Big group? No problem, split them up and have them help

Ed over at Geek Native recently wrote about something that many GMs would love to have an issue with – an overfilled gaming table.

While most of us would be happy and more than capable of handling a group of players in the 3-6 range, Ed found himself with 10 players around his table.

Most of us adhere to what I consider one of the ‘golden rules’ of sitting behind the GM screen – don’t split the party – but that’s exactly what Ed did. What he did differently than most of us is that he split the party up before character creation. That’s a stroke of genius in my book, he put the players in a situation where they knew the party was going to be split up, who they would be grouped with and then let them figure out why the smaller groups were working together.

That’s the other big take-away from the post, listen to your players, they’ll figure out details for you and if you listen carefully they’ll also likely give you plenty of material to work with to make for a great gaming session.

Ed shares some additional insight from his large group session, be sure to check out his post Thriving on Chaos: Five Tips for Running a Tabletop RPG for Large Groups.

May your dice roll well.