I encountered MotW through “The Adventure Zone” podcast and loved the focus on collaborative storytelling and simple mechanics. So I did an open call among my work colleagues and got 6 people interested in playing. I thought I’d be lucky to find 4!
My understanding is that 5 hunters is really the ideal maximum. I don’t want to discourage anyone from playing, so if indeed all 6 commit, any tips on managing a large group? This will be the first time I run a game. I hope to run my mystery write-up by you guys before we play, if you’re willing to have a look 🙂 Thanks!
I prefer to run just about any game with only four players. But MotW (or any game really) can work with more.
My tip would be to explain spotlight time to the group. Say that you’re happy so many people want to play, and that you’ll try your best to make sure everyone gets as much spotlight time as possible. Say that with six Hunters in the game, individual spotlight time will be spread a little thin and ask for people to be understanding.
Explain that it would be really helpful for players to find reasons for their characters to form pairs or groups with each other, so that everyone is involved in the story as much as possible.
Running large isn’t as big a problem as it might otherwise be as 4/6 people are usually available even with the best of initial intentions
My guess is you will find that all six will not always be able to play…
True enough. I’m kind of hoping that at our first session, at least one of them will decide to hold off. Most of them have never played RPGs before, but they seemed really gung ho. We’ll see!
Aaron Dalton If you get overwhelmed you might try two groups…
Six is manageable, but just be conscious that everyone is getting a chance to contribute. You may also need to pause the action now and again to make sure everyone has the same idea about what is currently happening.
I’ll echo Michael Sands . With seven players (yourself included) you might have to pause things to check that everyone is on the same page more frequently. More people at the table means more interpretations of what’s happening in game.
myself I agree with everything said above. I have run DW with a large cast but my weekly MotW game has 4 and my new online has currently 3 with an open spot for a 4th later. if I had more than 4, I would ether rotate cast members as they do in Tumbesome County. or run two parallel groups in the same world or maybe the same city, so we can have cross over 😀