Having a fun time with my friends and their PCs in this campaign we've been on. Having started with 5 PCs, though, we now have expanded to 7. Not the biggest of issues, really, but I want to keep people engaged and having 7 PCs + any NPCs + enemies going can make for long rounds!
Any tips or suggestions? We have a running rule that if a couple people can't make a game sessions we play without them, and that's a bit easier in some instances than others (we're based in a city, so if the PCs aren't out in the middle of something it's easy for me to play one of them or to say 1-2 people are out sick/off on their own doing a thing). With all 7 though I want to make sure everyone is feeling a part of what's going on.
I play with 8 and it’s a remote game, a couple of things I have learnt that help me.
Be sure to go to players who you haven’t heard from in a little while, ask them if they want to do anything. I try and keep a note on who has participated and done things and then make sure if someone hasn’t for about 10-15 mins I call on them and say, what is X doing. Give them a chance to act.
In combat I get the players to tell me there initiative roll and use the combat tracker here on DnD beyond to track the order. I then alway tell the next 2 players they are up, so player 1 is having There round I will warn player 3 they are up next and player 5 they are after that. My players know to act quickly and not spend ages thinking about what they want to do, with 6 players plus monsters/NPCs ahead they have loads of time to look up a spell or think about where they want to move. Yes things change but they have time to react.
If players are not present then other players always jaegur, every character makes a copy of there character sheet which is unassigned, someone volunteers and then assigns themselves the sheet and runs the character. They are copies because players can then delete any notes, info they don’t want other players knowing.
Helpful tips! Thanks - some individual attention for characters and making sure people know they are next might help folks keep a bit more involved during any big fights
Back-up. Delegate initiative tracking and player prompting to someone else.
Back-up. Have someone else tally damage done to your monster(s) and just have them call out the running total to you, so you can call bloody and dead.
Encourage your heavy dice rollers (i.e.druids conjuring animals and rogues) to pre-roll.
Have players read you unfamiliar spells, rather than spending time to look them up - they will have it handy already. Or delegate pulling up the rules to someone.
Require shopping requests that will be made in game to be messaged prior to the session for review, and pricing.
Encourage them to plan their combat actions ahead of their turn - but acknowledge what the last person just did may change what they want to do.
I play with my partner who also DMs so we both delegate to each other when we have a large group, fortunately we are down to 6 regulars so things are much easier to manage.
Some of these ideas are really great, especially the idea of delegating some of the DM tasks to players. We already do the "read the spell" stuff for anything new or rarely used, but I like the idea too of front-loading shopping goals and encouraging planning out things with pre-rolls or the like.
So my regular tables play 4-6 people, and I occasionally will have a guest character that ups that to maybe 7. With NPCs and monsters, that can quickly become a long list of things to track!
One thing I do is keep a physical notebook in front of me at all times. Every single session I number and date, and the first part of the sheet is devoted to writing down a list of PC names. I draw lines to make it a grid table, and in each column I track different roles. I include major NPCs on this list but not monsters (I have a separate way of doing those). Whenever I ask for everyone or more than one or two people to make rolls, I ask for it in order of this list and write it down for quick reference. Mostly these days that comes to large group saves, group ability checks, and initiatives.
With smaller groups, I don't need to write initiatives down separately, but for larger groups I write down the order quickly in the side margins using the first letter or two of the names. So if my players are Zanlin, Lene, Astrid, and Doran, and the enemies are Crawlers, my initiative note to self might look like: L, D, Z, C, A. If there are lair actions, I put a different colored line between the letters so it stands out. (I use lots of colorful pens for my notes.)
Underneath that table is where I track basic notes and monster HPs. Here is an example. I track damage done with a different pen color, and monster inits with another different pen color. (You'll see I cluster inits; all types of one monster go on the same initiative unless there's a really good reason for them not to, and in my few years of experience that's only happened a couple times.) I also notate with a letter in a circle which PC or NPC killed which creature(s), but this is for a meta reason (I reward kill counts, nat20s, and other stuff with minor ingame things sometimes.)
Personally, I do not like the idea of having other people track my stuff like initiative (although one of my players regularly does anyway), and especially not monster HPs (I don't like anyone else knowing where the monsters are at numbers-wise for a few reasons; one being if I have to adjust it on the fly to be more or less for balancing encounters).
Some random tips in no particular order:
As mentioned above, whenever you have more than 1 of the same creature, always have them go on the same initiative order, and always use their suggested HP so you don't have to take the time to roll all that separately. This makes combat a lot cleaner and easier. You can number, letter, or even colorize creatures on things like Roll20 to help track this.
Whenever you have more than 4-5 of a single same creature type, consider homebrewing a mob statblock for them instead by condensing their max HP, giving them almost as many attacks (but usually not always as many, up to you on how lethal you like to play), and one initiative for them. As the HP goes down, the mob gets weaker - take away damage dice on hits and make their AC lower.
Figure out a shorthand that works for you and your players. In my notes I'll write down a "H" next to a creature for Hex, "S" for stunned, etc. I just x it out if it ends, rewrite it if it happens again.
Figure out who your more vocal vs less vocal players are. Make sure you're giving time to each of them. In fact -
Do the list thing of players like I have in that example. If nothing else, write down the list of the PC names in order, and always write it down in the same order every single time. That way people will subconsciously over time figure out where they are in "overarching order" (not initiative order) when calling for initiative, checks, etc, so that it's not as much a jumbled mess. Teach your players that you'll always ask for things in a specific order and they'll usually not all talk over each other at once. Helps me streamline things a lot. This also helps when you're calling out for what people want to do outside of combat, and keeping everyone engaged, and this can be helpful for quieter players too. "Okay, so I know Doran and Lene want to go shopping. Zanlin (one of my quieter players who takes a bit more time to decide things sometimes [we're a neurodiverse table]), do you want to go with or do something else?" Regularly go down this list - at least once for every scene, such as shopping, talking with NPCs, etc. (For me, this helps ensure that my quieter players also get to talk to NPCs even if the more talkative players have already exhausted all their questions, and helps ensure no one feels left out at any point.)
Take regular breaks, and make sure they're always the same amount of time. We take breaks every 1-1.5 hours and they're always 5 minute breaks (meaning my players will probably take 5-10 minutes, but if I said 10 minutes, they'd take 10-15 minutes lol). Some people need to get up and move, use the restroom, refill drinks or snacks, take a mental break, etc more often than others. This helps streamline play in my games because we don't have people hopping out of the call randomly for breaks as-needed except in emergencies.
During play, figure out what's taking up the most amount of time. If it's something that can be streamlined, think about how to streamline it! Combat, for example - if one or two players take longer than others simply because they are caught unawares of when their turn is, make sure they know who they come after in init order (ie, "Lene it's your turn, Doran you're after her"). If it's because they haven't read their character sheet fully or don't know their spells, privately ask them to do so and think of their plans ahead of time. Some players may just take more time than others for Brain Reasons and that's okay. If everyone knows that then there won't be excess pressure on that person(s) to perform under stress and it'll go smoother for everyone involved.
For big scenes that aren't combat but might be tricky to navigate, consider Out Of Combat Initiative. You could have players roll this or streamline it even further by making it in the order of the list I mentioned earlier (so, again, everyone learns where their place in The List is). I've only had to do this once or twice and I never liked it, but some people find it very helpful.
Front loading shopping saves a lot of in game time and also means I can think about if what they want would be available, in a shop or need to be crafted, would it be available in that town, or can they have that item but instead of shopping as a quest item. i.e. my ranger has just acquired the dragon scale necessary for the armour he wants made and the struggle means that he is looking forward to it so much more than if he had just bought it.
Pre-rolling as a druid with 8 creatures is important. I will give the druid the AC and let her roll and do the maths and work out her damage. It can take my druid almost a full round to finish especially if there is a multi-attack.
On adjusting monster HP I already know the ballpark that my players are smacking into so there isn't any major HP adjustments needed until they level again.
Having a fun time with my friends and their PCs in this campaign we've been on. Having started with 5 PCs, though, we now have expanded to 7. Not the biggest of issues, really, but I want to keep people engaged and having 7 PCs + any NPCs + enemies going can make for long rounds!
Any tips or suggestions? We have a running rule that if a couple people can't make a game sessions we play without them, and that's a bit easier in some instances than others (we're based in a city, so if the PCs aren't out in the middle of something it's easy for me to play one of them or to say 1-2 people are out sick/off on their own doing a thing). With all 7 though I want to make sure everyone is feeling a part of what's going on.
I play with 8 and it’s a remote game, a couple of things I have learnt that help me.
Be sure to go to players who you haven’t heard from in a little while, ask them if they want to do anything. I try and keep a note on who has participated and done things and then make sure if someone hasn’t for about 10-15 mins I call on them and say, what is X doing. Give them a chance to act.
In combat I get the players to tell me there initiative roll and use the combat tracker here on DnD beyond to track the order. I then alway tell the next 2 players they are up, so player 1 is having There round I will warn player 3 they are up next and player 5 they are after that. My players know to act quickly and not spend ages thinking about what they want to do, with 6 players plus monsters/NPCs ahead they have loads of time to look up a spell or think about where they want to move. Yes things change but they have time to react.
If players are not present then other players always jaegur, every character makes a copy of there character sheet which is unassigned, someone volunteers and then assigns themselves the sheet and runs the character. They are copies because players can then delete any notes, info they don’t want other players knowing.
Helpful tips! Thanks - some individual attention for characters and making sure people know they are next might help folks keep a bit more involved during any big fights
I play with my partner who also DMs so we both delegate to each other when we have a large group, fortunately we are down to 6 regulars so things are much easier to manage.
Some of these ideas are really great, especially the idea of delegating some of the DM tasks to players. We already do the "read the spell" stuff for anything new or rarely used, but I like the idea too of front-loading shopping goals and encouraging planning out things with pre-rolls or the like.
So my regular tables play 4-6 people, and I occasionally will have a guest character that ups that to maybe 7. With NPCs and monsters, that can quickly become a long list of things to track!
One thing I do is keep a physical notebook in front of me at all times. Every single session I number and date, and the first part of the sheet is devoted to writing down a list of PC names. I draw lines to make it a grid table, and in each column I track different roles. I include major NPCs on this list but not monsters (I have a separate way of doing those). Whenever I ask for everyone or more than one or two people to make rolls, I ask for it in order of this list and write it down for quick reference. Mostly these days that comes to large group saves, group ability checks, and initiatives.
With smaller groups, I don't need to write initiatives down separately, but for larger groups I write down the order quickly in the side margins using the first letter or two of the names. So if my players are Zanlin, Lene, Astrid, and Doran, and the enemies are Crawlers, my initiative note to self might look like: L, D, Z, C, A. If there are lair actions, I put a different colored line between the letters so it stands out. (I use lots of colorful pens for my notes.)
Underneath that table is where I track basic notes and monster HPs. Here is an example. I track damage done with a different pen color, and monster inits with another different pen color. (You'll see I cluster inits; all types of one monster go on the same initiative unless there's a really good reason for them not to, and in my few years of experience that's only happened a couple times.) I also notate with a letter in a circle which PC or NPC killed which creature(s), but this is for a meta reason (I reward kill counts, nat20s, and other stuff with minor ingame things sometimes.)
Personally, I do not like the idea of having other people track my stuff like initiative (although one of my players regularly does anyway), and especially not monster HPs (I don't like anyone else knowing where the monsters are at numbers-wise for a few reasons; one being if I have to adjust it on the fly to be more or less for balancing encounters).
Some random tips in no particular order:
Good luck!
Front loading shopping saves a lot of in game time and also means I can think about if what they want would be available, in a shop or need to be crafted, would it be available in that town, or can they have that item but instead of shopping as a quest item. i.e. my ranger has just acquired the dragon scale necessary for the armour he wants made and the struggle means that he is looking forward to it so much more than if he had just bought it.
Pre-rolling as a druid with 8 creatures is important. I will give the druid the AC and let her roll and do the maths and work out her damage. It can take my druid almost a full round to finish especially if there is a multi-attack.
On adjusting monster HP I already know the ballpark that my players are smacking into so there isn't any major HP adjustments needed until they level again.