Does anyone have pointers for DMing for a group of 6 players a majority of which have never played before? I haven't been able to find any adventures suited to larger groups of players.
I am unable to split them up and the group would prefer to all learn at once and play together.
The problem is going to be SLOW. Six players that do not know what they are doing will take forever.
I would do a session 0 with each player alone. Don't try to min/max the character, do everything based on desire rather than what works. Build the character quickly. Then teach them everything they can do.
When you play Session 1, use a minute hourglass from some board game you got. Players have to do act quickly or lose their turn. Before each turn say "John, your turn. Beth think of what you want to do next." (works better if you use their actual character names :D)
Heyo. I've done this. I used to run a DND club at a local community center, geared towards ages 12-25. Some weeks we'd have 3 people. Some weeks we'd have 12. Mostly, we had 10-12. Let me tell you what I figured out that made it MUCH easier:
1.) Context. the room we were using at the center had a very specific schedule, so I had 15 minutes to set up and 15 minutes to take down, and 1:30 to actually play. Take that as you will. Also, it was an Acquisitions Incorporated-styled campaign with episodic sessions (we had company positions like the Acq Inc book provides, but those were primarily aesthetic and RP-focused. Juggling all those mechanics on top of the rest of the race/class/etc structure would have been unwieldy for such a large group of inexperienced players, but they really enjoyed having those positions).
2.) I had a strict code of conduct. I'll post and analyze that in another comment. We passed it around the group at the start of each session, and took turns reading one item each from it. Some of those were unique to the specific community center. Some apply well across age groups and such. Having a code of conduct that we reviewed at the start of each session gave the message that we were here to have fun, but we will be respectful, organized, and classy. It definitely helped.
3.) Beginner players had limited options for character options. This is a favor to both them and me - having to choose between 9+ races and 12+ classes (nevermind subclasses, subraces, and stuff not in the PHB) is intimidating. I gave them four racial options: human, elf, dwarf, or hobbit. 4 options is easy, and those are the biggest 4 races in the Forgotten Realms. For classes, I didn't restrict them as much, but I suggested they play one of the following: fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric. Again, 4 options is easier than 12/13. But for those who wanted to play another class, I would typically let them. Almost every beginner who didn't want to play one of those 4 options wanted to be a druid or artificer. I thought that was very interesting. Anyways. Restricting them to certain racial/class options made it easier for them to choose, and made it easier for me as the DM to help them when they were confused with features and stuff, because I didn't have to remember details on the whole PHB. Just a much smaller portion. Much more manageable.
Experienced players were welcome to make a character using any race/class combinations from official sources (Unearthed Arcana was always with permission only, and typically I only allowed 'live' UA content). To determine whether a player was experienced or not, I asked them two questions: Do you know what DNDBeyond is, and do you know what Unearthed Arcana is. Typically if they said no to both questions, I considered them a beginner. If they did know what both were, they were clearly experienced enough. If they only knew one, eh, I kinda just went with whatever seemed right.
4.) Combat. I avoided combat like the plague. The first time we did combat was inconveniently also the day we had the most people ever. 12 level 1 characters v. 1 otyugh. That was a blast. Waiting for your turn in combat is typically the #1 thing that bogs down DND, so the quick fix was avoid combat. Have skill-based and critical thinking-based and roleplay-based challenges instead. They REALLY enjoyed those types of challenges. See #6.) First Session for more on that.
Similarly, when we did have combat, I went with an optional rule from the DMG that my cousin pointed out to me: do away with initiative. I taught the players about the 1 action, 1 bonus action, movement system. I told them to work together to figure out what they all wanted to do with their turns as a team, and then assigned one person to let me know when everyone was ready. That system was great; it supported team work, those who grasped the concepts a little better could help those who were still learning, and it invited them to strategize and use the full library of combat options, not just Attack, in clever ways. For example, putting a character with high AC and lots of HP up next to an enemy and they always take the dodge action, while ranged weapon and spellcasters stood back and bombarded the enemy. Coordinating to figure out what you want to do as a group makes that a lot easier to do.
If the players expected a fight, I would have the party go first, and then the enemies. If the players weren't expecting a fight, I would have the enemies go first, and then the players.
5.) Character creation/Session 0. Given the premise of our adventure, everyone being a Junior Intern at the Waterdeep branch of Acquisitions Incorporated, I made a double sided, 1 page "application." It was basically a story-focused barebones character sheet. I provided nonspecific options for things like "Where are you from?" and "Why are you interested in joining our company?" The new players really appreciated having options to work off of. "Where are you from" included options like "The city (the safe part)" "The city (the scary part)" "A small farm or village" "The mountains" "The forests" "The desert" "The arctic," etcetera. That way they don't need to know anything about Luskan, the Field/Dock wards of Waterdeep, etcetera. This continued with the theme of using words and concepts that the players were probably already familiar with. "Why are you interested in joining our company?" included options like "My parents/deity forced me to," "After my recent release from prison, I am legally obligated to apply for work programs" (that one was very popular), "I just lost my job and am desperate for anything," "I am evil and I want to do crimes," "I am investigating Acquisitions Incorporated for illegal activity" (those applications were all immediately rejected), "Cute secretary" (also very popular), "Other: _______" Again, this system got them thinking about stories, and provided a great and entertaining launch pad for further story development.
For ability scores, I decided to assign all new players to use an array. I could have gone with the standard array, but I like statistics and game design, so I did a lot of math and theorycrafting, and came up with this alternative array: 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16. Having two abilities with negative modifiers emotionally prepared them for failure, increasing general emotional resilience. Having a guaranteed +3 or better to at least one ability made them feel competent. Being assigned numbers made it easy. Using the standard array would also be just fine. If you want, I can explain more later why I chose those specific numbers, why most are odd, why the higher ones are even, etcetera.
We saved classes, backgrounds, proficiencies, and other most statistics-and-detail-oriented things for the second session. This was primarily due to our time constraint, but it was really helpful for them to focus on the basics of DND (story, rolling d20s and adding/subtracting modifiers, critical thinking, imagination, and team work) before adding those extra things on. In the future, I think I'll repeat that system when I play with groups of lots of new players.
6.) First adventure. I wanted them to have a REALLY basic adventure to address. No bells. No whistles. No combat. No proficiencies. No classes. No conditions. No hit points (damage was entirely story based - "You got scratched and that probably hurts"). Nothing. All they had was: their race, their story, and their ability scores and modifiers (with racial bonuses included). Their task: an old woman has come to the Acq Inc agency to ask for help acquiring her pet cats, who have run up and gotten themselves stuck in trees at the local park. Conveniently, there was exactly one cat per players. I told the players: you can decide how to do this. You can split up. You can go in small groups. You can go in one group. Do what you'd like. Talk, and let me know when you have a plan. They decided to split into two groups, and it went great. When they said they wanted to try something (e.g. climb a tree, calm the cat down, etcetera) I wouldn't tell them "Make an athletics/animal handling check." I told them "Make a Strength/Wisdom check." They had all the normal dice in front of them, but they basically only ever used the d20 that session. This was very on purpose. When I play with new players, the #1 most time consuming concern is trying to find the right die. This got them used to finding the right die, and the most common die. This got them used to rolling a d20 and adding a number to see if the number was high enough. This got them used to critical thinking. Rolling d20s is absolutely central to DND logistics, so having the first session be all about that was VERY helpful and they had a lot fewer concerns with that in future sessions, compared to other new players I've had where I haven't done that.
7.) General concept: work together to figure out what you'd like to do, and then let me know when you're ready. I did this with combat. I did this with problem solving/critical thinking. It went fantastically - we weren't taking turns, but we didn't need to take turns. Part of this success was due to the code of conduct as well.
8.) General concept: splitting into smaller groups. In my much experience, I've found the absolute maximum a group can be a small/medium group and still cohesive is 8 people. After that, and they start splitting up into smaller groups. I don't know exactly why it is exactly 8, but that is consistently the maximum with almost every group I've ever been in (group projects, parties, etcetera). If we had 8 or more players (meaning me + them = 9 or more people) I would usually divide the group into smaller groups. For example, one day the task was to advertise for the company so you could get more jobs. We had 12 people there. I split them into three groups of 4 by where they were sitting, and let them know they absolutely didn't have to stay in those specific groups, but there should only be 4 in each group. I followed the concept in #7, where I told them to make a plan together and let me know when they were ready. By this point, one character's story had been developed enough that we knew their parents lived in town and ran a moderately successful microbrewery. They went and got beer to sell at the Market for cheap, and told every customer about their services. They took a critical thinking approach and it worked great. Another group decided to make fliers and do street performances - I had them do performance checks and use the community center's art supplies to make actual fliers. Coloring is fun, even for 20-somethings. They took more of a skill-focused approach, and it worked great. The last group spent most of the time just talking and hanging out. I didn't mind - they were having a great time. Eventually I came to them and asked if they had a plan. They just so happened to be 3 rogues and a dastardly sorcerer, so they decided to go pickpocketing. I let them. One of them failed an attempt, and ended up getting chased by the police, getting thrown in jail, and having to make a new character. They had a great time. (I made sure they knew well in advance that this was a likely outcome).
We also had a drinking contest, which was a series of Constitution saving throws. Best 2 out of 3 between pairs of characters. Last one standing wins. If you failed too many saving throws, you also took the poisoned condition for the rest of the session, as you were drunk.
9.) Delegation. I was the one responsible to clean up. With a bit of training, everyone knew to stay after for those 15 minutes of clean up to, well, clean up. They would work together to put all the character sheets back in the character sheet folder, all my dice in my dice bag, folded the map(s) properly and put them away, etcetera. I also had one or two people each day who were the ones in charge of letting me know when the group had a plan. Typically, a Secretarian would let me know when the group had made a plan. The Votemonger would direct the group when they needed to vote to determine what their plan was. The Hoardmaster kept track of what type of treasure the group gathered along the way. Someone kept track of NPCs they could potentially contact in the future. It was fantastic. It's like a barn raising - when the whole community comes out to set up, play, clean up, and bear a small part of the responsibility, it goes smoothly and you get a lot of work done in a day!
The club was very successful and very popular. A few municipal government leaders even praised us on it (they happened to be on a tour of the center while the club was running). It ended when school started up for the public school and college students. We were going to do it again this year, but due to the international plague, the community center is closed for a while.
Dungeons and Dragons participants agree to the following code of conduct:
I will not bring food or drink to the map table. I will not touch the maps or materials provided by others with greasy or dirty hands.
When I or my character encounters misfortune, suffers from bad rolls, or faces inconvenient rules, I will accept it gracefully. If I cannot accept it gracefully, I will remove myself until I may.*
I will use positive and uplifting language, so all feel welcome. I will support, validate, and encourage myself and others.
If I am having trouble getting everyone’s attention, I will raise my hand and wait for the DM to call on me at an appropriate time.
I will avoid excessive conversation that is not relevant to the adventure. I will listen to others. I will allow others to get attention from the DM.
I will make by best effort to come on time and stay until the end.
Some people would rather not be identified on social media or outside of our group. I will not take photos or videos.
Rule of Thumb: I will not be a buttface.
*I would always interrupt here and tell them that that's a great time to walk into the hallway and count down from 10.
The Rule of Thumb was always their favorite.
Note that "no electronics" was not a rule. Given the nature of this specific club at this specific time, that wouldn't have been productive. People were generally ready to take their turn when it came time (the team planning thing helped with that, as did the distinct strict-but-fun atmosphere/culture we fostered), and electronics keep people entertained when we do have to take turns. And when you have to wait for 10 other people to take their turn before you go, believe me, allowing them to text friends or whatever was definitely worth any troubles it may have caused.
The community center provided free snacks (it was focused on serving LGBTQ+ youth and young adults, and their families and friends, and had a wide network of generous supporters, so it could do things like that) so I welcomed people to eat while playing, just not near the table. People quite often had their glasses of juice or cheese sticks or pita chips in a little bowl or scones or whatever, but they kept it at the second table we had, and would usually stand in the back corner of the room while they ate, setting it down when they needed to come to the map table to take their turn. A couple of times each session, someone usually zoned out and ate/drank while at the map table (even water - while it isn't sticky, water damage is still bad for maps and books) and I would interrupt myself to quickly and calmly ask them "Please don't eat at the table," and then moved on immediately. Maybe it takes some finesse to not sound mean or angry when you do it, maybe I just didn't feel mean or angry. But no one ever seemed offended or anything, and they were always quite sincere in being like "Oh yeah! Oops!" and then they'd solve the problem themselves.
I've run (and played) quite a few large tables in my time...here's my quick tips!
#1: Focus on combat. It's hard to tell an intrigue/plot/roleplay focused game with a ton of people—some will inevitably get lost or ignored, and it's hard to keep focus. Combat-centered stories make sure everyone gets equal screen time! Keep the story super simple, and make sure NPCs talk to or test each individual character, so everyone says something.
#2: Everyone is a hero. When three characters have their own unique alignments and motivations, it's interesting and dramatic. When six to eight do, it's chaotic. Make it clear to the players that all the characters, whether they're motivated by gold or heroism, must work together for the task at hand. No evil characters, meme characters, or "super deep" characters.
#3: Speed up turns. Experienced players should be thinking about what to do on other people's turn, and newbies should be learning by watching. Ask people to please put away their phones, and, since they're new, give them two or three options on each turn: "you can cast Sacred Flame on the orc, or you can use your Healing Word to save Timmy."
P.S. Since your players are new, consider pregenerating characters and avoiding spellcasters for the first game or two. Heck, you can go all fighters, with different races and weapon styles! (Lord of the Rings is basically all fighters, and it's one of the greatest fantasy stories of all time.)
I regularly run games with larger groups and one tip that I can offer is to have the players help you manage the game. Farm out jobs like keeping track of initiative, tracking hit points, and managing miniatures. This frees you up to manage the game more effectively and these tasks are not so complicated that new players can't manage them. You can also still keep things that should remain secret like hit point maximums and monster initiative unknown, i.e. the players will know a certain monster has taken X damage, but not how many hit points it has left.
Since the group will be learning consider adjusting the challenge rating in their favor for the first few sessions so they don't feel overwhelmed. I assume you are starting at first level, if you are not then you should as higher level characters have a more powers and abilities to keep track of.
Try to be firm with your players without being a jerk. My players, for instance, know that when I say "Who's next?" in combat they need to shut their mouths and play. Assigning jobs to players also helps in this regard since they have less time to BS, it also gives them a sense of involvement even when it is not their turn.
Finally, I always stand when I am running my game. I rarely sit. It helps with roleplaying since you can incorporate a wider range of gestures and it shows the players that you are putting in serious effort and so they should too.
I host a weekly group of eight players. We've been playing for two years. I have tried a variety of techniques to balance out combat but what we are currently doing now works pretty well even using a standard adventure. We're currently in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. If we have 6 players, I double the enemies health. If we have eight players, I double their health and the bad guys all get two turns per round with the second turn being their initiative minus ten. It's worked great and way better than just doubling the number of enemies. I also tend to double up on certain things they find. Gold they find is doubled, health potions they find are doubled, and I tend to hide extra magic items around so that there will be enough for everyone. Other than that, it's pretty much the same advice you'll find for a campaign of any size.
Start simple. No sandbox style games for a while. Keep them pointed toward the end goal. If almost all are new, let an experienced player know more stuff on the game so they can help guide. Just make sure they do not take away from what the others are doing. Use them as a reserve for when the party gets stuck.
Make cheat sheets for the new people so they can quickly figure out what and how to do their actions. Sometimes talking to them about what they want to play and making them a pre-made character helps break decision paralysis.
Social stuff will be very hard as they said above. But that is needed. 5e does not seem to work real well as a 1e or 4e hack-a-thon style dungeon crawls from what I have run.
I know KidPenguin said to avoid combat, but kicking the buttocks of evil is part of the fun. You just have to stream-line it and get a good feel. I have experimented with increasing the number of actions and HP of the monsters. You have to be careful so they do not take down individual characters too quickly.
Could try to group characters together with backgrounds and history for a few people and an experienced person. That way they can help out with things. With my group of 5, I often have to remember what the 1 new person can do and remind them of it. Hardly ever, but I still do.
Depending on the age of the players, it is really important to put in situations for the players to shine. Let them have their moment of glory. Often the other players will talk about it as much as the person who did the actions.
I run a group of 6, and have done for about 2.5yrs since starting at level 1. I would strongly recommend using a published adventure. It's just easier. We ran Lost Mines of Phandelver and it was great. Starting at level 1 helps new players get an understanding of the mechanics of the game and their PC's abilities without being overwhelmed. It worked really well. The 2 main issues with a big group are table talk and combat. Combat 1: Let people know when they're turn is coming up. If they're prepared, it will make things so much quicker. 2: Mop up combat. This is a bt controversial, but if you have a long combat of 20 goblins and you're down to the last 3 who are hanging on by a couple of HP, there is nothing wrong with narrating a swift finish. But really, play this by ear. If you feel the combat has taken ages and your players are just going through the motions to an inevitable conclusion, there's nothing wrong with summing it up. Combat with 8 PC's can go for a long time.
Tabletalk 1: This really varies by group. Some groups have a pretty loose table where there is lots of chatting about weird tangents. Some groups are dialled in and don't say anything out of character. Most are somewhere in the middle. This is best to deal with in session 0, but a good option is for everyone to get there 30mins before the game (if possible) and have a good old chat to get it out of their system. If not, it'll be on you to keep it moving. There's nothing wrong, if they're taking forever, with telling them that while they were discussing what to do, the goblin escaped/snuck in/whatever. Force the issue. 2: The second part of table talk is talking over other people. This is rude, but happens when people get excited or have a sudden idea. If it happens too much, have a chat away from the table. Again, this should be convered in the Session 0. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, and if a CHARACTER is talking, let them have their moment.
Remove distractions. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly is phones are a distraction. You can have a "no phones" rule, but they can be pretty divisive.
My current group is 6 players and we are doing Dragon Heist. It's the first time I have DMed for this many people at once in a long term campaign (I have occasionally had up to the max of 7 at adventurer's league one shots) and it is interesting how 6 really feels like a lot even compared to 5. I wouldn't want to ever have more than 6, I think. My players are not complete newbies, but not experts either, most of them have been players in one other campaign before.
Most published adventures will work fine for 6. You will probably want to beef up some of the encounters slightly -- on the other hand, if your table are newbies, keeping it on the easier side may help. My go-to method of balancing encounters is to use the kobold fight club website. It is very simple to throw in an extra monster and check how that affects the expected difficulty.
Try and make sure everyone has a moment of getting the spotlight in RP (spotlight in combat should happen pretty naturally). In my dragon heist group, I've been using downtime activities at the beginning of sessions, which helps. One good framework for this is to have short "montage" RP scenes where you ask everyone for their input on something. "It takes a week for the caravan to make it safely to the next town. What sort of things were you each doing to pass time on the way?" That kind of thing. Some people take to RP very naturally and some may fade into the background a little bit and need encouragement.
My general advice for introducing newbies to D&D:
Start at level 1 (duh).
Restrict options a bit. I would have pregens on hand, maybe one for each class, but also tell them that they can make their own character from scratch if they don't want to use the pregens. Then be ready to walk them through that. Some people just want to sit down and get started right away and then learn by doing, but I also think that making your own character and considering the different options can be a really key moment of excitement for some new players, so I wouldn't restrict them to only deciding between pregens. If they want to make their own characters, I would highly recommend handing them the Standard Array of ability scores instead of having them point-buy. (Don't roll stats... please.)
Keep it classic at first. Don't start them with an adventure that is very heavy on roleplay, set in a particularly weird setting, has many extra rules, or something like that. Give them a classic "you meet in a tavern and then go fighting goblins in a dungeon and later there is a dragon" sort of adventure (but a well executed and fun version thereof) -- they are new, they are not bored of "D&D cliches" yet. Of the official adventures, I think Lost Mine of Phandelver and Sunless Citadel would be good picks. Probably the Essentials Kit adventure too, although I haven't read that one, I've heard it's good.
When they're trying to decide what to do (in combat or any other situation), give them mild prompts but make sure to emphasize that they can be free with what they decide. Say things like: "You could go up and try to negotiate with the guards, you could sneak around them, you could fight them -- but they look pretty dangerous -- or you could do any other thing you can think of."
In combat, new players are often thinking fiction-first and they come up with some sort of cool thing they want to try and do but that you don't have specific rules for. The Help and Dodge actions are both good benchmarks for adjudicating this -- they are quite abstract, giving advantage on the next attack against an adjacent enemy or giving disadvantage on the next attack against you (respectively) and can be used to model a lot of things. ("Can I put up my shield to block the next attack?" Dodge. "I want to throw sand in his eyes to distract him!" That can be Help.) I would also familiarize yourself with the rules for things like grapple and shove.
Give them a cheat sheet with lists of actions they can do in combat. Also, have enemies you're running use the more "unusual" actions sometimes because it helps remind your players those options are available to them. Have your NPCs Help or Disengage (or run away without disengaging and then your players get to make opportunity attacks) and say exactly what they're doing. "The kobold is scared of you and decides it wants out of this fight. It uses its action to Disengage and its movement to run away. It has no bonus actions so that's the end of its turn."
Make sure that YOU know what your PCs' abilities do. When I run for my experienced friends (a separate group I'm in -- all of us are DMs for other games, we get together every so often to do casual 2 or 3 session adventures that trade off on who's DMing), we don't have to look at each other's sheets and the DM of the moment trusts everyone to know the abilities and rules specific to their character. When your players are new to the game, you need to be able to answer their rules questions about their specific character. You don't have to learn how every single power in the entire game works, but it's good if you can (for example) remind your rogue how to Sneak Attack, or remember that your elves have advantage on saving against charm.
My general advice for making sure D&D goes quickly:
During combat, have a visible initiative list that everyone can look at. Cards on the top of your DM screen or something along those lines if you're playing in person, if you're using roll20 or some other virtual tabletop there's a turn tracker there.
This is your procedure for getting as quickly as possible from the moment you roll initiative to actually starting combat: "Everyone roll initiative! Don't tell me your numbers yet. Anyone get higher than 20, raise your hand? Okay, who got between 15 and 20?" [They say "I got 18" "I got 16" and you write that down.] "My monster got a 17. Who got 10 to 15?" ...and so on. It drives me crazy as a DM when everyone just starts shouting numbers out. Like no, I can't keep track of who said 8 different numbers coming at me immediately in a random order.
Use virtual dice-rolling tools and similar aids and encourage your players to do so as well if they're amenable to it (some people really prefer to roll physical dice). It is much faster for me to hit a "damage" button and instantly have it roll 2d6+5 than for me to physically pick up those dice and roll them and then do the math in my head. Yeah, it might only save you a couple seconds but those couple seconds can legitimately add up over the course of all those different attacks and encounters and sessions.
Tell the players exactly the DC they're trying to hit when they make a check or a saving throw, especially if they're doing so as a group (like against an AoE threat). "Roll a Wisdom save and get higher than 15." "I succeed." is faster than "Roll a Wisdom save." "I got a 17." "You succeed." You can also just tell them a monster's AC after a round or two of combat.
Use visual aids to help everyone keep track of conditions, bonuses, and things like inspiration. You could get condition cards that say what the conditions do on them, or use token markers on a virtual tabletop.
If players get bogged down in arguing over what to do next, you might have to break in and moderate it. "It sounds like you're torn between X and Y. I'll remind you that you know [[recap relevant things they've figured out so far]]. Can I get an agreement on your next move?"
If you hit a moment of rules confusion, make a ruling on the spot and tell the players "We'll do it like this for right now, and figure out what the exact rules are supposed to be after the session is over."
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Does anyone have pointers for DMing for a group of 6 players a majority of which have never played before? I haven't been able to find any adventures suited to larger groups of players.
I am unable to split them up and the group would prefer to all learn at once and play together.
The problem is going to be SLOW. Six players that do not know what they are doing will take forever.
I would do a session 0 with each player alone. Don't try to min/max the character, do everything based on desire rather than what works. Build the character quickly. Then teach them everything they can do.
When you play Session 1, use a minute hourglass from some board game you got. Players have to do act quickly or lose their turn. Before each turn say "John, your turn. Beth think of what you want to do next." (works better if you use their actual character names :D)
Heyo. I've done this. I used to run a DND club at a local community center, geared towards ages 12-25. Some weeks we'd have 3 people. Some weeks we'd have 12. Mostly, we had 10-12. Let me tell you what I figured out that made it MUCH easier:
1.) Context. the room we were using at the center had a very specific schedule, so I had 15 minutes to set up and 15 minutes to take down, and 1:30 to actually play. Take that as you will. Also, it was an Acquisitions Incorporated-styled campaign with episodic sessions (we had company positions like the Acq Inc book provides, but those were primarily aesthetic and RP-focused. Juggling all those mechanics on top of the rest of the race/class/etc structure would have been unwieldy for such a large group of inexperienced players, but they really enjoyed having those positions).
2.) I had a strict code of conduct. I'll post and analyze that in another comment. We passed it around the group at the start of each session, and took turns reading one item each from it. Some of those were unique to the specific community center. Some apply well across age groups and such. Having a code of conduct that we reviewed at the start of each session gave the message that we were here to have fun, but we will be respectful, organized, and classy. It definitely helped.
3.) Beginner players had limited options for character options. This is a favor to both them and me - having to choose between 9+ races and 12+ classes (nevermind subclasses, subraces, and stuff not in the PHB) is intimidating. I gave them four racial options: human, elf, dwarf, or hobbit. 4 options is easy, and those are the biggest 4 races in the Forgotten Realms. For classes, I didn't restrict them as much, but I suggested they play one of the following: fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric. Again, 4 options is easier than 12/13. But for those who wanted to play another class, I would typically let them. Almost every beginner who didn't want to play one of those 4 options wanted to be a druid or artificer. I thought that was very interesting. Anyways. Restricting them to certain racial/class options made it easier for them to choose, and made it easier for me as the DM to help them when they were confused with features and stuff, because I didn't have to remember details on the whole PHB. Just a much smaller portion. Much more manageable.
Experienced players were welcome to make a character using any race/class combinations from official sources (Unearthed Arcana was always with permission only, and typically I only allowed 'live' UA content). To determine whether a player was experienced or not, I asked them two questions: Do you know what DNDBeyond is, and do you know what Unearthed Arcana is. Typically if they said no to both questions, I considered them a beginner. If they did know what both were, they were clearly experienced enough. If they only knew one, eh, I kinda just went with whatever seemed right.
4.) Combat. I avoided combat like the plague. The first time we did combat was inconveniently also the day we had the most people ever. 12 level 1 characters v. 1 otyugh. That was a blast. Waiting for your turn in combat is typically the #1 thing that bogs down DND, so the quick fix was avoid combat. Have skill-based and critical thinking-based and roleplay-based challenges instead. They REALLY enjoyed those types of challenges. See #6.) First Session for more on that.
Similarly, when we did have combat, I went with an optional rule from the DMG that my cousin pointed out to me: do away with initiative. I taught the players about the 1 action, 1 bonus action, movement system. I told them to work together to figure out what they all wanted to do with their turns as a team, and then assigned one person to let me know when everyone was ready. That system was great; it supported team work, those who grasped the concepts a little better could help those who were still learning, and it invited them to strategize and use the full library of combat options, not just Attack, in clever ways. For example, putting a character with high AC and lots of HP up next to an enemy and they always take the dodge action, while ranged weapon and spellcasters stood back and bombarded the enemy. Coordinating to figure out what you want to do as a group makes that a lot easier to do.
If the players expected a fight, I would have the party go first, and then the enemies. If the players weren't expecting a fight, I would have the enemies go first, and then the players.
5.) Character creation/Session 0. Given the premise of our adventure, everyone being a Junior Intern at the Waterdeep branch of Acquisitions Incorporated, I made a double sided, 1 page "application." It was basically a story-focused barebones character sheet. I provided nonspecific options for things like "Where are you from?" and "Why are you interested in joining our company?" The new players really appreciated having options to work off of. "Where are you from" included options like "The city (the safe part)" "The city (the scary part)" "A small farm or village" "The mountains" "The forests" "The desert" "The arctic," etcetera. That way they don't need to know anything about Luskan, the Field/Dock wards of Waterdeep, etcetera. This continued with the theme of using words and concepts that the players were probably already familiar with. "Why are you interested in joining our company?" included options like "My parents/deity forced me to," "After my recent release from prison, I am legally obligated to apply for work programs" (that one was very popular), "I just lost my job and am desperate for anything," "I am evil and I want to do crimes," "I am investigating Acquisitions Incorporated for illegal activity" (those applications were all immediately rejected), "Cute secretary" (also very popular), "Other: _______" Again, this system got them thinking about stories, and provided a great and entertaining launch pad for further story development.
For ability scores, I decided to assign all new players to use an array. I could have gone with the standard array, but I like statistics and game design, so I did a lot of math and theorycrafting, and came up with this alternative array: 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16. Having two abilities with negative modifiers emotionally prepared them for failure, increasing general emotional resilience. Having a guaranteed +3 or better to at least one ability made them feel competent. Being assigned numbers made it easy. Using the standard array would also be just fine. If you want, I can explain more later why I chose those specific numbers, why most are odd, why the higher ones are even, etcetera.
We saved classes, backgrounds, proficiencies, and other most statistics-and-detail-oriented things for the second session. This was primarily due to our time constraint, but it was really helpful for them to focus on the basics of DND (story, rolling d20s and adding/subtracting modifiers, critical thinking, imagination, and team work) before adding those extra things on. In the future, I think I'll repeat that system when I play with groups of lots of new players.
6.) First adventure. I wanted them to have a REALLY basic adventure to address. No bells. No whistles. No combat. No proficiencies. No classes. No conditions. No hit points (damage was entirely story based - "You got scratched and that probably hurts"). Nothing. All they had was: their race, their story, and their ability scores and modifiers (with racial bonuses included). Their task: an old woman has come to the Acq Inc agency to ask for help acquiring her pet cats, who have run up and gotten themselves stuck in trees at the local park. Conveniently, there was exactly one cat per players. I told the players: you can decide how to do this. You can split up. You can go in small groups. You can go in one group. Do what you'd like. Talk, and let me know when you have a plan. They decided to split into two groups, and it went great. When they said they wanted to try something (e.g. climb a tree, calm the cat down, etcetera) I wouldn't tell them "Make an athletics/animal handling check." I told them "Make a Strength/Wisdom check." They had all the normal dice in front of them, but they basically only ever used the d20 that session. This was very on purpose. When I play with new players, the #1 most time consuming concern is trying to find the right die. This got them used to finding the right die, and the most common die. This got them used to rolling a d20 and adding a number to see if the number was high enough. This got them used to critical thinking. Rolling d20s is absolutely central to DND logistics, so having the first session be all about that was VERY helpful and they had a lot fewer concerns with that in future sessions, compared to other new players I've had where I haven't done that.
7.) General concept: work together to figure out what you'd like to do, and then let me know when you're ready. I did this with combat. I did this with problem solving/critical thinking. It went fantastically - we weren't taking turns, but we didn't need to take turns. Part of this success was due to the code of conduct as well.
8.) General concept: splitting into smaller groups. In my much experience, I've found the absolute maximum a group can be a small/medium group and still cohesive is 8 people. After that, and they start splitting up into smaller groups. I don't know exactly why it is exactly 8, but that is consistently the maximum with almost every group I've ever been in (group projects, parties, etcetera). If we had 8 or more players (meaning me + them = 9 or more people) I would usually divide the group into smaller groups. For example, one day the task was to advertise for the company so you could get more jobs. We had 12 people there. I split them into three groups of 4 by where they were sitting, and let them know they absolutely didn't have to stay in those specific groups, but there should only be 4 in each group. I followed the concept in #7, where I told them to make a plan together and let me know when they were ready. By this point, one character's story had been developed enough that we knew their parents lived in town and ran a moderately successful microbrewery. They went and got beer to sell at the Market for cheap, and told every customer about their services. They took a critical thinking approach and it worked great. Another group decided to make fliers and do street performances - I had them do performance checks and use the community center's art supplies to make actual fliers. Coloring is fun, even for 20-somethings. They took more of a skill-focused approach, and it worked great. The last group spent most of the time just talking and hanging out. I didn't mind - they were having a great time. Eventually I came to them and asked if they had a plan. They just so happened to be 3 rogues and a dastardly sorcerer, so they decided to go pickpocketing. I let them. One of them failed an attempt, and ended up getting chased by the police, getting thrown in jail, and having to make a new character. They had a great time. (I made sure they knew well in advance that this was a likely outcome).
We also had a drinking contest, which was a series of Constitution saving throws. Best 2 out of 3 between pairs of characters. Last one standing wins. If you failed too many saving throws, you also took the poisoned condition for the rest of the session, as you were drunk.
9.) Delegation. I was the one responsible to clean up. With a bit of training, everyone knew to stay after for those 15 minutes of clean up to, well, clean up. They would work together to put all the character sheets back in the character sheet folder, all my dice in my dice bag, folded the map(s) properly and put them away, etcetera. I also had one or two people each day who were the ones in charge of letting me know when the group had a plan. Typically, a Secretarian would let me know when the group had made a plan. The Votemonger would direct the group when they needed to vote to determine what their plan was. The Hoardmaster kept track of what type of treasure the group gathered along the way. Someone kept track of NPCs they could potentially contact in the future. It was fantastic. It's like a barn raising - when the whole community comes out to set up, play, clean up, and bear a small part of the responsibility, it goes smoothly and you get a lot of work done in a day!
The club was very successful and very popular. A few municipal government leaders even praised us on it (they happened to be on a tour of the center while the club was running). It ended when school started up for the public school and college students. We were going to do it again this year, but due to the international plague, the community center is closed for a while.
I hope some of this is helpful.
Here was the Code of Conduct we used.
Code of Conduct
Welcome to Waterdeep.
Dungeons and Dragons participants agree to the following code of conduct:
Rule of Thumb: I will not be a buttface.
*I would always interrupt here and tell them that that's a great time to walk into the hallway and count down from 10.
The Rule of Thumb was always their favorite.
Note that "no electronics" was not a rule. Given the nature of this specific club at this specific time, that wouldn't have been productive. People were generally ready to take their turn when it came time (the team planning thing helped with that, as did the distinct strict-but-fun atmosphere/culture we fostered), and electronics keep people entertained when we do have to take turns. And when you have to wait for 10 other people to take their turn before you go, believe me, allowing them to text friends or whatever was definitely worth any troubles it may have caused.
The community center provided free snacks (it was focused on serving LGBTQ+ youth and young adults, and their families and friends, and had a wide network of generous supporters, so it could do things like that) so I welcomed people to eat while playing, just not near the table. People quite often had their glasses of juice or cheese sticks or pita chips in a little bowl or scones or whatever, but they kept it at the second table we had, and would usually stand in the back corner of the room while they ate, setting it down when they needed to come to the map table to take their turn. A couple of times each session, someone usually zoned out and ate/drank while at the map table (even water - while it isn't sticky, water damage is still bad for maps and books) and I would interrupt myself to quickly and calmly ask them "Please don't eat at the table," and then moved on immediately. Maybe it takes some finesse to not sound mean or angry when you do it, maybe I just didn't feel mean or angry. But no one ever seemed offended or anything, and they were always quite sincere in being like "Oh yeah! Oops!" and then they'd solve the problem themselves.
I've run (and played) quite a few large tables in my time...here's my quick tips!
#1: Focus on combat. It's hard to tell an intrigue/plot/roleplay focused game with a ton of people—some will inevitably get lost or ignored, and it's hard to keep focus. Combat-centered stories make sure everyone gets equal screen time! Keep the story super simple, and make sure NPCs talk to or test each individual character, so everyone says something.
#2: Everyone is a hero. When three characters have their own unique alignments and motivations, it's interesting and dramatic. When six to eight do, it's chaotic. Make it clear to the players that all the characters, whether they're motivated by gold or heroism, must work together for the task at hand. No evil characters, meme characters, or "super deep" characters.
#3: Speed up turns. Experienced players should be thinking about what to do on other people's turn, and newbies should be learning by watching. Ask people to please put away their phones, and, since they're new, give them two or three options on each turn: "you can cast Sacred Flame on the orc, or you can use your Healing Word to save Timmy."
P.S. Since your players are new, consider pregenerating characters and avoiding spellcasters for the first game or two. Heck, you can go all fighters, with different races and weapon styles! (Lord of the Rings is basically all fighters, and it's one of the greatest fantasy stories of all time.)
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I regularly run games with larger groups and one tip that I can offer is to have the players help you manage the game. Farm out jobs like keeping track of initiative, tracking hit points, and managing miniatures. This frees you up to manage the game more effectively and these tasks are not so complicated that new players can't manage them. You can also still keep things that should remain secret like hit point maximums and monster initiative unknown, i.e. the players will know a certain monster has taken X damage, but not how many hit points it has left.
Since the group will be learning consider adjusting the challenge rating in their favor for the first few sessions so they don't feel overwhelmed. I assume you are starting at first level, if you are not then you should as higher level characters have a more powers and abilities to keep track of.
Try to be firm with your players without being a jerk. My players, for instance, know that when I say "Who's next?" in combat they need to shut their mouths and play. Assigning jobs to players also helps in this regard since they have less time to BS, it also gives them a sense of involvement even when it is not their turn.
Finally, I always stand when I am running my game. I rarely sit. It helps with roleplaying since you can incorporate a wider range of gestures and it shows the players that you are putting in serious effort and so they should too.
Good luck. I hope you have a great game.
I host a weekly group of eight players. We've been playing for two years. I have tried a variety of techniques to balance out combat but what we are currently doing now works pretty well even using a standard adventure. We're currently in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. If we have 6 players, I double the enemies health. If we have eight players, I double their health and the bad guys all get two turns per round with the second turn being their initiative minus ten. It's worked great and way better than just doubling the number of enemies. I also tend to double up on certain things they find. Gold they find is doubled, health potions they find are doubled, and I tend to hide extra magic items around so that there will be enough for everyone. Other than that, it's pretty much the same advice you'll find for a campaign of any size.
I run a group of 6, and have done for about 2.5yrs since starting at level 1. I would strongly recommend using a published adventure. It's just easier. We ran Lost Mines of Phandelver and it was great. Starting at level 1 helps new players get an understanding of the mechanics of the game and their PC's abilities without being overwhelmed. It worked really well. The 2 main issues with a big group are table talk and combat.
Combat
1: Let people know when they're turn is coming up. If they're prepared, it will make things so much quicker.
2: Mop up combat. This is a bt controversial, but if you have a long combat of 20 goblins and you're down to the last 3 who are hanging on by a couple of HP, there is nothing wrong with narrating a swift finish. But really, play this by ear. If you feel the combat has taken ages and your players are just going through the motions to an inevitable conclusion, there's nothing wrong with summing it up. Combat with 8 PC's can go for a long time.
Tabletalk
1: This really varies by group. Some groups have a pretty loose table where there is lots of chatting about weird tangents. Some groups are dialled in and don't say anything out of character. Most are somewhere in the middle. This is best to deal with in session 0, but a good option is for everyone to get there 30mins before the game (if possible) and have a good old chat to get it out of their system. If not, it'll be on you to keep it moving. There's nothing wrong, if they're taking forever, with telling them that while they were discussing what to do, the goblin escaped/snuck in/whatever. Force the issue.
2: The second part of table talk is talking over other people. This is rude, but happens when people get excited or have a sudden idea. If it happens too much, have a chat away from the table. Again, this should be convered in the Session 0. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, and if a CHARACTER is talking, let them have their moment.
Remove distractions. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly is phones are a distraction. You can have a "no phones" rule, but they can be pretty divisive.
My current group is 6 players and we are doing Dragon Heist. It's the first time I have DMed for this many people at once in a long term campaign (I have occasionally had up to the max of 7 at adventurer's league one shots) and it is interesting how 6 really feels like a lot even compared to 5. I wouldn't want to ever have more than 6, I think. My players are not complete newbies, but not experts either, most of them have been players in one other campaign before.
Most published adventures will work fine for 6. You will probably want to beef up some of the encounters slightly -- on the other hand, if your table are newbies, keeping it on the easier side may help. My go-to method of balancing encounters is to use the kobold fight club website. It is very simple to throw in an extra monster and check how that affects the expected difficulty.
Try and make sure everyone has a moment of getting the spotlight in RP (spotlight in combat should happen pretty naturally). In my dragon heist group, I've been using downtime activities at the beginning of sessions, which helps. One good framework for this is to have short "montage" RP scenes where you ask everyone for their input on something. "It takes a week for the caravan to make it safely to the next town. What sort of things were you each doing to pass time on the way?" That kind of thing. Some people take to RP very naturally and some may fade into the background a little bit and need encouragement.
My general advice for introducing newbies to D&D:
My general advice for making sure D&D goes quickly: