New DM here - suddenly we have a lot of players

Hey guys, Pardon the incoming wall of text, but I have a bad habit of being thorough, if you can call that a bad habit. Saying I'm a new DM isn't even really doing it justice. This is pretty much my first foray into the world of tabletop, though I do have roleplay experience from the past across other venues. I've watched streams and seen other vids of people playing, read examples and such, and felt I had a good idea what it would take to be a good DM. What happened initially was I was only a player (we're running a CoC game, which I got into because I feel like medieval fantasy has been run into the ground, without qualms, as a genre), but the original DM didn't work out -- after about an hour into the game things broke down into chaos, there was no turn order, and the DM had no response for any actions not explained in the book. I looked at the adventure afterwards and pretty much everything he did was almost a straight word for word rip of it. Some players talked afterwards and I told them I had no experience but I think I could do it and was willing to shoulder the responsibility. Our first session was last Tuesday, but I wanted to get some solid gaming in after my first experience with tabletop went so horribly, so we threw together a session this past Thursday and I retconned/summarized what happened up to the point where the action began in the adventure so all the information hunting didn't have to take place again. Took me a little bit to get over the nerves, but I think I settled into the role pretty well. I know where I can improve, but I'll get to that. The initial session was 5 players + DM -- if we had that many on the "emergency" session, I don't think it would've made much of a difference. One player who couldn't make Tuesday tried to come Thursday, but no dice, and I couldn't get a hold of one of the original players -- down two guys. So on my first session as DM, we had 4 players plus myself. One player (old DM) was a little troublesome and speaking out of turn, trying to get too many actions in at once, speaking over other players, things like that. I did my best to quell the situation and arguments and we managed to get through it without much problem. Last night rolls around. The expected player shows up and I had had some conversations with him over Skype about stuff to get his character up to speed and into the story, along with creating a story arc to give the other characters reason to move forward after the first adventure. I talked to the problem player and wanted to see how things went. About 40 minutes into the session (dealing with some proposed rule changes, concepts to give certain characters more to do, removing redundant skills and meeting the player halfway in regard to point reassignment of those spent in the removed skill, and introducing the new player and their character to the story) the player I was unable to get in touch with showed up. Six people and myself as DM. Let me tell you what being overwhelmed feels like. I honestly did not expect the last player to ever show up again because in the initial session, both he and I were a little ignored regarding doing stuff because we opted to stay in the "safe place" while some characters were getting random magic flying daggers thrown at them. We had no moves or anything because of how everything sort of broke down into a free for all. I wanted to keep playing but wouldn't fault him for just up and leaving. The problem player had calmed down a little bit by this point, but talking over people and being the rulebook police is still a little bit of an issue (and even on the rules, he's wrong half the time and I have pored over them extensively to familiarize myself with the material, made propositions to simplify things, get rid of grey area, make combat flow more smoothly), but that's still a lot of people to deal with. People are mostly respectful about not talking over others, but the game is still slowed a bit because it's not like I can "direct" my hearing over skype as if we were in a room bs'ing with each other. Also, if players split up I have to change the scene of action so everyone gets appropriate chances to do something. I'll admit I made a few mistakes, but I know where to improve and how I think I can do it. I was having a little trouble keeping track of inventory (mostly just stuff in their hands so they're not holding a lantern, a weapon, and random objects they seem to love to pick up), but I can handle that with some notes on the DM layer. I'm gonna go and make a spreadsheet with their stats as a reference so I don't need six character sheets opened, though I do have tokens and gave them the ability to edit them. What else can I do to make this more manageable? I love being DM and world building and adventure crafting, making sure the characters all have something to do, and reacting to situations I wasn't expecting. One player decided to use one of their lanterns to perform some insane feat of fire-breathing like a circus performer against a poltergeist picture since physical attacks seemed to do nothing to it. The attack was a punishment for them not looking over information which contained methods to avoid such a confrontation. That was great fun and I love situations like that and ad-libbing, but I'm still overwhelmed. Again, the problem player was a bit of a problem still, but much better than the first session. There was also a little bit of meta-gaming (he was previous DM) even though I had told everyone that while the overall mission was similar, everything about it was different so they wouldn't be repeating themselves or know solutions, done so especially so the old DM didn't come in with extra information... which he still tried to apply. I told him privately not to metagame, but I fear this will be an issue in the rest of this small mission. I don't want to keep going on, and this might just be a bit of a venting session, but I'm kinda looking for some hints and tips on handling such a large amount of players with this being my first time DMing, my first time with tabletop in general. We talked afterwards and the old dm/rules police was arguing counter-intuitively to some of the changes I wanted to make, but was very unwilling to budge even though it's a change made in the players' favor. Some of my old ideas were admittedly bad, but I had proposed more realistic and acceptable new ones. I think a lot of his issue is him trying to min/max and game the system, having constructed his character around an archetype that he feels is strongest in the CoC game. I want to try a few things differently and give myself more opportunity with plot construction and encounters and exploration, but this doesn't fit his character mold and others are stronger. He's somewhat admitted anger at the fact that he's basically useless in some situations. I'm rambling, as I have a tendency to do. Perhaps I just need some of the good ole' 'DM Mead' and get this out of my system. But how the hell do I corral that many people? I don't want to boot anyone, especially if "problem player" fixes the issues we have, which have improved. I'm just not entirely sure what to do moving forward. If you managed to read all of this, thank you for bearing with me. -Ryan

I just kind of skimmed your post, but if you have a player that is making the game less fun for you or the other players, just get rid of him.  You are the GM, it is your game and you decide who is a part of it.

Yeah, I apologize for the wall of text -- I realize it's a lot but I had a lot to get off my mind. The problem player did get better during the second session and it seems like the group is willing to weather the storm, so to speak, and see if he improves further. We also sort of understand that if it wasn't for this player, we wouldn't be together as a group since he did put together the initial roll20 group and we joined, but decided he wasn't a competent DM and I took up the role. I've talked about it privately with the two most experienced/mature players and it seems like we'll give him another session to entirely get the "speaking over others/out of turn" bit out of his system, but I was transparent with him and he knows he is on thin ice. It's just a bit awkward since he initially put it all together and was the original DM before we voted him out. Being the "rulebook police" and only being correct half of the time doesn't help much either, but he's gotten better with that as well. I'm hoping to get some tips on corralling a group of 6 players since I can't direct my listening over mic with everyone being the same volume.

The first step I suggest would be have everyone show up 30 minutes before the game and discuss what happened during the last session and offer suggestive changes. Get your players to chime in on how to improve the flow, like ask them if during combat, you calling out each characters name for them to give their action description would help.  Example : As the cultist run towards the group with their sabers held high and foam frothing from their mouths, the group gets prepared for the attack. JACK (have him give his action), JILL (have her give her action), You give the description of what the cultist are doing, Greg (his action), etc..... That would solve a lot of the problems of trying to do to many actions. As for the talking over people, you will need to explain to the group about common manners and how it is bad form to not allow people their share of talking time for their character. Let the group know in no uncertain terms that it is totally unacceptable to do that and there would be repercussions of it happening. The first rule that the group must accept is that as a DM, no matter if you are inexperience or not, you have the final say. Any rule discussion must be done after the game or before game, not during it. I have given players one warning when they tried to pull the rules lawyer on me and I stuck firm to my warning. I have kicked people out of games because of that.  Good luck and if you have more questions then ask away.

Dealing with a lot of players can be pretty hard.  Some of that is just going to be experience and some is making sure people know their part.  You may just have to be strict about certain things.  Make sure people are talking in turn -- with some leeway for extraordinary circumstances.  Maybe institute a time limit on their turns as well (if they take too long you can basically make it so they delay till the end of the turn order for that round. If a person gets really bad about it, feel free to tell them they lose their turn).  For the guy who likes to argue, I suggest allowing a time limit on making their case (less than five minutes to be sure).  Hear them out and make a ruling on the spot.  Tell everyone that they MUST abide by your ruling for the sake of keeping the game going, BUT you're happy to discuss it outside of the game in more detail.  Anyone breaking that rule should get dinged with XP penalties or something that would discourage them from continuing such disruptive behavior. Before you go any further, I would lay out whatever rules you want to institute for the game so that it's clear to all the players.  If they don't like them, they can make their case.  They might have something that would sway you on the issue.  If you still don't want to change the rule AND they still have a problem, they don't have to play.  It's as simple as that.  It's not really fun to be the hard-line GM, but to wrangle a lot of players, you might have to be a bit more strict.  If everyone is following the rules, it should make it easier to have fun rather than be frustrated by the chaos.    And remember: It's a game and the person putting in the most work is the GM.  If YOU'RE not having fun, it's not worth all that effort.  The players should be able to respect that.

Metroknight - I can normally get a few players in before the start time, but I guess we're sort of spread out across the States and some people sneak in just as game time rolls around. I feel it's pointless to go over things unless most people are there since I'd just be repeating myself with important things, but I could get character specific stuff out of the way. I'll see if we can get everyone in 15 mins. early as that's not -too much- of a stretch. I think I'm going to make a small image I can drag around the tabletop for initiative reference, and the players are going to decide on a few different orientations as I do bottleneck them so only one or two players can proceed at a time, and they have to be cautious about their surroundings. Gonna make images for the common orientations they agree on for reference so the ordering isn't an issue anymore, but I won't screw them over by using a common one if factors come into play they can pick up on with checks (structural integrity, checking for traps, lighting, etc.). The rules thing has only really been an issue with one player, everyone else seems fine with the things I've proposed and changes I've made (they grant more possibilities and make things easier for everyone), and in the case of bad ideas, they've brought it up and I've taken it off the list. He just can't seem to comprehend making our own rules as long as we're clear and consistent. He thinks it will cause arguments even though everyone is on board except for him; again, I attribute this to the fact that it doesn't benefit his character specifically. He also tries to bring things up and is wrong about half of the time, and the other half is just repeating what we've already agreed upon. I don't want to "silence the players" and we do talk about things afterwards, but I'll be more firm as I settle into the role and get used to dealing with him specifically. Sarah - I'm sure as I grow accustomed to the role of DM I will get used to dealing with more players and controlling the game. It's not too bad, but I'm a stickler for details and sort of a perfectionist, so I want to iron out any creases in the linen. Most of the time the guys are pretty good, but like I told Metro, I'm going to use a small diagram to drag around (maybe a "combat arena" separate from the rest of the map) for initiative order so there is no allowable confusion and to orient their tokens so people are not hit with stray fire in the case of fumbles -- the rules don't say anything about this but they were cautious about it, so I'll let them play that way. The worst thing about the rules policeman is that he never has any valid arguments outside of "the rules say otherwise" when the rest of the group has come to a consensus agreement, but I believe he doesn't like certain things because I am allowing the players to have more of a chance (in CoC) than the game sort of allows for, as long as they are thorough in their investigations and information assessment. If they can't perform a task one way, there will always be other options. I think he built his character around the concept of "If I die, then everyone else should because I have the best stats for the way the rules say this game should be played" and I don't want to run the campaign that way. Nobody else minds that I don't want to kill them because they opened the wrong door, but his character is min/maxing the system according to the default rules: good intelligence and "finding" checks, poor combat outside of grapple which is good against humans, terrible against monsters. I believe he's upset that I'm not tilting the system in his favor as he's accustomed to and I'm not going to solely put them up against cultists. They'll be able to find books and tomes with information regarding stopping summoning abyssal creatures and what their weaknesses may be -- as long as they're thorough. He can't thrive in those situations though because of how he allotted his points. I think we'll meld as a group more as we move forward, as we're still a group of 7 strangers trying to play the same game over skype, but I will try to enforce the respect angle a bit more, and the rules nazi will just have to deal with the fact that he can't be the strongest character all the time.

If he built his character in a very narrow fashion on the expectation of the game will be ran a specific way, I would offer him the chance to rewrite  his character sheet in a manner that would allow him to be inline with the group and game play. I would recommend doing that to the whole group as a one time offer since the game was originally setup with another gm. Every gm runs games differently so you might want to allow everyone to reset their characters to reflect your style of play.

I see your wall of text and RAISE! For some perspective, I've been GMing games for over 20 years in various systems. (For the record, CoC isn't one of those, so I can't give any specific advice as to those rules, etc. though I am familiar with the genre.) While I can handle large groups of players as GM, the truth of the matter is most games can't and neither can most players . The game's math can tend to break down, making by-the-book challenges trivial, forcing the GM to have to up the ante at the risk of imbalance or implement cumbersome house rules which require additional player buy-in and tracking. What's more, if you've got more than 4 or 5 players, you can get a lot of cross-talk and player disengagement as they "wait" for their "turn." In some cases, especially when each player in your overlarge group takes X minutes of spotlight time, you're looking at huge gaps between when a player "goes." This isn't ideal and so even after 20 years of experience, I never run a game with more than 4 or 5 players. So don't feel bad that you felt it to be overwhelming. That's normal. As far as a solution goes, you have mine - don't run games with too many players. Politely inform the group that you're reforming it for all the reasons you've stated above and limit it to 4 or 5, preferably just the players with whom you have the best chemistry. Just be direct and explain why you've made the decision you have. Offer to run other games for those who don't make the cut another time if you like. Anyone who throws a tantrum about it likely wasn't worth playing with in the first place. Regarding "rules lawyers." Always an interesting topic. The thing I see is that most people decry and despise rules lawyers, but what they frequently don't take the time to understand is why they exist. If you understand "why," you'll understand that GMs themselves are often the source of rules lawyering and once you know why, you can make changes to your approach to ameliorate the problem. Aside from being a means of outcome resolution, the rules are a substitute for trust. "I don't know you and you don't know me, but we both agree these are the rules, so at least we have that." Now that you can see that the rules are frequently a stand-in for trust, then imagine violating that trust, intentionally or otherwise. It's not even particularly relevant that the player is wrong on his rule - as far as his perception goes, you're violating that trust. Outside of the GM simply getting the rule wrong, there's another form of trust violation: blocking (aka improvisational blocking). An example is that a player wants to do something reasonable in the context of the game, it doesn't fit what the GM was thinking, and so the GM directly or indirectly blocks the player's idea or action. He says "No" or "Yes, but..." instead of "Yes, and..." Blocking is about controlling the information in the scene (or in some cases contradicting fiction already established) and GMs, even good and experienced GMs, do this quite commonly by what I'm seeing in games here. It's really bad for the game. It breaks down trust and forces players to have to use the rules to back their ideas as justification... in other words, rules lawyering. Because even a GM is beholden to the rules of the game we all agreed to play, right? (Some will say this is not true. Those people frequently miss the point and may be the source of all these rules lawyers in the first place by reinforcing the very behavior they decry!) Now let me be clear: Some people are just jerks. There's nothing you can do about them except not play with them. But most rules lawyers, like most players, aren't jerks. They just don't have any trust built up in you or the other players and so they have to fall back on the rules to ensure their contributions to the game are validated. How do you build up trust? Easy. First, if a rules question comes up, presuming it's not an egregiously unfair interpretation, rule in favor of the player(s) now and look it up later. It's literally nothing to the GM in that moment, certainly not worth breaking down trust or disrupting the flow of the game. If it means circumventing a challenge, fine - move onto the next one. In the long run, these "mistakes" tend to zero out. The game experience comes first - the GM being "right" comes last. Keep it moving and show that you're deserving of trust by placing your trust in the players. As well, don't block. If a player wants to establish a detail in the scene or take an action you hadn't considered, even one that could "destroy your plot," let it happen. Say "Yes" then add to that with your own ideas. By showing you will accept any reasonable idea (here defined as "does not contradict existing fiction") and work with it, you will build trust with your players. They won't need to fall back on the rules to have their ideas validated. Try it and watch how fast rules lawyers go from being a pain in the ass to actually being helpful, especially when you're stuck on some rules minutiae. In general, "Yes, and..." also makes it very easy to run games. You need less prep, you're more flexible, and with some practice, you can both accept all player ideas and provide a challenge. Most people with whom I play on Roll20 don't even realize I'm doing it. They just do what they want and we roll dice when the rules say we do. This tends to produce action-packed play full of challenges with engaged players and NO rules lawyering!

I see your wall of text and RAISE! That cracked me up.

Metro - I've been very lenient with the players and have told them that they are allowed to move points around to a degree while we all settle into the game - no moving more points into combat skills or in the case of when we consolidated redundant skills, not putting points into similar ones as I'm essentially removing the necessity of certain skills and saving them from having to put points in. He's just very staunch on wanting his guy to be a certain way and doesn't understand that I'm not just going to rip the campaigns from the books; I'm going to change a few things here and there and write my own since it's something fun for me. He's sold on the fact that the game can be played one way and one way only, and we had a long conversation after last night's session and he doesn't want to change his character. I'm hoping he's slowly coming around, but he just thinks that if he can't succeed at something with his character build, then nobody should be able to because "the game is meant to be played a certain way". Everyone else understands that characters have inherent weaknesses and nobody is going to be perfect -- they have to work with each other. He just doesn't seem to get that and that I'm not going to let -anyone- have a "perfect" character.

That mindset is hard to work with and you have my sympathies for the headaches you are going to get while trying to help him change. He seems to me that he has been a GM to long and expects the game to run the way he expects. Not very flexible but you can only do so much.  He will either change or quit in frustration when you run the game in your style and don't cater to him but to the group in general and express your game style. Stand your ground and run it your way no matter how vocal or frequent he gets. If everyone else is having fun then there is no reason to ruin their fun and yours just to make him feel good. The fun of the many outweigh the fun of one.

Iserith - Thanks for the long response. I appreciate input from DMs as experienced as yourself, though all input is valuable. I'm copying your message below this while I respond to individual points, so I apologize if I accidentally leave some of your text in. You're absolutely right about the number of players. I'm gonna try a few things to alleviate problems with players having to wait, but even the 5 minute line that you draw is further than we've ever typically gotten. I'm pretty good at breaking up uncertainty amongst the group after a minute or two and requiring a decision from them so we can get the gameplay moving. The players themselves are pretty solid about getting things done, as the way the CoC dice work is pretty straightforward (it's just the skills themselves that have grey areas I want to get rid of to avoid problems about what is appropriate and when), and combat is relatively simple, but I'm trying to streamline it more since it's not the focus of the game. I don't want to entirely take away options the game provides, but minimize the unnecessary so we can progress at a reasonable rate each session. But overall, I can read when they are having trouble making a decision and step in and offer a suggestion based on what they were throwing around and see if everyone's okay with it. I wasn't expecting player 6 because they were largely ignored in the initial DM's session, and I wouldn't fault him for just leaving. But he came and I'm not going to say, "No, you can't play anymore." The fifth player I had talked to extensively over skype to sort out getting him into the story and his character background and he seemed pretty amiable, and wasn't a problem during the session. I think it was just the sudden increase of the group by 50% which threw me off kilter a bit. Regarding rules, I've yet to implement anything without talking about it first. I suggest ideas on the group board and go over what I want to discuss before we start playing the next session, so everyone has time to digest it and come to the table with disagreements. Some ideas have passed, others didn't. Some players have brought stuff to the table and we used that instead. I understand what you mean with the trust thing, and that might be the rules lawyer's problem. I think he may have possibly had a DM for the game in the past who tried to change some rules and targeted players, but I've assured him and the group over and over that I'm not trying to change stuff to screw them over, I just want to make the game flow better and clarify/fix a few things I think the rules aren't very clear about or which could use improvement. Regarding play, I let them have fun. I've been trying to keep a few things in my back pocket for situations, but I've had to respond to unexpected things a few times, like the firebreathing incident. There's fire damage rules in the book, but nothing about a guy taking a mouthful of kerosene and breathing fire at a floating portrait since physical attacks weren't working. So I had him do an "Idea" check, he passed, and I said he had a good idea he was going to have to be lucky and mentally strong to not swallow the fluid or burn himself -- hinting at luck and constitution checks. He passed, so I vaguely came up with an acceptable passing roll to hit, and he was successful and laughs were had. I've had to pull out some things because the old DM tried to bring in knowledge of the campaign (which I notified him plenty of times to not do as I had changed basically everything but the setting) and he sort of derailed progress with a self-created red herring, but he knows where I stand regarding that and if he tries it again he's gone, both him and his character, because I know there is something coming up that he might just grab at with the assumption of what it does. I always give the players the benefit of the doubt when it comes to discretion calls (half points get rounded to their favor, crit/fumble system is in their favor if they are proficient with a skill, against them if they are poor at it to dissuade taking risks because of minimal penalty chance) and try to meet somewhere in the middle if they don't like my call. I'll explain my reasoning and generally everyone agrees that it's an acceptable ruling. You're right about campaign balance when you have more than the suggested number of players, and I have to fiddle with it a bit and do some test rolls before next session to balance it out and see what I can fairly throw at them. Thanks for the thorough post and here's a thorough response. Thanks again to all the other responses.

Hello! I love your post because I am a new DM too! After having witnessed  the lack of GM, I just went and made a homebrew campaign for new player. 2 month ago, I had no experience at all in DnD , never played a game as a player, never DM one. Only saw a couple video. So I went and studied the Pathfinder rule for like 1 month before starting my campaign. 3 player are new player, and 1 is a veteran. And GOD is it fun!!! The amount of time I spend creating from absolutely nothing is huge, but I am excited every time I think of something new to add. So my solution to your problem player or rule issue would be to just say at the very beginning : House rule, If I say a cat can fly and breath fire, that's mean it can fly and breath fire!!! Just done doing my second session with the group, I don't have problem player. Good luck Ryan!

#1 rule that supersedes everythng else: have fun. If you are nt havng fun, change things until you are, if your players arnt having fun adjust things. If they are still not having fun boot them and grab another player. I dmed a game a while ago andit feel apart because I focused on other aspects. Learning from my mistakes I now have a great game going wth amazing players and we look forward to each session.