Last week I played last week my first session of Sagas as MC – with 4 players: man, woman, hauscarl and child. The players loved it: they’re in love with the spirit and atmosphere of the game, and their characters.
And now we have a problem.
They liked it so much that they invited another two players for the next session, so I will have to juggle six of them.
And I didn’t want to say no, because both of the new players are relatively new to RPGs and sounded so excited to try this out, that I didn’t want to turn them down (the campaign might last several months and it would be a bummer for the potential new players to have to wait so long).
I explained to them that they will have to do with less time under the spotlight, since we’re going to be a little too many at the table, but they’re all fine with that.
In this regard, I have to say I am a lucky MC: my players, when someone is not present in a scene, they do not play with phones, do not chat, but just listen to the others’ players adventures with interest.
So I hope this is not going to be an issue.
So… Does anyone have any suggestions on running the game with six players?
(besides bringing a very large paper for the relationships map)
I just wish you good luck with them. ;-P
Daniele Di Rubbo you know it’s all your f….ng fault.
Joking aside, a good start would be to create useful NPCs all connected through trangles. You cannot afford to have too many NPCs not connected to at least two (three or four better) characters.
Our one shot with Gregor Vuga featured six players, right?
Probably you are right, but, you know, Gregor Vuga is like the Sagas of the Icelanders-god. ;-P
I would never play with six players as MC.
of course. I just figured he may have some suggestions.
Yeah, but the action was spread pretty thin in our game wasn’t it? Like we needed two sessions to cover the ground you’d usually cover in one.
It’s doable, just a bit exhausting.
I will let you guys know how it goes.
To be honest I think our group is slower-paced than many others, and as I wrote my players are quite patient, and enjoy looking at others while they struggle, without too much demand for their own spotlight-time.
So it will probably take us three sessions, to cover what others will cover in two, or in one with less players 🙂 but I don’t mind and I guess they don’t either…
Also, we never play for more than 3 hours, which at least makes my MC’ing easier. The 3-hours limit is a line I asked them not to cross when I am the MC (after that amount of time, I just make a mess, and it’s not worth it)… and they’re happy with it. So again, I hope it won’t be too much taxing on me, the poor MC.
Anyway… triangles, triangles, triangles, and if anyone has more advice to give, please do!
Gregor Vuga I made the post a bit technical, but since this is the first time I write in this community I guess I should also mention that YOUR GAME IS FUCKING AWESOME! 🙂
(I gave the players the introduction speech about Iceland and instead of just rolling their eyes and dozing off, they were literally begging for me to give them more, more details… probably one of the best scenario I introduced a group to…)
Cool! Thanks for the feedback. 🙂