I’m going to start running this game within the next week or so, and a sudden shift in schedules means that I’ll have seven players. Does anyone have any experience with or suggestions for running the game for that large of a group? My initial thoughts are to lean toward missions that allow for or outright require two smaller teams working simultaneously. This is my first PbtA game, but I have a ton of experience with other stuff.
I’m going to start running this game within the next week or so, and a sudden shift in schedules means that I’ll…
I’m going to start running this game within the next week or so, and a sudden shift in schedules means that I’ll…
For “my first PbtA game,” my totally sincere first reaction is top suggest to split into a game of 3 and a game of 4, if it’s possible. Two-team missions sounds very clever, though, if your players don’t get bored when it’s not their turn in the spotlight.
Experience with other stuff doesn’t necessarily translate over to PbtA games. I found that out the hard way when my first games were disasters.
But I strongly agree with Jason Tocci here. Seven players is far too many for a PbtA game in my opinion. Find a way to drop that down to four, even if it means splitting the players into two groups and alternating play days.
I’m not sure that having two teams operating simultaneously will make much difference to the workload – regardless of how you group them, you’re still having to alternate attention among all seven players.
I’m not saying that grouping them isn’t a good idea from a story point of view… I’m just not sure that it will make managing that many players easier.
Woah, yeah, I slipped a sixth person into my very first playtest (and there’s a reason I never repeated that!) and I’ve since run it for five on occasion, but generally 4 is my upper limit.
I’m currently running five players in my PbTA AW game, with a few players dropping out every so often. It’s rare we ever have the full compliment. Some advice: SCREENTIME IS KEY is situations like this, and you should always have something for each player to be pursuing
That said, perhaps your campaign revolves around two spearate teams forced to work together. Consider this: At chargen, you have your players decide who works with who. They each do history as normal, boom, you’ve two teams of runners. Then start asking the teams history questions about the other runners. Maybe your fist job can be set up ‘Big Fish’ style, two sides of the same story? THere are a lot of fun opportunities here, but they’re probably complex and difficult to achieve if you’re inexperienced as an MC in any PbtA..