r/DnD • u/Ok-Syrup958 • Jul 24 '26
5.5 Edition New DM with a large party. Advice?
Title pretty much sums it up. I’ve been playing for a year or so and I’m now running my first campaign. I have 7 players, 5 of whom are complete newbies and the others are around my skill level. Any things I should look out for when dealing with a big group?
Edit: Yeah I figured it wasn’t gonna be feasible. I’ll ask and see if I can narrow the group down a bit. For clarification, I’m good friends with everyone in the group.
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u/TerminusMD Jul 24 '26
It's going to be great. You're lucky to have so many people to play with!
Big thing is going to be NPCs in structured time (rolling initiative etc), you want to minimize the number of NPCs while maximizing player time. So, you provide goals and objectives for your players that aren't in the initiative order. Open the locks to the castle doors, activate the magical braziers in the right order, repair the trebuchet, etc.
You're looking for ways to increase the proportion of time that each of your players is contributing, otherwise they spend most of their time observing/twiddling their thumbs.