Large group advice

[Rosekitten]

So my little FC grew a fair bit and has a fair amount of rp'ers now. I was given the suggestion to try to break our weekly event (we do raids and other events so we only do a guild event once a week for rp) into smaller groups. Some are saying it takes too long to post or get anywhere. 

One.. I'm not sure how to do that when most of the fc like to stick near where I am.. or without flat out DM'ing for multiple groups. I also get the feeling then some people would just break off into the same group of 2-3 every time and never form any bonds with other characters. One of my officers suggested trigger events, like a knock at the door for an example and x people go to check it out. But to leave them on their own from there and telling me if I try to dm or direct that group I was being too controlling? It is slow posting when we have 8 plus members, we set a turn order (is adjusted when needed) so the slower typers can keep up in an event.. otherwise we have a few who are trigger happy on typing.

 

I'm open to any and all suggestions. Just trying to work with and fix things before people decide to leave the rp part of the fc. I want it to be fun and enjoyable, but I wasn't prepared for what to do once we had more than 8 people every rp night. Combat was easy enough when I split the groups but that semi directed itself as well. This question more leans towards the more casual nights or down time between events where the group rps.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Rosekitten

[Faye]

I'm a bit confused. Are these some sort of DMed events? If so, I find having more than 3-6 people can drag on very long and involve a lot of tripping over each other, especially if some may be posting slow or not paying as much attention as they should. I would definitely recommend having sign-ups beforehand and limiting to a certain amount of participants. Unfortunately, this means not everyone will be able to attend each event, which means you might want to consider running more events, whether it's yourself or someone else DMing. That's a just a trade off of having a larger RP group.

For casual and social RP, it's just difficult to have that amount of people all interacting with every other person in depth the whole time. Naturally people are going to break off into smaller groups and eventually find their favored people to break off with each week. That's just the nature of socializing and all you can do is try to encourage and foster everyone to mingle and try breaking out of their usual crowd sometimes. I definitely don't think you should separate people into groups for that, just toss them into the same room and let them mingle. Social RP doesn't really need a post order or someone guiding it, so the amount of participants shouldn't matter much on that front.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Faye

[Rosekitten]

I have... a weird group. I have a couple of folks who get really .. on edge? Not sure how to word it .. if they get left out or skipped over. We set up a post order for most things so they don't get over looked. But I will admit it really slows anything and everything down as well as people just not really paying attention due to the long wait time. I'm just at a loss for the casual side of things. Mainly due to people not wanting to adjust or break off in groups for whatever reason. (again probably down to the whole they dont want to miss anything even though i do a summary each week).

[Thunderbolt300]

I've had this same problem many times over the years, particularly when DM'ing for guilds, as the issue of "scope creep" tends to crop up as groups with sustained activity from an actively contributing DM tend to continue growing. Content generators in any RP community are a rare commodity, but overtaxing them results in burnout. I'll start with the hard truth up front: you as a DM need to decide what's the most fun for you, because if you turn it into a job, you'll suck the fun out of it and burn yourself out.

 

You have the option of doing one-size-fits-all campaigns that are tailored for large guild groups, or you have the alternative of aiming for small groups (either by taking sign ups in advance, first-come-first-served, or running with static parties). Both approaches have their tradeoffs. One-size-fits-all campaigns tend to be very generic, bypass a lot of detail, and end up fairly shallow, but can accommodate a large number of players at once. On the other hand, small-group campaigns can be very detail-driven, have a great deal of depth, and focus more on character development, but space is very limited. Realistically, you can only pack an event with so much character development for so many characters, so it's prohibitively difficult to pack that into a larger event without making people feel left out. 

 

You can stretch yourself further though by throwing out mechanics (like dice systems) and allowing everyone to post at once in a small group setting (it works better than you'd think), which gives you more time to pack more story into the event you're running. On the other hand, if you want to have a combat focus with your events, dice systems may not be something you can cut out. Like as I mentioned before, there are tradeoffs. More mechanical overhead on the overall event means less time to focus on other things that you may consider to be more important. Don't be afraid to trim the fat to get to the meat of what you're really after. If you try to do everything, you'll do nothing well. Also, be careful of events becoming too complicated. A general rule of the thumb is that if the event needs voice chat or takes longer than 3 hours, it needs to be simplified or partitioned into multiple events. 

 

A great deal of this is also dependent on the audience you have, too. Some players are going to enjoy dice systems more than others, and some players just want something to do on a Saturday night, and others will want a deeply engaging story to get immersed in. All that is to say, you can't please everyone, so focus on what's most fun for you. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the player, not the DM, to find an event that caters to their own preferences. 

 

Personally, these days, I operate entirely outside the guild framework as it represents an obligation as a DM to try and cater to an entire guild all at once. Instead, I have two groups of five players from a mishmash of guilds that I run campaign events for once a week at different times, and both groups operate within the same campaign setting. This means the groups still have a reason to interact and RP with each other outside of events, as they might learn something by comparing notes as they attack a central villain from different directions. I can also recycle some of the content for both groups as well, which cuts down on the amount of time and energy I spend weekly to generate the next encounter or more story. Two groups is the most I can handle alone, though- three would edge me towards burnout before long. Know your limits! 

[Rosekitten]

I think another issue my group has.. is we have a fair amount that are new to rp or only rp the one day a week for the event or if another event is set up.I myself rp outside of the events so over all I don't understand the left out feeling as there is always something else to be attending to or doing as far as a rp story / character is concerned. 

Also I had the idea at the start to have tailored events, even more for the 'casual' players.. I tried to encourage trade skill or just all around common folk. But most of them took up some form of combat role and now don't have the excuse that they can't aid in combat for most missions. I even tossed the idea the other day in the discord of folks telling me personal goals or drives for the characters they played.. I more or less got a slew of meme answers so .. that didn't help at all. 

Telling some people straight up they cannot attend an event would just lead to drama in our FC, sadly a thin line as we have some streamers in the mix that like to air out their dirty laundry to the public.. and the last thing I need is for that to happen more than once and rumors from it. We have tow raid teams going fairly strong. So trying to balance them as well as other casual events and rp.. while keeping the peace (this is what i get for speaking up that I could be the FC leader back when we had like 5 people. haha..)

i do agree that the events have to be fun for the DM as well. Really after this weeks event and the wedding coming up for someone in the FC I was debating on speaking up that I was taking a short break from leading the events. Like people can still meet up casually but DM wise I need a break. Not from lack of topics/content to go over that is for sure. But I need time to finish taking care of the FC website, combat rules, and a few other things to make my life easier. >_>

Now as far as turn order.. I had to install it as we have a couple of folks who are post happy. like they will post every little thing that comes to mind instead of thinking things through. But if I can manage to get people to calm down and break off into smaller groups it would make things far more manageable. I can lay out a basic idea or plan for small events to where they can be run themselves or someone else dm'ing them so that's not even a big deal. Just need them to be willing to do so. x.x

also I was suggested having trigger events like a knock on the door to try to encourage groups to break off.. but then let them free form after, because any direction after that is too controlling? That is what I was told anyway .. but with this group .. with no direction they get bored and confused or just don't do anything. @-@

 

[Thunderbolt300]

The situation you describe is unfortunate, to say the least. I know the personality types you're talking about. You are, most likely, already sitting on a powder keg that will eventually blow up into drama sooner or later, simply because of the personalities involved being inherently incompatible with the direction you want to go. Obviously, you're serious about wanting to DM and write storylines, but when your player base isn't taking it as seriously, it'll leave you feeling naturally dissatisfied. There is a clear disconnect in the expectations on both sides, and that's a recipe for a fuse to light the powder keg.

 

You have to be careful about "spoon feeding," otherwise known as handing everything to your players and never expecting them to be self-driven or motivated. It sets a dangerous pitfall for them, as they get used to it and they will get comfortable in that routine over time, and it'll only get worse from there. Of course, you can't really help purely reactive players at all to begin with, sadly. Eventually, they'll just fall behind and eventually fall out entirely, unless you're putting in a lot of effort to get them caught up. That's not really a viable time investment, though, either- it's dead weight you have to haul and it'll burn you out faster. I've found it also helps to designate a "team leader" character who takes on the semi-OOC responsibility to keep the party in motion, so you don't need to constantly shove them along during an event. It's less work for you, and it can be used as a reward for players looking to get more out of it too. 

 

On the subject of turn order, I have everyone do one emote per combat round, and that's all, which gives me time to resolve the current round before starting the next. By having everyone take their turns at once, you save an enormous amount of time, and can keep the action moving fairly rapidly. This is helpful too for anyone who takes a while to type an emote, as the players get a chance to read each other's emotes while waiting for the last person to emote. 

 

My advice would be to simply focus on the players who are interested and invested into participating and show some drive to be involved. If others feel they're being left out, it's ultimately on them. For one thing, you reap more returns from your writing, but it also sets an example to other players. You can try to add players from outside the guild as well if they show significant enough interest and are proactive enough. At some point, you kinda have to pick the players you're going to focus on. 

 

Or, in short: "You can lead a horse to water, but can't make them drink."

[Rosekitten]

Oh you have no idea .. we've handled a few kegs already.. *sigh* My biggest hurdle is that some of the kegs are friends well before FF and I wasn't really planning on my joining the rp cause they never had rp'ed before. But here we are. 

I agree with trying to focus more on the players who are motivated and putting the effort. It's what I have been doing. Guess really all I can do to keep as much peace as possible is keep pushing for small events and folks will have to sort themselves if they want to keep going to the weekly or not. Like you said.. can lead a horse to water.. if they aren't willing to change not much I can do about it. 

I've suggested all the prompts I can think of to support some thinking for people and their characters to see if I could inspire some motivation .. haha.