Good luck with all this. My advice would've been "don't do it." Points for bravery (or stupidity? either way, it's XP's!).:-)

Well, if you're willing to chuck lots of 5e stuff (and absolutely nothing wrong with that), then, yeah, getting rid of maps and minis, to some extent, is the way to go.

You still want minis, and sort of a map, getting rid of the "every round, you to figure out 30' or more of movement to make" will speed things up alot.

Draw the map in advance? Sure? Put the minis right on the map? Nah. Set them up off the map, just like the characters are off the map.

With 10 players, make sure the map is pretty interesting with stuff to do. Statues to turn over? Furniture to hide behind/under or shove around? Books to burn? Bottles to toss? Columns to break? Levers to pull? Rugs/fur/puke on the floor?

Use an initiative order chart (Paizo sells a great one), one slot for all/most of the monsters (some special monsters mmight get their own slot, and liar actions happen on 20, for example), one slot for each character.

Just go down the initiative line, and be very generous with whatever the character wants. If he says he's meleeing a monster, that's what he's doing (put his mini right next to the mini he's fighting). If he says he's range-shooting, then he's doing that. If he says he's hiding behind stuff to avoid all combat, that's fine too...just none of that 5', 5', 5', 5', 5', 5' stuff. Make opportunity attacks when you think it makes sense for it to happen.

Put labels (or use Alea markers) by miniatures to signify anything relevant, to make it easier for you to figure out what monsters are doing, quickly.

That'll speed up combat alot, just make sure your players understand that when it comes to area effect, they won't be be able to minmax to get the most monsters or whatever, you'd just going to DM who gets hit (since that only takes a second, while minmaxing takes 30 seconds or more).

And co-DMing a whole campaign is tough. Seriously, though, try using a sub-DM just for small side noncombat adventures like the ones I described, you'll see the advantage of doing it, at least sometimes.

Quote from: Doom;923936Well, if you're willing to chuck lots of 5e stuff (and absolutely nothing wrong with that), then, yeah, getting rid of maps and minis, to some extent, is the way to go.

You dont have to toss out anything in 5e to play without minis. In fact the system is more geared to play without them now. All you have to discard are the allready optional minis rules, which dont ammount to much anyhow.

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.

Years ago, I ran a an AD&D campaign with 7 players and 3 of them ran two at once (the 2d usually being a thief or fighter). We didn't use minis and it was all TotM. I actually think minis would have been a problem, since we weren't that precise about positioning. Screen time was less of a problem because in the case of double characters, one of them could fade into the background without putting the player himself out of the game. And, I'd say that, as a whole, the group was pretty heavy on fighters and rangers, with only one wizard and one illusionist. That helped speed things up as well. But the main advantage was that the players were all close friends and just mixed well in terms of their social interactions.

More recently, I ran a 9-player, 14-level campaign in Pathfinder, but only once did all 9 show up at once (and it was VERY slow and difficult to run). Most weeks, we had 6 or 7 players, which was much more manageable.

If you plan ion running a 10-player campaign with 5E where you expect most people to show up, I'd advise trying to keep the classes simple (basic fighters instead of weaponmasters), sorcerers instead of wizards, clerics instead of moon-circle druids, etc. Watch out for magic items that exacerbate the problem like bags of tricks, wondrous figurines, etc.

As far as monster CL goes, you're going to have to use more and bigger foes and it's going to lead to more swingy situations - it's hard to avoid.

Mostly, though, it's going to depend on your players and whether they can adjust to the crowded quarters and the necessity of fast play and limited time in the spotlight.

Quote from: Omega;924012You dont have to toss out anything in 5e to play without minis. In fact the system is more geared to play without them now. All you have to discard are the allready optional minis rules, which dont ammount to much anyhow.

Well, when you consider range that's when it gets tricky. Or when people want to deftly maneuver around enemies without getting Opportunity Attacked, or get maximum distance to make some sort of spell, etc.

mAcular- are you and the group set on D&D5e?  Maybe there's some other systems that could be more manageable for you, and fun for everyone else.  That many people, I'm thinking something like Tunnels & Trolls.  Just spit-balling some ideas here.

What's good about T&T?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;924147What's good about T&T?

It's a simpler system than D&D5e, at least T&T5th was- not sure where the new Deluxe is on the scale.  Can't be too far off.  Combat was rolling a number of d6's plus your adds (bonuses) against the enemies number of d6's and their adds.  Whomever rolled higher won, the difference between the number was damage taken.  Large combats were done by one side rolling all of their dice and adding it together, versus the enemies doing the same.  The difference between was damage distributed evenly among the losing side.  There is a Save system that allows you to do off the wall stuff outside of that.   It was a much more abstract system for sure- and that could be further away from what you and your players want.

I was just thinking that simpler systems might be easier for all parties involved in a group that size.  Are you and your friends set on using miniatures?

No, we normally don't use minis. I just thought it might be useful to cut down on time since I have to constantly explain where everyone is in relation to each other and the 20 other combatants.

Just handwaving all range from now on is probably a better idea. 30 feet, 120 feet, who cares.

The damage portion of CR is calculated by average damage per round, which ignores the number of attacks/spells/etc said damage comes from, so you could try to use monsters with many attacks, or make/modify monsters to deal the damage per round of an appropriate CR but over more attacks, so you can spread it out and avoid one shots. And make sure if you're using small groups of, or solo, powerful monsters, that they have legendary actions.

It might not be the most elegant solution, but you could also abstract large groups of monsters by giving them a shared stat block, as if they were just one big monster with several attacks. I thought there were rules for swarms somewhere, but I can't find them. I'm probably thinking of 3.5. But you should be able to approximate it pretty easily with the monster creation rules.

Another thing you might want to think about is reducing the damage of breath weapons and AoE spells, since they're designed with smaller parties in mind. That way you could use monsters good at engaging large groups of PCs, like dragons, without their breath weapons being too effective.

10 would be too much for my tastes. I've run 7 often enough for D&D, and 8 for Amber, but that's my limit.

The only thing I would advise is that the more players you have, if you're running D&D, the less you can let them focus on their character's own thing. You have to keep them together as a group, and have them mission-oriented.

Quote from: RPGPundit;92491810 would be too much for my tastes. I've run 7 often enough for D&D, and 8 for Amber, but that's my limit.

The only thing I would advise is that the more players you have, if you're running D&D, the less you can let them focus on their character's own thing. You have to keep them together as a group, and have them mission-oriented.

I'd second this; my Gary Con game last year had something like 16-18 people in it, and I did exactly this; gave them a clear mission and objective, and turned them loose. I did not use a battle mat - I find that very limiting, both in terms of conveying information to the players and in terms of my GM time - but did project the Jakalla Underworld map up on the wall where everyone could see it. I did use miniatures, but in the way we used to use them back in ye olden days; free Kreigspiel style, and simply as a tactical display so that the party and I could exchange information more quickly. (No measuring, no templates, etc.)

I also provided several friends as 'answerers' for questions about the world-setting, and this allowed me to give all of my time to what the players were doing. It all seemed to work just fine, Gronan said.