Hey, I just kidna want to say thank you. I've been playing DnD for about three years now and I'm about to DM for the first time . . . and it's with eight players . . . and they're all new to the game . . . and basically everyone online is saying it's impossible and not to do it or get a co-dm. So thank you, you restored my hope in a way. :) What adventure did you guys play? When my character was at Level 1 we started with The Lost Mine of Phandelver, but it says in the books that it's a 4-5 person campaign. Replaying it as the DM would be a good start I think, and I already know what's gonna happen and all. So if I adjusted it a bit, do you think it could work?
Hey, I just kidna want to say thank you. I've been playing DnD for about three years now and I'm about to DM for the first time . . . and it's with eight players . . . and they're all new to the game . . . and basically everyone online is saying it's impossible and not to do it or get a co-dm. So thank you, you restored my hope in a way. :) What adventure did you guys play? When my character was at Level 1 we started with The Lost Mine of Phandelver, but it says in the books that it's a 4-5 person campaign. Replaying it as the DM would be a good start I think, and I already know what's gonna happen and all. So if I adjusted it a bit, do you think it could work?
I think eight may be challenging for both you and the players. It's gonna suck waiting for seven other people to take their turns, and it's going to be a lot for you to track. It is possible to rebalance the encounters, and there's actually a tool I found to do this for LMOP (my party originally had only 3 PCs, so I rebalanced down for them). Even then though, action economy means you run the risk of encounters becoming trivial - if your monsters come last on the initiative track, they get wailed on for eight turns before they can even move. You'd probably have to be more imaginative with your rebalancing - more stuff with legendary and lair actions spring to mind, so the monsters can be acting off-turn.
If you're up to some work, you might consider splitting the party into 2 sets of 4, running parallel campaigns both leading up to Wave Echo Cave when they join forces. That way you only have to deal with 8 PCs for a couple of sessions, and you have fewer encounters to build that will challenge all 8 of them together.
I'm sure some more experienced DMs can chime in with more detailed advice.
I have two weekly games. One is around 3 years and running, the other is pushing 3.5.
One of them runs with 4 players. The other runs with 7. I am honestly a fan of 4-5 players as the sweet spot, but I carefully and very selectively allowed more people into my Tuesday game. We're all friends, though some didn't know each other and only knew me to start, but the friendship is certainly a major factor in it working. I made sure before letting anyone in that all group members got an anonymous say in adding another player, those players got trial runs with the expectation it was only a temporary thing (until being formally invited full-time), and I made sure to spell out everything they could expect at the (virtual) table beforehand. 8 players is doable, but it's definitely going to depend on their personalities and your ability to give everyone equal time. That is a lot of management on your end, especially if you're an immersive/RP-heavy kind of DM. I need to make sure to give my players all adequate time to RP (of course it's up to them to take that time).
Admittedly I probably have been EXTREMELY lucky with both groups and especially the 7 player group. They are amazing and I couldn't imagine a better party for my campaigns.
The main thing I have found over time is that you seriously have to up the threat level of your encounters far beyond what the CR table would tell you. I regularly DM for 7-8 players at the moment and I really enjoy it but I really had to learn to turn the threat dial up to 11 to give them any sense of real danger. I also find that if I have several of the same monster then as opposed to the rules I will split them into 2 groups for initiative as otherwise your players have 8 actions and bonus actions to deal with whatever danger you create on your monsters turn.
Hey, I just kidna want to say thank you. I've been playing DnD for about three years now and I'm about to DM for the first time . . . and it's with eight players . . . and they're all new to the game . . . and basically everyone online is saying it's impossible and not to do it or get a co-dm. So thank you, you restored my hope in a way. :) What adventure did you guys play? When my character was at Level 1 we started with The Lost Mine of Phandelver, but it says in the books that it's a 4-5 person campaign. Replaying it as the DM would be a good start I think, and I already know what's gonna happen and all. So if I adjusted it a bit, do you think it could work?
I think eight may be challenging for both you and the players. It's gonna suck waiting for seven other people to take their turns, and it's going to be a lot for you to track. It is possible to rebalance the encounters, and there's actually a tool I found to do this for LMOP (my party originally had only 3 PCs, so I rebalanced down for them). Even then though, action economy means you run the risk of encounters becoming trivial - if your monsters come last on the initiative track, they get wailed on for eight turns before they can even move. You'd probably have to be more imaginative with your rebalancing - more stuff with legendary and lair actions spring to mind, so the monsters can be acting off-turn.
https://haluz.org/lmop/index.php
If you're up to some work, you might consider splitting the party into 2 sets of 4, running parallel campaigns both leading up to Wave Echo Cave when they join forces. That way you only have to deal with 8 PCs for a couple of sessions, and you have fewer encounters to build that will challenge all 8 of them together.
I'm sure some more experienced DMs can chime in with more detailed advice.
I have two weekly games. One is around 3 years and running, the other is pushing 3.5.
One of them runs with 4 players. The other runs with 7. I am honestly a fan of 4-5 players as the sweet spot, but I carefully and very selectively allowed more people into my Tuesday game. We're all friends, though some didn't know each other and only knew me to start, but the friendship is certainly a major factor in it working. I made sure before letting anyone in that all group members got an anonymous say in adding another player, those players got trial runs with the expectation it was only a temporary thing (until being formally invited full-time), and I made sure to spell out everything they could expect at the (virtual) table beforehand. 8 players is doable, but it's definitely going to depend on their personalities and your ability to give everyone equal time. That is a lot of management on your end, especially if you're an immersive/RP-heavy kind of DM. I need to make sure to give my players all adequate time to RP (of course it's up to them to take that time).
Admittedly I probably have been EXTREMELY lucky with both groups and especially the 7 player group. They are amazing and I couldn't imagine a better party for my campaigns.
Railroading is very necessary with big groups most of the time.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
The main thing I have found over time is that you seriously have to up the threat level of your encounters far beyond what the CR table would tell you. I regularly DM for 7-8 players at the moment and I really enjoy it but I really had to learn to turn the threat dial up to 11 to give them any sense of real danger. I also find that if I have several of the same monster then as opposed to the rules I will split them into 2 groups for initiative as otherwise your players have 8 actions and bonus actions to deal with whatever danger you create on your monsters turn.
Oh thank you, I'll keep that in mind.