I realize that a lot of you wish you had this "problem", but it's becoming difficult for me. Allow me to explain. I have a relatively new group that's playing, we've been meeting for about a year now, but before that we were almost all new to Shadowrun and RPGing in general. We had one member who had been playing since 1st edition, and has a collection of almost every 2nd edition book. Anyway we've been playing for a while now and hav biult up a regular group of about 8 people, including the two alternating GMs, one playing one GMing, switch after each run (about). Now in adition to those origenal 8 we have 5 different people who are planning on joining. Now I realize that this seems like a dream come true, but I find that even with seven players, as a GM, I'm overwhelmed. And I can't even imagine what I would do with 12 players.

All of the people who are playing now and planning on joining are close friends, and have been for years. So I'm going to feel like a heel if I just say, "no you can't play with us." And because a lot of the players are new to both the rules and the setting of SR, it might be difficult to have them GM.

So my question is what should I be doing. Saying, "you can't play but you can" trying to form a second group, or trying something else like running them against each other, (difficult to do without two really good GMs and I'll be the first to admit, I'm a par GM at best.)?

thank you all for the help, or Flames, whichever.

I think you should split the group into 2 equal halves, if possible. Is the long-time player worth anything as a GM? You may have to alternate nights, and that eats up a lot of time.

Otherwise, I can only suggest swtiching to a type of game that doesn't allow for long drawn out planning and such. Military stuff, or SWAT respone teams. You'll need an assistant GM no matter what.

12 players, lucky sod. I`d say start a second group 8 is usually the most any GM can handle while there still being enough for players to enjoy in a game as well. Having a second GM with you though should perhaps make life easier as you can alternate between groups if you like. Maybe even make a player pool of the groups and swap people between them every now and then.

yeah, She's a pretty good GM, at least from my limitted experiance, however, time is one of the things that we don't have, most of us have school, or work, or both in some cases, we have enough difficulty meeting regularly as it is.
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Yo, 12 players is a big undertaking. I've been GM'ing various games for about 15 years or so now and I've only once committed to that many people. There just isn't enough quality time that you can give everyone and it will eventually put a tarnish on what would otherwise be a rewarding gaming experience. I've found that things start getting a bit less personal at around 6 players or more. Ideally, 4-5 players makes for a good group in almost every gaming system I've ever used.

If you have that many people, perhaps the best thing would be to get with the other GM and decide to write a story that makes use of two groups (dividing up your veteran players equally, so no one feels jaded and there's some gaming experience for each group). If you and the other GM are pretty crafty, you can construct a cool campaign that allows for each group to run across the other group at times and may even allow for member swapping at some point. If I was a player, that would be interesting to me.

Another reason for keeping groups smaller, rather than larger... combat. Invariably there are going to be altercations with your NPCs and the PCs and shots or spells will be fired. The more PCs you allow, the longer... exponentially longer the combat will be.

There are lots of little trick you can use to speed up combat though, but not so much for roleplaying and intergroup discussion.

You say you have two alternating GMs? Well, there you go. Split the thirteen people up in to two groups. It may be especially cool to mix and match runners every once in a while, or to switch off GMs after every run as well.

If at all possible I would recommend you split the players into two teams and play at the same time but in different rooms. Perhaps they can be involved in the same campaign but in different parts of the world/city/whatever. The datasteal from Party A has a direct effect on Party B's intel in the next session, and Party B's lack of stealth on their extraction of Dr. Soandso last session makes the placement of Party A's surveilence equipment a lot harder this session...Ad nauseum.

It would take a pair of dedicated GMs and some campaign rewriting on the fly potentially, but I think it could be a lot of fun too.

You can solve the problem ICly, partially. Get them together on a run with some data target. They get in the room, are stealing the data, and accidentally trip the alarms. Guards come, trap them in the room, and toss in about two dozen grenades. One boom and some chunky salsa later and you should have 6 players quitting.

However, I advise what people said above.

now see I don't want to cause players to quit, just figure out a way to have them all play, or explain how it doesn't work for them to play, with only one reasonable GM and one aprentice GM.

How long will you have at a typical session?

Ours typically run for 4-6 hours, plus or minus depending on the chattyness of a few of my crew.

we have long, although inefficient sessions, usualy between 6-8 hours, only about 4-6 hours playing, unless we do marathon all night games, but those become our most effcient ones (combat doesn't take as long, and so on) oddly enough.

Yeah, well, we're all old and married. So, the all nighters are few and far between. Unless it is the sick kids making us stay up...

I know the feeling. I've had a few games spiral out of control into ShadowArmy (to quote my boy Dave). I've been running this game for almost 13 years now. It's always been one of my faves and I have had in the past a hard time refusing new players. I'm always down for showing new folks how cool this game can be, and with the setting, more players = more opportunities to explore some other areas of that setting. I play in games though as well. I really enjoy developing my character, and if I have to set up a situation where I can do that I will. This is a hard thing to do with 7 - 10 other people. While I found it enjoyable at times having so many sub plots going on, you could see that 1/2 the players were having a snooze fest waiting for their turn. I try my damndest as a player to pay attention to what's going on with the other players when it's "not my turn" when I roleplay, but even I find myself fading into la la land when the group is too large. With a small group, I can set up more complex combat situations, flesh out security, have more meaningful NPC interactions. In the end I found my core players like a smaller group. If you had the time, running 2 campaigns for different players could be a lot of fun. I'm almost 30 and with a wife and a job so I can't devote my time to that level of interaction. I've seen it done, though. A friend of mine once ran a Mechwarrior/Battletech game with about 4 different groups. He was self employed and enjoyed doing it 4 nights a week. It was interresting to see how each groups actions could effect the others. Anyway I'm rambling now. Bottom line, my advice would be to shrink the group, or if you've got mad time on your hands to run 2 games, split them up.

My group has had up to 20 players in it at one time.... gets a little tough.... the way we handled it was to have two gms and split everyone up into two teams and give them a run against each other.... two gms made it really easy when setting up for the run, however, once the combat started it was hella hard. just a thought tho.

Ok I have a solution for you. One that I would use if I were having this very problem.


Since you have a good second GM split into 2 equal groups.

Try to have each group roughly balanced in comparison to the other.

Play in 2 separate rooms.

Have a walkie talkie as your prop in talking to the other team. Or one of those Nextel Phones.

Keep a scorecard for each group. Group Karma earned, Cash Accrued (including some gear's value converted to cash for keeping track), Major Gear Stolen (aka Helos, Ruth Covered Tanks, fairlight excalibures) Shots Fired / Shots hit for firearms and melee. Job's taken/ Jobs completed. Or if you also want to also keep track of Kills / Deaths.

Now let everyone OOCly know about these said Scorecards, in fact proudly display them. This will give your groups an idea of how their 'partners' are doing and what they need to do to get the leg up on them.

Each month Reward one group with some Cash/Karma/Prizes or whatever for their good work.

All of this healthy competition should help keep everyone focused on playing instead of jabbering, or fooling around.

Now you should have 2 very well motivated groups ready to sit down and play.

Take up the mantle of World GM. You make the metaplots that will affect both teams. You converse a lot with your partner GM. Ex. Mafia are trying to make a big move into town and set up business, and they are hiring and paying well. And the Yaks are hiring as well to keep them out.

These kind of runs with a For and Against certain metaplot goals should help or hinder the conclusion of that metaplot while giving each team their own chance to decide what to do. OR they can talk via the walkie talkie to their sister team and both agree to work for or against something.

Eventually this can lead to quite a bit of rivalry if one group is for and the other against.

If it comes to blows between them. NEVER under any circumstance allow each group to confront each other directly. Just don't. No Never. Instead let them do runs against each other, trying to set up the other to take the fall, or blow up their favorite hangout/car/dog. Let them just hit the assets of the other team. Allowing PVP killing will end up badly, and take absolutely forever with so many people.

Try to promote the two teams as a tandem force, that is almost totally unaware of the other group.

Suggest they both put Nuyen or recovered gear into a GroupAccount/Armory so they can buy huge ticket items that both teams can use at different times, or together and maintain a mutual Armory. (Ex. A crate of Ares Redline Laser pistols, Vindicator Miniguns with beltfed AV ammo)

Make them both of the same ShadowCorps but different crews. They are co-workers but never see each other to protect the identity of the other group.

p.s. The spell checker butchers my post and makes more errors than I do.

I don't see my wife very often during the week. I work days, she part times at night, and we have 2 1/2 kids under the age of 4. She may wnat not to see me, but it is usually because she wants to sleep when we are both at home at the same time.