you want to use magic?
Then prepare your damn spells in advance, just like your bloody character!
💯
my wife and I are currently running a game for 7, she is the DM and I assist. The way we've divided it up is that she does the story planning, narrative stuff and the actual act of DMing the game and I help manage NPCs and take care of the more technical stuff like looking up rules if needed or giving players gentle reminders of how certain game mechanics work if they're doing it incorrectly (our group has quite a few newer players and players new to 5e)
I’ve DM’d two campaigns for the same group of 7 players over the last three years. Something that’s helped me a lot to keep the narrative flowing was to bounce around between players during moments of heavy RP.
“You hear a twig snap behind you. As you spin around, bow at the ready, you see not the armed assassin you were expecting, but a small child. He extends his arm out to you, his hand clutching a small, glowing orb…”
*turns to next player*
“Okay, Doug! You were speaking to the blacksmith?”
Little cliffhangers like these keep everyone engaged in their own narrative moments which (IMO) has worked super well with my group size and also gives players a little more time to process what they’ll do next.
Great video, Guy! As informative as ever!
I would like to note that I successfully ran a 2 GM group alongside my closest friend, and our group still considers it one of the greatest games they've participated in. You don't split the party, as you've described in this video; as a player, it's a bad idea, and it's still a bad idea for a GM. You do the prep work together, creating specific regions and story areas that have one or the other of you providing the primary focus while the other does backup work, perhaps providing additional voices for NPCs. Ultimately, you run the game the same way as you do a solo experience, just with increased cooperation and a split workload.
YOU are my favorite type of DM creative, firm, clear with direction, organized, I would die to be a player in your game dude.
I’m DMing a lot more now days so that’s what brought me here so thank you so so much for the insightful teaching
As somebody who's been playing with a group of 7+ players for several months, this is the video I didn't know I wanted. Your suggestions about initiative outside combat and adjusting the story are things I plan to try tomorrow night with my group. These videos are consistently great, keep em coming.
That's awesome! Please let us know how it worked out for you!
I have been playing with a group that varies from 7-8 for a while and through several different systems. We also rotate who is GMing.
Firstly: I couldn't agree more with the assistant tip, however I like to nominate a helpful player to keep track of initiatives. It's a godsend.
I don't like the five second rule, but if it works for you, sure.
It can be a bit more prep work but here is a trick I have used to mostly good success for managing that many players, break the rule of never splitting the party. For role-playing use an A-Plot B-plot stucture and bounce between the two. This gives players more time to focus on role-playing and get into a scene. Then when combat happens, give the inactive players baddies to play as and beat up on their friends, this works best when you can give the baddies a short log-lines-worth of character development to help your players role-play.
I love the idea about using initiative to help with getting to everyone. I'm running a 6 man party right now and it will really help me rotate through everyone. The experienced players are more vocal and know what they want to do, the newer players tend to be quieter. Sounds like a great way to make sure I'm engaging everyone.
This really helped me out! Thanks!
Dungeon Dad Dungeon Dad!!!! Hahaha I like the name.
I love the idea of having initiative order for actual session (so non-combat encounters and downtime essentialy), not just for combat.
I agree the GM and assistant does work, I've been in a campaign where the GM did all the story and stuff, then the assistant dealt with combat and creatures and maps...which made it run relatively smooth because more focus placed on the different areas
I started running a game over discord to pass the isolation time (8 players, Final Fantasy themed in case anyone was curious!), and it's been a huge learning experience.
One thing that has worked was breaking the team into groups. Each group is on a subquest that affects the main story, and thus far we are over a month deep and everyone appears to be enjoying themselves. However, last session was combat-heavy, so we only got to cycle perspectives 1 1/2 times, leaving some players inactive longer than i wanted. We'll try the 5 second rule next week!
Also, I think the "story factor" for each character is a case by case thing. Some at our table are there just to play a verbal mmorpg, which is fine, so i just throw enemies at them to keep them happy. With the others, i like to toss in an element from their characters backstory to keep them invested and feeling important to the game's core. I can see how all 8 wishing to have their lure included could be unrealistic though...
Great video! Ill be a regular viewer!
Thank you so much. Really. Your video was the first to pop up on the request "dnd too much players". After yours watch 5 more, and yours was the most helpful and intertaining at the same time. Thank you so much. Huge hug, from russian Noob-DMaster.
Initiative Order in and out of Combat as a means of better engaging with all of my players is probably some of the best advice I have ever been given. Thank you.
I run a group of varying size (mercenary campaign) Players make some missions and not others so some days I have 4 players and other days 7 or 8. this is brilliant information.
This will work great for the 10 person party I'll be runing. I might even make them sit in initative order. If nothing else, it will keep the close friends from getting distracted in their own conversations.
I constantly see people refer to using 2(two) GMs as always "us" and "them". What about just using the 2nd GM as a person to bounce off of. Similar to an assistant, but really just giving them the space to take the story in hand and run it like an actual GM. You'd both have to be on the same page though. Admittedly it'd be harder for most people who aren't used to sharing overlord status. That way you could switch off whenever one of you gets overwhelmed or loses track, while the other does the background stuff (rules, npc generation, timekeeping, etc.)
Alternatively, you do have the group method, but the key failing I think everyone does is keeping the 2 groups distinctly separate. Sure it's ok to split the party, but make sure it's not for too long. As the GM you do have the power to tie arcs and weave them together. For instance, one party goes off to fight some Duergar in the (insert underworld name). The other group is battling an group of orcs in a stronghold. Maybe the Orcs are protecting the stronghold because it has access to a nearby mine they can pay the Duergar with? Or maybe the Duergar are pulling the orc's strings and use the stronghold as a launching point. "But there's no entrance to the underworld at that stronghold!" you might say. So make one! Have one party meet up with the other just in time to save the day.
I think the key point here is to start as one party and end as one party.
I myself have been an assistant GM and it was brilliant fun: imagine that you all the fun of playing important NPCs and major monsters and have the players react to your presence with rapt attention - after all, you're not the main GM who runs everything else and they know that when YOU take the stage, it's something dire. Or that you can (with the main GM's permission) take a couple of characters aside who aren't present in a main scene - talk about excited players! Or of being able to rapidly deploy combat encounters because you've got the maps all drawn up and the miniatures picked out before the GM ever calls for an initiative roll.
The Players love you because they know that you're helping keep everything flowing smoothly and even bringing a new level of complexity and dynamism that simply can't be done with one single person; in rare instances, you can also act as a counterbalance to the main GM if they go a bit overboard or are particularly harsh, helping to keep the "fair" in the "harsh but fair" that the main GM is striving for.
And the GM loves you because in addition to the smooth flow, they now have someone to bounce story ideas off of or take ideas from who isn't concerned with spoilers; *is* the reveal that the old man was actually a black dragon actually a good plot twist as written? Don't wring your hands for hours; just ask the Assistant! And if they go "Weeeell...", then you have someone to work with who will make it even better!
That all said, I have some guidelines rules for people who would like to try being an Assistant GM (and would love to see a future video discussing them):
1) NEVER EVER EVER contradict the main story of the game!! You are an ASSISTANT, not the main story-teller, and contradicting what the main GM says is happening will only lead to confusion and (bad) chaos. Work around and with the story as given in minor ways, and feel free to bring up any concerns with the story to the main GM (who should be including you in their full thought process and plans anyway), but you should try and provide as united a front as possible to the Players at the day's session. It's the Golden Rule of Improv: whatever just happened, you never contradict it, just roll with it.
2) Do not discuss story information with the players. This seems common sense, but it's very easy to get caught up in the revelry of a game and forget to be quiet since it's not really YOUR story. But by revealing privileged info, you are sapping fun from the players and making the GM's primary job much harder. As a general rule: if it hasn't appeared in the game yet, pretend it doesn't exist at all (and no dropping vague hints or whatever either; it could be the players wouldn't have guessed the Minotaur was the main villain if you hadn't been joking about burgers at the session two nights ago).
3) If the GM tells you to do (or stop doing) something, you do it. You should, of course, let the GM know what aspects of the game you think you would be good at handling, the main GM has final say on what you'll actually be asked to do. They may try to avoid having you make battle maps because you say you suck at it, but if they're busy with some aspect of the game and need that map drawn, then get the markers and straight edge out and learn how to notate height properly because you're going to be drawing that map. The GM should keep your preferences in mind as much as possible - the point is for everyone to have fun, after all, not have a second unpaid job - but don't be surprised if the GM calls on you to do something you think you suck at every once in a while. I personally treat it as a learning experience and chance to improve at something I suck at (and don't sweat TOO much - the GM is well aware that you don't like and wasn't expecting this, so shouldn't be expecting brilliance here).
4) You need to try and be as out of the way as possible when the main GM is in the midst of interacting with the Players. The rule on side-chatter goes quadruple for the Assistant GM: you have more influence at the table then the players, so any comment or whatever you make is likely to pull the whole table's focus to you whether you meant it or not. If you can't sit by and listen, then find something to do to get ready for your next part away from the players, whether it's reading up on that monster you'll be controlling, drawing region maps, looking up names for future NPCs the main GM might want, or just quietly getting snacks & drinks ready for people.
5) If the Players come to you with a concern or question, try and raise it with the GM as soon as you can. Even if you know the answer, the main GM needs to know that the Players are struggling with something so they can compensate if need be, so always let the GM know that something happened even if it's a minor rule question.
Thx, really helpful
Defenitely using the tips
I hope you feel better. I like when you talk it's not demeaning and generally better then all these trolling players and DMs. As generally helpful. Keep doing what you doing.
Fantastic, as always! Totally on point! I have done the assistant thing before and it can definitely be helpful!
I've been running a game for a group of 7 players for a little over a year now. To keep the game moving I've adapted lots of idea and the one that has made the greatest difference is how we handle initiatives. I have them roll initiative at the beginning of the session and that is their number for the rest of the session. It's a tad less realistic but it cuts out so much down time in battles that I would probably do it for groups of 4 or less.
CHRLPTRSN because it sucks to go last all of the time. If I relied entirely on modifiers then the same Player may be stuck at last (or first) for months at a time and may want their character to die just so they can mix it up.
CHRLPTRSN I don't disagree with you.
I think a good compromise is to reroll initiative at the start of each new encounter, but only pay attention to who got highest roll, then ignore the rest and go around the table clockwise.
I'm still new to this, but I feel most comfortable with 3-5 players. I'm not ready to handle any more (or less) than that yet! Your channel is a HUGE help to me. Keep up the great work!
Thank you, and I'm glad the channel is of help! 3-5 is ideal in my opinion.
i GM a group of 6-7 ppl and i took your advice with the time. they are a bit slow so i gave them about 15 seconds to figure out what to do each round of combat. when out of combat i tell them what they want to do and then the first person to talk is the start of initiative. i then go into a circle and if they don't know what to do i skip over them and come back after i finish everyone else. but once done with the circle of what they're doing, i move the story so we don't waste too much time. this allows me to keep the quest moving decently in the 3 hr time we have to play. thanks a lot
We are a big band (jazz group) of around 17-20 people. Every Christmas we do a mass DND game. In honesty I've played DND very few times in my life, but I try really hard to make it entertaining for the members of my group. Thank you for these tips. I am going to try to implement them this year. Thanks again!
Thank you very much! This has really helped me run my group of 6 and keep them engaged :)
So glad it helped. Thank you for your comment!
This is very helpfull. We will have a group of 12 to master in May. We will be 3 GM (ore more 1 Main GM and 2 helpers) Thank you
Thank you so much I am running a huge campaign with 15 people and this has helped very much!
I am running a campaign with 12 chaotic idiotic players :\
@@madevich4784 dam that does not sound fun
@@texbadazz First they exile their teammate for killing a farmer girl who was paying him, but he wasn't informed about that( missed 2 sessions), but then they bust the door of the shopkeeper during the rebellion in city and proceed to completly burning two city guards and injuring a male shopkeeper, threaten his wife to give them last 2 health potions and then they throw 3 ruby stones that cost more then they scavanged. I was burning inside. One of 12 came out to be a traitor who was paid to dispose of others. What do theg do? Nothing, cause he is their teammate, the fokin bear barbarian, their meat shield. Then they without further socializing attack the city owner, kill the new player who was waiting to be introduced for half of the evening just cause he was paid to be on Owner's side. New one was possesed by an evil Geenie like entity which was supposed to be a secret and a later level quest. So now there is ecil spirit sucking up on souls of innocent, party half dead, the monk who started everything, put on the ring to tp to Shadowfell and went to fight a faceless 20ft high monster and died. What a game that was. They are gonna have a last stand ressurection mission this Sunday, to put the Spirit back into the died player. Level 4 party btw.
Current record is 20 players (all kids below the age of 17) and 1 GM (My assistant called in sick).
Lots of these techniques are great and work well. Especially the timer though I give the younger players about 20-30 seconds.
In addition I break the group down into mini parties. Each turn is a collaborative action that uses all the players in that squad simultaneously.
Are you a teacher and those are your students? :o
7 months late but, Clerics be like "Sacred flame!"
Frost Dragon King Warlock: ELDRICH BLAST!
Wizard: when in doubt, Magic Missile.
Props for the wing commander reference with the kilrathi
The biggest game I did was 12 players. I used very light rules. And the 5 seconds to answer. I stood in the middle of a group players around me. You have to be very strict I found you need to make it very frantic. Give the players the feeling that time is short for their characters so they feel under pressure. Give a sense of urgency. This is a great vid.
I really loved this "5-second rule". Gonna use. Also about non-combat initiative - really good idea. Actually, this video was reaaalllyyy useful. Just as always. Thank you! (and I'm still waiting for this cyberpunk setting video;)))
I know! I know! And August is flying past! I'll try for next week I promise!
That would be great!))) Thanks and sorry for pushing) This question really bothers me
Let's see what we can do!
Let's...
I currently DM for two separate groups with 7 players in each, plus me as a DM. Group #1 usually meet on weekends, where we play for 20+ hours and really have a grand time. Group #2 usually meet on weekdays and as such don't have that many hours after work / school to play before they have to go. I definitely think that as you go, you learn to adapt both the speed and orchestrating of your DMing to match the number of players you currently have, as I now think that 7 players is entirely ok. That being said, this video will most definitely help Group #2 make the most out of combat during our sessions.
Great advice. On my third session ever with six people. Wish me luck!
Great videos these are helping me build my confidence as I am about to start GMing. I am looking to run a morally grey mini campaign but there doesn't seem to be many tutorials on that. If you have already done I have looked over it if you haven't could you possibly do one in the future as this would help give me useful pointers. Keep up the good work.
Morally grey? Could you be more specific? Is it a campaign where the players kill women and children today and tomorrow they save orphans? Or is it - kill these villagers to save your villagers type of morally grey?
It is more support one of 2 main political factions with the pot based of the Catiline Conspiracy. So one is the traditional faction that supports a democratic republic, with free speech, the repression of the poor and, massive xenophobia and jingoism. The other a revolutionary group of senators that are trying to overthrow the republic using the power of the mob. I mean yes they are going to run a brutal dictatorship but at least they will make sure the poor won't starve and the farmers won't get evicted from the land when they are off fighting wars.
That is the basics of it.
I like it. OK let me add it to the list because I think it is a really interesting question and one that requires careful navigation.
Great video. I just will say that I had one great 2 GM experience. Essentially the premise was a mercenary company we had 13 players at times. Each week my buddy would have one mission (typically more fight-y), and I'd have one (typically more 'mysterrrious'). The company would be at the table together but often, yes playing essentially different games. Except for a few occasions of massive combat in the town their merc camp was stationed at.
It actually worked really well in combat too, even with the whole group. I'd have the initiative of half the players and 1/2 the monsters. And he had the other half. Or one of controlling the enemies and the other controlling lesser ally npcs. Players from his side of the table could easily see my monsters on the map and attack them (which added to the chaos when one my goblins would attack a nearby players focused on the other GM), and things actually ran impressively smoothly.
That said. I think that only worked so damn well because of the dynamic between myself and my fellow GM (one of my best friends) and secondly, because a lot of the time the party was split into two separate groups with separate contracts and goals (communicating via little voice stones at times).
Once we scheduled a special Pathfinder event. We had five groups, each with their own GM, BUT they played in one shared world. We had a few extra people playing characters of divine messengers who were running between the groups and acting their part (a tiny bit of LARPing there) whilst connecting the groups into one big shared world. Sure, we needed a lot of people, but it worked and was fun for the weekend.
That sounds really cool! How did you manage the timing or was that left to the Larp Angels to decide?
+How to be a Great Game Master All the GMs had access to some program (maybe D20 I can't remeber) and they could chat and update player wherebouts on a shared map. The NPC had some autonomy of their own and could enter a groups game at various times with the GMs permission.
Sounds epic! You guys planning on doing it again?
I am not sure if you check comments on older videos, but I've been running some huge groups with a rules heavy LARP.
Another tactic you can use is to delegate. Let's say you have a Dwarf player who loves playing the stingy Dwarf and wants to haggle all the cash they can out of a magic item they are selling. You can ask a player that you trust "does anybody want to run this?", and if you have a volunteer then those players can have five or ten minutes, the party will likely all want to have a few minutes to roleplay something, maybe the players who only want to fight can find an arm wrestling braggart in a bar, maybe the wizard can walk by a pawn shop with a drastically marked down wondrous item and now needs the bard's help to haggle without revealing why they are so interested in the item, and maybe the thief will head down to the herbalist to see what plants are for sale, and they can make a few poisons. The players who don't want to do anything may just be excited about running a short, inconsequential scene, the players who enjoy roleplaying downtime can do that as well, and you as the storyteller can have five or ten minutes to make sure all your notes are in order for the next segment.
(yes yes I know, we should already be prepared, but who doesn't forget to bookmark that one page in the Monstrous Manual now and again? or maybe you want to double check what the saving throw is for the evil priest's Unholy Blight spell, just to be safe?)
Initiative during non-combat points is very useful for managing large groups of players (or smaller groups if you have one player prone to interrupting). Tell them they can do 3 things (say something to an npc, ask the gm a question, perform a skill check, etc.) on their initiative turn. Once that is done, they get no more attention from you until their turn comes around again.
Awesome Video! Some of the rules I suggested to my group as a method of streamlining the game. I also imposed things like rolling your damage dice at the same time as the attack roll. If you hit, it saves time, if you miss, there is no loss. Also if I ask for initiative and run through the players one by one who have already added their bonuses and giving me numbers but you haven't even rolled yet, then you automatically go last. They thought I was being cruel, but in the end it speeds up the game, especially during a scene where I need to keep the urgency alive because of some life-threatening event.
Those are great suggestions! A lot of my players roll damage and attack at the same time regardless of group size. So that's cool. Love he idea of initiative actually drawing on player response as well as dice roll. Thanks for sharing!
My very large group does this too most of the time. Half of my group is first time players, so there is just no way around that things take longer. But, I just thought of another small step to add for my group: tell players to have their dice already in their hands before their turn starts. Saves the few seconds they are picking out their dice from the pile.
Lock and load! I love it!
I ran a group of about 8 or 9 surprisingly well. While everything was very, very slow to achieve, I do think I got the group to enjoy themselves as decently as I could, granting hero moments to characters wherever I could and keeping the pace as high as I could.
One thing I liked from a large group was that discussion between them all. I did even sit back and let their characters chat and discuss among themselves rather often. That drama and discussion ended up making a rather small adventure feel bigger because they were generating more stuff to do the whole time. Very entertaining for me at least.
I enjoyed running a big game. Though, I am mad so...
I also think you were very lucky! The greatest challenge is having 8 players who split the party into two groups of 4 or worse, two groups of 3 and a group of 2. As a GM you would be stretched very thin.
Never felt like it. I guess I was high on energy and excited that the game was going well. I also found that letting players butt against each other made for an interesting story too as they try to reconcile their differences. Deadly Goddess the Dragonborn Sorcerer was particularly interesting to me as this boisterous ball of angst and aggression. She was a particular focus to keep under control and learn to work with the others. I don't think I fully succeeded but Zethaya Shadowhorn, a Tiefling Cleric of Frigg and Humphrey Domodest, a wonderfully energetic monk, ended up pulling a lot of the game forwards while the others did their thing.
The best parts for me was when Bosnorc adopted a deer he found in a dryad's lair. Despite being a female, he named it Julio and it then took part in the game as his sidekick. It's since been given a Circlet of Intellect so it's now more intelligent than the other players. Can't speak but is capable of figuring things out pretty well.
There was also the character of Skillet/Miller, a bard who was struck with a malformed death curse that trapped the evil wizard that attempted to cure him inside his body. Now, they would periodically switch back and forth between good bard and evil wizard. It was him that, during a adventure involving dreams, cast Sleep within one.
"Errr...You fall deeper into the dream world. Bwwwaaaaaawwwwwmmm!"
I have run a D&D game with 8 people before (with as little as 6 and as many as 9 showing up). It can be challenging. We played over many years, many campaigns, and long game secession. From time to time, we would swap DM (GM) and campaign. Thus giving the other person a brake. It lasted up until a personality conflict between me and one of the players that DMed some of the time hit an in-pass. At which point I and at least one other player stopped going to the local hobby shop to play. I am still in contact with some of the other players even if it has been some years since we played around the same table. Mostly good memories!!!
In my experience, the formula is: each additional player means less game and more party (in the generic, social event definition of the word). Sadly, the best time management efforts still result in some "dead air" for the far end of the table and lots of people to fall into discussion groups about the latest "Star Wars" trailer on CZcams. I only GM mobs as one-shot events. As you mention, like at a convention or bunch of old friends visiting from out of province. Forget any campaign plot stuff. Put together a clever little rationale-scenario for a big happy combat.
My wife is called on to facilitate and organize meetings. She likes to use the Talking Stick and/or Talking Stones. The Stick method prevents interruption. Whoever holds the Stick has the floor and the loud mouths keep it zipped. Talking Stones is where each person gets five Stones/Chips. Each time they speak, it costs a Stone. When you're out of Stones, you keep it zipped. Stones are replenished only when everyone has spent theirs. She is amused at watching boisterous chatterboxes spending their Stones, bang-bang-bang. Then having mild seizures because they can no longer speak as the discussion proceeds.
I love the stones idea!
Wow your wife is nicer. Our talking stick is more like a silence stick. When someone starts talking to much you take out the silence stick. Lol just kidding
I like these tips the stones are nice but i feel the stick is better you can keep talking if need be. Rather than adding another currency to the table. Perhaps a sand timer? You get the talking timer and can speak for as long as the timer is ticking then pass it
These are good tips for small groups too.
super helpful, thank you so much!
Pleasure!
A discover I made recently is that the simpler the system you are using, the more you can afford to have players. This is doubly true if your system also happens to have a static initiative system. Yes, it makes things "less realistic", but it also allows you to add more people to your party.
I've played a lot of Dungeonslayers 4th edition recently, and I've have 8-9 players groups and could still manage to run the game smoothly. And this is due to the fact that: 1) the game has a simply yet elegant game engine, 2) it has a static initiative system.
Another great video!
My thanks sir.
great advice. will use.
My gf and I ran a game together as gm+assistant and it helped smooth things out
Great info!
now, my groups size fluctuates based on how many can show up on any given friday, but the basic premise is this - in combat, you get around a minute to take your turn, though this becomes more lenient if something just turned the situation on its head. the idea- know what you are going to do before it is your turn, so you can have dice in hand and be adding up totals almost immediately. healers are the notable exception to this - it really does matter who they heal, so they should not be rushed. some DMs in my experience have actually said "as long as you can keep the flow of the map going, i am OK with you double-boxing(slang term for controlling 2 characters at once).". now, i would only do that if my group was particularily small on a given day, but still. your 5 second rule makes sense, but i would only enforce that in a stressful ingame situation, such as a timed puzzle. your initiative bit helps, but my group has its own adaptation of this. whoever rolls highest initiative is the first, but after that, whoever is the higher between the two adjacent is the direction. i think the 5 second may be a little too steep, but i wouldn't extend it beyond 15 seconds. i may be misunderstanding the rule slightly too. i will use a hypothetical to see if i understand this. my turn starts. do i get 5 seconds to declare i am going to fireball, or do i have to have the origin of the fireball already determined in that 5 seconds? because knowing what i want to do, and aiming so i dont incinerate a group of hostages are too very different things. there is one situation i could see 2 GM's working in, but only if it was already set up as a contingency in specific parts of a campaign. if i have a place where 3 of my 8 players could get split off, and i know another GM who i worked with when creating the campaign, i may pass it off and say " get them to this point on the map, and keep rewards around X gold per person, and these items." but if you just ask a GM to take over an aspect, its gonna catch up to you pretty fast. if my campaign experiences this, i had help from another GM, who happens to be the only other person at the table who has experience with the inspiration of the campaign, and i may ask him to take group X, get them to point Y on the map, and give them Z rewards along the way. he may largely be an assistant, like you mention. at the end of the day, you need one overarching person in control of the entire setup, but having someone you can pass off side encounters too wouldn't be a horrid thing.
This has easily been the beat advice I have gotten from you! Our group consists of at least 6 to 8 people (including the GM) and nothing ever seems to happen. Ever!
I want to implement the five second rule, however more than one person in our group, including my wife, has difficulty saying what they want to say. Should it not be a problem because they have other player's turns time to figure out what they want to do? Or should more time be added?
I ran a large group once - 9 guys from 16 - 19yrs old -- and I'll never do that again.
It wasn't my idea, I just pitched in to help my buddy, so I was the "GM Assist" if you will. Of course I was also the more experienced GM so I wound up doing a lot of assisting.
It was nearly complete chaos despite implementing certain grounds rule like mentioned in this video -- though I think we were more lenient on time since they were mostly new. But most of the time I didn't have a clear understanding of what was going on, and combat was difficult to gauge. In a few instances easy encounters nearly killed half of them from a combo of terrible die rolls and a few sub-optimal choices, and at other times what should have been challenging encounters were breezed past because of a series of great die rolls and (accidental) great tactics.
But I think aside from the general chaos of a table of teenagers, one of the other big factors was that my friend running the game was telling a bit of an incoherent story with a universe-hopping haunted house that had no big bad or delineated quest behind it.
Running for a group of five (maybe six) adults is my limit now. Ages 24+ preferred. Also, no cell phones at the table.
Good advice thanks
it’s 101k now!! cheers!
On the topic of multiple GMs:
Two GMs is probably not a good idea because it's a bit like ruling over two islands. There's an unwanted "us" and "them", unless you make the co-GM an assistant like you describe.
However, three or more GMs might work better, one of which being an "Arch GM" who runs everything. Having said that, 3+ GMS would likely require a positively epic campaign to be necessary.
I've love to try some of these combo's again and really give it a good testing. To see what is the ideal. Maybe we've been doing it wrong all these years - the next breakthrough in RPG's?
The first time i DMed i ran a party of 8 people (with an assistant) but she didn't read ANYTHING about the story or completely ignored what we planned. I started a campaign of 3 as a single DM, but now its gonna turn into a 6 person party. Im terrified.
I've been working in a group of 6 people as a player for about a year now. the DM for the campaign is a bit strict and mostly focused on storytelling, which is great fun. But recently I've started to DM myself for said group and while it goes perfectly fine for most of the time, because of the experience of the players, I noticed a little problem.... one half of the group is kinda loud en a tat to enthusiastic while the other is a bit more shy. This is espacially true during social interactions.. whitin the group, which gives me a limmited amount of control over the situation (I feel). So I want to give the other people a chance to say something, whiout playing police myself, but I dont really know how to go about it.
My current game is 7 players and two more want to join which I am okay with I've ran large groups before I can handle it for the most part yes I have to do a lot more prep work going in working a larger group but sometimes it can be quite rewarding. And I think I'm going to start implementing the 5 second rule because some of my not so experienced players take 10 to 15 seconds or longer as opposed to the more experienced players are ready when they're turned hits. And years ago a friend of mine and myself code GM and a game at our local gaming shop where we had 21 people playing with us it was large and insane and so much fun it eventually dwindled down to like 14 but it was still a lot of fun.
I ran a campaign (D&D) for 3 years with 7 to 9 players (+ DM)
I had the players write what they planned to do within a short time, then had them read it off in initiative order.
It worked out well and combat flowed nicely.
It also prevented the players from doing a lot of metagaming.
There was a pair f players that constantly got the same order, mage slightly before illusionist. They also consistently ended up with the mage casting something that aided believability of the illusion... Aggravatingly effective at times, but I almost always gave the opponents a negative n their potential to disbelieve.
Eventually, I let them write a list of what "combos" they would cast, #47 was fireball immediately followed by improved phantasmal force, red dragon diving in and breathing. Not much survived that one.
We had great story line and role playing... a bit more than 60% role play most sessions.
My first RPG was 11 players. We spent around 36 hours in two days trying to finish off two combats. We missed out on the third unfortunately. It was mainly due to the complex rule heavy system we were using. Our second attempt went much better because we had an assistant GM who would run Sub-committee B's combat and out of combat stuff. If the party spread out to take care of more than one problem at once GM2 would run through one of the groups actions and as long as the parties were far enough away to not interact with each other he could go through B group's turns while A group also did theirs simultaneously allowing us to end rounds much faster. We have very talented GMs. 5/11 of us have been game mastering since they were in grade school.
Sounds truly epic! It must be like running a small army through the game!
Roll a D10 for initiative at the start of the session, subtract their dexterity modifier. Write down the order on a sheet. Same number, using the closest is a good idea. At times, monsters will attack at the same time as characters. It is combat and keeping track of your monsters is much easier than keeping track of everyone individually for everything all the time and everyone knows it by he second event.
That can help, but at the get-go it might mean poor luck for a player who rolls poorly. I'd do it maybe at the beginning of each combat.
Summary:
Add 20 minutes per hour for each player over 4.
Each person has 5 seconds to say what they are going to do on their turn.
Use initiative outside of combat in addition to in combat.
If you have to look something up during your turn, you can't use it.
Story focus is now the quest, rather than the characters.
2 GMs will result in confusion with timing and style.
Instead, doing 1GM and 1 Assistant can work better.
i run a table at my local game store and the number of players at the table varies from week to week, the hardest part is making sure I keep going around the table when not in combat to see what everyone is doing, and during combat I tell everyone know what you're doing by the time it gets to your turn, a round is 6 seconds...if you cast a spell out of combat it lasts that long in real time, so if you cast detect magic it lasts 10 minutes of real time
I'm running a very weird kinda game at the moment. I'm DM for a bunch of new players who were interested about 10 people at the start but i know from how many people are still interested in playing the campaign that the party size will be at most 6 if that.
I am running a 10 PC Group with 2 GM this Saturday. I hope to prove you wrong :-D
I generally limit people to 10 seconds' decision time then they give an answer. Lets them take suggestions, but also impresses a sense of urgency onto the combat.
I would argue that even campaigns with large groups can play off of character motivations and back-stories IF a large number of the players agree that they're characters are working toward the same goal. Example: The Hobbit follows 15 characters, but 13 of them share the same general backstory and goal while only Bilbo and Gandalf have alternative motivations.
A campaign could follow the same principle. Let's say that most of the players have a bone to pick with the BBEG, belonged to the same organization before the adventure began, or have similar ideals (defending a certain place or vanquishing all undead, to give a couple examples). This way, a large number of the players can fulfill their character's motivations at the same time, and a few "central characters" can have different back-stories/motivations than the rest. These "central characters" should be natural group leaders for the best results and one of the "group characters" should be a leader as well. Consider Thorin from the hobbit who shares the goal of his dwarven companions and serves as their leader.
Hope this helps!
It's weird without seeing you with your beard lol
For the GM+assistant, how do you feel about the assistant also making a character and playing in the game? I'd seen that before in a game I played in, the GM had an assistant who helped him make maps, make encounters, and stuff like that, but she also had made a character and was playing in the game, she just tried to not be as much of an up front character because she had inside knowledge of what was going on in the story.
Another thought which is a pre-cursor: If DMs are uncommon, then DMs who can handle a large group well are rare!
Consider how the DM performs with a regular size group. If they aren't running a tight ship, and facilitating a good experience for you almost every time under normal conditions, then they aren't ready for a large group campaign. One-shot to test the waters.
I ran a group of 12 players very successfully. I enlisted my best friend (another talented dm who was capable of finishing my sentences) filled him in on the entire story from beginning to end, and split the group into two opposing party's and we each took half. I split the groups based upon equalizing according to player experience. The players were competing for deification (think Highlander). Each had a peice of deity spark, and another could gain that spark by killing the character. (The murdered pc would be ressurected after 5 days without deity spark.)
This is a topic I've had a lot of experience with. My entire experience as a GM is with a group of 6 players
In the group we use two assistant GMs they can reference any rules needed as we go. I will continue progressing the story until the rule in question is resolved. With the exception of if the call results in an unfair character death.
One of the Assistants keeps track of initiative. The group pre rolls the turn order immediately after a combat. When it's time to introduce monsters, I have their initiative pre rolled. I assign them a turn order upon their reveal. If I'm on the fly its usually whatever the creatures Dex score is.
The other assistant will usually keep track of loot and take notes. Any special tokens or points are handed out by the assistants.
The players were trained to have turns pre rolled by first offering bonuses of modifiers to a roll. Etc. new players slow this down but catch on by the end of the 2nd session or so. Now there are no bonuses only the fun
Of a better story.
Only two players are allowed to roll checks for knowledge or skills. Its usually the first to speak up. If a third character might have been more skilled and the other two fail horribly I will ask that player directly for the check. If a player is being quiet I pull the high school history teacher move and I call on them to ask about their character's action.
If the game is moving too slowly because the players are thinking too long I progress the story a bit let them know that the world moves on without them.
If one player is doing something on their own like sneaking around i take a few moments to cut back to the others and keep them engaged. Spending no more than a minute or two on the sneaky character. This gives the sneaky character time to think, builds tension and keeps the others engaged
Wow thanks for sharing! I really like that you involve the players who might get lost in such a large crowd. Those are all great ways to involve everyone and keep the game running smoothly, it's awesome that you have two assistant GMs who are willing to help out. I like the initial incentive for the pre-rolls and yup players pretty much need to get used to it once or twice and then will do it of their own accord. However does the second assistant GM not make the players not need to keep track and notes of their own loot? Couldn't you give them a little more ways to help you keep the game moving quickly but give them some responsibility for their characters 'admin'? You all put a lot of effort into the game and so possibly provide a way for your players to also do a bit of it. That way they will appreciate your and the other two GMs effort more.
+How to be a Great Game Master +How to be a Great Game Master when i say keeping track i mean for me who has which items. So i can refer to it if needed. It helps the players too have an itemized list to compare to. Players in the group are responsible to have their gear on the sheets. The assistant just helps me keep track of any changes from session to session.
The assistants take pride in what they do. I haven't really thought of how else I could use the assistants. Ive moved away from miniatures and use theater of the mind. So theres no maps or miniatures to use. Ive got most of what i need on note cards. If theres a rule to look up the assistants are the ones who do it. One of which was a rules lawyer initially but we use his powers for good now.
Ive used your advice on keeping the game moving. If i dont know the skill to use from the book i'll offer two skills that make sense. I want to tell my stories. I want others to talk about them. The time we played an entire 4 hours
+KRGOOD and only rolled a die once
KRGOOD Ah makes more sense now, now I'm jealous would love to have someone to assist and write down notes because my handwriting is horrendous and struggle to recall what I wrote... Good on you using rules lawyer powers for good that's a great way to allow someone to do what they like doing but in a useful way. 4 hours with a large group is very well played. Absolutely agree and believe that story is the most important thing and a large group is great for allowing more people to be involved in the story but can detract from it with too much dice rolling, so glad I could help you focus on the story. Additionally I don't know if your system has gods but perhaps you could allow the assistant gms to NPC the gods, so for instance in my settings if a character calls upon their god they roll percentile dice and if it's under 10 they actually get a visitation or if it's over 95 they get plagued. So with that they could still have a chance to NPC but wouldn't be too often and detract from their assisting?
if it is going to be a campaign of 6 or more I use predetermined iniative cards. I give each player a index card and ask them to give me their name, character name, AC, iniative modifier, passive perception, and then a 6 by 6 grid of iniative scores. I then pick a column or row to use for that session, I then plot out each persons iniative and I now have 6 encounters for the night, I randomly pick one and roll for the enemy. Then just dictate who up and who is on deck. There is no rolling in session for iniative it was all randomly predetermined.
That's an interesting idea, especially if the game system is dice roll heavy, this helps remove that.
Thank you so much! Next campaign I’ll try to not have 8 players. Lol
Great video, whats the largest group you've ever game mastered for?
That would be a table of 9. If it's bigger than that I opt out. I'd rather split it and run two groups in the same game world, which I've done for many years. That's fun to see how one group changes up the world for the other.
i feel that most of your videos last too long but all these topics needed a long explanation. and i agree with all but the 5 seconds. i feel 30 sec would be better for each one. also, when rolling for initiative, should you add the modifier? thank you for your hard work and game on
Thank you for the feedback. The five second rule is really to shock people into focusing on the game and moving forward. Once the guys are into quick decisions than a few moments more can be given. Trouble is if you taking 3 minutes a round to work through 10 people... a single simple combat just took you 30 plus minutes. A more complex combat could take an hour or more. But and this is always the rule: if it keeps the game fun, then you're doing it right! We have debated video length and my ultimate decision was - it's gonna take as long as it's gonna take. And if some want more - like they did with a few of the topics, then we go on. If they don't then I have said enough to have made my piece :P And gratitude - I won't lie, there are times when my Sunday's would be easier without having to record the videos, but then I remember you guys, and once I get going it's a lot of fun. So thank you :)
Got it so just buy the bard spell cards and keep the most used ones at the top of the deck lol
Well there is an excellent idea!
I enjoy GMing for a group of 6 people as it makes combat more interesting. But I have a lot of new players who play casters and don't really know their characters. They start thinking about what to do once it's their turn which is very tiresome. Do you have any grace period for new players before you would start using a 5 or 10 second rule in combat with them?
Yes. Especially if they're new to the game, or the idea of RPG. Also if English isn't their first language.
I'd say 6 second rule because combat and that's how we used to run it :P
We actually determine which one acts first on the same initiative by they're DEX.
My only problem with turns outside of combat is if you want to join in to or interfere with what the other player is doing it feels like you are shit out of luck especially if you DM hates taking back anything already said(and that's a problem for us in a small group) since we general play out almost an entire out of combat scenario before some get to act.
Sometimes if they did something tiny like "I pick up the bag that I dropped during combat"and than an other player goes "I loot all the bodies" you might wanna act before they tuck EVERYTHING in the're pocket never to be seen from again etc etc.
Giving players turns outside of combat is fine just let them interact with one another even when it's not their turn.
Thank you! I am running a 1 shot of 11 12-14 year old for a birthday party! I love you count down!
Three months ago, at the start of summer, we started up Men's Night once a week for about 4 hours each session. I was GM, and I had 8 players. EIGHT. At first I wasn't too worried, almost everyone had played DnD and many were well mannered. Let me tell you, it was hell. I would be able to maintain a conversation with a player for about 23 seconds before there was an interruption, a question, or people on the other end of the table got too loud so that they were now not only paying attention but stopping everyone else from paying attention. Not to mention that any battle went on way way WAY to long. It took 5 hours to finish a mild skirmish, since I would have to increase difficulty of mobs or increase number of mobs to match up with the strength of 8 PC's. I was on the brink of disappearing into the forest for a few weeks to let the group die out. So instead, we spent one four hour session talking. Talking about what we wanted out of these meets. What we wanted to play, what D&D meant to everyone. And ultimately we decided on a pretty neat concept.
The PC's would pair up. Each player would join with another player, and the two of them would control a single character in game. So we took a week off, some went on vacation, and when we came back everyone in pairs had a fully made singular character. Let me just review what an amazing idea this was.
It reduced the amount of PC's down to 4 from 8, letting me balance for a standard size game. This also allowed turns to go by faster, effectively letting everyone experience twice the amount of turns during one session.
It also gave everyone somebody to talk to while they waited, and could discuss in-game events and stay focused at the table.
It also gave the characters a lot more flavour to them. Since two people had the same character in their head, I would talk with one of the players about what their character is doing, and then move onto the next player to get a similar yet slightly new perspective on the characters ideas and actions. And during really hype moments, instead of one player really enjoying themselves, you had two going off during those epic scenes, which in turn made everyone else feel a lot more for the character and their feats.
And finally, as an indirect bonus, players could feel comfortable missing an encounter here and there, since as long as their partner was availeble, their character was still progressing in the world and no random misadventures are necessary.
Overall, it was brilliant move and we are all extremely satisfied with direction the game is taking.
That is quite an amazing route to take, and one that certainly may be a solution to a large group! I'd have never thought of the tag-team player thing. If anyone else uses this, let me know how it goes! Really cool idea. Does it allow for character growth and development? Well maybe. but with that many players is that the point? As long as fun is being achieved who cares right? Thanks for sharing!
about that 2 GM part:
why splitting up the group there?
wouldn't it make it easier, keeping the 9 together, and make it clear that one gm is the storyteller, and the other is the rulebook?
As Example, now there appears a group of Orcs, and the rule gm takes over until the fight is over.
So, we can have one GM handling the group with possible backup all the time, and another one who could keep the groups order.
Dunno if u get me(sry about my english)
One always keeps order on who talks when, and the other handles the game meanwhile. (change that up from time to time for better use)
That's basically how the GM + Assistant works.
GM's are often in high demand, so I understand the want/need to accommodate more players. As someone who had a hard time finding a group for awhile, that is.
There are needs and it does happen. That's one of the reasons I thought - hey let me try help more people become GM's!
An admirable train of thought, good sir.
I'm more of a General than an Admiral, but hey any command is good right? :p
usually everyones too busy to hang out and i get at most 2 people and when I asked if people wanted to try dnd I was expecting even less. Suddenly I have 8 confirmed and 6 considering. Ive only been a dm for one session and only played 2 dnd sessions total...
The Pathfinder game i play in has 7 players, but it isn't uncommon that someone misses a session. The majority of games i have played in during the last 35 years have had an average of 6-7 players!
On a loosely related subject, I intend to GM a small group (3 or 4) soon, hoping to focus on story and character development. My style usually lends to cooperative storytelling, trying to pull NPCs and events from players as much as pre-written material. Do you ever feel there's a point where this slows things down, so to say the Engagement : Boredom ratio goes in the wrong direction? What sort of things might you limit yourself to asking the players to generate, both pre-meditated and on-the-fly?
I would only do it once or twice in a session and only to players who are actively helping with the game. To the not so active I might ask once just to keep them on their toes, but otherwise I'd limit it. And certainly not for critical elements that may have major story implications. Those should kinda be planned... kinda...
Insofar as it CAN be planned. Yes. :P
I've run a small indie game called My Life With Master a couple times, and each 'campaign' is built around full group collaboration. I try to limit the amount of in-game player input that's needed. Usually I try something simple once per (shorter) session for each character, "You see someone you know being harassed by the guards, who is it?"
Otherwise I like to give the player agency if s/he becomes attached to someone or something I only planned as a generic element. "Morty seems to be real chummy with Barkeep. What's the barkeep's actual name?"
For critical elements, well, I try to run a campaign with a fairly nebulous plot. In my current run of MLWM, I'll be using one of the players' mid-game input for a climactic event. I had to, of course, ask the player ahead of time if he'd allow me to impose a tragedy on his character...
Nice and thank you for some great examples! Love working on this channel because of this!
No offense, but I think this is the only video where I find myself disagreeing with you on something, and(like most other commenters) it’s that 5 second time limit. I’ve never played in a group nearly that large, but I think 15 seconds would sound more fair. I do agree though that if players are going to be in a game that size, they should definitely be both familiar with all their spells, and be planning ahead during others’ turns.
Yeah, action turn outside of combat is needed. Pain in the butt.
How do you handle skills?
It's the biggest meta which is really sad. I've as yet to find a nice easy way. It usually devolves into a round table: Are you trying and the first to answer yes, makes the role preventing anyone else from acting.
I wish our GM had a 5 second rule. We played with 8 players and my turn took maybe 15 seconds because I am quick with dice and even my complicated turns never took more than 30 seconds because I was prepared. We then get to the next player who is on their phone, laughing with the person next to them. They go, "Huh? It's my turn... well I... Hm. Spells..." I want to pull my hair out. If you don't want to pay attention, play a fighter and attack the nearest enemy. Playing with 8 players who aren't quick is a huge waiting game.
Having notes on 40 spells and knowing what you are going to do when the 1-2 people in front of you run into a room before a fireball or kill the targets you plan to attack is nearly unreasonable most of the time. The 5 second rule can really hinder spell casters especially divine casters (who have a huge number of spells to learn) which leaves me as a cleric just usually doing bless. 😑 Which is when I stick to simple boring archers usually for those gms.
What about West Marches style 12+ groups? After all, DnD is for up to 50 players.
A quick, somewhat off-topic question: what do you think of 4e D&D? Just curious.
So I started off by hating it. It wasn't role-playing it was a boardgame with the worlds most complex rules. Everyone is the same, with power cards? Are we role-playing or playing Magic the Gathering? Now that I've experienced the RPG-Boardgames like Imperial Assault, Mice and Mystics, Touch of Evil etc. I still hate it as a role-playing system. But as a boardgame-RGP it's probably the best because it is so open ended.
How to be a Great Game Master Okay.
I decided to run a dnd game for some friends. At first they were 3 players, suddenly more and more people wanted to tag a long and they're 7 players. Cannot wait til 2-3 folk decide to drop out.
I made the first three players write backstories which I then integrated in the story, about 2 sessions per character. 6 sessions dedicated to backstory is all good and fine but now that we are up to 7... urgh. 14 sessions of just exploring and resolving backstory? No thank you!
I agree. You've got to focus on the main stories now. Maybe when you are in a lull inbetween adventures you can look at one of the other 7's backstory.
My current game group is at 9 people! Our DM seems to be having a ton of trouble though. Last game we literally spent 2 hours on the character introduction for two people who were coming into the game. So that was 2 hours, spent on just two characters doing their own thing before they even reached the party. Pretty sure one of the players did go take a nap. Every time someone dies, it is a pain to bring them back because of such long introductions.
How often do people die?
Steven Fox A lot. We have a big party but we are in an absurdly dangerous dungeon. Where there is an artifact that kills you without a save, and there is an anti magic field that is so large we have been in it for 10 hours of real time. And there are Minotaurs and giants around. And we are all only level 2...
Direct your GM to this site! Let them watch - Pace and story and difficulty and all the videos. Just all the videos. But don't be afraid to raise it with him or her and say - can we use a drop in drop out method? New characters are in the next room, not having to arrive at the dungeon type of thing? Or recommend he has a private session via whatsapp or an actually gaming session with new characters so on the night they just walk in type of thing?
For Multi-GMing the only game that works really well is Paranoia - different incarnations of friend computer :P
5 secs seems like way to little time imo. limiting player time isnt a bad thing, but translating narrative and such to get a idea of whats actually happening in game takes a bit of time. its not like the person themself is on the battlefield. 15 secs to come ro a decision and a fair minute or so to execute seems fair, adjusting as needed
in my group if less then 6 people show up things feel lonely =p
Our day game has 8 people usually, and our night game just pulled 11 people
So this assistent... Is he or she a PC or just a bystander? and if he is a bystander, what would he do to make it interesting for himself?
In the game I'm part of, I act pretty much like an assistant, except it's not something we formally agreed on. It just naturally happened. Whenever anyone needs to look up something, I do it, unless I'm the acting player right then.
Kilrathi... Wow talk about old school .....