i'm starting a a new group in a week and i have set the number of player at 6. It's the biggest party i have run any guidance or recommendations for me as a dm?pic are cool to.
oo ya we are running 3.5
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are you going to GM using OC or are you going to play through some of the pre-made quests?
>>44354680
i have an idea for a home brew quest that i ran in college and then i was going to let them run free in the game setting...and then kill the softly
>>44355263
im not sure of your skill level, but it is always nice to have some semblance of a plan or general structure of quests or certain encounters. making everything entirely improv. is incredibly difficult unless you are skilled at it.
another tip. i DM a fairly large party of 8 people, and cross talk becomes an issue especially when you are dealing with a sandbox universe, where there is no linear quest line to follow. the players go off and do their own thing and the creates unrest within the other players who are sitting there waiting. i recommend you pose a scenario at the beginning, maybe a big bad villian hunting them down or looking for them to encourage at least some of the part stay together instead of splitting off into their own thing.
When running a large party, the important thing is to make sure everybody is paying attention even when it is not their turn.
One thing you can do is apply the "Players Roll All the Dice" variant in Unearthed Arcana. It requires only minimal prep, saves you time, and you won't ever be tempted to fudge a die ever again.
Another thing is one of them sand clocks. It is a real physical item that is appropriate for a medieval time period, and it keeps the players aware that they have only a little time to make their decisions.
If someone is away from the table, don't wait for them. Treat it as if they chose to delay their turn until they come back from getting a drink/going to the loo/whatever. If they don't come back during the round, tough cookies, they missed their turn.
If it gets really hecktic, skip rolling initiative. I am serious, remove it altogether. Have them sit around the table in the order of their initiative modifiers, and take turns clockwise. Makes things much less confusing.
>>44355395
>When running a large party, the important thing is to make sure everybody is paying attention even when it is not their turn.
the best way to enforce this is to give out crucial information when you know the most amount of people arent paying attention and have it bite them in the ass later on. DMing a party of 8 in the beginning this was a HUGE problem. the party cross talked when it wasn't their turn and interrupted the other players turns. or during scenes with alot of dialog some of the party would stop paying attention.
well when doing a quest i like to set up mile stones in the quest so if they run off the rails they don't miss out on any story...to a point
>>44355456
i generally go the punishment rout. i have a general idea of the quest and how it plays out, and if they go off the rails oh well, they miss out on the potential rewards.
in the past group to keep player cross talk down we would move around the table clock wise and the punishment rout when do i need to bring the dm hammer down like i have been really bad about doing that to forgiving in the past and its one of the reason that i am restarting with a brand new party
>>44355395
>If it gets really hecktic, skip rolling initiative. I am serious, remove it altogether. Have them sit around the table in the order of their initiative modifiers, and take turns clockwise. Makes things much less confusing.
This is a good idea, and I recommend doing it from the start (rather than "if it gets hectic"). Initiative is turds and meaningless. All you need to decide is if the pcs start first or the enemy starts first. Divide the number of enemies by the number of PCs, and interweave them. For example, if the party is fighting three dire wolves and the dire wolves have the advantage (and therefore start first), it is wolf-PC-PC-wolf-PC-PC-wolf-PC-PC, while if the PCs have advantage it is PC-PC-wolf-PC-PC-wolf-PC-PC-wolf.
This initiative system makes it much more fair, and removes so many headaches.
>>44355683
one thing i like is for people to have dice and not dice rolls on there phone it,s just to much to deal with and then people are on there phones and not playing the game
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Since we're done giving "how to deal with big parties" advice, here's some more general-purpose suggestions.
Use the spontaneous divine caster variant from Unearthed Arcana. People like to talk about how much Wizards cause problems, but it is the Clerics and Druids who have access to literally every spell on their list every day. This reduces your headache a lot, and it differentiates individual spellcasters as an added bonus.
Always allow and recommend Tome of Battle. You can refluff to make it more "normal" and down-to-earth.
I recommend removing a lot of the prerequisites from feats and prestige classes, to cut down on feat chains and free people to develop their characters as they see fit. Remove Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude, Toughness, Dodge, Mobility, and Point Blank Shot from all prerequisites. Remove Power Attack and Combat Expertise from all prerequisites except for things that directly relate to them (like Improved Power Attack). Generally remove shitty, lame and boring feats from prerequisites.
I recommend allowing broad ranges of choices, but retaining veto right. "Core Only" is the road to disaster.
Some feats should not be feats. For example, I recommend that you allow anyone who is trained in Survival to Track, and anyone trained in Gather Information to do Urban Tracking, anyone trained in Search to Investigate, and anyone trained in Knowledge to do Research. These four feats are Make The Plot Move Forward, and it is better if people don't have to pay a feat for that. They're doing you a service.
The basic combat maneuvers are too weak. Make Feinting a Move Action (as if everybody had the Improved Feint feat), and make Bull Rush, Disarm, Grapple, Sunder and Trip not provoke an attack of opportunity (as if they took the Improved version of that feat). Since that gives them half the benefit of the Improved version, make those five feats count as half-feats and allow them to take two as one feat slot.
