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Kane0
2011-12-04, 09:48 PM
Hello everybody.

I play Pathfinder with a group regularly and would like to contribute more than just being a player, mostly because I know a little more about D&D than the rest of the players and because there is one DM and seven players including me.

So I'm looking for thoughts and opinions on helping the DM and possibly co-DMing, and how it might be easier for the DM to handle 7 players with or without my help.

Yora
2011-12-04, 10:10 PM
With a group of players who are not shy to voice input to what the party should be doing, and adventures that do not include a lot of combat, seven players can work reasonably well, though it's not ideal.

The biggest problem I encountered with groups of 5 players or more is that particularly new players tend to just go along with everything that two or three players pretty much plan and decide all by themselves. 6 seems to be the magic number at which a group of equal people become a small core of activ people plus lots of spectators, regardless of the purpose that brought the group together and the people who make up the group. It pretty much happens every time you have 6 or more people sitting at a table.
If you're a new player and join a group as the 7th player, feel free to ask a lot of questions when something is not clear to you, and offer suggestions even when you don't know how exactly such a thing would be done in the game. The greatest danger is to get completely pushed to the sideline by accident, while it is very likely that the other players do want your input and for you to contribute with your ideas. It may seem as if they know all the things and handle things perfectly as they are, while the new players would only disrup the action and slow things down with their questions that don't help advancing the game at all. But when you do that, it will be very hard to get actively into the game, so don't be shy to push yourself into the foreground and state your ideas.

Things you can help with are keeping logs of all kind of things. Names that your characters should remember, items you found to be identified later with notes where you found them and from whom you got them, and such. Stuff that the GM knows, but may not have complete memory off what the players have already learned and what's still hidden backstory.

Kane0
2011-12-04, 10:41 PM
I forgot to mention that im actually the newest player there, and that Im pretty much the one leading our next session into the Kobold den.

Anyway, I'm considering opening up my place as a venue for playing but I'm concerned about stepping on toes, especially since im the newcomer to the group (both in game and out of game) and the DM's girlfriend is the host.

But I guess thats a different concern...