Every couple of weeks the two parties would run into each other, and we’d have a big 10 player session where everyone compared notes and decided what to do next. Then we’d divide up who was best suited for (or most interested in) the next two missions and redivide the group. It always came out pretty even with a minimum of GM manipulation.

It all came to a nice conclusion as the two groups tracked two different bad guys back to their lair and there was a grand finale battle involving everyone.

@Havukin – I prefer 3 or 4 people myself. Too many and it feels crowded. I generally have groups of 6 with 1 maybe. I keep playing with that many because they are my friends and I want them to get gaming time. If I were the GM and were playing a game that required a party size for balance, I would just modify the game as I was running it.

@Rafe – “They just kind of… evolve and grow. ”
Can’t say it any better. Every large group I’ve run for started smaller than it ended.

@Target – Easy to kill creatures are great for speedy combats. Do you find trouble with your players feeling challenged though? I like to make sure my players know that I WILL kill their characters if the situation turns that way.

@LordVreeg – Thanks! I always try to keep articles open enough that they encourage comments and community discussion.

“interaction is what makes a huge group memorable and fun” This is definitely true. Big groups, and often small groups, get bogged down in the mechanics and sometimes don’t get the whole experience. The bigger the group, the less mechanics necessary. I think a lot of the structures that LARPing uses are good things to crib for big-group play.

@umbral.fury – The game that I develop uses a lot of cinematic actions in the vein that you are talking about. I like your idea of giving an extra move action in D&D. I’ve long been a proponent of letting players do anything with their action, so long as they don’t expect it to mechanically effect the game. Jump off a wall and make your attack a large leap and swing: Awesome! I might give a bonus for an awesome description, but I prefer when the players aren’t doing it for the bonus.

@Rafe – Like Scott, I tend to agree that stopping the game is the best solution. It can be hard to say no, especially when you know that you are the source of other people’s fun.

@Scott Martin – “Or “promote” one of the players and pass the baton to him.” I like the way you phrase that. It has an almost devious tone to it. There are times I would have loved to get one of the players to take over. I find there are far less people who want to give up the joy of playing for the joy of GMing.

@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – Co-GMS are excellent when the group gets too big. If my group gets too big I try to get someone to take over initiative order. In one game I “granted” the CO-GMs character a precognitive combat sense that let him know things about enemies. He kept track of HP and Initiative and was free to disseminate the information to the other players. It made an interesting element to the game, especially when enemies would knock him out first or his power would malfunction on BBEGs.

I’d actually be interested to hear reasons for playing with a group of 4-6 since that seems to be quite typical. Most reasons I’ve heard of seem to revolve around party balance, which I don’t consider very important.

Life is too short to share hobbies with people who’s company you don’t enjoy.

Why do it?

Also, speed up combat. Get a one-minute (or less) timer, and use it. If you haven’t gone by one minute, you just delayed your action.

Second situation: If the GM ain’t having fun, then ain’t nobody having fun!

Reboot the campaign, save whoever is worth saving, and let the rest of ‘em play WoW… This is harsh, but life is too short to game with people you don’t like.

A good solution may be to introduce them to other groups in your area– particularly groups that didn’t work for you, but that might work for them. Or “promote” one of the players and pass the baton to him.

So my #6 would simply be Stop the Game. Get back in touch with the original gamers and see if you guys can schedule something more regular and take things back to the way they used to be. Take the campaign you’re working on now and use it with them.

That may be really blunt advice, but let’s face it: Leisure time is at a premium, and GM’ing takes up not only the time spent during the game itself but also includes prep. Why are you portioning time aside for something you don’t enjoy, with people you aren’t close with, when you could be having a blast with people you know well and whose gaming ideals mesh with yours?

I’m not patient when it comes to my time and enjoyable gaming. I’ve left groups after a single session because it was clear things simply were not working, and would not ever work, no matter how much discussion occurred — playstyles were too dissimilar and the feel was totally off.

So my advice is don’t waste your time looking for a clever way to get around this. Stop. Go back to your original group. Run your campaign with them, and actually enjoy your hobby.

John, interesting cuttting this into 2 issues…handling party size AND controlling group growth. Which are 2 sep issues.
And these are both issues I have dealt with extensively.

To the second issue, Great_Idea’s conundrum, I would need to stress the social aspect of the game. The older you get, the harder it gets to make time to game with your friends, but it is critical to do so. RPGing is a social game, and the older you get, the more the ‘Social’ aspect becomes apparent. The way gaming changes the longer you do it is a good topic in itself, but suffice it to say that gaming with the people you want to be with is a tremendous luxury you should never let slip by.
One of the groups I run is comprised of 3 of my earliest players (my Miston group). They have played this particular contriguous storyline since 1995. All three of them are original players in the campaign, which began at the end of 1983. All of them played with me before this campaign. And I go briefly into details to illustrate the importance of playing with the right people, the ones you would spend time with outside of gaming. Because at the end of it, the people are the most important aspect of the game. Always remember that.

Zaraphina’s problem is also one I am familiar with, and I think most of the solutions you came up with are very good, especially the out-of-game organizational stuff.
Let me add a few things.

Large groups or multiple groups do best if organized with a wiki. It’s great for the GM to put stuff up that is common knowledge, but Multiple contributors can work on it, so the PC’s can put up their notes and work together as well.
My Igbarian group is 7-10 folks with 100% laptop inclusion, and they all have the game wiki up (we use our own rules, so this is a huge help in game). No one has an excuse to hold up things looking for a rule…

I do ‘office hours’ on IRC and have specific email address for gaming-specific stuff, which allows more to get done outside of game time. I recommend this for any GM, but especially one with large or many groups. or those with both.

I recommend, if you go the rules-change route, to find a game with heavy social interaction and one with fine-gradient PC growth. Combat is the killer for big groups. And if you play a game with PCs being able to take a few warhorses worth of damage before even thinking about worrying, it slows stuff down even more.
AS John referenced in his LARP comment, interaction is what makes a huge group memorable and fun, sitting around a table waiting for 10 minutes to roll a d20 to see if you hit, then doing it again..and again…, well, perhaps not as much fun.

And back to the tech comment, having texting/IRC/SKYPE whatever enabled around the table is actually a great GM tool when the group gets big. Something I find is true in salestraining is also true in GMing (actually, sadly, most of sales training is applicable to GMing…), something the players discover or see or that comes from them is much more affecting than when it comes from the GM.
One of the spookiest large-group sessions I ran I PM’d players when they saw/heard/felt something. When a PC suddenly bursts out (in a dark room lit mainly by candles and Laptop) that they hear something laughing in the dark…it spooks everyone…

Back to work. Great topic.