How many players are too many players in your opinion?

[Lerondiel]

With connection to another post a few days ago:

I was talking with a friend recently about inviting an extra player to an impending campaign but am concerned it may be too many.

They're all very experienced players so combat should flow but it's going to be a higher powered game....


How many players do you find ideal and how many too many?

[Katana1515]

1 DM plus 4 players is my preferred number, though I have frequently done more (I did 10 once but that was a one off introduction game for my Uni society). If you are concerned, and its a 'high power' game, theirs a few things you can do.

1. delegate: this has the advantage of keeping some of the workload off you, and keeping players involved when its not their turn yet. Things to delegate include but are not limited to: tracking initiative, totaling the parties gold and XP, tracking how much HP damage monsters have taken (but not how much they have left), sketching out a map of the dungeon as you explore it.

2. Stress the importance of prior preparation and clarity: this is really important to keep a good flow, and even 'experienced' players will fall into bad habits unless you are careful. Make sure prepared casters have their daily spells mostly selected before the session starts, get copies of character sheets in advance and check them in detail so you can head off rules issues before they consume a half hour of table time. high level games often involve casting a gazzilion long duration buff spells before encounters, get each player to write down active buffs and display them prominently where you can see them.

3. Limit cohorts/pets/summons/etc, I love turning up to the battle with my own hit squad of planar bound fiends as much as the next Wizard, but it can really slow things down if everyone is managing their own personal army. Ensure stats for any cohorts are clear/worked out in advance, and dont be afraid to have a 1 friend per PC rule or similar if it becomes an issue.

A final issue with larger groups YMMV but my group finds that having too many players can cut down on the actual roleplaying opportunities each player gets. It can be hard to find time and tasks to allow each person to shine. I like to throw in One to one or one to 2/3 RP scenes in via skype or chat between sessions, so people can chase personal story-lines/have character development without hogging the limelight when we all get together.

[Geddy2112]

I second DM+4 for the ideal party, although as a player I want a party of 5. 6 is perfectly manageable, but anything more than 6 is just too many people. Players feel left out, roles and responsibilities get overshadowed, combat takes forever and it is hard to balance. That much action economy is really hard to combat, and god forbid you have more than one full caster.

[Brookshw]

4-5 is my ideal, 6 is manageable but undesirable. 7+ becomes too big and I find I'm not giving everyone enough time, rounds go too long and people aren't as engaged as I think they deserve to be. Under 4 likewise isn't my ideal, 3 I'll go with, 2 or less just doesn't cut it for me, loses some of the fun.

[lonewolf1210]

It depends on the players. If the players are focused on the game and know how to share the spotlight, you can do more players. But the more players there are, the higher is the risk of ooc talk that can easily cause major distractions and bogs the game down.

As a rule of thumb, I agree with the posters above: 4 players + DM is ideal. In my groups I like to aim at 5 players + DM, because then you can still easily play if one player cant make it at any day.
Personally, I wouldnt try to run a game with more than 6 players.

[Tiri]

7 players. The group I play in now consists of six, and sometimes it's barely tolerable. Everything from opening a door to combat takes about twice as long as it should. I hate to think what's going to happen when our ranger gets his animal companion. It's not helped by the DM's seven year old insisting on rolling dice around in his hands for at least 30 seconds before he throws them and describing every single detail and rationalisation leading up to simple decisions like the aforementioned opening of a door.

[ellindsey]

My current game has 4 players plus the GM (me), and they have forbidden me from inviting anyone else to the game.

I've been in games with 6 players plus the GM and that seems to work fine. More than that gets to be too many.

[Flickerdart]

6 is my maximum - it's a good number of people because it takes some of the pressure of niche filling off every individual character. So you can have a rogue that never put points into Disable Device, because the scout has that covered. It's also good because not everyone can always be there for an online game, and 6 people means you can lose half your group and still have a party of 3 (my minimum).

[Telonius]

Five is good, but more than that starts to put more stress on the DM. Unless I'm sending up single monsters against the party (and against that kind of action economy, that's a bad idea) I'm going to be scrambling to move around a dozen foes. Not to mention that it makes a larger battlefield necessary; sometimes the battle mat doesn't cover it all.

Not to mention the difficulties of coordinating 6+ people's schedules.

[Psyren]

Seconding others above - 6 is max, 7 is too many imo. It's stressful on the GM at that size.

[Lerondiel]

1 DM plus 4 players is my preferred number, though I have frequently done more (I did 10 once but that was a one off introduction game for my Uni society). If you are concerned, and its a 'high power' game, theirs a few things you can do.

1. delegate: this has the advantage of keeping some of the workload off you, and keeping players involved when its not their turn yet. Things to delegate include but are not limited to: tracking initiative, totaling the parties gold and XP, tracking how much HP damage monsters have taken (but not how much they have left), sketching out a map of the dungeon as you explore it.

2. Stress the importance of prior preparation and clarity: this is really important to keep a good flow, and even 'experienced' players will fall into bad habits unless you are careful. Make sure prepared casters have their daily spells mostly selected before the session starts, get copies of character sheets in advance and check them in detail so you can head off rules issues before they consume a half hour of table time. high level games often involve casting a gazzilion long duration buff spells before encounters, get each player to write down active buffs and display them prominently where you can see them.

3. Limit cohorts/pets/summons/etc, I love turning up to the battle with my own hit squad of planar bound fiends as much as the next Wizard, but it can really slow things down if everyone is managing their own personal army. Ensure stats for any cohorts are clear/worked out in advance, and dont be afraid to have a 1 friend per PC rule or similar if it becomes an issue.

A final issue with larger groups YMMV but my group finds that having too many players can cut down on the actual roleplaying opportunities each player gets. It can be hard to find time and tasks to allow each person to shine. I like to throw in One to one or one to 2/3 RP scenes in via skype or chat between sessions, so people can chase personal story-lines/have character development without hogging the limelight when we all get together.

Thanks, check, check & check. I have a great crew that keep things moving.
When groups get big, Leadership gets binned and animal companions with bite/grapple/claw/claw/rend/rake/rake can go sit in the corner.

The roleplaying is my chief concern, so I'm looking at doing some individual 'downtime' parts of the game (item creation/purchasing/maintenance, consulting superiors/diviners, etc) via email/msg between sessions to not short circuit them but keep it all flowing.

[Kurald Galain]

I was talking with a friend recently about inviting an extra player to an impending campaign but am concerned it may be too many.
Personally, I prefer having four players (+1 DM). I find five players acceptable, and six too many.

Matter of opinion, of course.

[Red Fel]

4-5 is my ideal, 6 is manageable but undesirable. 7+ becomes too big and I find I'm not giving everyone enough time, rounds go too long and people aren't as engaged as I think they deserve to be. Under 4 likewise isn't my ideal, 3 I'll go with, 2 or less just doesn't cut it for me, loses some of the fun.

Going with this one.

A lot of pre-printed modules assume a 4-player party, for example. 4 has long been the standard (the beatstick, the skillmonkey, the healbot, and the blaster, albeit an unoptimized team), and it's a manageable number.

6, as Brooks points out, is manageable, but can get awkward. Reduce that number to 4-5 if one of them is a minionmancer. Player actions take time, particularly when players are new or working with new material, and 6 is turning point at which many games can turn into a slog. Beyond that, slog is virtually guaranteed. Also, certain players are generally more demanding of time or attention (not always in a wholly negative way), and beyond 6, you simply haven't any to spare. And lastly, as mentioned, scheduling for 1 DM plus 4 players is hard; scheduling for more than 6 borders on the impossible.

My earliest campaigns, in which I was a player, generally involved the DM and 4-6 players. We managed to do consistently well with that number. I think it's a good range.

[Winter_Wolf]

Six players is my hard limit. I once sat in on a group of nine (I was spectating) for a while, and everything dragged on and on. Everything.

[marphod]

It depends on a lot other factors.

Physically, the more players, the larger space you need and the more you need isolation from external noise sources. I've been at a table for 12 (!?!) once, but that was more-or-less a wake as a one-shot for a friend in High School.

Practically, a lot depends on player knowledge and skills. One player can slow down a game significantly, if they have a tendency towards analysis paralysis or lack of experience. More than one has a multiplicative effect. High level games open up the breadth of options. So one indecisive player in a level 15+ game can be too many where you can get away with 4 or five new players/indecisive players in a level 2 game.

It also depends on how well players and the DM share the spotlight and how long you have to do so. I've been at gaming tables for 5 hour sessions with 5 players where my character wasn't even on stage for more than 30 minutes, while all the others were on stage for at least 4 hours (and then I got significantly less XP due to not doing anything. grrr.). That's a player and a DM problem. I've been an group that kicked someone from the table because they explicitly stated that they were going to hog the spotlight for as long as possible and we needed to be more aggressive about taking the spotlight if we wanted to get things done.

On the other end of the spectrum, I'm in a 2 player game where the other player is relatively inexperienced (never played a full caster before) and is doing a Master of Shrouds build (and undead leadership). Between crafted and summoned creatures, and her cohort, she's got t least half a dozen and sometimes more than a dozen distinct creatures under her control. The amount of time combat takes is borderline ridiculous, but my actions are usually over in 30 seconds and her's can take more than half an hour. (That game really should have started at 2nd or 3rd level, rather than 5th.)

And then there is what happens when a Player can't make it, which becomes more frequent with larger groups.

So, as in most things, 'It depends'.

Back of the envelope, maximum of cube root(Years DM experience * number of 'successful' campaigns) plus 3, with a std deviation of square root (Sum of years playing RPGs/number of players)
(I'll define a successful campaign as a game that reached the intended end of an adventure path, or had at approximately 20 sessions with substantially the same characters and players)

Ideal is probably less than that.

[Flickerdart]

Six players is my hard limit. I once sat in on a group of nine (I was spectating) for a while, and everything dragged on and on. Everything.
I feel like 9 players might work if:

Everyone plays very simple, low-level characters. "I rage and charge, *rolls to hit* *rolls damage* done" nine times is quick and painless. Picking anything from a list longer than 3 items is probably a no-go.
Likewise, the GM uses straightforward monsters, ideally ones with premade strategies. No puzzles, no weird traps.
The players need to be very good at thinking about their next move during other players' turns.
The monsters aren't padded out with pointless extra HP/AC/DR to drag out combat. In fact, no DR or miss chance.
RP situations are clear-cut and the plot is probably more or less on the rails. The PCs are all in perfect alignment on their motivations and goals. There is no That Guy.
The players are already familiar with the setting and all involved NPCs, to reduce the number of "umm where are we" and "who is that guy" moments.

[Tiri]

Unfortunately, the chances of that happening is almost zero. Even most groups of complete novices, who are the most likely to fulfil the first criteria, are going to have at least one player who wants to play a spellcaster who will then waste time looking up their spells every time they cast one.

[Optimator]

I would say seven is too many.

[Flickerdart]

Unfortunately, the chances of that happening is almost zero. Even most groups of complete novices are going to have al least one player who wants to play a spellcaster who will then waste time looking up their spells every time they cast one.
Well, yeah - this is something where you would have to deliberately set up the right conditions ahead of time. The players would have to agree not to play prepared casters, grapplers, Totemists, etc (but sorcerer and warlock and such should be fine, since at low levels they have only 3-4 things they can do).

[Lerondiel]

Well, yeah - this is something where you would have to deliberately set up the right conditions ahead of time. The players would have to agree not to play prepared casters, grapplers, Totemists, etc (but sorcerer and warlock and such should be fine, since at low levels they have only 3-4 things they can do).


That's my concern with it being a tough campaign...a majority of high tier complex builds.

[LoyalPaladin]

I think this is entirely DM dependent. I've DM'd groups any where from 3 to 6 people with relative ease, but I know a lot of people prefer 4 to 5 players.

On that note, mechanically 5 seems to work well for a decently efficient team.

To argue for a large group, the DM who manages the table I play at actually prefers a larger group. Our group is 7 people, but it's been upwards of 9 before and I don't really feel like it ever bogged him down. Encounters were just as challenging and combat was only slightly longer.

So to reiterate my point, the manageable size of a table is entirely DM dependent.

[OldTrees1]

The maximum number of players depends on your DM(s), the number of DMs, and your players.

So the answer(s) that work for me are not necessarily applicable to you:
2-3 (Short games)
3-6
6-9 (When I was in high school)
6-12 (2 DMs)

[Curmudgeon]

It's a function of how much preparation time you're willing to invest. With enough time spent studying every character sheet I can have a good grasp of the mechanics and keep things moving with up to 8 PCs. If I haven't done that then my normal limit is about 5 PCs.

[Gabrosin]

Seven PCs is too many. Four remains ideal, with five being okay and six being a real strain, even for an experienced DM. At the point at which you have eight willing participants, you need to adopt an assistant DM. You can split the group into two parties of three and have them operate separately in the same story/world, joining together for special sessions as needed.

It sucks to have interested participants and turn them away, but it sucks way more to make things unfun for everyone as the game bogs down. Even with six players, everyone has got to be ready with their actions to keep things moving, and the DM is probably at the point where s/he needs help to keep everyone straight.

[Pluto!]

I like exactly 3, but I'll take 2 or 4.

Once 6 people sit down at the same table, there are basically always two separate conversations happening at any given time.

[mostholycerebus]

7 is too many. With 6 adults, you will average one absence per session, adults are busy. That means you have a pretty regular attendance of 5. Thats easy enough to make up for, plug a few more bad guys for the occasional 6, subtract a few for the occasional 4.

[Elkad]

6. Characters get to specialize more. 4 requires generalists to cover everything.

I've played with 9 and a single DM, gets pretty slow once the pets and summons get counted.

At a gaming club I've played with as many as 15 players, but the DM would have an assistant or 2, and all the players were pretty skilled, so it went pretty smoothly.

[Lerondiel]

7 is too many. With 6 adults, you will average one absence per session, adults are busy. That means you have a pretty regular attendance of 5. Thats easy enough to make up for, plug a few more bad guys for the occasional 6, subtract a few for the occasional 4.

My thoughts exactly

[Knaight]

I favor DM+3 players, but DM+2 to DM+6 are all viable. Past that, and everything just starts degenerating into chaos.

This is also a pretty system independent thing, in my experience. 3.x can be a bit trickier than other things for the DM+2 and DM+3 range, but that DM+6 cap is imposed more by social dynamics than anything game related, and holds fast for every RPG I've seen.

[Hrugner]

I like exactly 3, but I'll take 2 or 4.

Once 6 people sit down at the same table, there are basically always two separate conversations happening at any given time.

This is it for me as well. There are a few individuals who, to me, take up two spots worth of player due to being distracting or distracted.

[Katana1515]

That's my concern with it being a tough campaign...a majority of high tier complex builds.

Maybe if we had a breakdown of these builds we will be able to give more specific advice?

[Bullet06320]

4-6 seems to be ideal for most groups
ive been at table with 22 players once, including DM and 2 co-dms, after 3 sessions we broke it up into 3 groups, it was held at a local gaming store and the owner's rules stated any games being run couldn't exclude anyone who showed up and wanted to play

ive also been involved in a laarp with over 80 regular attendees at one point, overall it ran pretty smooth, with a head story teller and 6 assistants I think. they had a weekly meeting to prepare for the sessions. at one point my work schedule changed, I would show up for check in, got to work and play my character via phone and text, lol

my regular table has 8 attendees plus myself, with 2 more that show when they can, most players running multiple characters, minions, summons, pets and selected npcs as the need arises, i have time at work so i can usually do my bookkeeping there without worrying about not having time to prepare. but we have been playing weekly for over a decade together(except for holidays), with a couple of us playing for 2 decades together, so we all know whats expected of each other and we have had practice keeping it smooth.

[Dr TPK]

3 is ideal, 4 good, 5 can be bad, 6 is bad, 7 is awful, 8 or more is impossible.

[The Insanity]

One is enough.

[Gabrosin]

6. Characters get to specialize more. 4 requires generalists to cover everything.

I've played with 9 and a single DM, gets pretty slow once the pets and summons get counted.

At a gaming club I've played with as many as 15 players, but the DM would have an assistant or 2, and all the players were pretty skilled, so it went pretty smoothly.

This is another good point. Some players take a long time, and some classes take a long time. Whenever you have a summoner, a druid, a spellcaster with a combat familiar, anyone with leadership, anyone controlling undead, or anyone who in any way is responsible for two or more entities in combat, it's gonna bog things down, especially if they're less experienced. Other classes that provide a ton of options (high level spellcasters or even initiators) can bring things to a crawl as well. Did you memorize Shadow Conjuration, or Polymorph? Please, please be ready when it's your turn. Don't sit there for ten minutes, or more, trying to find the perfect option from your wide range of options.

If your party is a bunch of low-level martial characters, you can probably get away with a few more people at the table.

[heavyfuel]

I've DMed for 1 person, and I've DMed for 8 (all in the same campaign, go figure...). While my prefered number is 3 (you can still send in one Big Bad that won't be destroyed due to action economy, which I admittedly love doing) but I'll take up to 5 players.

6 or more players is impossible to do with. After one's turn, he has to sit and wait for over 10 minutes doing NOTHING. It's no surprise people start talking and don't pay attention to the game. If you're not the party's face, then you can sometimes sit doing nothing for up to 30 minutes while 2 or 3 people role play because you don't dare roll for bluff with a modifier of -2.

[Honest Tiefling]

3-5 is preferred. Never done more then that, and I think I'd only try 6-7 if I felt as if the players were much more cohesive and RPed off of one another. It gives me a bit of a breather and really makes me enjoy the game more if they play off of one another and interact as a group with NPCs.

[Chronikoce]

I have DM'd a large variety of group sizes. The largest I ever ran was 12 people (started as a group of 8) and I do NOT recommend this ever. It becomes impossible to keep everyone engaged and interested in what is happening, the combats take forever, and its hard to make everyone feel included in roleplaying. It also lead to the absolute worst DM burn out I have ever experienced and actually resulted in me quitting all table-top rpgs for a little over 6 months.

My new limit is 7 people which I find is large but still manageable. Combats do take longer but they are not so long that people get bored and start up ooc conversations while waiting for their turn to come around again.

I currently DM a group of 4 people but this group has fluctuated in size. We most recently lost 2 people whose schedules have gone insane as they prepare to get married (yay for them!) and before that we had 1 other person who moved away to join a med school program. This is where I found the group of 7 to be not so bad.

That being said, I greatly prefer being the DM for groups of 4-5. Time of combats aside, it is a lot easier for me to present a story with meaningful ties to character backstories with a smaller group of characters. If the group gets too large then single character plot lines can becomes quite arduous.

[Bronk]

I feel like 9 players might work if:

Everyone plays very simple, low-level characters. "I rage and charge, *rolls to hit* *rolls damage* done" nine times is quick and painless. Picking anything from a list longer than 3 items is probably a no-go.
Likewise, the GM uses straightforward monsters, ideally ones with premade strategies. No puzzles, no weird traps.
The players need to be very good at thinking about their next move during other players' turns.
The monsters aren't padded out with pointless extra HP/AC/DR to drag out combat. In fact, no DR or miss chance.
RP situations are clear-cut and the plot is probably more or less on the rails. The PCs are all in perfect alignment on their motivations and goals. There is no That Guy.
The players are already familiar with the setting and all involved NPCs, to reduce the number of "umm where are we" and "who is that guy" moments.


I agree with this list! I was once in a game that had 13 players that met once weekly in a big open summer camp building. We were all working at the summer camp, so we were generally all available each time. The DM had a cool story arc going on, but kept most of the fights fairly straightforward. Rounds were long, and people were talking, but once the action got to them, they had to have their action ready or lose it. Luckily, there were enough seasoned players around to help out the newbies by the time the action got to them.

The only problem with that one was the motivation part. There were two players who would always run off and do random things, and another two who would randomly attack the party. There were some hard feelings involved, and a number of PC deaths and maimings.

Looking back... I don't know if something that awesome could be replicated outside of the summer camp fishbowl. College games came close, but the most we had there were 8 or 9 players, but usually a more comfortable 6.

[danzibr]

Well gosh. Pretty much everyone said it, but just to throw it in:

1-4 is awesome. 5 is almost too many. 6 is too many.

But as Flickerdart said, there are many ways to speed things up.

[squiggit]

I like 5.

1 I'm not really counting because it fundamentally changes the dynamic of the campaign anyways.

2 and 3 forces your party to be pretty generalist, have NPC help or a niche campaign. Not bad per se but not my cup of tea.

4 lets you cover all of your bases, but can run into the issue of forcing people into specific niches

5 lets you cover all of your bases like four, but gives you some extra wiggleroom.

6 starts to get bogged down a little, IMO, but also starts to run into the issue of overlapping characters.


Speed is definitely an issue at 5 or 6, but while adding more players always slows things down a lot of that is still player controlled. I've been in 7 player games that've gone faster than some of my 4 player games just because everyone in the former was paying attention and thinking about their next move ahead of time

[bean illus]

I think it's up to the personalities and fluency of the group/DM.

My 'best' campaign ever was with 8? players + DM, and everything was smooth, quick, and easy; but that was because of an extraordinary DM and ALL the players being attentive, and fluent with their characters.
It was also assisted by a 'state your move within 15 seconds' rule, and a 'co-DM for the folks on your right and left' rule (rules and math checks, etc). OH! and the 'each player must own their own color coded dice' rule; where you rolled 'all' your dice at once (green dice for primary attack/damage, red for crit comfirm, yellow for sneak attack/etc).
The average round/PC was about 1 minute at 7-8 level, and the time between helping your neighbor and and getting called again was so fast that you had to struggle just to be ready on your turn. fun.

With that said: I LOVE 1 PC SESSIONS, and 2-3 is a fun RP experience. I think 3-4 is a good balance of character/relax/power/get something done. Above 5 the average DM/group will experience drag.

[Buufreak]

4-5 is great, currently in a group of 6 players. Its manageable. Once tried to DM for ~12 at once. After the first enemy camp taking 2 hours of arguing about exactly which way to approach the situation was the absolute best, I decided it was my first and absolute last large group.

[NomGarret]

+1 to the 4-5 is ideal vote. I also prefer that number as a player, since with larger parties the pressure to stay on track and keep your turn short (to make up for others, if nothing else) discourages flourishy descriptions and amusing IC tangents.

[Lerondiel]

Maybe if we had a breakdown of these builds we will be able to give more specific advice?

Thanks Katana, I wasn't so much looking for advice as noticing how my friend responded when I mentioned he could be one of 7 players. My group constantly has one or two people away every session making it practically a 5-6 player game which I'm very comfortable with.

Having played in biggish groups for so many years I was just wondering what everyone's 'normal' experience was like and I think I'm starting to read 4-5 players as most people's 'sweet spot'.

[BWR]

1 is good. 2 to 3 is a bit too few or too many for a good dynamic. 4-5 is perfect. Anything more gets increasingly hard to work with. My one experience with more than 5 players was when we were about 13 and half the players were first-timers who weren't all that interested in the first place, so my opinion may be colored somewhat by an unfortunate experience.

[KoDT69]

I've been waiting for an opportunity to discuss this topic. The majority of my groups have been 6-9 people, most of them really, but one time... One time my friend wanted to run an epic scale game, we had over a dozen people every week. Word got out and it grew and grew. Over time he got overwhelmed so I took over for a bit, taking his general story and intertwining my own with his original still the main driving plot. After he played a while, we started alternating weekly, but after a while we had 21-23 people. We literally split the party and just had the players choose their DM. You'd think that a game like that would be too crazy to keep under control, but I swear to St. Cuthbert that everybody got included (with time to shine), had fun, and we actually kept a good pace. It can be done!

Funny and true story, during a week with I think was 18 players, all in a big group (not divided yet). I had rolled up a new character to play for a while to remove my main because he ended up too far above the power curve. Mind you, he would be a 1st level surrounded by 13th to 17th level characters. We got into an ambush and were engaged by a dozen Vampires. The encounter was not what had them all worried though, it was the sinking feeling that I would get the level-draining touch (this was AD&D) and become a Vampire as well, because our DM styles were evident that I would go ahead and play him as the bad guy to my fullest. A successful attack roll comes up, and using the block maneuver from Complete Fighter's Handbook, the would avoid that fate only on a roll of 4 on a d20. No less, no more. When I rolled the dice to the center of the table, they all jumped out of their seats and zeroed in. A half second pause and an eruption of cheers so loud that the neighbors called the cops! One guy literally jumped for joy. I guess they were really afraid to face me with all my 10hp, but to be fair I think I would have gained 7HD an some wicked attack bonuses, like applying a template nowadays.

[Mechalich]

I think 4-5 players is generally preferable. 6 works in some situations, especially if there are regular absences, while 3 is generally too few, since an absence turns into 'no game this week' most of the time since an essential role is missing (especially in D&D, some other systems are more forgiving).

There are also logistical factors - more people than you can comfortably sit at your available gaming table is always too many.

There are certainly ways to optimize gameplay with large groups - manipulating initiative order is one method. I played in one game where everyone in the party agreed to take a 3rd party feat called pack initiative that meant we all went on the same time slot (effectively always first) and just went around the table, and then all the monsters went next. It was cheesy, but really enhanced combat play speed. Many tables will not be happy with such shortcuts of course.

[Terazul]

DM + 3-6 is ideal, based on my experience, depending on the game and the players involved. Last major game I was in had 6, and that worked out fairly well; There was enough room for us to specialize while also having some overlap in some areas (two of us could heal, three of us were good at melee, two were primary spellcasters, two were strong with social skills, etc). We had all also known each other for a long time though, and are veterans to the game, and thus were familiar with each other's playstyles/the system and could come to consensus on party action fairly quickly. And yeah, with 6 players if there was an absence it usually didn't hurt too bad, we could either pass off the sheet or have them operate in the background without too much fuss.

When it's a bunch of new people together, a smaller group might serve better. There was one time a friend ran an introductory-style one-shot for... about 9 or so people, including myself and another friend, but we were the only veterans, everyone else was new. Between the excitement of "roleplay!" and such a large group of people all wanting to describe what they were doing, figuring out the rules, exploring this or that, it either took forever to progress anything, or many things suffered oversight due to all the commotion; at one point me and the veteran friend managed to walk off with pretty much everything found so far in the dungeon and nobody noticed until the end of the session.

[Yahzi]

2 is too few, and 6 is too many.

[Melcar]

With connection to another post a few days ago:

I was talking with a friend recently about inviting an extra player to an impending campaign but am concerned it may be too many.

They're all very experienced players so combat should flow but it's going to be a higher powered game....


How many players do you find ideal and how many too many?

I would say be careful of having more than 5 players... the reason is, that that does make for a lot of people in the initiative round... meaning that there will be a but load of HP to kep track of. 5 high powered players against 5-10 NPCs... a lot of spells alot of hp....