Hi all

I've got a couple of extra players coming to my next session, so I'll be running a party of 7, which is larger than any party I've run before. Ignoring whether this is a "good idea" or not, I just wondered what advice people had for running larger parties like this?

I've been scouring the forums, and so far I've got the following thoughts:

• Split the party (this is fairly common at my table anyway).
• Encourage quick decision-making (and potentially penalise indecisiveness). If players need time to think, move on to other players and come back to them.
• Keep combat encounters to a minimum. When combat does occur, having 1-2 larger groups of minions (perhaps with autofire) will result in speedier encounters than 5-6 smaller groups of minions (plus, I suppose, you can always divide them up if need be).

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

If you split the party, which is fine, make sure you rotate between all of them and what they are doing pretty frequently.

Absolutely move onto others if a player is stuck deciding. Something I picked up from Geek & Sundry's Critical Role was to say who's on deck, so that next player can begin to prepare just before their turn.

I think the composition matters less in terms of the enemies in combat, just that you don't let it go on too long. If it's dragging out, flip a dark destiny point and change something drastic that requires the group to rethink combat.

Another option is to do one final round where you use the one-check resolution rules to resolve the remaider of the encounter.

Another idea is to try and put the focus on the narrative and give the newcomers not only some information about what kind of game this is upfront regarding theme, roleplay and more but give them moments to be narrative and prompt narrative descriptions by asking them how they do things after they decide what they are going to do.

Hi all

So, I ran a session yesterday that had a fairly substantial combat...and when I say fairly substantial, I mean most of the session. 4 hours, nearly. I had 6 PCs at the table, fighting 1 nemesis, 1 rival and a bunch of minions (exact number of groups shifted throughout the combat).

I guess my question is this: is it unavoidable that, with this many PCs, combat is just going to take a long while? Or are there ways to speed it up?

Thanks in advance.

There will be some unavoidable increase in time, when you increase the number of people taking action. That's just a reality that can't be changed. 7 people take longer to take actions and roll dice than 4. However one thing that is nice about this system is that since the players decide the order in which they go , it's very easy to remind the players that THEY pick the rotation for PC's, and can thus let the people with a clear idea of what they want to do, act first, and the more methodical players can elect to use one of the lower action slots in the rotation.

Also, be sure to remind the PC's that they can take non-combat actions while in combat. So if you have some players, who didn't build combat monkeys, and are having difficulty thinking of how to be beneficial, be sure to provide stuff in the scene that is very obviously "This is something you can mess with to the benefit of the group" type of scene descriptions. If you have a mechanic or slicer, be sure to mention there is an NPC in the background, operating a liftloader crane or something. If you have a pilot, be sure to mention there are several speeders and speeder bikes parked in the area, ripe for a carjacking and utilization in combat. If you have a social character, perhaps have a nearby group of minion toughs that could be persuaded to work for the PC party for short term gain, either for profit "50 credits to every person who helps us out!" kind of thing. Or morality "Rise up people! Throw off the Imperial shackles! Attack!" etc.

Of course, those are mostly advice if part of the slow combat encounters, is due to indecision on the part of the players. If they are all comfortable with what they can do, and it's just a case of the time it takes to go through the motions, then try and remind them to think ahead for one thing.