How Big is your Gaming Group?
- Thread starter Naukhel
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DM of Doom
New member
That\'s a bit of a personal question, isn\'t it? 
It\'s not the size of your gaming group that counts, it\'s the quality of the play... lol
It\'s not the size of your gaming group that counts, it\'s the quality of the play... lolAt the peak, our DSA group was nearly 20 people. I always denied being the DM for such a large group - they were a friggin army, for god\'s sake! Many people stopped playing though, so now we are usually somewhere between 3 and 5 players plus DM. Personally I think the ideal number is 4: The players can be a diverse force with many different talents and if they need to split up, they can go in two groups of two people. They can expend one character to guard something while three are on discovery mission, but it will hurt their talent \"pool\". And if you need to isolate a character, the three other characters are pretty easily distracted.
In a fight they can mob an enemy and should be able overwhelm him easily or they target different enemies for a fantasy film style battle.
Yep, four\'s perfect, as far as I\'m concerned. 3 and 5 is OK too, but any more or less severely changes the way the game is played.
In a fight they can mob an enemy and should be able overwhelm him easily or they target different enemies for a fantasy film style battle.
Yep, four\'s perfect, as far as I\'m concerned. 3 and 5 is OK too, but any more or less severely changes the way the game is played.
oh yeah, I always hated to play with so many people. Everything took forever: We could never decide on one course of action, we were lucky if we could understand the people on the other side of the table und fights were very long.
Well, 4-6 people is best I think, 3 are to few, not enough creativity-pool.
Well, 4-6 people is best I think, 3 are to few, not enough creativity-pool.
Our \"core\" group, those of us who game together most often, is 6 people. But we have about 4 other people who sometimes game with us. We would never have all 10 at the table at the same time, though. Too many different schedules, and no one would want to play with that large a group. In one campaign we have 7 players and it\'s a bit like what Sakura describes.
I think 4 is really ideal. I\'m in one campaign with 4 players and we really get a lot done in a session.
I think 4 is really ideal. I\'m in one campaign with 4 players and we really get a lot done in a session.
N
NecroN
Guest
7+ though all of us are professional adults now with real lives so it is seldom more then 6 of us are able to gather on a particular weekend. The average session is probably 5 players plus the GM.
Ran a Vampire game back during the Windsor Gaming Society days that I think had 27 players in it, only once had everyone there though. Would run encounters in small groups that were present and played the groups against one another. Oddly though that game started with only like 4 players, but then people thought we were having fun and asked to join, being the President of said Society I found I couldn\'t turn people away as I was the only one running anything at the time. It just grew and grew..
Ran a Vampire game back during the Windsor Gaming Society days that I think had 27 players in it, only once had everyone there though. Would run encounters in small groups that were present and played the groups against one another. Oddly though that game started with only like 4 players, but then people thought we were having fun and asked to join, being the President of said Society I found I couldn\'t turn people away as I was the only one running anything at the time. It just grew and grew..
My group won\'t play unless we have 4 players and a DM. There are 8 people who could potentially show up but we usually end up with the standard 5 (DM and 4 players).
We often times make charaters individually and find that we are missing a fighter or wizard so going with only 3 players would be very difficult. I think some of this has to do with the fact that my DM writes his adventures with the goal of challenging us. This means that if we have 5 or more players he doesn\'t want to have to beef up the adventure too much on the fly.
On the other hand he will not run a game with more than 8 players. Even that many (usually at a convention) is too much if it is the wrong mix of people.
We often times make charaters individually and find that we are missing a fighter or wizard so going with only 3 players would be very difficult. I think some of this has to do with the fact that my DM writes his adventures with the goal of challenging us. This means that if we have 5 or more players he doesn\'t want to have to beef up the adventure too much on the fly.
On the other hand he will not run a game with more than 8 players. Even that many (usually at a convention) is too much if it is the wrong mix of people.
DM of Doom
New member
Yeah, four seems to be the magic numberfrom the gamesmaster perspective. I personally can\'t handle any more than eight, and even then I don\'t know if I could do it on a regular basis. I have played with only two players before for longer periods of time, and it\'s workable, but they each had two PCs each.
With D&D as a reference, I feel it\'s best if you have at least one each of the \"four cores\": Fighter-type, Arcane spellcaster, Divine spellcaster, and Sneaky-type. So if you\'ve got someone running a multiclassed PC, you can get away with less. (And not get overwhelmed with NPCs...)
Even in the modern-era/sci-fi games it seems to hold true:The Pilot, The Gunslinger, The Tech guy, and the Personality.
That\'s just my two gold/credits...
With D&D as a reference, I feel it\'s best if you have at least one each of the \"four cores\": Fighter-type, Arcane spellcaster, Divine spellcaster, and Sneaky-type. So if you\'ve got someone running a multiclassed PC, you can get away with less. (And not get overwhelmed with NPCs...)
Even in the modern-era/sci-fi games it seems to hold true:The Pilot, The Gunslinger, The Tech guy, and the Personality.
That\'s just my two gold/credits...
The problem with only having four people is that if only 1 person can\'t make it you\'re screwed because you\'ve lost a lot of talent.
Our group has a \"core\" of 7 people with two people who sometimes move back into town, game a while, then move away again! Ususally not everyone can make it so it works out ok.
For a while we had a HUGE group of 12 or 13 and that was WAY too much. Grumb stopped playing and another player left and hasn\'t been back yet. But, through attrition (and me tellling some people they couldn\'t come back) we we\'ve whittled it back down to a manageable size.
Our group has a \"core\" of 7 people with two people who sometimes move back into town, game a while, then move away again! Ususally not everyone can make it so it works out ok.
For a while we had a HUGE group of 12 or 13 and that was WAY too much. Grumb stopped playing and another player left and hasn\'t been back yet. But, through attrition (and me tellling some people they couldn\'t come back) we we\'ve whittled it back down to a manageable size.
\"Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached...\"
Sorry, it just somehow seemed appropriate:innocent::duh:
Sorry, it just somehow seemed appropriate
:innocent::duh: