Hey guys,

I am in the process of creating a group of 7 players for an after school club. Most know the rich history of 40k some don't, most don't know the system but its a process that will be learned over the course of some weeks.

Basically this is the biggest group i've run with so far and i'm l'm looking for tips on running a large group.

any tips or suggestions welcome Thanks

Est_1987 said:

Get yourself a timer of some sort. Limit everybodys turn to a minute or two. Groups that big can get bogged down in inactivity and side conversations.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Thanks this will certainly help. It will also add tension to missions I have planned

You could also have the group leader (whomever that is each mission) act as your helper, keeping the rest of the group in line and serving as a kind of liason between you and the rest....allow him/her to take some of the load off yer back...if the group leader can wrangle the other players, then you can take the time to wrangle the plot/npc's.

Encourage players to think about what they are going to do on their turn *before* their turn comes around. Assuming no drastic changes in the battlefield in the meantime, on their next turn they can focus on carrying out those actions.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I run for a group of 6 over MapTools and this is required. They get 60 seconds when their initiative comes up to declare an action and ask for mods. Any longer and they get skipped. It just doesn't work if they have too much time...nothing gets done.

I wouldn't.

If you are set on having that many, I'd break them into two separate squads, 4 man, 3 man and run two games but have them constantly communicating.

Doubles the work for you which is also not good.

If you are set on having that many and having them all play together have two squads with a squad leader each and have the leader keep them in line.

Timer is a good idea but honestly having that many is going to be a nightmare.

I run with seven players myself and it can be tricky. If I had to give one piece of advice, it'd be do group character greation where everyone gets together at the same time, discusses the character htey want to play and the group they'll have in the game. With seven players you may find there's a lot of cross over in talents, skills and traits and some players might start getting irritated that someone else is stepping on their toes - or worse - feeling that their character isn;t as important as the others. Either one of those scenarios is a good way to lose players in a bad bay

Your new best friend will be large scale set pieces that specifically have a role for everyone to fill. I'd recommend watching action films with large casts and watching how they all work together - that's what you'll need to promote. Another good one to watch - and to make other people watch - would be better for a DH or RT game admittedly... Oceans 11. A large group of people working together, using their skills to support the whole.

Be prepared to put aside half a session or more for the preperatoin stage of missions. Given that keeping four gamers attention at once can be practically impossible, with seven players you'll probably want to prepare mission handouts. A piece of paper with a listing of the missions, a brief summary of the mission overview, how much requisition they have (and I do a map because I'm a sucker for punishment).

It's a lot of work, but it's totally doable.

Cheers for the tips guys,

The splitting the groups into two squads is something I could defintly use, having a trusted mature member of the group be designated leader.

The preperation stages of the missions are going to take up a lot of session time but in this time the group will be given planet info, enemy info etc to try fully prepare them for whats to come.

Thanks for the tips guys keep 'em coming

I would like to add two suggestions, I have run large groups in the past and I found having a miniature or some sort of token to represent players during battles is crucial. You don't have to recreate the entire battle but giving players some semblance of where they are and what they are attacking can go a long ways towards keeping things moving, so that player 6 doesn't mistakenly attack something player three already killed etc. The other suggestion is finding out what their specialties are and link them together and having them act on the same initiative. I.E. assault marines assault at the same time, devastators firing etc. This way you don't have 7 independent actions but actions by role in the party. My largest party was 8 and this helped alot, especially with team building, the devs would lay low the hordes while the assault marines cut down the elites, it felt like a true battle once the sequences were figured out.