A reader named Pete sent me a question about how to manage a group of six players. He is new to DMing and groups of more than five is giving him some trouble. Good question Pete, thanks for asking!

I’m going to assume Pete is running a face to face game. Personally, I won’t run more than five players in an online game. It’s not that it couldn’t be done, the characteristics of gaming over Zoom or Discord make a larger group game slower and more complex than I like.

Other than scheduling problems, the main issues of gaming with a large group of players are…

• Scaling the adventure so that the obstacles they face are challenging
• Keeping track of each character, what they are doing, where they are at
• Tracking time sensitive elements of the game like torches, movement, and duration of spells
• Maintaining the pace so that everyone stays engaged
• Managing the more assertive players so they don’t overshadow the less assertive players

Scaling combat encounters.

There’s been a long conversation about whether a referee should balance their combat encounters to the level of the characters. Like always, my answer is, “It depends.”

In a convention or single session game, I adjust combat encounters to be a challenge for the party. I don’t do that in an ongoing sandbox campaign where players are choosing where to go and what to do.

A group of 7 or 8 characters can quickly overwhelm a single monster who can only do one attack per round. I mitigate this by choosing a monster with a high armor class, multiple attacks per round, weapon immunities, or can nullify a large group of player characters with a magic effect. I like monsters who can do a lot of damage in one attack but can be destroyed in three or four rounds. That kind of monster is a threat but aren’t so likely to wipe out the entire party unless the PCs are careless and have a string of bad dice rolls.

Large numbers of weak monsters can be fun and are easy to scale up. For low level parties without a lot of magic, scale it by one 1 HD monster per hit die of PC’s. A party of 10 third level characters would encounter 30 goblins. High level characters with a 3 to 5 magic items each, casting 7th level and higher spells can slaughter hundreds with 1 hit die or less. If they have time to prepare and cast spells like summon elemental, any adversary who doesn’t have powerful magic or magic resistance is going to be a push over for large parties.

The other adventure properties

Traps, tricks, environmental obstacles don’t have to be scaled for a larger party. Having a larger party can make those problems harder to solve without adding more difficulty.

Environmental obstacles are effective for getting players to collaborate. A wall, a crevasse, a fast flowing river, or a vertical mine shaft presents a problem that requires players to help other players. Unless everyone in the party can fly or teleport, they’ll have to come up with a creative solution.

If I’m designing a dungeon for a larger group, I limit the number of narrow corridors and small rooms. If only one or two characters can get into a room or passage at a time, the thief character is going to be doing most of the playing while the fighter covering the rear of the marching order is going to spend a lot of time looking at his phone.

I put a lot of elements to interact with in at least a few locations where the party will be investigating. A large room with lots of doors, passages, statues, objects, secrets and clues allows everyone to get involved.

Keeping track of what’s going on

I make tracking simple, fast, and visual. I can’t hold a lot of information in my mind all at once. Reference sheets, tracking sheets, tokens, basic maps are the tools I prefer.

Whether I’m running a published adventure or making my own, I create adversary rosters. Sometimes I’ll use a word processor or spreadsheet to make a table or print out. Mostly, I hand write my references.

A battle mat and tactical tokens are the tool I prefer for keeping track of who is where. I do quick sketches and get the basic shape and locations down. I only include as much detail as necessary. I can’t hold where everyone is in my mind at once. A white board or reliable old sheet of graph paper works too.

I put as much info as I can on my maps. I copy or print out dungeon maps and make notes if I’m running a published module.

Managing time, magic spell duration, player character actions and locations is one of the biggest challenges to running a large group of players. I manage this using various tools to keep track of player characters and monsters/NPCs.

I have tried a bunch of different round and turn tracking methods. I get the best results from using sheets with check boxes, or some other visual method of notating how many turns we’ve gone in exploration mode. I’ve used this one from Save Vs. Dragon quite a bit. This freebie on the Old School Essentials site works too.

Keeping the game moving

Keeping players engaged is harder with large groups. With combat where everyone involved, that’s less of an issue. In exploration or social encounters, the tendency is for one or two players to take the lead while everyone else watches. The technique I employ is to go clock wise around the table and ask each player what they are doing right now. If a player wants to do something that requires several steps, I ask them the first thing they are doing and resolve that.

I quickly summarize what is happening after each rotation through the group. Sometimes I have to skip around the table. Working clockwise around the table, marking down time passage, making an encounter checks, checking for light and spell durations, and then repeating the process keeps things moving.

If someone pipes up that they are helping the character do something then I’ll note it down or move tokens on the battle map.

When there is a situation where only one player can do what needs done, like disarming a trap or lock, then I’ll get through it as quickly as possible.

If I’m in a social encounter, I prefer to do it in 3rd person narration. What are you trying to get across? What is your approach? Are you lying to the NPC? Intimidating them? Bribing them? I want to stay focused on the outcome they are trying to accomplish.

This is a general guideline. Some situations require a little more time or focus. Sometimes the situation dictates that one or two players take the lead on the interaction and other players are watching and listening.

Different players have different levels of assertiveness

Some players will assert themselves more than other players. The less assertive players may merely be quiet people who prefer to stay out of the spot light. Both things are fine as long as everyone is happy with the situation.

I watch for players who seem to be bored, frustrated, or irritated. If someone is checking their phone, stacking dice, doodling, sighing, rolling their eyes or doing anything that makes me think they might be bored, I try to pick up the pace of the game and get through whatever we are doing more quickly. Then I will purposely start with that person in my next rotation.

One thing that helps with this is making sure the adventure I’m creating or running is going to have challenges which are different from encounter to encounter. If there’s an encounter that is likely to get resolved through combat, I make the next one some other sort of challenge. I’ll add something peculiar or mysterious to the room where the combat took place for players to interact with. If I can, I try to create obstacles and adversaries that require collaborative effort to overcome.

If a quiet player seems to be reluctant to participate in player to player interactions I will gently insert myself into a conversation. I’ll ask the quiet player what they think about the situation and what they think the party should do. It’s rare that I have to do that more than once in a session. The more socially skilled and aware players in the group will take the hint and be sure to include the less assertive player in planning their next move.

Summing Up

Running for larger groups requires more preparation and organization than running for small groups. I can be a little lazy running for two or three players. With a large group, I have to be on top of the action. I have to track time, draw out encounters on the battle map, and keep players on track by asking them to give me one action at a time.

Considering how an adventure will play with a larger group also helps. It has the benefit of allow me to throw harder challenges at them but it can be slow and boring if I don’t manage the players effectively.