Well, if you honestly have 10 people that can show up every weekend, more power to you.

I'll try to remember other ideas that came up when I was dealing with this re combat. Do you by any chance have a few less involved players? If so, you could make them monster/golem/shield guardian associates of the party. They can still contribute to combat, but don't have a stupid-wide array of powers that bog the game down (especially uninvolved players, that are usually slower about making decisions when they have way too many choices).

Outside of combat is a different issue, and this time it's not 5e's fault. Bottom line, with 10 players around the table, that means, if they all had equal time to contribute, that amounts to 6 minutes an hour...and 54 minutes of nothing...for each hour outside of combat.

It's really tough to keep interest for all 10 players when the mathematics of the situation dictate the limitations. This is where a co-DM, and splitting the party off into different rooms, is pretty HUGE. The plan I use here is recruit one of the players as co-DM (his character goes off on a special mission, gaining experience based on how well the co-DM manages to get the party to do whatever it is you have ultimately planned for them, which obvious restrictions on how that can be achieved).

By taking that one player out of the equation, and splitting off to two rooms, you've cut the mathematical limitations by more than half, and that's pretty good considering the effort involved.

Of course, coming up with scenarios for convenient party-splitting can take some thought. Of the top of my head? An evil ritual is about to be performed at two villages on the same night, and both must be stopped for the Uber-Bad's lieutenants to be summoned at a third site (where the party will gather for the big battle).

A fire must be set in the harbor while the Great Chain is raised to block the harbor to burn a fleet filled with ghouls...and the party must accomplish both goals without slaughtering hapless city guardsmen, occupying both the harbor and the mighty chain towers at the mouth of the harbor. At some point the party will gather to take out the fireproofed flagship (once the ghouls start jumping from the flaming ships, their diplomatic protection will be voided).

The players must convince Farmer Brown to give up a wagonload of fresh milk from Farm A, while other players must do same with Farmer White at Farm B, in order for the master pastry chef to be able to prepare a suitably huge wedding cake for the friendly hill giant in a small town (the wedding might still be disrupted by a jealous hill giantess...).

Eh, maybe not the greatest ideas, but it can be done. It wouldn't take much brainstrain to make it a three-group situation.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;923591Splitting the group would be easy, but the whole point of getting together to play was so we'd all have a regular activity again to keep in touch and so forth. It's been fun so far.

So splitting it would defeat the purpose of running the game.

Using stuff like pits could be a good idea... or maybe start using party callers, initiative trackers, that sort of thing. A lot of time is chewed up with people just trying to decide what to do outside of combat.

The largest group I ran a campaign for was fourteen back in the day. Always had five to twelve more sitting in and observing. We ran for probably three months every weekend, after three months though the group naturally split, because some players preferred specific company (The group split by alignment, with the lawful players forming one subgroup and most of the neutral and minority of evil players forming the core of the second group). If I was smart I would have run it with a co-GM. As it was I ran two groups bouncing back and forth between the groups and it was a biatch amount of work.

The game finally broke up after about another five months, mostly because we were all in military school, and a bunch of the players had finished (including me) and were re-assigned to other military bases.

If I had to do it again, I'd take a co-GM. Now I won't GM for more than ten. If i get more than ten, I pick one of the other players to GM when the party splits (and the party will split, sooner or later...), even if they are the same alignment.

I hear co-GM suggested sometimes, but isn't that always a trainwreck?

The co-GM is never going to be on the same page as you re: lore, and story. And that's before you get into pacing issues, lining up the timeline, and the co-GM overstepping their bounds and getting possessive over their "share" of the game.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;923484I've read stories of you guys playing in 10 person, 15 person, 20 person games, so help me out! Also heard Gygax and co. did stuff like that back in the day.

They had 15-20 IN THE CAMPAIGN - the actual number of players at the table was generally much lower, 1-8 typical I think. The important point was that the PC group was variable & each session was a discrete dungeon expedition. You didn't need every player present to play.

Quote from: S'mon;923602They had 15-20 IN THE CAMPAIGN - the actual number of players at the table was generally much lower, 1-8 typical I think. The important point was that the PC group was variable & each session was a discrete dungeon expedition. You didn't need every player present to play.

What about the convention games where people say they had like 50 at once?

That is one of the good things about a big group. No matter who's busy you always have enough players to play. I like that.

Some players are always missing, but I get about 7 on average each session. The last time it was 10, and they wanted to invite more.

You say you have too many players cause you have too many friends?  

Run Amber!  It's run on inter party Dynamic so while you are running a part people can break off into little groups of 2 or3 and scheme and connive and back stab.

The bonus is after a month or two of that you won't have 10 people who want to be in the same room together any more!!  Win! Win!

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;923597I hear co-GM suggested sometimes, but isn't that always a trainwreck?

The co-GM is never going to be on the same page as you re: lore, and story. And that's before you get into pacing issues, lining up the timeline, and the co-GM overstepping their bounds and getting possessive over their "share" of the game.

1: Where'd you hear that? If that wee the case people wouldn't keep suggesting a co-DM would they? Its a practice that goes back to OD&D I believe?

2: What some have the co-DM for is to split up handling combat and some have the co-DM there to handle NPCs. This means the main DMs attention isnt spread out and things move faster. The Co-DM doesnt need to know alot. Just enough to handle the combats and play any assigned NPCs. Other methods are things like one DM handles the dungeons and attendant NPCs there while another handles the towns and the NPCs there. And so on. Ways to speed up the process by taking some of the burden off the DM.

Its also used by DMs with smaller groups who just arent cut out for certain tasks, but someone else handy is.

Another thing you can try , that works with varying levels of success, is have some of the idle players roll for the monsters attacking some of the PCs yet to act.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;923479I run a 5e game with my life long friends. The primary purpose of the game started as a social activity, something that we could all do together.

As time went on, more of our friends joined. It's getting to be untenable, but I don't want to kick anyone out.

I've heard stories from old DMs about running games with 20, 50 players back in the day. This must be possible -- but no doubt, it involves radically changing the way the game is run, or with different methods.

The current problems are:

•Combat becomes trivial for the group because of their overwhelming numbers. But any monster strong enough to challenge them can OHKO any individual player. Not sure if this is bad, per se, but one player complained about it, probably because he didn't feel like he was very badass when he got struck down instantly.

•It takes forever to decide what to do. Imagine when you go out with a group and try to decide where to eat. It's like that. Everyone takes forever and the players always get bored and then rush into something rash just to get some action going.

•Related to the above, because there's so many players, each individual player gets very little screen time. The player I mentioned above noted that it was normal for him to be quiet for 30 minutes at a time.

What kind of suggestions would you have to make this more manageable, but still a large group? Maybe try different DM styles?

Split into 2 groups! The players can rotate around if they wish. Or maybe have a co-DM, and still split the group, but you are all involved in the same story, from different angles?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;923603What about the convention games where people say they had like 50 at once?

That is one of the good things about a big group. No matter who's busy you always have enough players to play. I like that.

Some players are always missing, but I get about 7 on average each session. The last time it was 10, and they wanted to invite more.

I ran 3e with 14 at Gencon 2002 (EN World meetup). It was ok but slow. 5e is doable with 7.  I think the most I've been happy running with at table was 9. Generally simple PCs with simple options can work with up to 9 I think. 5e without Feats might be doable at that size but it's best if you use techniques like side-based initiative going round-table, and minis help create a visual understanding of events but you also want a flexible approach to what's on the battlemat, don't worry too much about square counting for ex.

Quote from: S'mon;9237905e without Feats might be doable at that size

 but it's best if you use techniques like side-based initiative going round-table, and minis help create a visual understanding of events but you also want a flexible approach to what's on the battlemat, don't worry too much about square counting for ex.

1: Most 5e feats dont impact combat though past frontloading some bonus?

2: I've found that using minis tends to dramatically slow down combat instead of speed it up.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;923479X

I feel like I've posted on this for you before but that must have been awhile back. I'll keep my post short and sweet consequently (if you have questions, ask of course).

Do not do initiative. Only exception is "pitched combat", where the scenario is setup with a big, good bash-up in mind. This has side effect of encouraging more natural actions from your players in response to in-game situation.

Focus on "active" players. Most of your time should be spent on them. This encourages less decisive/engaged players to get more involved or back the fuck out. Some players will be mature about this and recognize this is their fault but often they'll bitch (and then you remind them that it's on them). Easiest comeback to this is, "it's not about just you, I've got consider EVERYONE at the table" (and it's true, you do! So own it!)

Cultivate player cliques. This helps ensure players are always ragging on each other to keep it movin'. This should happen naturally (even with a circle of friends, everyone has those 1-2+ friends they REALLY get on with). Reward engagement at clique and individual level with small things: a touch more loot, smidge better NPC reactions, a sprinkle of EXP etc...

Tell players to hurry the fuck up. Seriously, just do it. Works better if you have a more confident personality but channel your inner dick and do it. Encourage your players to also be dicks about this when the other players are not hurrying the fuck up. This works REALLY well and creates a "hustle" vibe pretty quickly.

Use Interaction Moments to give players "screen time" with others. Some players do like "screen time" in that they are the star at that moment but most just want their actions verified and represented in-game by the GM and seen by whoever the hell they're chatting to at the time. This also creates mystery/a reason to keep up with group news/politics because players will just not know all the wheels that are in motion (works INCREDIBLY WELL in more intrigue/social-encouraging systems like NWOD/Storytelling -- some players may specialize specifically in *knowing* all these wheels).

Get really good at providing layout directions. Make sure you're using a universal language everyone understands, such as the classic NSEW. My classic line of all-time is "on a map facing north". It really is just as simple as that.

No maps. Fuck maps. Get used to auditory direction. Time flies way quicker. Have your players sketch the maps as they go. Reward this effort as above.

Do NOT use co-GMs. Very bad idea. 100% solidarity and integrity of YOUR idea of the world is critical. You shouldn't need one even to help combat through if you follow these tips

Get other players to do rules lookups for you. You don't have the time nor the energy to flick through one nor even the energy it takes to move your eyes to read your screen away from the players. Your players can be a very useful resource: use (and abuse) them!

Group creatures/NPCs together. Amalgamate their stats, maybe lower slightly for speed of play. In interest of expedience, stat the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM stats needed to make em' workable (you'd be surprised at how much you can cut). Henchmen and boss characters stay individual, of course.

Ask players if they're getting involved in combat. If not, ask em' if they're stealthing or crafting or something else that's useful. No? Then they can just sit there. Seriously.

More advanced but use random action tables to streamline combat. Do not "think" for creatures/NPCs. Just do Attack, Power, Special Move, Retreat, Cover et al. Have sublists within those potentially. Assign each participant (PC AND NPC) a single number from 1+. If Attack, roll a number within the participant range and do as instructed, attack. SO MUCH BURDEN LIFTED! It'll never seem random too, especially if you hide this aspect from your players. If one of your players is a shithead about "bias", whip your random action table dick in their face.

Don't be afraid to be lethal. Constant reminders on your part of this but do feel free to kill of characters, ESPECIALLY IF USING RAT AS ABOVE!

Always allow split parties. Kill off cliques if they do it stupidly (a mummy got em' or somethin') but give them a chance to get out of there.

Give no fucks about individual badassery. I've really had to start comin' down hard on this in my ongoing Hunter The Vigil chron at my club. Badassery is earned by being smart and well-statted for the situation. Prior Preparation Prevents Pissed-off Perplexion (quintuple P's bitch!).

Let players push other players around with their stats. If a social character wants a combat character to do something and they win a persuasion roll, they damm well better do it! Same way if a combat wants to fuck-up a social, same thing if it don't pan out for the social (it almost never does). Suddenly EVERYONE is paying more attention to their sheet and other peoples' sheets!

Enable players to elect themselves a leader or two. Every mainquest or sidequest mission done at my club has a party list which lists one of the PCs as leader. They can spend WP to "force" a PC to do something (great for characters who aren't social but also reinforces social-focused characters strengths) and the target PC can roll to resist.

Just generally be an asshole GM but do it with a laugh and a smile and lots of cheerleading for your players to win! You want them to WIN! And they're your friends outside of the game so this should make it even easier, more fun, get good memories out of it.

Quote from: Omega;9238071: Most 5e feats dont impact combat though past frontloading some bonus?

2: I've found that using minis tends to dramatically slow down combat instead of speed it up.

Eh, most of the time "no minis is faster" really means "not using rules related to facing, positioning, time, distance, speed, cover, and visibility is faster".

If you are using any of those rules, minis or some other visual representation can vastly increase speed because dozens of facts can be ascertained at a glance as opposed to Q&A with the GM.  Picture worth a thousand words and all that.

Quote from: CRKrueger;923831Eh, most of the time "no minis is faster" really means "not using rules related to facing, positioning, time, distance, speed, cover, and visibility is faster".

If you are using any of those rules, minis or some other visual representation can vastly increase speed because dozens of facts can be ascertained at a glance as opposed to Q&A with the GM.  Picture worth a thousand words and all that.

We use the rules and dont use minis, and it goes alot faster.

I normally don't use minis, but when combat gets huge (10 players, + monsters) I thought minis would help since I won't have to stop and describe where everyone is every time. Because there's always a few minutes wasted on "OK where am I? Where is monster X? How many feet are they away?" Etc.

So I'm considering pre-drawing maps and using minis now...