The more friends at your D&D table, the better. But how do you as a DM manage a large party?

You started to create a new campaign in your homebrew scenario. You invited your friends, and they sent their characters. You've added them into the narrative and adapted the story to feature them. Then, you realize you've invited too many people. Dungeons & Dragons is balanced for a group of four, though five and even six can work well.

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But how do you manage so many players? It's tricky, and it'll depend on them as well as you, so conversation is key. Still, it is possible to have a big group and still make a fun campaign with your players.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. One problem every group has is the true BBE (Big Bad Evil) of campaigns: Scheduling. Finding a good date for everyone to play can sometimes be a pain, and many groups talk about their off days before even talking about the campaign itself. And if you have a lot of players, the scheduling conflicts will be even higher.

With that said, if one or more players can't make it for whatever reason, it's imperative to keep the date anyway. If more than half the group is available, there's no reason to cancel. Yes, that sucks for those who can't make it, but canceling a group of six or seven just because two players can't show up is bad for those who saved the time to appear.

That's even worse with in-person game sessions because you actually have to go somewhere to play the game. Are you not going to play anymore because someone had to cancel? Even if they had a good reason to cancel, that doesn't change the fact people are already there to play. It's not ideal, but it's the right call.

More people means more power. That allows you to throw bigger challenges on them since they have a greater chance of surviving. And if you realize you may have exaggerated, you can dial back a little during the fight itself. Give your creatures powerful abilities, plan strategies between them, have healing methods for them, and use it all against your players. Unless your players are still learning how to play the game, they'll likely make it.

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On a bonus note, avoid having too many minions. The more people in the fight, the longer they'll take, as it's common to have long battles when lots of players are around. Also, though you shouldn't decide your players' classes, be honest with them and tell them there are a lot of people, and they should avoid classes that rely a lot on summoning. For this same reason, minions can also be a problem. Don't stack more creatures into the fight if it's not necessary.

Not the most ideal thing to do since that cuts down some social interactions in the game. With that said, if everyone wants to go shopping and buy different things in different stores, it'd be better to make this part off-character.

The reasoning here is that if you roleplay a shopkeeper and do all the interactions with one player, that will take at least five minutes, and that's considering the player already has a purchase in mind rather than just browsing. Now, a party of six players could make that number go to a solid half hour of just checking items, and it could still be more time.

Still, that assumes your players don't have fun with these things since D&D can sometimes be more combat-oriented than anything else. However, if your players have fun with these social interactions and don't mind spending an hour or more going around a city and talking to people, this advice may not suit your table.

One thing that is natural with lots of players, and you won't be able to do much about it, is that fights will take longer than usual — unless they're easy, but then there's a chance the fight ends before all players even have a turn. That said, if your fights are already going to be long, uncertainty will make things even worse.

You're all fighting a group of monsters, and then, during the wizard's turn, they pick up their spell list and start to go through it, taking a solid five minutes of just wondering which spell fits better. And then they just use fire bolt again because they didn't reach a conclusion.

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While this example is acceptable for beginners, it's the player's job to know what they're capable of, and they should think about what they're going to do during other people's turns so they act a bit faster when it's their time. Sure, maybe something happened one turn before theirs that ruined their plan, and now they have to come up with something new, and that's okay. Having to stop and think about it is okay; the problem is doing this every turn of theirs. Encourage planning. You could give them inspiration to motivate them as well.

Lastly, be open to their ideas. If you are, things will be more fluid, you'll have fewer headaches, and the players will have more fun. You probably already know that Railroading, also known as forcing players into a specific path and solution and nothing else, is bad. It's important to think of multiple solutions to a problem, and even so, they can come up with a solution to a problem that is completely different from what you had in mind. It's okay. Embrace the chaos.

Lots of heads will think better than one. It's normal for a large group to offer ideas and strategies you didn't even know were possible when you designed the dungeon. Let them try their ideas and make consequences accordingly. It may destroy the epic showdown you had planned, but there is huge satisfaction in a group that manages to outsmart none other than the Big Bad Evil Person. And sure, their plans can still fail, and the consequences could make things a lot more dramatic and even increase the stakes. Let their ideas shine.

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Freelance writer assigned to writing Lists in TheGamer. Passionate about video-games, especially platformers and hack n' slash games.