Last night I was reading the original D&D rules and laughed when I read the advice that a "referee" can handle up to *50* players (though it does say ideally you'd want a 1:20 ref:player ratio). Can you imagine?!
Actually, there is one game where 50 players might be great - Dungeon Crawl Classics! You could run an extremely brutal, trap-laden dungeon and let each person run a single 0-level character, and when they're dead, they're out.
At the reverse end of the extreme, I've been struggling to adjust an adventure to 2 players. I end up having to pull a lot of punches. At least with 50, I wouldn't feel bad dishing out consequences.
I ran about 12-16 (depending on availability) through a 3rd edition game of Weird Wars 2. We played the full American campaign in North Africa from landing in Morocco to Rommel's final surrender. It mostly worked due to the fact that it was pretty much straight up combat and they were running a unit of 36 characters in the big set pieces and team favorites for the smaller patrols and raids. Definitely do not expect deep character studies -- combat shaped the character of the favorites and then personality followed later.
Quote from: KingCheops on February 18, 2021, 10:02:13 AM
Definitely do not expect deep character studies -- combat shaped the character of the favorites and then personality followed later.
I agree. I'm sure a 50-player game would be all attacks, saves, or death rattles. I suppose it would get easier and gain more depth as you whittled down the players.
The Living Arcanis campaign (3.5e based organized play) would hold "Battle Interactives" at the major cons where up to 200 players would bring their PCs to fight together in a massive battle. The first, if I recall, involved the players holding the walls of a city against an invasion with different DMs handling different sections of the walls and periodically conferring with each other to record overall results.
Later Battle Interactives even allowed the PCs to pick which side of the battle they wanted to serve on and, while the PCs of opposing sides mostly fought in different parts of the battle so they were facing NPCs, how well and how quickly each side accomplished their objectives determined the victor.
Permanent deaths happened, particularly if you volunteered for more dangerous missions, and sometimes the losers lost magic items and suffered other ills in escaping the battle with their lives.
And the GMs were flexible. In one of those two sided fights where my PC legitimately felt both sides were in the wrong my PC played on a side of one (all 199 others picked a side) serving with the Beltinian Hospitalers (basically neutral Red Cross healers who ministered to the wounded) throughout the event (I even got a handwritten certificate marking my membership in the Hospitalers from one of the Arcanis team for playing my character's legitimate moral stand... it didn't have any mechanical effect, but I was able to bring it up a couple times in later modules to get an RP advantage out of it).
Long story short, its certainly doable, but needs a LOT of coordination to pull off.
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Quote from: Chris24601 on February 18, 2021, 11:16:38 AM
The Living Arcanis campaign (3.5e based organized play) would hold "Battle Interactives" at the major cons where up to 200 players would bring their PCs to fight together in a massive battle. The first, if I recall, involved the players holding the walls of a city against an invasion with different DMs handling different sections of the walls and periodically conferring with each other to record overall results.
Later Battle Interactives even allowed the PCs to pick which side of the battle they wanted to serve on and, while the PCs of opposing sides mostly fought in different parts of the battle so they were facing NPCs, how well and how quickly each side accomplished their objectives determined the victor.
Permanent deaths happened, particularly if you volunteered for more dangerous missions, and sometimes the losers lost magic items and suffered other ills in escaping the battle with their lives.
And the GMs were flexible. In one of those two sided fights where my PC legitimately felt both sides were in the wrong my PC played on a side of one (all 199 others picked a side) serving with the Beltinian Hospitalers (basically neutral Red Cross healers who ministered to the wounded) throughout the event (I even got a handwritten certificate marking my membership in the Hospitalers from one of the Arcanis team for playing my character's legitimate moral stand... it didn't have any mechanical effect, but I was able to bring it up a couple times in later modules to get an RP advantage out of it).
Long story short, its certainly doable, but needs a LOT of coordination to pull off.
that sounds absolutely amazing!
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 11:44:11 AM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
I haven't either. And I'd also like to.
I could see it being done in a "West Marches" style of game. In fact, I think it is not that uncommon for them to have way more than the usual number of players.
I like the "West Marches" concept a lot but scheduling seems like it would be a huge challenge.
Schools having a big pool of players must help.
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:50:03 AM
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 11:44:11 AM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
I haven't either. And I'd also like to.
It's great fun! Though my campaign was not 50 strong but rather 12 to I think 18 at the max, it was very cool to have different players playing their characters with different players as opposed to fixed parties rotating in and out. I first did this in late junior high - early high school and then again a few years later while in the military. It was really cool because I had use of a semi permanent play area and we had the campaign world map on the wall with changes and updates for all to see. Being military we all were used to rotating in and out of availability so this style of play really fit us well. It probably didn't hurt that we were still playing 1e and 2e later on.
The thing we tried to maintain was that you would go out on your adventure with your team of the day and do your thing and then try to be back at the town by the end of the session/play days in order to make for easier pick up next session and less time keeping problems. For example team A didn't make it back to town and therefore are stuck in the dungeon or en route to town. Team B gets to play but several players are from Team A as well so you have to fudge the travel to the location of Team A so that those characters available for play or have people play other people's characters (which is far more trouble than it's worth). A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
Having players get back to town also helps greatly with time keeping as any delays between sessions can pass as normal days for the characters as opposed to being stuck frozen in time in the dungeon.
Now I really want to do this again...
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 01:45:44 PM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:50:03 AM
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 11:44:11 AM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
I haven't either. And I'd also like to.
It's great fun! Though my campaign was not 50 strong but rather 12 to I think 18 at the max, it was very cool to have different players playing their characters with different players as opposed to fixed parties rotating in and out. I first did this in late junior high - early high school and then again a few years later while in the military. It was really cool because I had use of a semi permanent play area and we had the campaign world map on the wall with changes and updates for all to see. Being military we all were used to rotating in and out of availability so this style of play really fit us well. It probably didn't hurt that we were still playing 1e and 2e later on.
The thing we tried to maintain was that you would go out on your adventure with your team of the day and do your thing and then try to be back at the town by the end of the session/play days in order to make for easier pick up next session and less time keeping problems. For example team A didn't make it back to town and therefore are stuck in the dungeon or en route to town. Team B gets to play but several players are from Team A as well so you have to fudge the travel to the location of Team A so that those characters available for play or have people play other people's characters (which is far more trouble than it's worth). A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
Having players get back to town also helps greatly with time keeping as any delays between sessions can pass as normal days for the characters as opposed to being stuck frozen in time in the dungeon.
Now I really want to do this again...
Yeah. Multiple characters per player facilitates this kind of campaign.
Now you know what Gygax was going on about in "Time In The Campaign" in the 1e DMG.
Quote from: Greentongue on February 18, 2021, 01:44:46 PM
I could see it being done in a "West Marches" style of game. In fact, I think it is not that uncommon for them to have way more than the usual number of players.
I like the "West Marches" concept a lot but scheduling seems like it would be a huge challenge.
Schools having a big pool of players must help.
It was years before I ever knew what a West Marches game was and when I found out I just laughed as that was exactly what we had been doing all a long. I can very much see your point regarding schools being conducive as that was exactly where we first played this style followed by while in the military. Both have the same sort of like minded people and availability what with being on a base or confined to a building as a group.
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 01:48:49 PM
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 01:45:44 PM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:50:03 AM
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 11:44:11 AM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
I haven't either. And I'd also like to.
It's great fun! Though my campaign was not 50 strong but rather 12 to I think 18 at the max, it was very cool to have different players playing their characters with different players as opposed to fixed parties rotating in and out. I first did this in late junior high - early high school and then again a few years later while in the military. It was really cool because I had use of a semi permanent play area and we had the campaign world map on the wall with changes and updates for all to see. Being military we all were used to rotating in and out of availability so this style of play really fit us well. It probably didn't hurt that we were still playing 1e and 2e later on.
The thing we tried to maintain was that you would go out on your adventure with your team of the day and do your thing and then try to be back at the town by the end of the session/play days in order to make for easier pick up next session and less time keeping problems. For example team A didn't make it back to town and therefore are stuck in the dungeon or en route to town. Team B gets to play but several players are from Team A as well so you have to fudge the travel to the location of Team A so that those characters available for play or have people play other people's characters (which is far more trouble than it's worth). A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
Having players get back to town also helps greatly with time keeping as any delays between sessions can pass as normal days for the characters as opposed to being stuck frozen in time in the dungeon.
Now I really want to do this again...
Yeah. Multiple characters per player facilitates this kind of campaign.
Now you know what Gygax was going on about in "Time In The Campaign" in the 1e DMG.
I learned that lesson very early on even with only a few players. Being voted the best DM (whatever that means) meant that my friends wanted to play their characters in what was becoming my campaign rather than have some of our other friends DM for them. (I'm sure we've all had bad experiences with poor GMing). At first I didn't care if Joe wanted to play his wizard for this session of Castle Amber even though his wizard was still stuck in the forest near The Keep on the Borderlands but as I settled into the Forever DM role explaining away those anomalies became a lot harder to do and still have a believable world. Of course, back then we also all had multiple characters and didn't have hissy fits when they died either but it helped to enjoy the game without Joe's wizard being in two places at once and suddenly vanishing from one when he dies at the other location.
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 02:00:16 PM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 01:48:49 PM
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 01:45:44 PM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:50:03 AM
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 11:44:11 AM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
I haven't either. And I'd also like to.
It's great fun! Though my campaign was not 50 strong but rather 12 to I think 18 at the max, it was very cool to have different players playing their characters with different players as opposed to fixed parties rotating in and out. I first did this in late junior high - early high school and then again a few years later while in the military. It was really cool because I had use of a semi permanent play area and we had the campaign world map on the wall with changes and updates for all to see. Being military we all were used to rotating in and out of availability so this style of play really fit us well. It probably didn't hurt that we were still playing 1e and 2e later on.
The thing we tried to maintain was that you would go out on your adventure with your team of the day and do your thing and then try to be back at the town by the end of the session/play days in order to make for easier pick up next session and less time keeping problems. For example team A didn't make it back to town and therefore are stuck in the dungeon or en route to town. Team B gets to play but several players are from Team A as well so you have to fudge the travel to the location of Team A so that those characters available for play or have people play other people's characters (which is far more trouble than it's worth). A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
Having players get back to town also helps greatly with time keeping as any delays between sessions can pass as normal days for the characters as opposed to being stuck frozen in time in the dungeon.
Now I really want to do this again...
Yeah. Multiple characters per player facilitates this kind of campaign.
Now you know what Gygax was going on about in "Time In The Campaign" in the 1e DMG.
I learned that lesson very early on even with only a few players. Being voted the best DM (whatever that means) meant that my friends wanted to play their characters in what was becoming my campaign rather than have some of our other friends DM for them. (I'm sure we've all had bad experiences with poor GMing). At first I didn't care if Joe wanted to play his wizard for this session of Castle Amber even though his wizard was still stuck in the forest near The Keep on the Borderlands but as I settled into the Forever DM role explaining away those anomalies became a lot harder to do and still have a believable world. Of course, back then we also all had multiple characters and didn't have hissy fits when they died either but it helped to enjoy the game without Joe's wizard being in two places at once and suddenly vanishing from one when he dies at the other location.
Miscommunication mine. Plural "you" - i.e. all readers - intended, not singular.
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 02:03:39 PM
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 02:00:16 PM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 01:48:49 PM
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 01:45:44 PM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:50:03 AM
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 11:44:11 AM
Quote from: RandyB on February 18, 2021, 11:38:32 AM
That was 50 players in the whole campaign, not in a single adventure. Multiple groups of player characters at different places - and times - in the same campaign setting. Different groups of players in different play sessions.
This was before the days of "campaign = all player characters are in a single party", etc.
Well now, that makes more sense. I've never experienced this sort of campaign, but I'd like to.
I haven't either. And I'd also like to.
It's great fun! Though my campaign was not 50 strong but rather 12 to I think 18 at the max, it was very cool to have different players playing their characters with different players as opposed to fixed parties rotating in and out. I first did this in late junior high - early high school and then again a few years later while in the military. It was really cool because I had use of a semi permanent play area and we had the campaign world map on the wall with changes and updates for all to see. Being military we all were used to rotating in and out of availability so this style of play really fit us well. It probably didn't hurt that we were still playing 1e and 2e later on.
The thing we tried to maintain was that you would go out on your adventure with your team of the day and do your thing and then try to be back at the town by the end of the session/play days in order to make for easier pick up next session and less time keeping problems. For example team A didn't make it back to town and therefore are stuck in the dungeon or en route to town. Team B gets to play but several players are from Team A as well so you have to fudge the travel to the location of Team A so that those characters available for play or have people play other people's characters (which is far more trouble than it's worth). A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
Having players get back to town also helps greatly with time keeping as any delays between sessions can pass as normal days for the characters as opposed to being stuck frozen in time in the dungeon.
Now I really want to do this again...
Yeah. Multiple characters per player facilitates this kind of campaign.
Now you know what Gygax was going on about in "Time In The Campaign" in the 1e DMG.
I learned that lesson very early on even with only a few players. Being voted the best DM (whatever that means) meant that my friends wanted to play their characters in what was becoming my campaign rather than have some of our other friends DM for them. (I'm sure we've all had bad experiences with poor GMing). At first I didn't care if Joe wanted to play his wizard for this session of Castle Amber even though his wizard was still stuck in the forest near The Keep on the Borderlands but as I settled into the Forever DM role explaining away those anomalies became a lot harder to do and still have a believable world. Of course, back then we also all had multiple characters and didn't have hissy fits when they died either but it helped to enjoy the game without Joe's wizard being in two places at once and suddenly vanishing from one when he dies at the other location.
Miscommunication mine. Plural "you" - i.e. all readers - intended, not singular.
No worries at all, mate. I didn't take it as directed solely at me.
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 09:51:32 AM
Last night I was reading the original D&D rules and laughed when I read the advice that a "referee" can handle up to *50* players (though it does say ideally you'd want a 1:20 ref:player ratio). Can you imagine?!
Actually, there is one game where 50 players might be great - Dungeon Crawl Classics! You could run an extremely brutal, trap-laden dungeon and let each person run a single 0-level character, and when they're dead, they're out.
At the reverse end of the extreme, I've been struggling to adjust an adventure to 2 players. I end up having to pull a lot of punches. At least with 50, I wouldn't feel bad dishing out consequences.
It's 20-50 in the *campaign*, which does not mean they're all sitting round the same table at the same time!
In my FR sandbox game I have 16 players with 20 PCs across three different PC groups, their activites affect each other but I'm not GMing for more than 8 players at any one time.
Quote from: Greentongue on February 18, 2021, 01:44:46 PM
I like the "West Marches" concept a lot but scheduling seems like it would be a huge challenge.
In my game one group plays Saturday, one group plays Monday, and the third group is play-by-post throughout the week. We chose days & times to suit the players, then we stick with those & they either can play or can't, but usually everyone can (I have adjusted start times a bit if someone will be late). With 8 players & 8 PCs per live group it's fine if one or two are away. There are often NPCs with the parties too.
I'm loving the types of campaign models you're all talking about! It seems much more like a good fantasy novel where you would get a cliffhanger with a group or character at the end of the chapter, and then you'd have to wait a while to pick back up with the action, with the separate arcs/timelines all converging at one or more points. Fantastic!
It makes for a great novel, but somehow, as a failing of my own, I've just never thought of ttrpgs as being able to run this way. Of course, this sort of campaign requires a lot of scheduling, responsibility, and...well, friends that play rpgs. So, I couldn't do it right now even if I wanted to. Drats!
Perhaps I could have my current 2 players start a group of pcs in a different location and then tie them together later? Not sure if they'd be down for it, but I'd like to give it a shot.
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 05:30:26 PM
Of course, this sort of campaign requires a lot of scheduling, responsibility, and...well, friends that play rpgs.
I find it's far less arduous than running an Adventure Path. So much material is reusable, & so little gets wasted. I just need the sandbox set up with a decent selection of adventures scattered across it - mostly published ones, though I do do my own.
All my players except my son were either recruited as players, or brought in by current players (spouse, child, etc). If I wanted more players I'd just advertise the game on Roll20, since that's where I run it. Most new recruits flake off, but you just ignore those and enjoy the ones who stay.
From 1977-1980 I played a weekly game at Chimera Books in Rockville, Maryland. The savvy GM was Kerry Lloyd (RIP+). I was always blown away at how he would handle game night, when there were typically 30-40 players. The campaign was such a blast.
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 05:30:26 PM
I'm loving the types of campaign models you're all talking about! It seems much more like a good fantasy novel where you would get a cliffhanger with a group or character at the end of the chapter, and then you'd have to wait a while to pick back up with the action, with the separate arcs/timelines all converging at one or more points. Fantastic!
It makes for a great novel, but somehow, as a failing of my own, I've just never thought of ttrpgs as being able to run this way. Of course, this sort of campaign requires a lot of scheduling, responsibility, and...well, friends that play rpgs. So, I couldn't do it right now even if I wanted to. Drats!
Perhaps I could have my current 2 players start a group of pcs in a different location and then tie them together later? Not sure if they'd be down for it, but I'd like to give it a shot.
My current group has this going on. One party is still in the the lost mine of phandelver and another is in the 5e version of the keep on the borderlands.
Quote from: soundchaser on February 19, 2021, 12:30:21 AM
From 1977-1980 I played a weekly game at Chimera Books in Rockville, Maryland. The savvy GM was Kerry Lloyd (RIP+). I was always blown away at how he would handle game night, when there were typically 30-40 players. The campaign was such a blast.
That sounds like some pretty good memories.
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 01:45:44 PM
A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
This definitely helps, but in my experience is only a part-time solution. That is, it works sometimes.
What has happened more than once in my campaigns is that the exact original of group of players never gets together again, and Group B becomes the "default" adventuring party. Eventually, Group B gets stuck in a dungeon, and the next group of players moves on to Group C. None of the stuck parties ever get out, because those particular groups of players don't repeat (even though the players repeat, in different configurations).
I can't find it now, but somewhere I read a blog post from a DM who uses a random "get out of the dungeon" roll, for parties that don't make it out by the end of the gaming session. Every party gets back -- just with possibly some random consequences (including injury, equipment loss, and even character death).
Edit: Here it is, from Justin Alexander: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2149/roleplaying-games/escaping-the-dungeon (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2149/roleplaying-games/escaping-the-dungeon)
I love the concepts of big games, having multiple players and groups wandering a living world.
I've been running a game like that in 5e, heavily edited with house rules to be more like OD&D. It's been working out great so far.
The only limit on play so far has been my own ability to DM -- the players are numerous enough to play multiple nights a week, but I can only run so many games back to back. The next step would be to have more than one GM involved to cover other days.
Quote from: critical_fumble on February 18, 2021, 09:51:32 AM
Last night I was reading the original D&D rules and laughed when I read the advice that a "referee" can handle up to *50* players (though it does say ideally you'd want a 1:20 ref:player ratio). Can you imagine?!
Actually, there is one game where 50 players might be great - Dungeon Crawl Classics! You could run an extremely brutal, trap-laden dungeon and let each person run a single 0-level character, and when they're dead, they're out.
At the reverse end of the extreme, I've been struggling to adjust an adventure to 2 players. I end up having to pull a lot of punches. At least with 50, I wouldn't feel bad dishing out consequences.
most I ever saw was a guy in high school who was very good at recruiting players, who had two tables worth of people a session for a while (he was the type of person who made D&D appealing to people who weren't gamers by nature). I don't know what the total number was but definitely not close to 50 (maybe 12? possibly a little more). It was pandemonium, but controlled chaos, and it worked well for the type of campaign it became (which was mostly a back-stabby, internal fighting type of party). It wasn't quite my cup of tea though as it got a little too cut throat and I mainly just wanted to go on adventures.
Quote from: Zalman on February 19, 2021, 12:40:55 PM
Quote from: Samsquantch on February 18, 2021, 01:45:44 PM
A good solution to that problem is to have everyone have two or more characters so while Jim's paladin is still stuck in the dungeon because they didn't make it back to town Jim can still play next time he's available if the rest of his paladin's dungeon team as still stuck in the field on exercise and some of the other players are ready and available.
This definitely helps, but in my experience is only a part-time solution. That is, it works sometimes.
What has happened more than once in my campaigns is that the exact original of group of players never gets together again, and Group B becomes the "default" adventuring party. Eventually, Group B gets stuck in a dungeon, and the next group of players moves on to Group C. None of the stuck parties ever get out, because those particular groups of players don't repeat (even though the players repeat, in different configurations).
I can't find it now, but somewhere I read a blog post from a DM who uses a random "get out of the dungeon" roll, for parties that don't make it out by the end of the gaming session. Every party gets back -- just with possibly some random consequences (including injury, equipment loss, and even character death).
Edit: Here it is, from Justin Alexander: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2149/roleplaying-games/escaping-the-dungeon (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2149/roleplaying-games/escaping-the-dungeon)
Thanks, I'll give that a read.
I just ran a session tonight, open table style. I was expecting 5 players, but instead 8 showed up.
I was going to cut it down to 5, but I ended up just running 7.
I ran AD&D nearly every night for like two months when I was in undergrad. It was in the dorm and everyone who found out about it wanted to play, ended up being something like 15 people. I started them off in the sample dungeon from the DMG, they made it in a few rooms before factions formed and the in-fighting began. After maybe three sessions it was literally 4 or 5 hours every night of PC vs. PC, so there were lots of private meetings in the hallway. Eventually Spring Break occurred and the game ended abruptly. Still one of the most fun times I ever had running a game, even if it was pure chaos at times.
The oddest thing was that only one of the players had even played any sort of RPG before, and from top to bottom the group actually stuck to role playing their characters to a degree I haven't seen since. The were an evil party, and the fighting started because a cleric of Bael got into a beef with a cleric of Asmodeus I think and it all went downhill from there.