This is my first time ever running a game of D&D (or any roleplaying game in general).
I have 7 players, 5 of them who have never played before. The other 2 are relatively experienced. Should I make any adjustments to the game? Would each encounter be too easy because of the amount of players in contrast to monsters?
I've been running the same starter set group with 7 players for the last 2 years and we're almost finished the last cave. It was also the first time many of us had ever played - I'd certainly never ran a game before.
Here goes. It's going to be a long one...
Basically think in terms of action economy.
If there's only a few goblins, add a few more (though be wary of this before level 3 due to players' max hp). If you misjudged and it looks like it's going south, have some of them "retreat for reinforcements". Matt Colville's YouTube videos are your friend.
One problem you may find (or maybe it's just my rowdy rabble) is a large combat can take almost the entire session. My group gets one decent encounter done, one room of a dungeon (more if there're no enemies), or a fair amount of role play - but never more than any one or two combined in a session.
If there's already a large number of enemies consider upgrading to their stronger versions. Make one of the Goblins a Goblin Boss, a Bugbear into a Bugbear Chief, etc. This will in turn provide better exp and actually get them levelling up in decent time, as your total is now being divided by essentially double the recommended amount.
I have to say I "upgraded" more than I "swarmed". Players get less bored and they get to level up more often. I'm always looking for the highest CR I can ever throw at them.
Which highlights another problem you may run into.
Instead of having a group of 4 guys at level 5 reaching the last dungeon, it'll maybe be 7 guys at level 3. Which you think may equate to the same thing, but I'd worry about their max hp. If they're going down in one or two hits you may have a lethal game of dominoes on your hands if you don't stock them with extra potions beforehand.
Third thing I found useful...
Have them do some extra side quests not in the book. If there's a cool Hydra mini you have lying around, have something on the quest board to maybe clear a Hydra out of a nearby swamp or forest? Making my own content seemed impossible when I first began, but the adventure lays good foundation for inspiration (and most importantly confidence) to sprout and take form.
Or have a Hill Giant or two attack the town - nice bit of foreshadowing for running Storm King's Thunder afterwards? ;)
Not keen on creating your own content? Well...
When in Thundertree, one player said "What's in that volcano? DM said the eruption was magical - there must be something cool up there!"
Oh, drat! What will I do? There's nothing in the book about that. I know! I'll run White Plume Mountain (from TftYP)! Why do they want to go in? I'll have a Fire Giant in the crater that can't get past the 1st riddle - he'll offer to smith them some obsidian gear if they can clear the place out (with the option of a double-cross when they see him again)!
They just turned level 5 as they entered (I gave them the exp for successfully negotiating a way past the FG without fighting him) and they just turned level 6 as they left - before a Copper Dragon lands, a fight between the two ensues and the players have to decide who to join in and help...
And all before Cragmaw Castle. Now they're halfway thru the final dungeon, now modded and far tougher than the one originally published (Skeletons become Wights, Zombies are Ghouls/Ghasts, etc.), level 7, only two of the original party left (they like rolling up new characters), many deaths, and many emotional moments. It's been a wild 2 years!
You just have to mostly play it by ear and get a feel for it. If you're new to DMing like me it'll seem quite daunting at first, but I promise you'll soon have a good feel for things before too long.
Sorry for such a long answer. I just saw someone in pretty much the exact same boat as me when I started. Hope it helps. And good gaming!
A more concise attempt at my previous answer, now that my thought are more organised:
It can get rowdy. Try to make sure everybody has a voice. You'll find the same 2 or 3 loud ones will drown out the quieter few if you let them.
Try not to make combats too big, your players may get bored - unless that's what they enjoy? Get a feel for what they like.
If they prefer fewer stronger enemies then consider upgrading the ones in the adventure to their stronger versions.
Buy a Monster Manual!
Don't be afraid to add in other smaller adventures or mini delves.
Trawl reddit for ideas. I had them make underwear for a Treant made from Werewolf pelts - stolen straight from reddit! And it's probably their most memorable moment of the entire adventure.
Watch as much YouTube as you can. Matt Colville, Runehammer (formerly Drunkens & Dragons), Critical Role are the more popular ones to name a few - but check out Monarch Factory and the like as well.
Keep journals! One for documenting everything they've done (for memories as well as your own sanity, should there ever be any significant time off) and another for ideas and doodles. Runehammer on YouTube is your journalling mentor.
It's their game, not yours. Don't be the "cos I'm the DM and I said so" guy. Listen to what they're into in between sessions. You may be a roleplay fiend, but they want to kick down the door and murder dungeon crawls? Then you have to start incorporating more dungeons and less roleplay. Over time you can try implementing by degrees the other aspects they're lacking and maybe change their way of thinking - meet them somewhere in the middle, but gradually.
And no sex in the champagne room! Otherwise remember to just have fun!
You are correct in your assessment that 7 PC's will make combat encounters too easy1, but it will also make them less exciting as players wait for their turn, and it will slow level advancement when xp are awarded for combat. Note that early in this adventure, xp are awarded by milestone, and the player number does not affect this reward.
LMOP is interesting in that it has a 'vertical rhombus' plot shape. That is, it has a narrow beginning and end, but a wide middle. We can use those features for our big group of seven PCs.
Our game plan is to have one big party at the start of the campaign when there is one plotline, then have them divide up into two cooperating teams when the plotlines diverge in the middle, and finally come back together into one group at the end2. During the times the whole group is together, we will emphasize the organization and rapid response of their opponents, and only add monsters to the board as a last resort to keep things challenging.
Ask the two experienced players to prepare their potential characters ahead of time and review them. Be alert for signs of optimization that will make them 'better' than novice characters, and talk to them about what sorts of playstyle they enjoy. See if there are any features (class, race, background, faction interest, that might make these two PCs inclined to work together, and if not, suggest that they include at least one - we'll come back to this later.
Express, honestly, some of your doubts about being an inexperienced DM and ask for their help. Explain what sorts of help you will find encouraging and what might undercut your authority as a DM.
When everyone attends Session 0, have the experienced players help you help the inexperienced characters with character generation. Be alert to how they 'help' - are they friendly and encouraging, or are they dismissive, and using their experience as a source of superiority? Are they listening to what the new players want from the game, or trying to tell them what kind of characters they have to have? Try to pick up cues that will become important when everyone is interacting with one another as fellow players. Be prepared to reward appropriate behavior and discourage behavior you do not want to continue.
All seven of the PCs are escorting the wagon to Phalandin. Run the goblin ambush as written, but when the first goblin appears, call a break to go into meta. Explain that you are about to enter combat, and ask if anyone has questions about how combat works. Ask the two experienced players to give the group any advice or general direction. When they are done, though, say that you will be running this combat completely in-character; they will not be able to communicate with one another beyond a brief shout on their turn.3
Run the combat as written, but when either of the two melee goblins see that there are more than 4 PCs, or when either of them are wounded, they fall back and start sniping with their bows and using nimble escape - this will make it more challenging for your group of seven. Pay attention to the two experienced players - do they violate your in-character condition? And if they do, for what? An encouraging "good shot!" or a discouraging "That was a stupid spell selection, you should have attacked the goblin that just failed to Hide"?
At the end of the combat, when the last goblin dies or flees, the players have the choice of looking for the goblin lair, or continuing on to Phalandin - or both! Only one PC is needed to get the wagon to town, so they can split into two groups of any distribution if they don't agree on immediate goals. Since the rewards in this section are milestone, it won't matter how many are in each group - but the group that goes to the Hideout will get more xp.
If up to five of the PCs go to the goblin lair, you can run it as written, but if it is six or seven, try to have the entire lair respond with wave after wave and possibly run this as one long combat without a chance for the party to rest or recover. Any time the party comes upon goblins, have one leave immediately to bring others from other locations, and have one from there likewise spread the word. [Since you are a new DM, prepare by having a list of where each room might quickly summon reinforcements from, and if you don't play on a map, calculate in advance how long this will take] Since there are more PCs than the adventure plans for, having them fight all of the lair at once (staggered in waves to keep it manageable) will allow you to challenge the players and make sure they all have something to do. If the players are careful and lucky as they scout, don't force this outcome by 'declaring' that a goblin gets away to warn others, but their nimble escape bonus disengage should ensure that unless all the goblins have poor initiative, at least one can quickly get away and raise a general alarm.
The adventure itself awards 75xp as a milestone for defeating the ambush and finding the goblin lair, but you may have a group that does only the first and continues on with the wagon. They should get the full 75 for the ambush plus delivering the goods to town.
The second group (the one that goes to the lair) will have this 75xp plus another 275 for actions in the lair itself, which should give them enough to level to 2nd.
If you have a smaller group of PCs that brought the wagon into town, they will need an opportunity to level by the time the others, who have already leveled, return from the goblin lair. First, give the wagon-escorts 10xp each (the same as the gp reward) for turning the supplies over to Barthen. Have him insist on paying them the full 70gp reward, with the understanding that this money is to be split between all of them. If and when they pass this on to their party mates, award them the amount in xp of any gp they turn over, divided between them (for example, if two of the party brought the goods to town, and they later turned over 50gp total to the other PCs, those two would get 25xp each).
Then, unless they had already agreed to return to the rest of the party as soon as possible, encourage them to explore town and / or find lodgings for themselves and their companions. For each 'adventure hook' they discover, award them 100xp split between them4, when they talk to the person indicated by the asterisk below and receive details about the quest:
Narth -> Garaele* -> Banshee
Elsa -> Daran* -> Old Owl Well
Lanar -> Townmaster Harbin* - > Orcs
Pip -> Carp* -> Redbrand Hideout
Pip -> Quelline* -> The Druid
Freda -> Halia* -> Glassstaff
Let them explore town until they have nearly enough xp for second level, and then run the Redbrand Ruffians encounter, but make the number of ruffians one more than they are (up to maximum of four ruffians). Give them the stated xp (100 per ruffian, divided between them). After this they will likely be wounded enough to rest until the goblin lair group reaches town.
With all of the party together again, and everyone at 2nd level, they may be interested in taking on the Redbrand Ruffians in their lair - and if they aren't, Sildar (if present) will point out the immediate threat to the town that the group poses, and how their leader might be working with King Grol, so that it is not safe to set out for Cragmaw Castle with the Redbrands intact behind them. With all seven of them, run the Redbrand Hideout like the Cragmaw Hideout - each group of ruffians they encounter will send one runner to alert the rest of the lair, until the whole place is on alert. Since the ruffians don't have nimble escape, though, they won't throw themselves at the party in waves, but they will use the natural features of their lair for cover as they fall back into a series of ambushes, constantly baiting the party and then retreating, but not letting the party withdraw to rest. If the party tries to retreat, send the bugbears sneaking after them. If the party is having too easy a time of it, make sure that Glassstaff uses his scroll of fireball at some point.
As before, evaluate how encouraging your experienced players are to the new ones.
With the threat of the Ruffians removed, Sildar (if present) suggests that they immediately head out to Cragmaw Castle to rescue Gundren 'before it is too late'. At the same time, Townmaster Harbin shows up to remind/present the party with the threat of the Orcs, which is a clear and present danger - 'the only reason I tolerated the Redbrands was because they kept the Orcs away - now, I fear that as soon as they have learned you have driven off the Ruffians, the Orcs will descend on the town!'
Have both NPCs stress the imminent nature of the threat and how both must be acted on immediately. If the party doesn't catch on, have a third NPC, one the party considers sensible, suggest that 'such a large band of heroes' can split into two groups to deal with both threats simultaneously.
Here is where your assessment of the two experienced players comes in. If they have been good mentors all along, you can suggest that they each lead one of the two groups. If they have shown that they don't really respect the agency of the newer players, they should be in a group by themselves, with Sildar as support (and also as a foil5) while the other five players are in another group.
Then, the two groups will go forth separately on the two different quests2. You can have the groups meeting separately on alternate playdates, but the players can also come on 'off-sessions' to watch, learn, and roll dice for monsters if they are interested. Every time one of these groups comes back to town, the other group is conveniently not there, so they 'may as well' accept another one of the side quests while they wait for the other group. Going forth in groups of three experienced players (2 plus Sildar) or five inexperienced players, you needn't adjust the difficulty of the encounters or the number of monsters involved for the other quests in this Act.
At some point either all of the side quests will be played out or the characters will be at 3rd or 4th level and ready for Wave Echo Cave, or at least one group of them will insist on going to the cave (perhaps the group that comes back from Cragmaw Castle with Gundren). If all seven of them at third level want to make the attempt, you can probably run the cave as written. If just one of the groups wants to go at 3rd, you will need to delay them - telling them that Gundren is not ready in needs to recover from his ordeal, or having them arrive at the cave and having Gundren find his brother but then insisting that they all return to town for a funeral, may delay them long enough for the other group to get back from their last quest.
If you have your full group of seven PCs, all at 4th level, then you will need to ramp up the challenges of the cave. As before, you will do this by ensuring coordination among defenders, such that any encounters with intelligent opponents will lead them to either falling back while summoning reinforcements or at least sending one of their number to go get help. The difference here is that there are two factions in play - encountering bugbears will ensure a response by all the forces available to Nezznar, while encountering undead will result in a response from Mormensk. You don't need to add monsters to the rooms as keyed, but you can use the wandering encounters to roll for each room or keyed area the party enters, and also to replenish the numbers of the defenders if the party withdraws. Further, add a curse on the Caves such that any of the bugbears that are slain later rise as bugbear zombies under the control of Mormensk. And while the unintelligent stirges, gricks, and ochre jellies are not part of this organized defense, both Nezznar and Mormensk are smart enough to use them, such as luring or driving them into the PC's.
You are correct 7 PC's will make the combat encounters in LMoP too easy. However, rather than simply add more monsters to the board to increase the challenge, I suggest that you apply a much more coordinated defense to lairs like the Cragmaw Hideout, Redbrand Hideout, and Wave Echo Cave. For Acts 2 and 3, you may have success with the encounters as written if you split the party into two groups, each of which has the numbers of PCs that the adventure anticipates.
1 In one campaign I DM, I typically have six PCs in the party and have had up to nine. It is difficult to challenge them even within the bounds of a "deadly" encounter as defined by CR.
2 I have used this technique successfully with a group of four PC's, but when they reached level 15+ and it became increasingly hard to challenge them without every fight being epic monsters. I would start the plot arc with them together for the hook, then explain how constraints (time and distance) meant they had to separate into two teams, allowing the combats to be more manageable. Then they would come together at the end of the arc to fight the Big Bad, where epic level monster challenges were appropriate.
3 I have one group where some players are serious strategists and others are more casual 'it will all work out' types. We used to have situations in combat where the two groups would get frustrated at each other - the strategists frustrated at 'sub-optimal decisions in combat' and the casual ones frustrated at 'being told how to play their character'. I instituted this rule and it has helped to ease tensions. The strategists get unlimited time pre-combat to remind people of abilities, synergies, and priorities, but are not allowed 'table-talk' during the combat itself. They are able to have their say and influence group strategy beforehand, but can rationalize 'poor' decisions by others in combat as realistic 'heat of the moment / fog of combat' moments.
4 If you want to be fastidious about adventure xp totals, then treat this as an advance, and if/when they or others undertake these quests, reduce the total xp available by this amount.
5 At second level, it will be difficult for the experienced players to push Sildar around, even if they act together. That won't stay true for long. In the meantime, he can dispense wisdom like, "Yes, I agree with that tactical assessment, but no free man likes to be told what to do, especially with that tone of condescension. If you are going to be members of the Lord's Alliance, you will need to learn how to act like a leaders of men."
