Group size?

I was wondering how large your groups tend to be.

Tried a session with 8 of us on Friday night...started off well enough, but things ended up going downhill as some people got distracted by my computer and various other things.

How do you manage larger groups well? We're splitting the group in two, but we'd like to combine them off and on for various larger adventures.

 

Yeah, I split groups and run occasional crossovers. I'm not confortable with more than 4 players at my table.

 

Get their attention.

I.e., "Luke! A Greater Krayt Dragon stands before you! What do you do?"

 

Ideal size is GM + 3-5 players.
Simplest thing to do is turn off the distractions: no TV, Computer, or anything else (except maybe BGM).

But that's just my way of doing things.

 

Destractions are a big problem for my group. Mostly cuz I live in my parents home (im only 18) and they find the need to assert their dominance in the house from time to time by turning on the TV loud, or walking into the dining room and intereputing our game to talk to the guys (usually to say something like "this isn't even real! how can you waste so much time over nothing?"

 

Get a "core" gaming group of people who really want to play. Two or three. Play with them, they will tell the others how much fun they had and get them in line when you play.

 

Distractions are really bad when our groups play too! One time we played with 6 of us and it took an hour to get started because eveyone wanted to watch T.V. the whole time and it really made me mad so I unplugged the T.V. and put it in another room and we finally started to game and it went great!

 

"this isn't even real! how can you waste so much time over nothing?"

Heh, ask your parents to explain their jobs, and then follow it up with the same reply.

"I'm a dental Hygenist. I clean plaque and bacteria off of teeth."
"But that stuff is so small. Bacteria are microscopic. How can you waste so much of your time on that sort of stuff?"

"I'm a corporate Lawyer, working on patents"
"So you're abusing your knowledge of the law to try to squeeze some extra money into your company's portfolio, and billing by the hour while you play minesweeper on your computer. How boring is that. It's not like you're actually inventing anything useful."

With a little thought, you can turn the incident into a complete rout (or cause your family to disown you).
Good Luck!

 

The group I'm in has 6, including the GM.