How to use this opportunity?

[Risada]

On one of my Eberron groups, the party is about to join in a summit involving all the powers of the world (Dragonmarked Houses, Five Nations, Gatekeepers mostly) to discuss what to do with the BBEG that is threatening to dominate the world with lots of aberrations.

Now, this is a great roleplaying oppotunity for the group. The problem is that if I bring all the NPCs mentioned above there will be over 20 different people present, with different points of view and reasons to argue with the one sitting to their side (read: the DM [me] talking to himself). And this would be very bad for the group's participation.

How do you guys suggest I do this? Try to reduce the number of NPCs present so it's less cumbersome to interact with them? Keep everyone in and only present the group with a "resume" of what's happening? Something else?

[Stratovarius]

One suggestion is to have them do a lot of side deals, where they can pull people aside to talk to them and influence them before each big meeting of the council. Basically, make it a group of mini games instead of one big debate session, so the players are always central.

[ZhonLord]

Another option is to have the big meeting organized into factions, with each group having a major spokesperson that does most of the talking.  The other houses that support that faction can speak now and then, but they'd be more of a supplemental role.  Boom, you've organized the meeting into a much smaller number playing off the party, but you haven't reduced the number of NPC's and you still have the option to have others speak up if you think you can keep up.

[Leviathan]

Split the party. Introduce the players to the major players (if they don't already know them), then let each player individually meet with whichever side they agree with most. When the party reconvenes, each player represents a different viewpoint and they can hash it out among themselves.

[kitep]

I've had situations like this, usually a town hall meeting where I have scads of people voicing different opinions.  Usually, I'll start with one NPC speaking and get the main points out, then I'll interrupt myself with a different NPC that heckles my first NPC, then I'll join in with another heckle, and at that point the players usually adopt NPC personas and start voicing different opinions.  The PCs themselves actually don't get very involved unless one of my NPCs directly address them.

The truth is, there are usually only 3-5 different opinions and they are usually obvious  Unless there's some knowledge that the players don't have that has to be revealed, they could probably just play the parts of different NPCs themselves.  Just make sure you get all the info out that you want out, as well as all plans you want out.

Good luck!

[kitep]

Or if you want to get complicated, there might be several people here who would be willing to skype in and play the part for one night only, if you know what time it's going to happen (and have access to skype while you play)

[polycrac]

Given all the conflicting interests you could decide that some factions will refuse to sit down with the others. If you want them to still contribute they could send written statements (possibly including questions and/or voting intentions on key issues) - this lets you involve them but you can write out their statements beforehand. They could be great flowing open letters or simple brief comments depending on what time you want to spend on it:

e.g.

"As Lord A I refuse to sit at the same table as B until our border dispute is solved. That said, I would agree to a joint force provided the troops are not used to threaten C. I formally request that using D's artifact be considered by the group."