Me and some friends (mostly totally new to DnD, a couple of them with a little experience) are going to buy the 5e starter set and play through lost mines.
The only problem is that too many people are interested. I am planning on Dm-ing, and then we'd have seven players (which I know is well above the recommended party size, and more importantly above the 5 pre-gens for the set).
I am really keen not to turn anyone away (to the point where for the purposes of this advice you can assume it's not an option).
So my question is: what's the best way to deal with this? I should say at this point that while I am new to the game I have a while before we meet and I plan on doing a lot of reading and prep - that's kinda the bit that appeals to me.
Should also say that we're a pretty relaxed group who are more interested in having fun than sticking to 100% of the rules or having everything completely justified in lore.
My options as it seems to me are:
1) Play with 7 players using the 5 pre-gens and getting the two players with some experience to create characters in close consultation with me. That's instinctively my favoured option cos even tho it might make things take longer it seems like it's closest to the spirit of the game. But let me know if I am wrong! Also any tips welcome on how/whether to make combat a little harder if I do this
2) One of the potential players is happy to co-dm instead if necessary. That to me doesn't seem ideal - I think it's going to require a fair bit of planning and he and I are both q busy people, plus it seems like it would restrict your ability to make snap decisions during the game, to modify the difficulty of combat as you go etc. But interested if anyone has positive experiences of it.
3) come up with some modification to two of the pre-gens to give them an in-game reason to be controlled by two people (Two heads? some sort of familiar? as I say this group isn't going to be too bothered by lore). That sounds like it could be interesting and fun, and at least one of them could be controlled by a couple who are coming together. But at the same time I guess it might be complicated in unforeseen ways.
Any and all thoughts welcome, please let me know what you think!
So you did not play yet and you overcomplicate.You can just change name and look, sex and re-use each pre-made character.
The problem with so many charactera is that it would be VERY hard for you to make everyone happy. And in few sessions you will write a post here "my players are not happy what should i do"
And my advice is as you are new you should stick 100% to the rules. It will bring much more joy and you will not fall into maaaaaany traps
Yeah, keep it simple. Duplicate the cleric or rogue exactly, call it a twin sibling and hand them to two players. Copy the wizard, diffent name and gender, swap out all their spells and maybe amend the alignment and personality traits a little so it feels like a different person.
If you're worried about them having it too easy in battle, just add one extra generic enemy to any group of at least two enemies, and add two to any group of five or more.
I wound not copy the rogue, given the rogue's back story. (And make sure you read the rogue's backstory before running the game! You need to know it to figure out how to handle interactions in a central location.)
The biggest issue with 7 is that there's a lot of "down" time for those not directly involved, and it can be challenging to manage well without people getting bored. You will need to increase the difficulty of some encounters, but probably not all of them. The good news is that the nature of LMOP (short for Lost MInes of Phandelver) is both an excellent started adventure to begin with, and is designed in a way which will make 7 players easier to work with than some adventures. WIth a group of 7, you may have times when not everyone can be there; given the plotline of LMOP, it's pretty easy to explain someone's absence or reappearance. Furthermore, in the middle of the adventure, there are a number of side quests; In that section, you could split the group and have two DMs.
In terms of pre-gens, it's also dead easy to make them here; the starter set pregens all use character options from the Basic Rules, so you or your players could easily make characters here without spending anything, and have them be "on par" with the pregens in the adventure. {That said, there's no reason they couldn't use character options that aren't in the Basic Rules} The PDF export is not the greatest at the moment, although the resulting PDF is editable. BUt if you have wifi where you play, your players could manage their sheets from the phone/tablet/laptop.
Hey! Noob here imploring you for a bit of advice.
Me and some friends (mostly totally new to DnD, a couple of them with a little experience) are going to buy the 5e starter set and play through lost mines.
The only problem is that too many people are interested. I am planning on Dm-ing, and then we'd have seven players (which I know is well above the recommended party size, and more importantly above the 5 pre-gens for the set).
I am really keen not to turn anyone away (to the point where for the purposes of this advice you can assume it's not an option).
So my question is: what's the best way to deal with this? I should say at this point that while I am new to the game I have a while before we meet and I plan on doing a lot of reading and prep - that's kinda the bit that appeals to me.
Should also say that we're a pretty relaxed group who are more interested in having fun than sticking to 100% of the rules or having everything completely justified in lore.
My options as it seems to me are:
1) Play with 7 players using the 5 pre-gens and getting the two players with some experience to create characters in close consultation with me. That's instinctively my favoured option cos even tho it might make things take longer it seems like it's closest to the spirit of the game. But let me know if I am wrong! Also any tips welcome on how/whether to make combat a little harder if I do this
2) One of the potential players is happy to co-dm instead if necessary. That to me doesn't seem ideal - I think it's going to require a fair bit of planning and he and I are both q busy people, plus it seems like it would restrict your ability to make snap decisions during the game, to modify the difficulty of combat as you go etc. But interested if anyone has positive experiences of it.
3) come up with some modification to two of the pre-gens to give them an in-game reason to be controlled by two people (Two heads? some sort of familiar? as I say this group isn't going to be too bothered by lore). That sounds like it could be interesting and fun, and at least one of them could be controlled by a couple who are coming together. But at the same time I guess it might be complicated in unforeseen ways.
Any and all thoughts welcome, please let me know what you think!
So you did not play yet and you overcomplicate.You can just change name and look, sex and re-use each pre-made character.
The problem with so many charactera is that it would be VERY hard for you to make everyone happy. And in few sessions you will write a post here "my players are not happy what should i do"
And my advice is as you are new you should stick 100% to the rules. It will bring much more joy and you will not fall into maaaaaany traps
Yeah, keep it simple. Duplicate the cleric or rogue exactly, call it a twin sibling and hand them to two players. Copy the wizard, diffent name and gender, swap out all their spells and maybe amend the alignment and personality traits a little so it feels like a different person.
If you're worried about them having it too easy in battle, just add one extra generic enemy to any group of at least two enemies, and add two to any group of five or more.
That's good advice, thanks!
If you need additional characters there are premades on the WoTC site. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets.
Each one has a version for level 1-10.
awesome, thank you
There are quite a few notable NPCs in the Lost Mines. Get a volunteer to run a few of those NPCs as your assistant DM.
“Surviving Port Nyanzaru” - Dungeon Master Tier 1
Maybe use 1 or 2 people to be the "Monsters" in the battles
I wound not copy the rogue, given the rogue's back story. (And make sure you read the rogue's backstory before running the game! You need to know it to figure out how to handle interactions in a central location.)
The biggest issue with 7 is that there's a lot of "down" time for those not directly involved, and it can be challenging to manage well without people getting bored. You will need to increase the difficulty of some encounters, but probably not all of them. The good news is that the nature of LMOP (short for Lost MInes of Phandelver) is both an excellent started adventure to begin with, and is designed in a way which will make 7 players easier to work with than some adventures. WIth a group of 7, you may have times when not everyone can be there; given the plotline of LMOP, it's pretty easy to explain someone's absence or reappearance. Furthermore, in the middle of the adventure, there are a number of side quests; In that section, you could split the group and have two DMs.
In terms of pre-gens, it's also dead easy to make them here; the starter set pregens all use character options from the Basic Rules, so you or your players could easily make characters here without spending anything, and have them be "on par" with the pregens in the adventure. {That said, there's no reason they couldn't use character options that aren't in the Basic Rules} The PDF export is not the greatest at the moment, although the resulting PDF is editable. BUt if you have wifi where you play, your players could manage their sheets from the phone/tablet/laptop.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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thanks so much!