Running Large Games

[Ace of Spades]

Over the years I've made a lot of really great friends through roleplaying games and through champions in particular. Many of the best friends I've had through college still live in the area and still look forward to the occasional game.

So when I send out an announcement that I'm going to start running say, my new X-Force / X-Men universe based champions campaign there are about twelve people on the local list.

And most of these want to play. Here are some tricks I've learned to keep the games moving, everyone heavily involved, keep the work load lower for me even when running for a huge group.

Step One - Big Crowds Require Advanced Prep.

To run for a large crowd it's always best to produce some props ahead of time. You'll need printed character sheets for the NPC's you intend to have in your various scenes along with a brief page long description /personality background.

It's also helpful to print up some simple artwork for the npc's. In the marvel universe thankfully this is easy to do in most cases.

Step Two - Offer options, allow the group to break up and splinter.

In the comics and most fiction stories the heroes don't move around as one enormous amoebe from encounter to encounter. As the story moves along they split into teams to look into things.

Having your group split up in a small game can be a serious pain in the bottom. In a larger game it is a great tool for storytelling. Let it happen. You'll use the players waiting when it's the other guys turns to rp to step into the roles of the npc's and villains.

Step Three - Let your players in on some of the plot. Let them play the opposition and key NPC personalities in the encounters that feature their friends. Instead of a group of eight or ten players with four players involved in the current scene and four waiting their turn the other four players can be roleplaying the opposition, making their own villainous schemes and rolling the dice and making combat decisions for the bad guys.

This is a pretty simple technique to use for running large scale champions games but it really works. Just finished our first X-Force game which had ten players present for a six hour game. Everyone was engaged and busy during the entire session even though the group quickly split into two different smaller groups to try and take care of different ends of the plot. Players had fun peeking at the plot behind the scenes but behaved themselves and didn't spoil the story for other players or metagame.

Anyway. Just wanted to share.

[Logan D]

Step Two - Offer options, allow the group to break up and splinter.

In the comics and most fiction stories the heroes don't move around as one enormous amoebe from encounter to encounter. As the story moves along they split into teams to look into things.

Having your group split up in a small game can be a serious pain in the bottom. In a larger game it is a great tool for storytelling. Let it happen. You'll use the players waiting when it's the other guys turns to rp to step into the roles of the npc's and villains.

This works. Another option I've seen done is that if one section of the group is encountering action, and the other isn't, then sometimes you can just let the non-combat group do their own thing in the form of in-character roleplaying with each other. Maybe they are talking shop at the base. Or advancing that love story between two members. Or going out on the town, unknowing that the other group is in trouble until the GM thinks it's dramatically important for their wrist communicators to start beeping the alert.

Obviously, this depends on the maturity level of your group. But if your group is mature and likes the role-playing as much as the combat, then this is certainly an option. My very first Champions group in California in '92-'93 did things similar to that. Two or more PCs would sometimes go off and do some role-playing on their own. As long as the GM was kept abreast of major developments, this was fine.