How Many Players?

[alcyone]

How many players (not counting the DM), are typically at your in-person games?

I manage anywhere from 1-4, but I think if I played as often as I'd like to it would probably be 2. Just wondering, because as long as I can remember modules have been for 4-6, 5-7 players, and I am sure there is good market research behind it, but it always seemed large to me.

In any case, I'd love to see more 1-on-1 adventures, or adventures for 2-3 players. The Expeditious Retreat Press and a few of the old TSR ones (Gem and the Staff, Blade of Vengeance, Eye of the Serpent) keep me busy for now, but it seems there is an untapped market for C&C here.

I am sure the poll will prove me wrong .

[Just Jeff]

Just me running for my wife these days, but some of my most intense RPG experiences were with a character who had a regular crew, but often made solo trips--usually infiltrating bad places. A whole lot of things become "save or die" in that situation.

Two to four is probably my sweet spot, both as a player and a GM. I like things to keep moving.

[KaiserKris]

I like anywhere from three to five players, myself. Though I've had good times with solo campaigns and with a couple of players before. I think the real fear is running stuff with too MANY players.

[mbeacom]

I like a nice tight group, 3 is great, or even 4. 5 starts to dilute things a bit IMO. Currently, I run for 1 group of 5 and 1 group of 4. My group of 4 used to be a group of 9-10 but we had to thin it out to just the people who were committed to show up regularly. Running a game for 10 people can be tough, particularly when you never know who will be there and who won't. Making things smooth and balanced is a lot easier as a CK when you know just what the party has in it.

[CKDad]

My current group has 5 players. I usually have 4 per session - one or another of the kids generally has something going on, so I've had to adapt our game to handle that.

I personally think the sweet spot is 4-6, though I have run a regular game for as many as 8 in the past. More than 6 gets unwieldy, at least for me as a GM.

[zarathustra]

Yeah good point.

Many of the "old school" modules I remember and run are designed for 4-7 PC's and from the way they run, averaging 5-6 I guess.

(No mathematician here, just a feeling).

But my group has been me (DM) & 3 PC's for most of our career. It makes a significant difference. I allow a slightly more generous creation method than I used to but it does require rework of some adventures.

Right now I seem to have me & 5 PC's (woot) but I definately feel for DM's in smaller areas who struggle with numbers.

As a DM 5 players is the most I want. I have seen other games where players have complained about "face time" or lack therof but never actually had it myself (nor thought of it until I heard that complaint!).

[ThrorII]

Back when I was running our "Heroes of the Gnarley" C&C game, we had 5-6 playing at any time. We'ved lost people (moving, moving on, and just general life getting in the way) and are now down to 3.

[Piperdog]

I typically enjoy running adventures for 2-3 people. Tonight I ran a game for 6 teenagers hopped up on mountain dew and it was fun but pretty challenging to keep order. The style of a game changes according to how many people are in it; two people can partake in a campaign centered on the pc's being assassins in a city, while the same campaign may be impossible to run for six. A dungeon crawl may be too tough on only two characters, but with six, it becomes doable. It all depends on the style of campaign you want to run. Honestly, I had a blast tonight with my son and his buddies, all of them 16-18 years old. The hardest part was keeping people on track, as they tended to get derailed with jokes and hilarious "outtakes". This makes it fun though, and I must admit,they got me laughing so hard I nearly spit my coffee all over my CK screen a couple of times. That being said, we had a great campaign beginning so far, as this is our second session in the Blacktooth Ridge area, mainly the Hrueset region. I have a Cult of Thorax subplot going on right now that seems to be occupying their time, and it will be a recurring one in the future. All in all, we had a great time tonight. It is cool and sort of surreal to see my son playing the game with his buddies like I used to when I was his age. Cooler yet that he would ask his old dad to run a game for his buddies on a Sat. night!

[Omote]

I tend to have a lot of players and have grown accumstomed to having about 6 players at my table. Some sessions it is lower, some higher. Year ago I used to like about 4-5. But now, I think my favorite is 6. With 6 players I can usually work in the strong roleplay of others to the players who do not show as much presence. The stronger RP elements seem to come more often with 6 players than 3-4 IMO. Plus, with more players there is sometimes less work to do on my part. With all of the personalities, the session sort of drives itself with more players contributing.

~O

[Demiurge]

My group has had as many as 7 and as few as 3 regular players. 5-6 seems to be the sweet spot as it allows for a player or two to miss the game without having to cancel it (their characters are run by someone else). Any more than 6 and I find not everyone feels involved.

[Relaxo]

I can say from experience that DMing for 10 is too much!
Like most, I think the sweet spot is 4-6 as you can cover the "four food groups" (wizard, fighter, cleric, rogue) and everyone still gets a chance to shine and all can bond and have fun.
All of that has the onus on the DM to balance the story and make it fun and challenging, but I think it's easier if there aren't a dozen people and with 1 player, I usually felt like it gets, well, one sided (or maybe I was playing with a bad DM, it's hard to say). But I was always, IMO, more fun with 5ish people. or maybe 7 good players.

[Go0gleplex]

Six players is perfect, particularly if you tend not to play "with" NPCs much. The players are able to support each other well and if someone is a no show, it doesn't gum up the works badly.

And 10 players is cake. I used to DM groups of up to 18 players. Nothing like getting 2-3 rooms done in a 6-hour night. lol

[Relaxo]

cake?
more like cherpumple.

[Joe]

5-6 on Average

We just lost the 6th and though I like the chap well enough...the game seems to flow more smoothly with 5 max.

I used to run games of 3.x up to 8 and that was just ridiculous if your going for any sort of immersive roleplay.

[serleran]

We have 5 people, excluding myself. However, only 4 others are typically around, due to one being on-the-go for the Red Cross a lot.

[Rikitiki]

I went with 6 because that's manageable and gives enough role-play flavor even if one or two either don't show up game night or are only minor role-players. But, yeah, 5 is the 'sweet spot' - especially if it's a hard-core group where no-shows are infrequent.
Many years ago, our weekly group had two things that worked quite well:
If somebody didn't show up and the PCs were in the middle of some adventure, it was a given that the DM would run the missing-players character...but mainly in a middle-of-the-road capacity with the understanding that hit-points might be lost but, barring a TPK, the player wouldn't have their character killed. The other thing was Bergikoff...Bergi was a hireling that managed to keep surviving and had become a fighter of the same or close-to-same level as the rest of the group. So, if a player wanted to join an already-in-progress adventure, or their PC got killed, they played Bergikoff.

[Joe]

I don't like running characters when their players are not there.

I especially would NOT have the GM run.
The GM has a big enough job weaving plotlines for 5-6 ppl and keeping them all hosted and entertained not to mention cleaning house. If all you need to do is show up then I don't consider that too much to ask.
Otherwsie it would be a lot easier to not have to clean house, not have to set snacks out, and I can sit in my underwear running all the characters and no one would have to bother showing up. (Run into a lot less red herrings, wasted time and dead end efforts that way but maybe not so much fun)

I prefer if your not there...YOUR NOT THERE. You don't get xp either. (Call it incentive for at least bothering to show up)

Thats being said I know some times it is important and then a willing players can run it.

I have also noted it is not so much how many you have but WHO you have that makes or breaks a game.
The table chemistry is huge and I would rather have a game of 3 ppl that work together than a game of 5-6 that spend time arguing, pouting, grandstanding, or doing actions out of step with each other.

That being said...in 3 years of running almost non-stop I have yet to have a table (of any number) that did not have at least one "chemistry" issue. That is code word for players or GMs you just want to choke sometimes.

I keep promising I will run an invitational game with folks that have proven to play well with others and only those individuals but when you balance between other peoples game schedules and shifting schedules I am not sure when that time will happen.
Then, give those "excellent" players enough time and they will assuredly get into arguments, send long winded email diatribes, turn into rules lawyers, disrupt the game for whatever reason, and generally find a way to show their backside if given enough time.

Maybe I'm better off handpicking for obnoxious types. The game would likely occur sooner than later...lol.

[Tadhg]

Always 3, usually 4 and occasionally 5 . . of my 7+ player group!

[Breakdaddy]

It's varied greatly, but the last steady gaming group I had playing Dark Heresy was about 5 folks on average.

[Roz]

The group I play with usually runs about 5 to 7 players. Not all of us can make it to every game. I like the larger dynamic, you really get a sense of everyone doing their part in the battles, and the group I run with is really into the role playing. So there is a lot of fun "non battle" activity that doesn't really get us anywhere in the game, but always has us rolling with laughter.

[ArgoForg]

I prefer to keep it small. Usually 5 at the absolute most, but prefer 3-4. My sessions tend to be pretty roleplay-intense, and it seems like the more players I have, the harder it is to focus attention on the roleplay aspects and keep everyone involved.

Also, having fewer people means I feel like I can spend more time on tailoring the campaign to the characters themselves, creating good hooks that tie into their backgrounds, and keeping track of the storylines surrounding solo quest opportunities.

[Zudrak]

For now, I will be running my son through some solo adventures, much like my days of running my brother through adventures from 1981 - 1990. From 2000 - 2009, my gaming group varied from 3 to 8 players. The largest group was 9 to 11 players for a c. 1984 - 1985 Dragonlance campaign that mercifully ended when no one wanted to play a railroad anymore (though I loved the "feel" of the DL setting).

[Sundog]

I like to have five or six players at a table, though four is my favoured minimum. Once or twice I've had as few as two. Such a thing happened at a convention game I was running, but the good ol' C&C system allowed me to strip down the adventure I'd written for four-to-six players including at least one magic-wielder, and play it for a rogue, a paladin and an NPC ranger without any problems, and with only a little warning.

[Geleg]

last year I was running six players, and it was great because of the flexibility in types of campaigns one could run. Having 6 players also minimized the problems which emerged when one player couldn't be there.

This year it's been 4 players. It is definitely easier on me to run four players instead of six, but if one person can't make it, then problems become magnified - especially if the players are in the midst of an adventure.

I think I would prefer to GM for 4 players provided that the four could make it 90% of the time. If schedules make that rough, then I'd prefer to have a slightly larger group (5-6) to smooth over absences.

[Lord Dynel]

I've had 5 players for about 6 years now. We temporarily dropped to 4 for a little while, but we "swelled" to 6 for a little while, too. But 5 has been the number for the vast majority of the time.

I like 5, too. It allows for all the bases to be covered, and yet throws one more into the mix for something odd - an assassin, a bard, a knight...something along those lines. On the flip-side, 5 also allows for a little extra coverage in case you don't get a role filled. A combination of two rangers, monks, bards, and/or knights can make up for a fighter as the group's heavy hitter in a 5 party class.

[BudaZoa]

I have been rpg since 1st edition, as both a player and as a DM.

I enjoyed my sessions the most in both areas when there were four players and a DM.


It is always funny as hell to witness the chaos of DM'n for 13 players as anarchy generally is the outcome, but the most fun comes from a small core group of good role players with a great imagination.