High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

Fighting The DM's Tarrasque: Surviving the Mega-Party

9/3/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Does everyone remember the Tarrasque? The fabled Tarrasque is a unique monster from the D&D world: one of a kind, huge, a mindless force of destruction. It appears every couple of generations, has ten gazillion hit points, and wreaks utter havoc on everything in its path. It’s not something that anyone in their right mind would seek out.

In the world of Game Mastering, there is another Tarrasque, a unique challenge that only the bravest survive: I’m talking about the mega-party. The mega-party is an ungainly group of eight, nine, ten player characters, a mixed bag of gaming noobs and veterans, bards and battle-turtles and min-maxers. It’s usually brought about by a mixture of poor decisions and good intentions (hey, my cousin Bob is in town, and he’s always wanted to play, so I brought him along!). To non-gamers, a mega-party sounds awesome: the more the merrier, right?

To the Game Master, the mega party is a nightmare. Every burden, every clerical detail a GM faces is amplified when a group reaches a certain size. Combat becomes double-entry book-keeping, players get bored, challenging encounters become dice-rolling marathons, and no one ends up having any fun. The GM ends up frustrated and exhausted, and the players get disengaged and bored.

I met my Tarrasque recently. My wife has a friend we’ll call Nice Debbie (she’s Nice Debbie because my wife knows several Debbies, and not all are nice), and Nice Debbie asked if I could run a game for her kids and some friends. I like Nice Debbie, so I agreed, and brought two of my players from my regular game along with me. Five players. Perfect. We started the introductory 5th Edition D&D adventure, Lost Mines of Phandelver, and had a blast.

But word began to spread. Friends of the players got added, and suddenly we were at seven players. I decided that seven was my limit. I started prepping the next session, but then came Player Number Eight. Number Eight is a teacher at my kids’ school. He’s a very cool guy, and one of their favorite teachers. He’s been itching to play. He bought all the core books and then some. Worst of all, he’s the kind of guy that you meet and think, “damn, I bet he’d be fun to roll dice with”. He made us eight (nine if you count me), and, despite all expectations, we’ve ended up having a great time.

I survived running a table of eight. It can be done, and it can be fun. But I learned some critical tricks along the way. I hope they prove useful if you ever find yourself fighting your own Mega-Party Tarrasque.

1 - Simplify Combat
I can’t overstate this: combat is the bottleneck in almost every tabletop RPG I’ve played. It can bog down a normal-sized group, but when you get beyond six players, D&D-style combat can rapidly become an excruciating slog. Your only hope is to simplify and streamline combat in every possible way.

1 - Initiative Cards: I had all the players fill out standard 3” X 5” index cards before the game with some basic information: Armor Class, Hit Points, Character Name and Player Name, and all of their Stat Modifiers. Pre-game, I had all the NPCs and monsters statted out on cards as well. When combat starts, make a stack in initiative order of players and foes, and just flip through the stack. This prevents rolling over a combat round and having a player (who’s been noodling on their phone the whole time) complain that they didn’t get their turn. It also provides a handy place to scrawl down status effects, conditions and spell durations.

2 - Bring Back the Minions: 4th Edition D&D got a lot of hate, but it had some good ‘crunch’ mechanics. One of my favorites was the Minion. Minions were like any other low-level cannon fodder, but they had a single hit point. Basically, if they get hit, they’re dead. These are great for large-party combat because they simplify tracking monster damage, and they also let everyone feel like a hero as they mow through hordes of underlings.

3- Have Players Use Off-Time: this is hard, but it’s critical. When a player is waiting for their turn, they need to be planning. They need to be looking up special attacks, spells, whatever it is that they want to do on their turn. If a player’s turn rolls around and they start flipping pages, put their character on ‘defense’ or ‘hold action’, depending on the game system, and move to the next player. This is really hard, and it pisses people off; but, when you’re trying to manage eight players and sixteen goblins, you don’t have time for a player who waits until their turn to look up how Burning Hands actually works.

2- Small Spotlights
Look, the worst part of running a large group isn’t the pain it causes the GM. It’s the simple fact that, when a group is too big, nobody gets any time in the spotlight. We all play RPG’s to be heroes, to be badasses, and when you’re one of eight, it’s hard to have any heroic moments. Hell, if the dice favor other players, a monster might be dead before your turn even comes up.

This is a problem only you as GM can fix. Make a conscious effort to find a place for everybody to do their thing. If you have a Thief, toss in some locked chests or trapped doors, and ensure they get to find them, even if you have to fudge dice rolls. For arcane types, maybe include some ethereal monsters immune to physical attacks, or maybe a magically warded door. Divine players can save the day against undead, so, by God, throw some skeletons at them. For the Fighter types, give them a mob of 1HP minions to demolish or a door to kick in. Regardless of party make-up, you have to give everybody a chance to be badass.

I know this goes against basic GM advice to “make a consistent world and let the players work their own way through it”. That’s generally good advice, but it sucks when you have a large group. Find places for your players to shine, even if it pushes (gently) against narrative plausibility. Please trust me on this: your players will remember the time they brandished their holy symbol to Turn Undead against the skeletons more than they’ll bitch about the narrative inconsistency of why there were skeletons in a goblin den in the first place.

3- Find a Home
Figuring this out was pure serendipity, thanks to Wizards of the Coast and The Lost Mines of Phandelver. You need a base, a place like Phandalin, someplace where the adventurers can return to between adventurers. This is important, because, as GM of a large group, you’ll soon find that large groups are really damned hard to get together. Someone in the group will have a sick Aunt Edna, or a kid with the flu, or band practice, or a wicked hangover, and won’t be able to make a session. Missing players can really break immersion if suddenly Willow Cloverleaf the Druid disappears in the middle of dungeon; but if you can keep things episodic, plot-wise, they can start and end each session at ‘home’. This way, when Aunt Edna gets sick and Willow Cloverleaf won’t be with the party, it takes minimal hand-waving to explain that she had to go ‘commune with her druid circle’ for this session. Likewise, God forbid you have to add someone or get turn-over in your group, it’s really easy to narratively explain meeting Barfbreath the Barbarian at the Coloured Animal Inn and why he wants to join up with the group.

4- Be the Dad if Necessary
Look, this sucks. Trust me, I know: you’d be hard pressed to find a more conflict-avoidant person than me. But when it’s my responsibility to keep the game moving and maximize your fun, there have to be some ground rules: force players to be ready on their turn, ensure they minimize side-conversations during other people’s turn, and, man I know this sucks, maybe require people to turn off their frigging phones while they’re at the table. A lot of stuff that can slide at a normal sized table turns into a problem when the party becomes a crowd. It’s a fine line, and nobody can draw it or walk it but you; but be prepared to enforce things that normally aren’t an issue.

Don’t worry about me and my Tarrasque: I’ve got a handle on this particular group, all eight of them. And the best part is that Number Eight, the guy who just seemed like a great gamer in the making? He’s itching to start running his own game, and I have a pain-in-the-ass Half-Elf Rogue already rolled up. It’ll be nice to roll dice without having to spend a week prepping monsters and herding cats beforehand.

Jack Benner is the Renaissance Redneck and sole roustabout at Stick in the Mud Press http://stickinthemudgames.blogspot.com/


Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly