50 characters + hirelings

[ssfsx17]

I was reading OD&D the other day and discovered a few rather interesting things. The book suggested that there be one referee for anywhere between 5 to 50 players - no wonder there was one caller for the party! Have any of you ever refereed or played in a game in with more than 6 players, and if so, what was it like?

[Arminath]

We've had over 30 people in a single group and never used a caller, and the game didn't crawl. Of course, everyone kept notes of important stuff (to them) so when it got to them, they knew what they wanted to ask/do.

[coffee]

I've played in a game with eleven players once. It was pretty wild and wooly, because some of us were gamers and some were just screwing around. The newbies were more into the game than the screwer-arounders, but had an uphill battle (I tried to help when I could).

(Now, I've seen a game with 23 players, but that was 3.5 and I knew I wouldn't have much fun in that one due to the crowd.)

The important thing to remember with figures like this is that that's the total number of players in that campaign. Not every player would play in every session, and there might be different sessions of the same campaign (even the same dungeon) on different nights of the week. That's why timekeeping is so important.

[chgowiz]

I've played in games with ~12 to 15 players and I've DM'd for 10 players.

The trick is to not get bogged down and to let the players have fun. Oftentimes, they entertain themselves far more than I could.

[Arminath]

Our largest group of constant players was 31-35 per session, in the waning days of 1st edition shortly before the release of 2nd edition. We played at a comic/game store and had players sitting in the isle outside the games area, but as Chgowiz said, with that many people the players begin to entertain themselves in non-disruptive ways. The disruptive players were politely told by the interested in playing players to knock it off or get walking, so they policed themselves to a point as well. In the end it all worked out well. The core 7-8 players of that group stayed together since then until last month when the host whose home we were playing at had to put us on indefinite hiatus due to the birth of his second child. We're looking forward to gaming again and in another decade or so, my have some youngings at the table with their 2 kids and my own daughter.

[Deleted]

Back in the late 70's early 80's when I was in high school, we played rarely played with fewer than 6 players. Usually we had about 10. We never used the caller either. In fact every DM ran the game with different rules. And we made up our own , usually not very good house rules.
Since HS('81), not counting sessions at game conventions I don't believe I have been in a rpg with more than 7 players.

[coffee]

I just noticed that the title of this thread is "50 characters..." which is a whole other thing than 50 players.

Back in my original group, in the early 80's, we played AD&D. There would often be 10-12 of us at the table, but each player had from 1 to 3 characters -- and the higher level ones would have henchmen (we didn't use hirelings but we all had our henchmen).

This can lead to trouble. There was one incident from before I started with the group that they told me about. The whole party was represented by a line of lead down the table, about 3' long. At one point, the head of the party saw somebody up ahead and moved to attack. At about the same time, the middle of the party got ambushed.

As you've probably guessed, the party turned around four corners and was fighting itself. It took the party 3 rounds or more (I forget now) before they figured it out. (Fortunately the DM had a high charisma himself, so they didn't kill him...)

[James Maliszewski]

Well, I'm just about to begin a play by post game on the boards here and I have over 20 players. No hirelings yet. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes

[apeloverage]

coffee:
most amusing - exalt.

[jjarvis]

One campaign I DM'd had a large number of players and PCs. 14+ players rotated in and out of the game over it's liefspan and most players had 2 -3 characters .
Letting players have multiple characters in such large groups actually make it easier to DM because PCs can actually split up and there is usually some action going on somewhere. Records of who, when and where are essential.
Now and again there was an unfortunate surprise round of combat versus allies.
With such a large number of characters and letting folks spread out an do what they want I ended up with sessions on multiple planes, different areas,different planes and three different time zones.
One just has to keep the action moving and make liberal use of scene shifts to keep players involved and excited. Players also got to play monsters in encounters where their character couldn't' possibly get involved and the fights were much more challenging for the players; players earned exp to award among characters as they wished for good and effective monster playing in such combats.

[palmer]

Dang! I thought this thread was offering a bunch of pre-generated NPCs.

[coffee]

Not a bad idea! You could start such a thread, in the Workshop.

[palmer]

Well, hmmmm. You're right Coffee, let me heat up the dice and I'll work something up.

[Finarvyn]

Sept 14, 2009 14:07:29 GMT -6 @chgowiz said:

The trick is to not get bogged down and to let the players have fun. Oftentimes, they entertain themselves far more than I could.

This is particularly true when I run Amber Diceless. I once played in a game ran by Erick Wujcik and he got us started, then wandered off for about 20 minutes. I noticed becasue I wanted to watch his GM style, but I think many of the players had no idea that he had left.