Too Many Players, Different Levels of Engagement, and DM Burnout: How Would You Handle This?

I’m currently DMing a D&D campaign with 8 players, and after only two sessions, I’ve already realized this is probably too much for me to handle long term.

The thing is, I’m a very story-focused DM. I care a lot about roleplay, character arcs, worldbuilding, immersion, and giving detailed attention to each player’s backstory. I really enjoy building the campaign around the characters and seeing players actively engage with the setting and the narrative.

The problem is that I’ve already noticed a huge difference in player engagement.

Some players naturally interact with the world, take initiative, roleplay, ask questions, build relationships, and help move scenes forward without me constantly pushing them. Even some newer players are surprisingly good at this because they genuinely try and care about the game.

But then there are a few players who are the complete opposite. They’re not bad people at all. Actually, they’re super nice, respectful, always on time, friendly with everyone, and nobody has broken any table rules or caused drama. That’s what makes this difficult.

The issue is more that they stay passive the entire session. They don’t really roleplay, they don’t engage much with the story, and they mostly sit there waiting for me to constantly pull them into the game. I feel like I have to spend a huge amount of energy trying to make them participate instead of using that energy to develop the campaign and work with the players who are already actively contributing.

Some of them also don’t seem interested in learning even the basic rules on their own. I keep explaining the same things over and over, and it honestly feels exhausting.

I think accepting 8 players in the first place was just bad planning on my part. I got excited, people wanted to join, and I let too many people in. Deep down, I already know some players will probably leave eventually, but I’ll be honest: I kind of want to speed that process up.

The problem is that I don’t want to randomly kick people out when technically nobody has done anything wrong.

So I wanted to ask other DMs:

Have you ever been in this situation before?

How would you handle it?

How do you reduce party size when the issue isn’t toxicity or bad behavior, but simply a mismatch in playstyle and level of engagement?