Record for the most players in a D&D game?

[EccentricCircle]

So this came up in conversation, as such things do. we wondered what the most people you could run a game for was. "To the internet was exclaimed..."

But google seems to have failed us. we can't find such a record listed at Guiness. They don't have much of anything related to tabletop games as far as I can see.

Does anyone know what the world record for most players in a tabletop roleplaying game is?
Is there one?

If not what is the largest number of players you've ever run or played in a game with? I've run a ten person game, and heard tell of twelve players.
It wouldnt' suprise me at all if some people had run games with a lot more players than that.

[Seerow]

Well what defines a single D&D game?


Because for the largest, I've heard of groups that are stupid big (like 30+ people) divided into 5-6 groups, with a GM at each, playing in the same world with one GM who orchestrates the campaign and bounces between groups to make adjucations/rulings/pass info between the various GMs what the other groups are doing.

[Totally Guy]

I might be wrong but I think that Jared Sorensen ran a game for several hundred people at a convention. Of course he used his own system: Parseley... He ran ACTION CASTLE...

Spoiler

Show

GM: You are in a hut, there is a fishing pole here, exit's are: Out

Player 1: Get fishing pole

GM: You have the fishing pole.

Player 2: Go outside

GM: You cannot get there.

Player 3: Go out

GM: You are in a rose garden there is a hut here, there is a rosebush here, exits are: North, South, In.

Player 4: Inventory
And so on and so on...

In more legitimate play, there is a Burning Wheel scenario about a nest of ratmen trying to steal a mysterious substance that they call Cheese (but really it could be anything, drugs, money, it's their street slang). That scenario supports 20 characters and I know it's been played that way at least once.

I wouldn't want to do it.

[dsmiles]

My personal best is 15.
For about two sessions. Then they started peeling off into games that were more their style, as I was running a plot-heavy, combat light game (and a bunch of them wanted a hack'n'slash game). I ended up with 7.

EDIT: Thank the gods for small favors, eh?

[Tvtyrant]

Players or characters? We once ran Tarrasque vs. City of Commoners for 5 hours; the Tarrasque won.

[Aidan305]

It's not D&D, but the record for most players in a single tabletop game is probably Tracy Hickman's Killer Breakfast. That thing has hundreds of players.

[valadil]

I used to play in a group that hit 16 or 17 at the table at one point. Most GMs couldn't handle that, but ours was a special ed teacher and put his classroom management skills to very good use.

[CodeRed]

We had at one point 16 before it eventually splintered off into three groups. Everyone played in the same campaign setting of the "head GM" but each other GM ran independently beyond that. It really helped that the head GM was also the owner of the FLGS so we could play late and whatnot.

[Absol197]

Wow...and here I thought my nine player party was big. How the heck do you guys do it? Even with the best group I've ever played with, nine seems to be pushing the limit of a working game.

[dsmiles]

Wow...and here I thought my nine player party was big. How the heck do you guys do it? Even with the best group I've ever played with, nine seems to be pushing the limit of a working game.

I find that after 5 (players; 6 counting the DM) it seems to start going downhill. My game of 7 that I mentioned is right at my "working game" limit. It was just that so many people wanted to help playtest the campaign setting I was working on, and they were all my friends, so (at the time) I couldn't say no. I have since learned better.

[rakkoon]

Our record was 12 players but that varied each week and died out after two months or so. We usually had 4-6 players.
16? Wow

[Dr.Epic]

I think the most for me is 8 PCs.

[valadil]

Wow...and here I thought my nine player party was big. How the heck do you guys do it? Even with the best group I've ever played with, nine seems to be pushing the limit of a working game.

30 second turn limits. Nobody talked over the GM. We played at a game store, so it was easy to distract yourself if you got impatient. I usually painted minis at the table or delayed until a friends turn so we could hang out between rounds. The GM also called out who was on deck when announcing initiative. This meant that the next person had a chance to come back and survey the table, so he'd know what was going on when his turn came around.

Despite all this each round of combat still took a half an hour.

[manyslayer]

Ran a session for 14 players once. What pain that was. Overall not too bad as everyone was actually on pretty good behavior. Our group was pretty big but we usually only had a portion available for any given session (lots of school/work issues). Several of the players were just getting set to leave for college (which brought us to a usual number of 8-9) and all made it to one last session. Also helped that it was a fairly action oriented session (they were in a city under siege and had to break into a vault in the royal palace to procure an evil artifact that needed to be destroyed). Were split into 3 groups as I recall. One caused a distraction, one helped usher civilians to safety, and one got the artifact.

[Titanium Fox]

My most recent campaign started out with fourteen, with one player acting as a helper DM. I'm good at story, role playing, and coming up with things on the fly, and he's good at the mechanical stuff. It dwindled down to eight after somewhere around ten sessions though, and after that I capped it there.

[EccentricCircle]

Well what defines a single D&D game?

this is a very good question.

this was discussed in the same conversation where the idea came from. we discussed whether having multiple groups under the command of different coGM's counted. We figured that most large games end up with the party splitting up and fragmenting into several groups, Certainly my ten person game did. so it would be fair to start with multiple groups. So the players don't have to all be the same party but do have to be part of the same story / scenario. they should all be in the same place as well. both in and out of character. one DM should also have overall responsibility for the plot even if they have assitants to run combats and play NPC's

We were thinking that one way to do a vastly huge game would be to have a mass battle between two opposing armies, both composed of PC's with one or more DM's walking around the tables adjudicating what was going on. the logistics of it would be a nightmare of course.

what is this Tracy Hickman game? i've not heard of that?

[valadil]

this is a very good question.

I was counting one table/one GM. If you're counting multiple GMs simultaneously telling the same story, I've heard of con events where they've done a whole siege. When a team finished their section, they could move to an adjacent table and help out there. I think this is awesome but counts as a separate kind of game. Maybe there should be a separate for most players playing in the same story at the same time and most players wrangled by a single GM?

[EccentricCircle]

Yeah, its a tricky one to define really, I know a lot of Larp games have multiple DM's running the same story and i've seen games that have a DM's assistant.
I reckon the best thing would be to have a single DM but then have some "players" who were in charge of playing specific NPCs according to a pre determined plan. that way the DM would have control of the story but wouldn't need to worry about playing all of the NPC's.

[Omeganaut]

Well, I had a group with 11 once, It was supposed to be 12, but one player didn't show up, and so we sacrificed him to save another one of our players from a DM smite (he is insane, not just his character). Of course, people couldn't make every session, so at one point I had to play three characters at once (one of them beat my character to humping the unconscious succubus). And then came a black dragon, and there were eight left (including me!)

[squeekenator]

The first campaign I ever DMed had 10 PCs, about half of whom eventually had cohorts as well as their actual characters, all the way from level 1 to 21.

[EccentricCircle]

Yeah, all of the large games i've run have had a few sporadic players who don't always come along.

so its looking as though running games for 15 or so people isn't uncommon but more than 20 is. (with the exception of the two games mentioned that could hold the record)

thanks for this information.

[Yora]

I played a shadowrun one-shot with 8 characters. Though I'm usually much more in favor of 3 to 4 player groups, it was actually quite fun to plan a heist with 8 other people, each one a specialist for different things. Organizing surveilance, sniper support, and getaway cars really was great fun.

I've played D&D with 6 or 7 players twice, but that was much more tidious and not much fun. My brothers DSA campaign has 11 players.

[Kislath]

My old regular group was 9 players +1 DM. My record though, is 56. Yes, 56. It was a last-man standing sort of thing, a race through a deathtrap dungeon at a big convention.

[Aux-Ash]

In the Swedish rpg scene I've heard of the quasi-legendary adventure "Svavelvinter" (sulphurwinter), a pre-written adventure intended for 30 players, 6 gms and one "master-gm". Where every of the five player-groups are separate and don't interact but their actions affect one anothers at various stages throughout the adventure.

It has supposedly been run a handful of times

[Mr. Zolrane]

The campaign I finished up about a month back had 7 players, and that was pretty chaotic. I imagine it would have been even worse if we had any companion/summoning heavy classes in the group.

[EccentricCircle]

My record though, is 56. Yes, 56. It was a last-man standing sort of thing, a race through a deathtrap dungeon at a big convention.

awesome. how did you run this game? were all the players playing simultaneously or were others brought in as earlier players were written out due to character death? did you have multiple teams going and did you use assistant DMs or did you handle everything yourself?

I'm guessing that having that many players all in the same combat would have taken forever...

@ Aux Ash
thats interesting. I thought of doing something similar at times with my ten player game once the party had split into two seperate groups with differing agendas (mutually exclusive agendas in fact), but no one would have wanted to stop playing their character in order to be a co DM by that stage.

if I do run a massive game it would probabaly use a similar system. though it will be important to make sure that everyone is in the same story.

[Tyndmyr]

If we're not going to limit it to solely D&D, then your answer can be found here.

[Amphetryon]

12 is typical at my 3.5 Eberron table, with as many as 18 showing up on occasion.

[EccentricCircle]

If we're not going to limit it to solely D&D, then your answer can be found here.

Ah thanks, I didn't find that when I searched.
483, thats a lot of players. its a shame that there aren't more details about the game and how they ran it.