TEXT:  
  writing Simon “Skipp” Morin
   
  editing Felipe Real
   color art Ellis Goodson
   
  layout Xanditz
  The War of Numbers:
  ABigTable
  Your regular 
  players. Friends, 
  allies, family. A nice 
  evening. You throw the perfect game. 
  Epic quest, treasure, creatures. You laugh, yell, 
  enjoy. The evening ends on a cliff-hanger. What more 
  could you ask for.The word then gets out. 
  EN World EN5ider | The War of Numbers: A Big Table
  
  Everybody wants a piece of the action. One of 
  the players wants to bring her boyfriend, the 
  other wants his best-friends there. Some may 
  avoid these situations out of fear but, if you dare, 
  you can sit them all down for a big table: five to 
  nine players and only one GM. 
  This is the challenge that I want to help you 
  undertake today with this guide. Here we will dive 
  into how you must act, set-up and play to help you 
  get the most out of a large number of PCs.
  Control is everything
  First off, when facing 5-9 story-hungry, battle-ready 
  players, you must remember that keeping an iron fist 
  is of the upmost importance. Even the smallest slip-
  up can derail the game into a 30-minute kerfuffle. 
  You don’t have to turn into a dictator, but this is the 
  perfect opportunity to flex the muscle of power. Use 
  discipline, don’t be afraid to warn (and punish if need 
  be), control access to media (cellphones, computers, 
  etc.), and limit outside conversation, as well as any 
  other behaviors that can affect the session’s flow. For 
  this game to work, your players and you have to use 
  serious and immersed behaviour. If you see someone 
  slipping and losing either focus or interest, you must 
  adapt and react. Using all your tools and skills, you 
  must try as hard as you can to pull them back into 
  your world and story to keep moving forward. Start 
  an unplanned battle, a skill-based puzzle, or an NPC 
  encounter: anything that gets their attention. 
  Everybody reacts differently to stimulus, but in 
  RPGs getting the blood flowing with a battle or a 
  puzzle usually does the trick. 
  Also, try to keep them on a track, story-wise, 
  without railroading them. View this game as if you 
  were a dog herding sheep in a cattle. You know the 
  direction they need to go and they have notion of the 
  path ahead of them, so you just have to guide them 
  subtlely. Try to be discreet and vague about your 
  hints and tips, but keep a firm hand on the story. A 
  small group may live well in a sandbox world, but a 
  big group needs a little bit more guidance. 
  Setting a rhythm
  Story, like songs, are carried by a rhythm. You set 
  them up with an intro, they follow with a series of 
  adventures, which slowly rise into a climax before 
  gliding into a smooth finish. It happens in waves, 
  slowly climbing to a climax and ending on a big 
  note. Keep this as simple as possible and you should 
  be fine. Too many cliff-hangers, and you’re looking 
  at an exhausted group. No climax and the session 
  will feel empty. Even if you throw something half-
  assed at the end, just give your players a bone to 
  keep them interested.   
  Statistics, statistics, 
  statistics
  On this battlefield, certain numbers will come 
  up often. Keep track. Keep simple and important 
  information handy by writing a cheat-sheet before 
  the start of the game. Make one for fighting, with 
  the attack bonus and the armor class of every 
  character, and keep one for the spell-casting, with 
  the difficulty checks for the spell saves of each 
  caster. By having this close-by you can keep track 
  during fights, adjust the difficulty and balance of 
  them, keep an eye on less experienced players, and 
  plan ahead your future encounters. 
  Choosing your players
  Big tables need solid travelers. Choose your friends 
  wisely as they will hold this game together. If you 
  surround yourself with turbulent and wild players, 
  try to balance it out with a calm and charismatic 
  leader that can keep them within boundaries. It may 
  seem harsh, but don’t be afraid to reject the ones 
  that get out of hand easily. The easily distracted, the 
  jesters, the trouble-makers: these will bring the game 
  to a squelching halt. Also, keeping new players out of 
  this game might eases the pressure too. Not having 
  to hold player’s hands can help a game to pan out 
  peacefully. 
  Also, when you make your plans, don’t water 
  down the quality of the game with awful players 
  EN World EN5ider | The War of Numbers: A Big Table
  
  just to fill your table. 
  Mastering 
  a 
  table 
  with 
  bad 
  players 
  is one of the worst 
  experience 
  for 
  a 
  GM, as you fight for 
  control, try to block 
  their attempts to turn 
  everything into a joke, and shut down their bad 
  behaviour, all in one evening.
  Set rules, set boundaries
  Some rules are more important to implement when 
  playing on a big table. First off
   Never allow players to go into “lone wolf” mode. This 
  is a recipe for disaster. As a big table, the strength 
  of the story and flow is in the group. Splitting it in 
  multiple groups may prove to be your downfall. 
  You can always have a separation, having two 
  small units, but ending up with 3 players going 
  different directions from the rest of the group can 
  lead to a warped, unmanageable story.
   Keep the characters simple. No four class spread-out 
  character that covers the role of everybody else in 
  the group. Limit everybody to one or two classes 
  and one specific role in the group. I’ve never heard 
  of a group that needed a caster/healer/fighter 
  when there’s nine players around the table.
   Limit the interactions. I know I’m going to rub some 
  people the wrong way here, but you should keep 
  the cities and the NPC population to the 
  simplest. You already have a ton of work on 
  your plate; why have a marketplace scene 
  with 200 NPCs? Flesh some out and use 
  generic responds for the small talks, like 
  shopping and resting.
   
  Pool the money. You need to have 
  a group wallet with a little bit of fund 
  that everybody participates in. Questing 
  expenses, equipment, food: bills should 
  be for the group and not individual. Make 
  sure that everybody pitches-in (even the 
  dwarves) to not create sow any discordance 
  among the group.
   Never give someone authority over someone else. In 
  a big group, too many opinions on how others 
  should behave always lead to chaos.
  Timers are a treat
  You need a new challenge to spice-up the table? 
  Time some events. It will force the players to make 
  decisions together, creating bonds, memories, and 
  often resulting in stupid choices. From escaping a 
  crumbling castle, to killing a beast before her creator 
  comes back, there is a lot of holes in a story that can 
  be filled with a quick alarm on a phone or watch. You 
  can also make time-activated puzzles. Adding that 
  dimension to the table makes it seem more real.
  Just pace yourself. Give your players a break to 
  organize before starting the timer, and be lenient on 
  the event that follow. Nobody wants to see a game 
  end when all the players are killed by an avalanche in 
  the first 15 minutes.
  Task sharing
  I’m not against sharing the burden of paperwork 
  with a trustworthy friend, but try to keep them out 
  of the loop. The story can only hold if the players 
  have no idea on what is happening. Keeping track 
  of initiative, maintaining discipline around the table, 
  keeping track of money and equipment are all tasks 
  that I usually delegate. 
  EN World EN5ider | The War of Numbers: A Big Table
  
  I also want to bring up a practice that I use in my big 
  tables. I appoint a leader, usually a volunteer, to make 
  the mundane decisions for the group and to speak-
  up. In the chaos that is the table, he is in charge of the 
  votes and the choices the group makes. When there’s 
  bickering, he has to talk and settle it; when there’s 
  multiple voices speaking at the same time he has to 
  shut them down. He’s my tiny captain. I always make 
  it fit with the story to make it seem more natural. Every 
  once in a while I appoint someone new as the leader, 
  forcing players to play out of their comfort zones. 
  Leadership can be something we all teach our players.
  So, to end this on the words of a fellow game-
  master: “To be a master, you have to learn to adapt 
  and react, then to balance whatever you changed.”
  Just keep in control, keep your players entertained, 
  and enjoy. Most memories are forged in these glorious 
  moments. When you are surrounded by your friends 
  and you throw in that sweet cliff-hanger you have 
  been working on for days a dark and hard silence falls 
  on the table and all you can hear is nine people trying 
  to catch their collective breaths, as one of them lets out 
  a slow and so delightful, “Good god, we are screwed.” 
  Then watch them scramble to find a plan.
  EN World EN5ider | The War of Numbers: A Big Table
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/5th Edition (5e)/3rd Party/EN World EN5ider/EN5ider 085 - the War of Numbers.pdf