I may be faced with a group of twelve or more avid middle schoolers for Saturday's session.i ran 8 of them through Escape From Ms Shuuta and they stole the Imperial shuttle.m(they had a very good plan). Now what? Long Arm of the Hutt doesn't seem appropriate, and I don't really want to throw that large a group into Shadow of a Black Sun.

They really liked the game, ad love to shoot stuff and watch it go boom! But they also like epic stories. Any thoughts?

*facepalm*

Yeah, it's a volunteer gig at the public library. Usually my daughter is part of the mayhem.

Lol. Do you, by chance, have the AoR Beta?

Or any books from previous editions? Especially Saga?

....wow...

OK... Advice..... Ummm... Wow...

Well first off, can you handle 12? Most GMs have trouble with more then 6.

My next thought would be to go for an ensemble style game, ditch the 5 guys and a freighter formula and give them something bigger that can really support a larger crew. Maybe a marauder corvette and some fighters? Run the game like a star trek style TV series, or mass effect with long story adventures when you have time to plan and quickly missions when you are short on time, maybe with the players as pirates, mercs, or rebels. If you think it'll be an issue make the captain an NPC, acting as a quest giver, advisor, and plot this way sign.

Additionally, if you put them on a bigger ship you can keep a stash of pregens handy, use them as NPCs when you need, allow the players to swap out when their primary character won't work with the landing party, and as something to hand out should you end up with a party of 13 unexpectedly.

That's all I got for now...

Er...

Good luck and may the force be with you?

I'd probably go with The Magnificent Seven plot, though in your case The Terrific Twelve! Protect the poor settlement from a large gang of space bandits.

I think my hair just went a little more grey contemplating your plight.

There's lots of good advice here so I won't bother repeating it - but from a GM perspective, do you think you can give everyone enough playtime without having a lot of people sitting out? I don't suppose you could either split the group into two sessions or possibly recruit another GM?

Kudos to you for bringing some new gamers into the fold!

I think stuff from early DnD like having a 'caller' who acts as a filter between the GM and the rest of the players were developed to handle large parties like this.

And I think the Palladium guys tend to run large games, which I have often thought explains a fair bit about Palladium games. Maybe they have some notes on how to do it.

Maybe split the group in to 'fireteams' of four, each with a designated caller who determines what the members of his team want to do, and then conveys that information to the GM?

My recommendation: don't show up.

No, but seriously... Good luck!

Teach one of them to GM.

That, or organize three of them to serve as callers like Erik suggested. Run the game very light and loose in terms of narrative and don't get bogged down in the details of resolving a challenge/scene using more dice rolls or GM description than necessary.

Good luck.

Why doesn't Long Arm of the Hutt seem appropriate?

Why doesn't Long Arm of the Hutt seem appropriate?

Good thought. You could just have the captive dude on the Krayt Fang be a captive dude on the Lambda shuttle.

OR. You could have it so that there are a dozen spare suits of Stormtrooper armor onboard the shuttle, and your PCs could go off pretending to be stormtroopers somewhere. Cool possibilities at any rate.

Doomsday Protocol: Split them into two groups of six and either GM them one after the other or hire a co-GM.

Well,you seem to be in quite the pickle. With twelve players, I'd say that you better get ready for some big combat. Try to separate them into two groups. See if any of the others would be willing to be your wingman, by which I mean see if someone else can help with the game. They should all be in the same campaign, and have a very large ship, maybe a corvette of some kind, and could even start their own mercenary organization. From the looks of it, I'd say make them a squad of soldiers for hire, allowing a lot of combat. When you get into a big fight, have the group split in two, with one having you and the other having your co-GM, and have the game include a split fight as well.You'll probably have a lot of good times with large, disproportionate battles. If any player feels the need to roleplay, have them go seperate from the rest of the group so as to make sure that all goes well and no one shoots the NPC.

I'd personally suggest holding a smaller group, as I plan to have a group of five which seems a bit big yet just right. Twelve would be like God saying that all of those poorly thought out campaigns of my past have now come to haunt me in the form of a large, unorthodox group of tweeners who have come to wreak havoc on my soul and thusly ruin all things roleplay for the rest of their lives.

But if you want such a large group, that's fine, just be careful that you don't end up playing a game you don't enjoy. I'd suggest waiting for Age of Rebellion to come out so you can do large battles.

I actually did it a few years ago for my BA (in teaching English as a foreign language), with a modified (simplified) WEG rules. Only they were 15...

But, what I did: I split them into 3 groups of 4. I was narrating the story and they were making decisions in their groups, controlling the rules - so one person per group was a sub-GM, only for the rules. Then each group was making a short summary of what happened. Of course it was a very simple scenario, which took 90 minutes (not counting the 45m learning the rules, and even earlier 90minutes of explaining the concept and creating chars). More a paragraph-style game really, but I had also teaching goals to complete.

Still, it might help to divide them.

Or, you can choose a group of 6 and the rest becomes an audience, booing or cheering for the chars, or perhaps rolling for the NPCs. Next time, new players.

I have recruited a back-up GM if required. On looking over Long Arm again, I think switching the prisoner to the shuttle will get that back on track nicely. I really like the middle section of Long Arm, so good roleplay opportunities there, with a good fight at the begining and who knows what at the end.

I just hope all 12 don't show up...

I just hope all 12 don't show up...

Oh, don't worry about that. I know from experience with larger groups (not twelve, but a good amount nonetheless), especially groups out to just shoot, hear big boom, and laugh maniacally at a Stormtroopers inaccuracy, they normally don't all show up. Most come rarely, and even then don't do much but shoot someone and overthrow the groups democracy in favor of anarchy.

Seriously. You've been warned.

I got lucky, only six showed up. We had a great time with Act I of Long Arm of the Hutt. Including a 4 Advantage, no Successes shot into the ceiling of a Cantina. The player wanted to collapse the weakened ceiling onto the bad guys... How can you miss a ceiling with a spread barrel on your blaster?

I got lucky, only six showed up. We had a great time with Act I of Long Arm of the Hutt. Including a 4 Advantage, no Successes shot into the ceiling of a Cantina. The player wanted to collapse the weakened ceiling onto the bad guys... How can you miss a ceiling with a spread barrel on your blaster?

That's how I would have narrated it anyway.

Yeah, that's about how we played it.

Just play 3 games with 4 players on each table.

I have the opposite problem . I cant find anyone who wants to play it here. No one wants to break away from Pathfinder or 40k rpgs...I'm thinking about running it solo for my 9 year old son...

I have the opposite problem . I cant find anyone who wants to play it here. No one wants to break away from Pathfinder or 40k rpgs...I'm thinking about running it solo for my 9 year old son...

It's a sketchy solution, but have you tried http://www.meetup.com/ or many other community-based websites (last resort craigslist).

I see a few posts on these boards of "Looking for a game in x - town/province in y - state/country. No one minds them.

I'm certain you are aware that there are online options available to you, but I feel I should mention that anyway.