I'm running for 11 players right now with only 3 hour sessions every couple weeks as a single GM. Anyone have advice on the subject?

You could split it into 2 groups or schedule weekly games...If you only do one game a month for that many people, you are going to be cutting quite a few corners and not be able to personalize session for characters very much.

You may need to trim the number of players by about half. Thats going to sound kind of harsh, but 11 players with only 3 hours of time? I'm currently running a game for 3 players, and after three sessions, we are barely half way through the intro module at the back of EotE. Our sessions are about 4 to 5 hours long, and thats with a 'everyone arrives, sit down, "When last we left our heroes...", start playing' mentality, you know?

Wow, 11? The most I've ever run for is 6! A word of advice though, ask everyone what they want to do, it can save you some time when it comes to coming up with brand new session ideas. Other than that, you could try running published adventures. But don't try to focus too heavily on one or two players, try to get everyone involved. It could be quite the challenge, though, making balanced encounters when you need to account for 11 PCs. Speaking of which, are they all combat focused? What specs do they have? Knowing that can be a good first step towards making campaigns

I'm running for 11 players right now with only 3 hour sessions every couple weeks as a single GM. Anyone have advice on the subject?

That's way too many. It's kind to invite people but a single round of even a simple combat would take forever, to say nothing of trying to make sure everyone gets something to do besides combat every session.

You are crazy. Cut down the number of players.

Wow, 11? The most I've ever run for is 6! A word of advice though, ask everyone what they want to do, it can save you some time when it comes to coming up with brand new session ideas. Other than that, you could try running published adventures. But don't try to focus too heavily on one or two players, try to get everyone involved. It could be quite the challenge, though, making balanced encounters when you need to account for 11 PCs. Speaking of which, are they all combat focused? What specs do they have? Knowing that can be a good first step towards making campaigns

So far things are going well. Combat moves much faster than dnd, which helps quite a bit. I'm handling small details by between game messaging to give each player a chance to get more personal stuff done. Everyone's having fun so far, but I'm sure there are issues I haven't thought of.

In terms of campaign stuff, I've got a world set up post The Force Awakens with characters they interact with having goals and timelines. I reconcile these with what the players do, and try to adjust accordingly. Closer to a sandbox style with me dropping lots of hooks and seeing what they bite on.

Balancing is definitely a part in not sure on at all. I take standard stat blocks and give them a bit better equipment and higher thresholds, but it's really a guessing game if a challenge holds up.

I can't really split it up or run more often due other RPGs and scheduling in general. It's basically just a window for everyone to have a good time together, hit some interesting high points to have us discussing for a couple weeks, and collectively tell an interesting story.

Hi Zyxba,

how to handle that? 11 PC with different goals and timelines on top screams like this: PC Bountyhunter: Wait we are not going to do XY? Ok I am out.... anyone in for some extra Cr.? 2 other PCs also want to leave.

11 is just so **** hard. How to give them their personal "Star Wars moment" with 11 guys you need to track a lot of NSC. How to fight a nemisis? 11 PCs slot vs. 2 Nemisis Slots with Adversary 4+?

Make two groups out of them and mix them up from time to time.

Split the party and learn to toss problems to players. When they're discussing things among themselves, they're busy, having fun, and not taking up your time.

Try to learn multi-tasking so you can handle two or three separate encounters/conversations at once. Context shifting is important, so try to have consolidated resources for each sub-group.

For example, the party comes to a planet to find out about an archaeological (Jedi temple) site. One group talks to merchants, one group talks to mercenaries, one group talks to the local government authorities and one group talks to the librarians. That's 4 encounters you can squish together and handle simultaneously. Let the party discuss among themselves questions and answer them as rapidly as you can in context. If one party is taking up too much of your time, have a fight break out and put that sub-group into initiative. Then they're figuring out what to do in combat and you have more free time to respond to the other groups.

It's challenging to run groups this way, but, when it works, it's some of the best gaming in which I've ever been involved.

Eleven players is three groups. If this was a LARP, I would be envious. As a table-based GM, that's a problem as - and I hate to say it - those 11 players are (unintentionally) taking advantage of your willingness to GM and your willingness to accommodate everyone.

Yes, combat in FFG SW goes faster than D&D but outside of rules-heavy games like GURPS and Shadowrun, which have a lot of number crunching, all mainstream games run faster than D&D. That game is based on war-gaming rules and is molasses when it comes to resolving combat. The length of encounters has encouraged contemporary designers to develop games with more streamlined methods for resolving conflict.

I get that you're wanting advice on running a big group but the only advice I have is to take your 4 or 5 best players and make a smaller group. Or run two groups on alternating schedules, even if that means one group waits six weeks (or whatever). I sincerely believe the people in the smaller groups will thank you for limiting the number of players.

If you want to have all 11 players in the same group then my advice is to restart the campaign. Give them warning and let them know that any experience they have earned will transfer. Explain that the new game would be centered around leading a unit and have the players elect two people as squad leaders. One of the squad leaders can be the CO and the other the XO. During missions, the players relay what they want to do to their squad commander and let the squad commander worry about the minor details. During combat, give each Squad a slot for their action and let them decide the internal order for initiative. What this does is frees you from worrying about every individual character all the time and lets the squad leaders handle the minute details.

As far as where the squad stands in the GCW, let the players decide to be mercs, Rebels, or Imperials. Once chosen, they are then placed in that faction and take on missions from their employer based upon the events in the greater galaxy. The squad leaders and their squad members would plan and execute the missions. The missions can be anything from theft to assassination etc.... Also, the size of the group means that the scale of the game will be more epic than normal. Allow them to have a large enough ship, like a corvette, and a couple of assault shuttles. This way they are completely independent of command.

I did this when I ran a 12 person group in Twilight 2000 and in Robotech. It worked well and let me focus on the big details about the game.

We have 8 players.

Some initial thoughts.

- Communication will eventually get out of control. And making the group make a decision is going to be like watching Congress. What we did was setup a group leader for every session and then rotate who has leader every session. This way, when the group stagnates, you can turn to the group leader and say "what are you doing".

- No phones or other distractions (like reading books).

- No rules digging during game time, even if htis means making stuff up on the spot. One can always look it up during down time and fix next session.

- Over all, you are going to need a lot more structure than what people are typically use for gaming. Mainly becuase you have so many people and making sure everyone gets heard and that they all hear you is going require high levels of rigor and discipline.

Find one of them willing to be assistant GM. He can look up things in books, help run combats, run some of the NPCs etc. That way you can better focus on narrating.

Frankly at 8 players I'm starting to feel frazzled. You are a hero.

I have 12. The group rotates GM duties and we usually run a session on Sat and another on Sunday. Occasionally we get together for joint sessions where the teams are on different portions of the same map.