There are a lot of practices that were prevalent in the early days of the hobby that have long since fallen out of regular use. I play online these days. (I’d love an FtF group but for a variety of reasons it is not feasible.) As with games in meatspace, online games have a problem when there are too many players trying to talk at once. It’s worse online because if someone interrupts you when you are speaking they will completely drown you out. This sucks as a player, but it’s worse as a GM. Random jokes and crosstalk can make it almost impossible to get through a simple description or slow things down to the point that it’s difficult to build momentum or even continued investment. If you have any issues with sensory overload, it is maddening.
Not too long ago I ran a CoC game and I opened it up to eight players. It was fucking awful. I could’t make out what anyone was trying to say, because, invariably, someone else would start talking over them.
Worse than this, however, was the 10-15 minutes eight people, who were continuously talking over one another needed to decide weather or not they were going to go through a door.
The game lasted four sessions, but actually went to shit in session three for reasons unrelated to the group size.
However, I learned some important lessons.
Were I to run such a large group again (doubtful) I would absolutely use a caller.
What’s a caller? A caller is one player who sorts and organizes what the group is going to do and tells the GM. So that’s one person talking to you instead of eight or whatever.
I’ve been asked how this helps the players.
It doesn’t. It’s for the benefit of the GM. Well, I guess it helps the players as the GM is less likely to scuttle the game and run away forever.
How does that work if they’re all still talking over one another?
You mute them until they have it together and are ready to go. Go make a coffee or a snack, take some notes, check some rules, bask in the momentary peace or whatever. You work hard enough putting everything together. Let the players sort their own stuff out.
Yeah, I know it's been two years since my last post. I'll talk about that some other time.
