[Hooska]

Hey everyone ^w^

Good to meet you all, for starters, first time poster.

At any rate, I'm a relatively green Gm who just picked up playing Shadowrun 5th with a (mostly) new group of players just about a month back.
Everything is going smoothly enough so far, and everyone says they're having fun, so I'm happy so far

The thing being, another group of my friends who were in a DnD game have been left game-world-homeless since the GM got too busy to show up, and I've considered bringing in a few of them to join up with my game.

Though before I gave any promises, I thought it might be a decent idea to ask someone with experience with the game: Is there any potential in this system to run a group with 7-8 players? Or is it best left to 4-5 players for balance, flow, etc.?

I think having a bunch of players would create some interesting/creative scenarios when designing runs, but also presents its own challenges and stuff...

Anyway, any thoughts?

[ScytheKnight]

I've GMed with 7 people, it depends a bit what people are playing. If you start getting lots if summoners and riggers the game will start to drag in a big way.

One thing to possibly look at is the Mowing Them Down sidebar, it's got some advice for streamlining battles against grunts.

There may also be alternate rules from Run & Gun to simplify things a bit more.

One of the main things you'll need to watch or for is attention spans during combat, if people are paying attention and have their action and rolls ready things will go a lot smother... if that doesn't happen, combat can get glacial.

[Aryeonos]

I've pretty much always GMed 7-8 people at a time, not really by or against choice, it's just always worked out this way. But the biggest problem I run into is people who don't know the rules and have short attention spans. It's been my policy to require they know the rules to play their own character and know what they're gonna do combat wise, I try to limit their decision making time on their turn to less than 15 seconds to keep the flow going and make sure no one gets skipped over.

When it comes to out of combat, it's just like running any other group ever, you have to ensure you give due time to everyone, but make sure no one takes the spotlight for too long. If you have players who can't bother to pay attention as a matter of the regular games course there is nothing wrong with dropping them, keep that in mind, you don't have to make everyone happy, just most of them.

For how the campaign goes, ask everyone what kind of character they want to play. Then see what kind of campaign will best suit them, but keep in mind, you have to have fun too!

[Hooska]

Wow, all right, doesn't seem like the most uncommon thing in the world then to have so many players xD

Thanks a bunch for the advice y'all, I've definitely noticed keeping things smooth and well paced is a bit challenging sometimes.

We're a couple sessions in now, so the players all know their rules and I've been getting better at my part of the game too ^w^

[Top Dog]

I've played in groups with 7-8 players, and my experience there has been quite negative. There's simply too much time spend waiting for other people to do things, in my opinion, and not just in combat.

Speaking of combat, 7-8 players tend to either make combat trivial, or - if you scale up the amount of enemies to compensate - potentially very lethal and even more long-winded (more enemies = more time per turn).

Of course, that's not saying it can't be done - see Aryeonos and Scythe - but I'd be very careful, and keep a very close eye on that every player gets their share in the limelight (and gets their input often enough).

[Artighur]

As much as I like Shadowrun, I don't think it's a very good system for groups that large. Shadowrun is a lot of "spotlights" scenes where your decker, face, sammy, magician etc. gets to shine. With a very big group it will be a long time before the spotlight goes back to you. It might lead to a bunch of bored players and/or some players trying to hog the spotlight as long as they possibly can.

My best advice would be to split the group in 2 if possible. If you can't, ScytheKnight suggestion on Alternate rules will be very useful. I'd talk to your players a bit on what kind of game Shadowrun is and the necessity to respect other players time to shine.

[farothel]

Also ask your current players if they feel like playing with 7 or 8.  Because not everybody likes to play in that kind of group and just adding players might cause resentment with your current players.
There's also the option of playing with those people who are there.  For instance if out of the 7 you have about 4-5 that show up in any given week, it's very possible.  Then you just have to devise a way to make sure that one player who always shows up (there's always one) doesn't run too much in front of the others karma wise and that if certain types of characters are not there, that the runs are adapted to those who are there.

[Tarislar]

My first SR1 group was 7 people IIRC.   It worked out fine for us.
We didn't have issues w/ people "shining" in their moment.  The Decker, Rigger, & Mage all had their time.
The difference was, we had 4 "Combat" types.   To me this was a benefit since it meant we didn't run the risk of getting wiped out easily.

I'd say ask your group if they mind adding people & then if they are good with it, do so.

The biggest issue with time that any group I've ever been in has had is cross talk.  As long as you keep the group focused & on task that shouldn't be too much of an issue.


I will add something that came from another thread that relates to ShadowRun Characters/Roles.

1.  You don't have to be good at EVERYTHING.  But you do need to be Good at least 3 DIFFERENT things.
2.  The 3 different "time line / tasks" that most Shadowrun involves are Combat, Legwork, & Other/Support.

You need to be able to do at least 1 thing to assist with combat & do it well.
You need to be able to do at least 1 thing to assist with legwork & do it well.
You need to be able to do at least 1 other support type function.    (Anything to do with Healing or Infiltration are good, other things might be Demolitions, Driving, Perception, certain Social skills, even Disguise or Tracking could be a useful skill outside of the other 2 categories.)

I mention this so that if you do add more people you can give them ideas on character building beyond the crunch #'s to make sure they are not getting bored around the table.  Bored people can lead to slowing down the game for everyone.

Personally I found that simple breakdown of the SR game to be quite enlightening & have adopted it when I work on other characters.

[Hooska]

Woah, thanks for all the opinions guys, wasn't expecting that many replies to be honest XD

Sounds like first and foremost I should toss the idea around with my current players before bringing anyone else in and look into ways to streamline turns and everything.

Guess I'll do some legwork through the rulebook tonight and send out some Skype messages to my group to see what they're thinking.

Thanks again everyone ^w^

[Darzil]

I think most crazy thing I've done was around 10 players, and 2 GMs. Helped that as GMs we'd been running LARPs together for years and knew how each other thought. We'd planned the adventure on the 2 hour drive to the game, and then just got together for 2 mins away from the players every hour or so to make sure we were still on the same page on everything going on.

(wasn't shadowrun, was a new LARP system we'd written that we were playtesting as tabletop).

[Spooky]

Well, for my two creds, I have run games in various systems for up to 20 people, and getting to 8 is about the limit of reasonable time and attention for everyone. I have most recently run a table for 7 players in SR, and it went fairly well, as we had a TM, a decker, (aka the decker team), a face, a mage, a rigger, a sammie and a weapon specialist. Everyone had their special niche, and we had enough overlap skillwise that most things were covered when someone could not show up. Would have been nice to have a second mage, but that would push me as GM to the edge of reasonable playability. Everyone had fun, so it was a success, but it was definitely at the edge of playability. So my advice is to first check with the existing players, and then if they want to add players, look at the existing characters and suggest to any new players that they consider creating characters who fill gaps in the roster of roles. And be aware that running 6 or more players is hard work. Good luck.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... most players and PCs I've ever been involved with was ... hm.  21 players, 27 PCs (I think) as three games run by the same GM (and with several players in multiple campaigns) finally met at the same target point, taking out The Big Frickin' Bad, I Shit You Not.  IIRC, I played three characters in that game ...

[TheDai]

As GM, my personal limit is 6 players.

For everything that is holy, I can not put up with more. 3-5 is my personal "comfort zone" and 6 is edgy, but still possible.
We once played with 8 Players and thank the power of Greyskull I was only a player at that table. (It was the day we accidentally blew up our Johnson with a Truck full of gas and strapped on explosives... fun times...)

Why I like playing with a large group: The most stupid idea works like an epidemic. If only one of the players manages to convince two others, that a giant explosion would be the best distraction ever, it becomes unstoppable.
At least on our table. When there are only 3-4 Players, the plans are very detailed and cautious. Every corner has to have an exit plan. The bigger the group, the bigger the confidence and with that, more dangerous plans.

But as a GM I couldn't deal with it. Sooner or later I lose track myself.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I'd have to agree with you there, TheDai - craziness results of lots of people.  I'm fortunate (as a player, anyhow) that I'm one of those who has a mental if/then flow chart for 'best option if X' for pretty much every step of the process.  Lets me at least seem like I'm pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but it's often a matter of knowing what's best for any particular situation.

[Raven2049]

i have done 9, and it was a task doing it. i was lucky enough to have my wife with me that day and she kept track of initiative passes for me during combat so i could do the more GM-ey things.

that being said, i do have a regular bi-weekly game that is currently at 9 if everyone shows up. and during combat i have fudged dice a little to keep us on track time wise. but any good GM who is operating on a time schedule will do that.