I recently asked my group if they wanted to start a shadowrun game. They did. Great. I would be the GM...

We just had a riotous first session, building characters and going through food fight. The kicker? My 5 person group doubled in size because they all found people who wanted to play.

So, I'm asking dumpshock how they would deal with a 10 person group. I have absolutely no experience GMing for more than 4 or 5 at a time, so...

Also, if you need characters, we managed to come out with 1 technomancer, 1 social adept, 2 weapon specialist, 2 combat mages, 1 gunslinger adept, and 3 very different generalists. Also, annoyingly, the only one that wasn't human or elf was the technomancer, who is a fomori.

I'd split a 10 person group into two 5 person groups; or tell 4 of them to go home.

if you're absolutely sure you want to run a group this big you'll need to do some real table enforcement - get people sitting in approximate initiative order; make sure everyone knows the rules for their own characters; try to minimize crosstalk, consider getting an assistant GM to deal with situations where there's alot going on at once / people are split up.

speaking of splitting people up; try to do that as often as possible in and for combat. a challenge for 10 players is about 2 bad initiative orders away from a total party wipe - much easier to reduce the size of the opposition by fighting only a few at a time when possible.

[edit] - ideally you can get one of them to GM too, which would allow you to play in the second game. (this would give you a game of five and a game of six.)

Fake your own death and move to a failed state or other location with minimal infrastructure that might assist in locating or identifying you?

How experienced are the players? I suspect I know the answer, but if it actually turns out to be "highly" you may be ok after all.

~J

I had this problem in the past with a dozen or more wanting to play.
Don't Say hey why doesn't one of you gm and we'll split the group. This never worked out due to the fact none wanted the duty. This would leave a half a dozen people sour on the game.

Do Split the group, run them on different days (If you have the time.)

A group of five is I've found is optimal for gaming, once you start creeping closer to 8-10 things will degenerate.
As a another option take one of your players who IS interested in GM'ing and make him an assistant. Let him run the npc's while you keep the story moving and deal with your mass of players. This will help him with his "acting" skills as well as anti player tactics and rules management. (Great training for taking over duties as gm.)

So I've personally GMed for up to 9 players before. It's a crazy mess if you don't keep things reigned in. Here's some suggestions:

• Keep focused on the game. - Make sure tangenting is kept to an absolute minimum. While you're at game, the focus is on the game. After the GM says "Game On" no outside, non-game conversations unless you wish to be randomly assaulted by a Panther Cannon.
• Minimize combat. Shadowrun tends to be a very combat-heavy system, unfortunately. Combat however, takes TONS of time due to all the mechanics involved. Try to do as much plot, and ROLEPlaying as you can, and stay away from combat if you can manage it. Of course, combat will happen, and when it does, expect it to take most if not all of a game night to complete. That's just the reality of the situation.
• Know the Rules - This applies not only to yourself as a GM, but to each player. They NEED to know the rules for their characters, and you need to be familiar with everything so they don't pull a fast one. If there is one or more rules lawyers in the group, task them with helping to keep things straight.
• Make decisions quickly - If you don't know a rule, or aren't clear on it, make a decision and move on. If the players challenge it, make sure you have something to back up WHY you're deciding the way you are, preferably other than "Because I said so." Don't spend more than 2-3 minutes total on a justification. You should be able to settle things VERY quickly and move on. Waffling and arguing eat up valuable game time.
• Know your path - Planning for a group this large is almost impossible. Lay out very general goals and destinations. Keep NPC's on hand for random encounters Always help encourage the group with pointers, reminders, hints, or automatic rifle fire to help get them to some end destination. Let them figure out how to get there though. If you want XYZ to happen, great. Adapt constantly to help it happen. If the players go completely the other way, be ready for that.
• Adaptability is Key - Building off the previous point, any plan you put in motion will invariably be ignored, destroyed or completely warped by the players. With 3 people, this happens usually. With 10, it's going to happen ALWAYS. You need to have multiple backup plans. If you're an experienced enough GM, weave multiple plot threads together so you can always have a direction to go. Don't let the players get breathers between plots. Life doesn't work that way, don't let the game do it.
• Make the players KNOW their characters - I don't mean their stats, their abilities or their dice pools. I mean the characters themselves. Who are they? What do they do for fun? Who are their friends? Who do they know? Why did they get hooked on Cram? Etc. These backgrounds are going to be crazy important for you to be constantly coming up with plot hooks. Take notes when they tell you about their characters, and use those to help build stories that draw them in.

This size of a group is an amazingly difficult task at times. Even seasoned GMs can easily be overwhelmed. The suggestion of having a co-gm to help out at times is a fantastic one. No matter what, don't be afraid to simply tell everyone "Hey, I'm not able to handle this size of group at once" if you need to. If you have to, find someone else who wants to GM, break the group in half, and have the other group meet on another day of the week if possible. On occasion, maybe bring both groups together for epic runs.

Know your limits, and don't be afraid to let your players know of them. Most of all, Communicate with everyone. Make sure they're having fun and make sure you're not getting burned out or overwhelmed.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Split the Group !
Either ask one of them to be the other GM or play at different Days.
From my Experience Nobody Is gonna be happy in such a big Group

with a splitting Dance
Medicineman

Running for a ten person group seems totally impractical. It's lose-lose as everyone gets less face time and step all over each other's figurative toes. There are a relatively limited number of niches in a SR team, and that number is less than ten.

Running two five-person groups is, IMO, too much to ask of a person volunteering their time, especially if you're running weekly. I'm in grad school with a wife and young child. I have to schedule carefully to run a game for five people once every two weeks. YMMV, obviously, but I'd expect to start getting paid if you're going to be a professional GM.

So, politely tell the extra people that you have no available slots.

You have an instant group of gangers. Force them to play roles in the gang and have gang politics in play. They'll start offing each other in a couple sessions.

Perhaps it would be better to split them into 2 groups. 4-6 players is generally the best size.

That is EVIL...

and sounds like an amazingly fun game to play!

To echo some of Jhaiisiin's points: if you don't split the group (which btw is probably the best route) it is imperative that the players learn the core rules and any specialized rules that apply to their character. They should be planning their actions and calculating DPs with reasonable mods (including negatives), while you resolve actions of those that go before them. Generally speaking, this will not work if you have players you cannot trust to follow the rules to the best of their knowledge, but then cheaters tend to be pretty obvious.

You also may have a problem avoiding combat, as at least half of the characters you described are combat oriented. Those people are bound to be bored with the type of game you will be forced to run. This touches on the other thing I would emphasize: in a group of 10 the players need to realize that their individual characters are not going to be a focus. They need to design characters that are subservient to the story (like Vertaxis' gang suggestion above). Lone wolf characters, odd ball stuff (like AIs and drakes) and characters with strong personal agendas will only monopolize game time and alienate the other players.

As Chuck Palahniuk would say "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile [story]."

Don't feel bad. I offered to run a game of Shadowrun for a few friends... would have had a main group of 5 players + me.

That has turned into those 5 players + 2 teens + 2 wives.

My experience is with a 4-5 person group (1 GM & 3-4 players). I have no idea how I'm going to handle this. Thing is, this group of people *LIKE* large group gaming.

Bleh... and no offense to teens or wives, but they tend not to know the rules or be as engaged as you would like. Good luck with that man.

I have 7 players at my table. What everyone says about being focused and "drilled" is true. Another danger to Shadowrun is that specialized characters can become monsters in their field. With 7 people around, its easy to design some horrible game breaking monsters.

If you can , break the group up.

BlueMax

Wow ten players! I've been a member of smaller gaming clubs!

I've GM'd for 7 people before, it was a struggle to make it work, however, after a few sessions the the numbers dropped to 5 regular players which was close to perfect for shadowrun IMO.

They need to get up to speed on the rules asap so the game can run smoothly, which means there needs to be more than one rule book, this way a player can study the rules while their character is doing nothing, and they wont be disrupting the game by chatting.

OR

You could always charge an entry fee and make a tidy profit

Yeah, thankfully the two wives (a friend's and mine) have indicated they would rather play recurring characters rather than full time characters. A sort of empty seat fill-in if you will. That's fine by me. I'm okay with that.

I'm just used to much smaller groups. I'm also hesitant to have two younger teens playing. IMO, SR is about more mature themes (murder, theft, shoot people in the face, extortion, joygirls, etc) than your typical RPG. My own kids have asked to play and I've told them when they are 15-16, I'll consider it. Until then, I'd rather play board games or D&D with them.

I'm hoping that the two teens will drop out within a session or two. While losing the decker will hurt some, it's nothing that can't be worked around. The other teen is playing a mundane troll who is Joe Average meat body. Everyone else has at least 2+ dice on him regardless of pool.

Sadly, one of the best made characters will likely die within a few combats due to his obnoxious focus on melee combat. Most bad guys (and good guys) like to open up at range, not melee. I warned the players that SR is a game of Eggs armed with Hammers and that many combats *will* open up at range, not melee.

Ah well.

I have a 7 regular player group that I'm running.

Yeah, I'll echo most of what BlueMax said. Most of the players figure that they don't need to diversify at all since there's someone else that can fill that role. This can lead to some crazy pools. I've been having a hard time keeping things scaled to give a reasonable challenge.

BUT, it can also present a great GM opportunity as well, since most of them are near crippled in other areas. Find situations that force them to use their weak skill sets, not just the strong ones. Make the super powered technomancer have to actually use his crappy sneaking skills to come in physical contact with the node he needs, etc, etc.

I got some good advice recently and I'll pass it along. Note keeping is key. Keep notes on NPCs, major plot events, the PCs, everything. The more prepared you are the smoother things will go. Know the PC's strong areas and dice pools. Know their weak areas. This will let you on the fly make up appropriate thresholds, etc.

Things I've learned on my own:
Try to keep the game story focused. This will be hard of course, since the combat centered characters will want combat and you'll need to feed that every now and then.

Encourage breaking the team up into separate groups on a run. Like a diversion team and a infiltration team. Makes it easier to keep track mentally and challenge the characters. Also splits the talent up, making more interesting tests of skill.

Make the players know the rules. Most others have mentioned this one already so I won't go into it.

Make a rule decision quickly to keep things going. You can be wrong, just start using the right ruling once you learn it. If we start getting into a rule discussion in the middle of combat I try to turn to a third party who's initiative pass is a ways off and say "We're going with ruling [blah blah blah] for this turn to keep things moving. Could you look up the rule for me so we know the correct ruling for next time?" That usually works since nobody wants to wait around all day and the players involved will know we'll get to the bottom of it.

Get the players to help. Anything that doesn't need to be a secret from the players is something the players can take off your shoulders. I'm asking my players to roll up some NPC grunts for me so if I need to I can use them as gang members or whatnot. It won't matter much that they know the stats of those guys since the challenge rating on them is fairly low to start with and they really only have strength in numbers. Don't have them do all your work, but it's fine to ask them to help out with a few things too.

Minimize distractions. I have a hard time with this one in particular. We have a single hard copy of each book at the table and PDFs on laptops. It can be VERY tiresome when you have to catch up a player on the last four combat actions since they minimized the PDF on their laptop to play solitaire or watch youtube. I'd say no laptops at the table but... it's so handy to have the PDFs, and it CAN be a while for the low IP players to get another action... sigh...

Don't be afraid to just say it's too much either. It has to be fun for you too.

Wow. I'd always thought it was good at early ages, myself. I got into SR when I was 12 I think. My brother would have been 10 at the time, and he got into it with me. My 16 year old cousin introduced us to it.

Times change perceptions I guess.

Split the groups is the only solution.

I started at about 11-y-o myself, of course my RP style at that age could be described as "cartoonish" at best. I don't think I really appreciated the grittiness of SR until I was older.

I was GMing at 15 for a group ranging from 12 to 18 myself. we stayed away from certain more mature aspects of the setting (i.e. the game had kind of a Hollywood sheen to the grit and hardship) but the setting in and of itself isn't particularly worse than a typical PG-13 for violence action film.

there was alot of difference between the depth of characters the 12 year olds were producing vs. the ones the 18 year olds were producing (or my own npcs for that matter) so I could see teens not working out in a group of 20 something or older adults, but as long as the GM is willing to make some small dispensations for the biases of younger players they're perfectly capable of grasping game concepts and generally playing along.

they'll just be on the James Bond / Pink Mohawk end of the believable character spectrum is all.

Lots to reply to. I'll try to get it all. To start with, a common theme was split the group, but I fully expect 2 or 3 players to just disappear after 3 or so sessions, as always seems to happen. Those friends that got brought? They didn't actually want to play, they were just bored.

I've told them all that I'll try to cope with 10 players, and doubled the time between sessions from 6 days to 12, so that I'll have longer to prepare. I've also said that if I can't handle it I'll be looking for players to delegate work to at the least, and potentially grabbing a Co-GM at the most. They all know that.



I've got at least 5 players who know the game very well. I've been playing SR4 with them for about a month, with myself and one other player GMing. We've been playing other systems for a while, however, and if they had questions, they would have already looked them up by now.

Of the other 5, I only had to walk two of them through character creation and tell them to read the Games Concepts chapter. The other 3, barring some addition errors and some problems with gear, could make characters. They all had a couple questions, which is good.




Combat, as was said later, is going to be a first option for many of these characters. I've come up with a couple ways of expediting it, as is often the case when you've been GMing for a while. Little things like having all the d6s you need, rolling for your attack before I get to them... These were all explained in the first session.

I've already told them that I might not have the answer for everything, but I'll be making a desicion anyway, and we can then avoid making the same mistake. They all seem to be on the same page.

Having a general plan set up, then making the rest up as I go along is what I do for all my games. As you said, 3 PCs will manage to ruin plans constantly, so it isn't really worth it to have that plan. Let them surprise you. I 'plan', or anticipate the more likely solutions to my problems, of course, but if something is truely ingenious, I'll let it go.




I trust at least the 5 I mentioned above to not cheat. The 5 new ones I expect to make mistakes, but the cheating comes when they realize that they have characters being overshot in all DPs.

I tried to limit the oddball characters and strong personal agendas early on. No drakes, infected, sapient metas, AI or free spirits was literally the first thing I said, after hellos. Flaws like In Debt and Enemy, Qualities like Made Man and Day Job all got dumped next, along with silly things like Amnesia and Mysterious Cyberware that make me work harder.



Some things:

I feel for those of you who have to DM for wives and teens, but I think girlfriends are the worst, especially when you have the people who can't resist making characters in game that showcase that relationship and how the rest of us, at the time, were lonely nerds. Of course, at that point, I was between girlfriends, but the other 4 hadn't even started dating.

The group I have now is limited to 15 or older, but that is only because we know one person under that age who would game with us, and that is one of the players little sister, who is 13.

I used to be part of a D&D group when I was younger. This group had around 70 people showing up every second saturday. About 3 sessions after D&D4 came out (which I had no interest in playing, since at this point, I had pretty much moved back to savage worlds. ) all the people who thought it would be awesome decided it wasn't that great, and moved back to the one 3.5 table still going. Which had 17 people, until people realized that it was too many and I managed to steal 4, GMing savage worlds. The GM told me after thathe'd managed 2 full combats, but nothing else, in around 6 hours.

I plan on handling a lot of the downtime 'off-screen', either by IM or text messages, and making lists of gear to buy and such. This way, I can focus more on the actual runs, johnson meets and legwork while in session, keeping the rest of it outside. I still fully expect runs to take more than 2 sessions, but this way I don't have to spend an hour every session with people asking me if they can have X or X.

You could allow these things, and then assign the background or cyberware to another player to make up. (This only works if you can trust your players to not spill the beans to one another.)

cyanide in the Kool Aid?
Well it would work. Why are you all looking at me like that?

seriously, the good news, wow you have a lot of people interested. the bad news, that size is completely unmanagable. There are a lot of good suggestions here. The one thing to stress when you break up/whittle down/ downsize the group is stress you want them to have fun too. You are not just saying' no' or 'you're in that group he isn't" arbitrarily but because if the group is too ibg they won't have fun either. There's no way they can all get good game time and the less strong people will feel cut off and the alphas will start pushing each other to be the big cheese. Pare the team down early and it will be better for EVERYONE.

Just do your best to run it. Chances are some people will get cold feet and drop out so let natural selection take its course.

Darwinist!
My original suggestion would have the same effect only be much much faster

Well, aside from pure logistics, BlueMax makes a decent point that hyperspecialization could be a problem. But something that could knock that down as well as several other problems is intra-party tensions. If you set up an atmosphere where players are encouraged to scheme and potentially betray each other, your players might start being relatively proactive, and interacting with each other rather than waiting for you to get to their turn. And if stuff gets ugly, it's a lot easier to run a ten person combat when there are no NPCs involved. That said, some groups don't like that sort of thing, so YMMV. But regardless, encouraging your players to be proactive and interact with each other as much as possible will help a lot.

hyperspecialization is not a problem. I'm not sure what the highest DP is, but I'll check for you guys. It's pretty low, especially by dumpshocks 40DP con tests are high. For this group, hitting the 20 cap is really high.

Hi boss, you've already heard my opinion on the problem, but I thought I'd chime in to give you a wave.

There is no way to do it with 10 people, I had 9 one time and I said never again. I had so much trouble keeping track of everyone's character even though I use a giant dry erase board and had everyone make their own character model out of modeling clay. I feel a lot of the players were feeling left out. We had a lot of miscomunication to the point that the players killed the wrong NPC and we had to do a do over. I said no more then 4, from now on, which hasn't been a problem since that nightmare of 9, I can't even imagine trying to GM with 10 players.