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View Full Version : [Any edition] Most players you have ever had in a group?



Gamerlord
2009-12-30, 10:08 AM
So, there was an article in dragon magazine about how to manage 10 or more players all at the same time that got me thinking: what was the largest amount of players you have had in a group?

jmbrown
2009-12-30, 10:10 AM
9 but this was Basic where most modules recommended 6-9 and each player played two characters because they were expected to die in any given encounter.

Saintjebus
2009-12-30, 10:10 AM
I was in a group of 10 once. Didn't go so well. Combat took hours longer than normal, and people got bored.

robotrobot2
2009-12-30, 10:12 AM
I played in one with eleven players once. Nobody else really knew how to play, so I would take my turn, read a couple chapters of a good book, and then still have time to catch the actions of the people a few initiative points before me. We only had a few sessions with all the players though, then it went down to 6-7.

Rhiannon87
2009-12-30, 10:19 AM
My current group is nine people (which means 8 players and 1 DM) if everyone shows up. I don't think we've had the complete group show up to a game in nearly a year, though. Someone is always missing, but one of the benefits of a large group is that you still have enough people to play if you happen to be down a player or two.

Dekkah
2009-12-30, 10:21 AM
I have a group with 10 friend with whom we've been playing for 15+years.

dsmiles
2009-12-30, 10:28 AM
I once started a campaign for 12 players. I managed to whittle that down to my favorite number of players: 5. I have found that 5 is a good number. Not too small, not too big. Can accomplish any task set before them.

Granted, in 3.x and 4e you need to adjust your numbers a bit to make up for the 5th character, but it's still quite doable.

Mongoose87
2009-12-30, 10:42 AM
I played with about 12 last summer. I don't think the DM would let his group balloon up that big again, though.

Choco
2009-12-30, 11:03 AM
I was in a group of 10 once. Didn't go so well. Combat took hours longer than normal, and people got bored.

That's how I got started...

As such, I really never get bored anymore, even when the party splits every time we get to a major town and I dont get any screentime in a session. Laptops are great for that.

Nowadays the biggest group I play in is 6 players, all of them but me being first timers, so I wait around a lot.

Longcat
2009-12-30, 11:03 AM
Max was 8, back in my high-school days. Nowadays, it's rarely more than 6.

valadil
2009-12-30, 11:06 AM
I GMed for 7 and hated it. I didn't have time to do individual plots and had to treat the group as a single entity.

I played in a group of 14 back in high school. This was one of those groups that met at a gaming store and let anyone join in. Combat was slow, often taking 30 minutes per round and the game did little else. But it was more about socializing than gaming so it was still a good time.

While we're on the topic, I think 5 is the ideal group size. PCs can still be treated as individuals. I find that less than that and you actually get less interaction because the PCs learn each other too quickly.

Kris Strife
2009-12-30, 11:11 AM
The biggest group I played in, was a bit over 10, almost everyone was new. The DM conscripted the other two people who knew how to play as his Co-DMs to focus on running the numbers.

Behold_the_Void
2009-12-30, 11:14 AM
I've DMed for 7, in a 3.5 epic-level game no less. Fortunately it was silly and Disgaea, so it worked out marginally OK.

It also made me resolve to never go quite that high again.

My absolute max is now 6, and I prefer at least 4.

Fhaolan
2009-12-30, 11:25 AM
[Reposted from another simular thread]

24

It was at a convention, it was 1st edition, ran over three days in six 3 hour blocks, and I had two 'assistant GMs'. One was TGM (Tactics Guy), who was running the combats and the non-influential NPCs (i.e. Monsters, shopkeepers, etc.). The other RGM (Rules Girl), who was in primarily in charge of looking stuff up in the various books and tracking rolls and results. And then there was me. I was PGM (Plot Guy) and was doing the storyline, setting, and plot-driven NPCs (major villains, mysterious strangers, etc.).

Never, ever again. The only thing that made that game work (and I use that term delicately, hoping it doesn't get mad and beat me up for it), was the fact that most of the players were stunned into submission by the RGM because she showed up in a short skirt and tank top, and had perfect recall of every AD&D hardcover published at that time. This was *ages* ago, so a good number of the players at that event had never seen a girl before, let alone a pretty gamer girl who was better at the game than they were.

Slayn82
2009-12-30, 11:43 AM
In 2001, a game i Co - DMed had 11 players, but a lot of time it was more like collective storytelling sessions.

About half of them just came for the story part, while 6 where the guys who actually participated in battles activelly. Ok, everyone had characther sheets, and the xp of the campaign was rewarded by objective completion instead of moster killing. Well, it was a good 2 weeks, all afternoons game. Also, i had 1 player acting as assistant GM.

Saph
2009-12-30, 11:48 AM
10 plus the GM.

The campaign only worked because, on average, only four or five players would show up for any given session.

Unfortunately, for one player's leaving game everyone showed up. To make things worse the GM had planned out a session where every character had individual solo tasks.

We got through the tasks, and fought the first 5 rounds of a combat before running out of time. The session took four hours. Just to repeat that: to start the game, do one short task for each character, and get through a 5 round combat, took four hours.

This is why I refuse to allow more than six people in a group at once.

mikej
2009-12-30, 11:50 AM
8 plus the DM

Rule of the Table is that we can only play with at least 3+ players and the DM of course. Normal is around the 5-6 range.

Glyde
2009-12-30, 11:51 AM
10+DM. And we still play. We started in 2004 I believe and we're currently 8-10th level in 3.5e (We started at 2e)

I think it's something like this, now...

Warblade/Bard variant, Fighter/Wizard, Wizard/Fighter, Cleric, Fighter, Barbarian/Warblade, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard/Cleric/MT, Ninja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94207).

It's good fun, though there is a power difference in the group. That's mostly because the Ranger and Wizard/Cleric haven't shown up for every single session like everybody else, and they fell XP-wise a bit. Though after assimilating a pearl-diving colony into our town (by taking all their pearls and telling them they can lead a better/safer life with us) we have... A lot over WBL. Those two underpowered characters will be seeing some love soon.

Zaydos
2009-12-30, 11:52 AM
11 players. 2 newbies, 3 that never paid attention (1 of which had to be routinely NPC'd halfway through the adventure), 1 power gamer, 1 experienced player who didn't know the rules, 2 players who I'd taught the rules, 1 experienced player who talked about RAW wizards but never did it (usually because I could point out how that wouldn't work or that they weren't high enough level for PaO), 1 person who shot everything she saw, 1 NPC that I'd tried to write out and they wouldn't let me, 1 new NPC used to introduce the 3 new characters.

It was long, and somewhat painful/boring. Combat took too long, but when they killed the dragon (1 CR higher than I thought and with its demons and forest trolls a tough enough fight) it was epic. Used a homebrewed spell to seal it into a sphere of water for 1 round (it broke free) and it's suped up (maximized, quickened I forget what) sonic breath almost toasted the dragon.

It was fun but too big to have the NPCs, or the players that weren't there to play. Cutting them out would have left 8 people still but would have been manageable. It would have helped if the player who'd agreed to help run combats as an assistant DM had, but the combats were big and he had enough tactical problems with his own PC.

Amphetryon
2009-12-30, 11:52 AM
Currently I have 12; I have asked the most rules-savvy player to be assistant DM by looking up rules as needed. I had 16 show up for one session years ago when I ran a game at our FLGS on condition that I never turned anyone away. I was just glad 16 was roughly double the normal number, rather than the average.

Gamerlord
2009-12-30, 11:56 AM
The most I ever played with was 7 characters+ me as DM, though some people played multiple characters, I find it is easy to have a large campaign if you handwave the reason the group is so large (i.e being part of a mercenary company or being in the employment of a king's spy network) which makes it easy to have an excuse when a player isn't around as to why their character isn't around.

Ormur
2009-12-30, 12:59 PM
I'm in a 12-14 man group. I can't remember exactly since not everybody shows up all the time and I hardly know half the people. It's also gestalt so it's very complicated. You really have to inject yourself to get in the spotlight most of the time and the characters aren't all as useful.

Renegade Paladin
2009-12-30, 01:15 PM
Thirteen. It was an online game and I split the party.

Blackfang108
2009-12-30, 02:02 PM
20 + DM.

Seriously.

This was my first group, too.

ghost_warlock
2009-12-30, 02:38 PM
Fifteen, but it was just a one-shot.

Otherwise, I think eight is the most I've ever played with for more than a couple sessions.

R. Shackleford
2009-12-30, 02:40 PM
Two weeks ago I started with six, and had two more jump in over the course of the game.

LibraryOgre
2009-12-30, 03:27 PM
9 or 10, I think.

Swordgleam
2009-12-30, 09:19 PM
10, in 1st edition. A horrible idea. The fighter would wander off and play chess with the mage in the middle of combat.

I refuse to let the group I DM get bigger than 5.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-12-30, 09:26 PM
The SWSE campaign I run has had up to 10 people in it, but for most of the campaign we've been at 9 (including me).

Thurbane
2009-12-30, 10:15 PM
Back in our 1E days, we briefly had 10 or 11 at the table, including the DM. Lucky it was a BIG table. Combat rounds took a long, long time. That number only lasted for a month or so...I think we eventually settled into a group of 7 or 8.

AdmiralCheez
2009-12-30, 10:25 PM
We just finished a Palladium Heroes game, which started with 14 players at character creation and ended the game with 10. We usually broke sessions into one category. It was either a combat night or a plot night. Combat lasted maybe five or six rounds, but it took all night. We have since agreed to put a cap on the number of players in a game.

Matthew
2010-01-05, 04:23 PM
Something like 10; I prefer 4-6 players generally.