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Anyone have advice for running a game with a large group of players? I'm starting a new campaign this week, and somehow the group blew up to 7, which is a lot to me. I'm used to running 4 to 5 players max. We had a get together last weekend and just seeing that many people in one room is a bit daunting, lol.

I think 7 is large for most people. I have ran Earthdawn games for six players before (my first ever game) and it was difficult, but also a lot of fun. I'm sure there will be plenty of advice forthcoming, but for my 2 cents:

Preparation is the key regardless of how many people there are. Be knowledgeable about their chosen disciplines and associated talents, have plenty of npc's on hand and a list of npc names that you can use at the drop of a hat. Have something in your game for all the players/characters to focus on. The difficulty I had at the start was keeping all of the players engaged. bored players can disrupt any game session. If a player is taking too long to make a decision in combat, move to the next player and come back to the undecided player.

Extra snacks

other than that good luck - and let us know how it goes!

I've ran between 2 and 12 players. My normal game group is 6 now for Earthdawn Cathay Quest. Our 50 Fathoms group is sometimes 7 players with Ted as GM. I'm usually comfortable at about 8 or so.

Initiative: Use playing cards for it. The jumbo ones work the best. Once everyone rolls Initiative have them place the card numbers with their Initiative face up. For say 20, use a king and queen for example. The highest card goes first. Reserve an action by moving the card 90 degrees. Once they act, have them turn their cards face down. If they get an Air Dance attack, give them a joker to remind them to place on top of their downed initiative cards. For your monsters, take their Initiative Step and place it on the table. Flip it down after they act, then flip it back up on the next Initiative phase. This allows you to concentrate on the declare action phase and not worry too much about Initiative.

Resolve: Its a lot easier to use the EDR table than previous editions of Earthdawn. The table is simply All 1s, Poor (x0.5 Difficulty Number), Average (DN), Good (x1.5 DN), Excellent (X2 DN), and Extraordinary (X2.5 DN). So a 7 DN would be 1, (3.5) 4, 7, 14, (17.5) 18. I say its easier since double the DN is the Armor-Defeating Hit (without the deflection bonus exceptions anyway). If a character is taking too long for their turn, have them go on hold by moving their card 90 degrees and move to the next person ready to act.

Poker chips: If using a map and miniatures, use small Axis and Allies poker chips underneath figures to remind you of conditions like Harried.

Another thing you can do is use a stack of poker chips to keep track of karma for any Game Master Characters/Opponents you are controlling.

Have a piece of paper handy for keeping track of total damage.

Make your players control any of their Game Master allies in combat, it frees you up to concentrate on the baddies.

Have an overall plot arc, a goal for the players to achieve at the end. Goalless games get boring fairly quickly.

Look at my blogs to get some extra Game Master Characters to use.

Never Unprepared (The Complete Guide to Session Preparation) just went Platinum on DriveThruRPG. Made by GnomeStew's writer Phil Vecchione (Gnome Stew is really good too). http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/1 ... ssion-Prep

The Book of Roleplaying Hints, Tips, and Ideas was a good read. The biggest tip from it is MOP. Motivation Objective Personality for character design. Especially for Game Master Characters. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/1 ... -and-Ideas

Thanks for the advice, guys. It looks like we may actually have 8 players. I'm seriously considering just breaking it into two groups. Will see how the first couple sessions go...

At one point, our Earthdawn group actually hit 14 players. I kept a list of the players and their characters on a spreadsheet and would quickly riffle through them asking for actions if things got complicated. I found the best thing to do, though, was to make the storyline complicated, with challenges that took some thought to solve, and then the discussions between player characters drove half the session. Give the players something to argue about and they'll happily entertain themselves for hours.