How many is too many? A question of PCs and Gaming Obscura...

[Stormcrow]

I'm curious as to how many PCs other DMs allow into their groups. I'm going to limit this to D&D because other games are more and less accomidating so they will ruin the bias.

How many PCs is too many PCs?

[Dark Knight Renee]

Hmm. I have few players, but they run many PCs, plus my DMPCs. 8 at once is probably the upper edge of what I consider managable.

[Dhavaer]

2 is feasible, more is too many.

[Counterspin]

I try to keep my groups in the 5 range. Two people strikes me as a bit of a waste of the effort I put into the thing, honestly.
The size of the group is sort of secondary to your ability to keep things moving. Do you have a mechanism for telling whose turn it is? Numbered cards, a stuffed animal that gets tossed around, whatever? Are your players going to be attentive? If not, you probably want to go below five, maybe to three.
New players are hard to peg. If they help each other out they're a lot easier to deal with than if they just stare at each other in stony silence.
I think what this thread is going to show, as the replies build, is that group size is a personal preference more than anything. Thus I would suggest starting small and then slowly adding people if you think you can keep up with them.

Good gaming

[adanedhel9]

6 is my limit for a regular, serious game. I'll let 8 play for one-offs.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Four is the minimum, and for awhile I ran a game with 12 folks in it, though as was expected half of them disapeared, leaving me with the trustworthy players.

[Hileria]

2 - not worth the effort -- unless you have them each run 2 characters, or are really into role-playing, character driven stories (minimum of combat, more 'cerebral'); which can definitely be fun but you've got the have exactly the right players.

3 - meh -- you're gonna have a huge hole in the party somewhere in terms or classes/skills. But as with two a character driven campaign could be great.

4 - pretty good - party can be balanced - allowing some well-designed fights where it's not a TPK if one party member has an off-day in combat. Getting to the limit of being able to do a really good character driven campaign and keep everyone 'involved'.

5 - optimum - party should be able to fill all skill/class/ability needs well, with overlap/backup. Absolute max I'd try to run a character driven campaign

6 - definitely doable - skills/class/ability coverage galore, but it's taking longer to resolve combats.

7 - meh - Same as #6, but even more so.

8 - max - Anything beyond this is just a total PITA. As DM, you're running virtual armies now to oppose the party. Everything takes forever. Too many chances for intraparty conflict.


Before I start getting flamed on how I wouldn't like to attempt a character driven campain at more than five players... I just think 5 is the upper limit of viability of creating story arcs that keep all the players involved. My current group meets once a month, so even a short 3-session story arc of a character driven camaign is going to take 3 months; and that's three months where someone is probably being marginalized, while we explore the human rogues troubled background (to invoke a cliche). When doing something that focuses on a specific character(s), I would like to get into some real detail and role-playing, as opposed to a ten minute vignette of "You talked to the townspeople and found out x about y".

[Matthew]

Six is pretty much my limit. However, just one 'bad' player can make any game unreasonable. a table of 'good' players generally makes larger groups more feasible.

[Hileria]

However, just one 'bad' player can make any game unreasonable. a table of 'good' players generally makes larger groups more feasible.

Amen to that...

[Thrawn183]

I have a suggestion for those running large groups: solo adventures. You can have a problem being solved from multiple angles simultaneously. You can allow that rogue to sort out their troubled past on their own while not slowing down the pursuit of the BBEG. Let a knight enter a jousting tournament, a wizard a summoning tournament.

This really allows pc's a moment to shine and gives you the ability to tailor something very specifically to that character without worrying that another pc will interfere (on purpose or not)

Personally, I DM a game with 4 pc's +1 cohort and play in a game with 7 pc's. If we had a better group the 7 pc's would work better, but as it is now; I get interrupted a lot

Edit: Solo adventures work so well because not everyone has to show up. Just you and one other person, or heck do it in pairs if you really really want to.

[Stormcrow]

I myself try for four but my gaming group is large and very close knit so i usually end up with at least six or seven. I was involved in a game in another system (shadowrun) that had 13 PCs and it took four hours to resolve a combat. That was tedious.

[Shazzbaa]

My D&D group back home: 4 PCs. Everyone has one character. Party dynamics are fun, it works quite well. Though since we didn't necessarily make our characters while thinking about party roles, we... don't have a rogue. Or an arcane caster (well, our cleric is now part sorcerer, but we didn't for a while).

The game I play at college (a simplified D&D): ran for a year with incredible success with 5 players. Ran for about another year successfully with 7 players. We've added 2 more players this year (that's 9 total) and we're still having fun.
I think the trick is that all our players in that game tend to be amused by the others' exploits, and enjoy watching even when things aren't happening to them. It's largely story-based/character-driven and combat is highly descriptive when there's a big battle, so it remains entertaining. Also helps that the characters can all be altruistic when they need to be.

And... now back home a new game is going to be starting this summer with 8 people planned, so we'll see how that goes. ^^;

[foil_fedora]

I like four players best... small enough to give enough DM time to each player, big enough for there to be enough heads to put together to figure out a devious plot.

I once played with an excellent groups of eight, but all were good roleplayers, very involved in character development, and half of us were rotating DMs.

[Deathcow]

The game I run currently has 3, with a cohort. More would be nice, but 5 is my upper limit, just for simplicity's sake.

As a player, I prefer to be in a game with 4 PCs total. Cohorts are cool, but with more than 4-5 player characters you don't get enough time of your own and combat takes forever.

[Hannes]

I'm playing in a game where 4 is more than enough. If you get 2 people who don't like each other you'll end up... Wasting 30 minutes on IC conversations of the two bitching and hissing at each other. (I'm guilty =( )

[Deathcow]

Well, yeah, having good players is always key. I'm fortunate in that the people I typically game with aren't jerks about stuff (unless acting in-character, and it's appropriate to the situation, which usually makes it funner anyway) and work well as a team.

[Bosh]

3-5 is good, anything more or less than that is an enourmous pain to deal with. With six I have to spend all of the time keeping things moving which doesn't allow for any time for individual characters to bask in the spotlight for a bit or do cool stuff...

[Behold_the_Void]

My preference is 4-6. More than that seems to bog things down way too much, and less than that just makes it not worth the effort or creates large holes in party capability.

[ghost_warlock]

I prefer games with three to six PCs. Four to five is my preferred party size. Anything over six is starting to push it. I once ran a game with 12 players and it didn't go over so well (although it probably didn't help that I was about half-asleep and slipping at the time).

[The_Pope]

Ahah hah hah hah, I once was in a game with about 17 people. That drove the poor DM bonkers. Hell, it drove me bonkers as combat lasted a few hours.

[Dareon]

Well, the XP tables are geared towards 4 PCs, but scaling is just a matter of math.

Personally I've found 2 is far too few, especially when one does not want to be a team player. ("All right, you have entered the gates of Waterdeep. The gua-" "I start pickpocketing!")

3 can be decent, especially if one or more is a multi-purpose class like artificer. With the right amount of inter-player communication, you can handle all four monster food groups in a fun size package. (One of my current parties is an artificer, an Ex-Paladin/Sorc, and a Cleric/Gunslinger [homebrew steampunk setting].)

6 provides you with lots of options, but can take an incredibly long time between combat turns. (My other party. Warlock, Ranger/Rogue, Totemist/Ranger, Divine Bard, Ninja/Shadowcaster, Rogue/Shaman.)

Also agreeing that the number of bad players makes a huge difference.

[Thomas]

I'm going to limit this to D&D because other games are more and less accomidating so they will ruin the bias.

They are? Which games? How? Every one I've played is designed for some 4-5 players.

I've found that once I'm trying to manage 6 players, things stop working - there's too much chatter, not enough focusing on the game. These days I usually have 2 players, which works out well enough.

[Hallavast]

I try to keep it down to no more than five players for any serious kind of play. Besides, I find that in a large group, only 2 or 3 players are actually doing stuff at one time outside of combat. The rest kinda take a back seat until their turn comes up. And sometimes, people just hang back and do nothing for the entire session if you have too many players.

[Ambrogino]

I do 3-6 for preference, though I've run a WW game of 16 players successfully before. I've run LRP games of up to 100 people, so some of the tricks to play characters off against each other while you deal with something else and using Assistant ref's for the system side of the game work well once you get past 6 or so players.

[Last_resort_33]

Never more than 5 players....
I have found that 4 is optimum, without a doubt, however you can have a FANTASTIC game with just two players... yes you do have holes in skills, but that makes the game MORE fun, you can't just pick the door open and sneak through it... you have to batter it down while the enemy waits for you on the other side... or you have to take out the spellcaster with your bow first. It REALLY encourages a good style of play where the two characters interact perfectly and do things together in a syncronised manner...

one can also be fun for the occasional game... I remember when I was with Em in France and we didn't have anything to do as of the evening, so we sat at the table in this medieval cottage we were in and we played a solo adventure for several hours... really takes you back to a "Classic" style of roleplaying which sort of has a feel to it similar to the fighting fantasy books... but with actual options of what to do! One lone barbarian wandering after secret hidden treasures with no defense against magic...

I played a game with 9 players... never again... ever

[Em]

one can also be fun for the occasional game... I remember when I was with Em in France and we didn't have anything to do as of the evening, so we sat at the table in this medieval cottage we were in and we played a solo adventure for several hours... really takes you back to a "Classic" style of roleplaying which sort of has a feel to it similar to the fighting fantasy books... but with actual options of what to do! One lone barbarian wandering after secret hidden treasures with no defense against magic...

That game was so much fun! It went so fast... no-one disappearing in their turn to raid the fridge etc., and the copious amounts of mead helped too.

I'd like to play in a game with only 1 other player, personally.

[Zaggab]

The lowest number of players I can have in game (wheter or not I'm playing or DMing) is 3. For some reason, I cannot play when there's only 2 players.

3 players works very well, especially in DnD since you can actually have short battles.

4 is even better in some ways than 3, but only if you do it right and have good players.

5 is the maximum I would ever DM. Because with my players, it gets messy with 4.

I would never DM a game with 6 or more players, but I play in a wfrp campaign with 6-7 players, and that works good.

[Glyde]

My current group has... let's see.

Blade, Barbarian, Fighter/Mage, Fighter, Ranger, Cleric, Thief, Assassin, Mage, Priest of Azuth.

That's 10. Wow, didn't think there were so many.

[silvermesh]

I did pretty well with 8. you don't have to throw more monsters, you just have to throw harder monsters. this can be extremely deadly at low levels, but I had a good 8 who played smart.

i like 4. if I only have 2 players, usually I'll let them each run two characters. otherwise I always end up throwing in an NPC if for no other reason than to play healer.

[Talyn]

My current campaign has six PCs and a seventh who pops in from time to time. It's too many, but they are all my friends in RL, so I can't tell them "no"! Ideally, I'd like four (plus a DM-controlled cohort, if necessary). That would be ideal.

Edit: Oh yeah. At one point in time, it was up to 10 players, plus two pets, a paladin mount, a combat familiar (which I shouldn't have allowed in the first place, but see above) and a DM-controlled cohort. Luckly, three players quit. I was starting to go a little nuts.