How many players is too much?

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3-4 is a sweetspot in most cases. 5 is already kind of troublesome, but still okay, 6 is already pushing it. Any more than that and you're basically asking for bad time, unless you're running a very specific scenario which actually does support such a large amount of players.

I've run 5 and even 6 people games in the past, but I agree that often that's too much. Now I go for 4 with a preference for 3. The issue is, since I play mostly with friends, sometimes it's hard to keep people out of games without hurting their feelings.

My optimal size is 3 or 4, no real preference for either. 5 is manageable, but 6 or more is just too many.

My ideal number is three players, besides the GM. Two can become monotonous. Four is already kind of a stretch, but viable. At five and above it does get stressful for both the GM and the players.

But to say they can't do anything original, I wouldn't go that far. It takes more of an effort to give everyone screen time, but nothing so radical.

>sometimes it's hard to keep people out of games without hurting their feelings.
>tfw want to run a horror game
>that one guy who cracks jokes every time anything happens
>that one guy you like that makes your horror games less enjoyable

I feel u

>But to say they can't do anything original, I wouldn't go that far. It takes more of an effort to give everyone screen time, but nothing so radical.

I think it makes it harder for players to unify behind a goal and then to steer the campaign or mission into a different direction
>mission with the goal of killing a guy
>characters aren't the murderous types, they'd rather kidnap him and get the bounty that way
>with more players that decision to change the objective results in ooc arguments that aren't resolved that easily
>to not get to that argument people tend to go the obvious path, which in turn doesn't offer a challenge for the gm and lessens player agency
>dm is also more prone to accept this because hes already more stressed from having to manage more people

A guy i know told me he used to manage two groups of 4-5 people at once. He'd go between rooms and gamemaster them with the help of a co-gm I dunno how that campaign coulda been anything but linear

Yeah in general I think "we're all friends, but we're gonna see each other once a week except for you" is not going to sit well with a lot of people, no matter how rationally you can explain it.

This here But it depends on the game. For me board games have the cut at 6 players. Tabletop is best with 2 but can be 4 players max if the armies are not too big. Social or quiz games broke for me at 8 or 10 players. PnP is 6 the maximum before it breaks.
Overall you could say 6 is the maximum, because thats the point were its hard to agree on a time to meet.

I can't really speak to playing online, where the dynamic is different, because I have no experience outside of text only (and limited experience there), but in person, 4 players and a GM is pretty much the gold standard, at least for a typical game. GM + 3 players is a close second best, and from there it's all diminishing returns. 5 players is honestly too much for my taste, but it's doable. A game with 2 players can be plenty of fun, but it's not really a typical game anymore at that point. You don't have the same sort of interplay between the PCs, NPCs become more important, and you start to get more indepth with things. The same sort of thing applies for a 1-on-1 scenario, though to much greater extent. Fuck 6 players. That's too goddamn many.

A lot does depend on the personalities of the players involved though. A kind of "background" player who isn't very outspoken or assertive is crap for a 2 player game, but can actually be gold for a 5 player game.

Differs between GMs. Some like bigger parties (for some reason), others like to have around 4-5 as a general sweet spot. I personally like 3 the best, it usually leads to a lot of character-centered campaigns since there aren't too many characters trying to hog the spotlight at once, and it means the players usually have to reach out and interact with NPCs if they come across a challenge they can't overcome alone. Ends up with a party that's really invested in the world and each other, in my experience, but that's just me.

Not, mind you, that there's anything wrong with a game that's not standard. I actually tend to run games that are more in-depth with more focus on NPCs and less hands-off dungeon crawls (if there's any crawling at all), so depending on the game, I'm cool with anything in the range of 1 to 4 players. I may even schedule a game with 5 players, but that's only because scheduling, drop outs, and so forth may lead to an absence or two (and a GM + 5 players is still doable, even if it's more than is ideal).

Currently in a game of DH2 that started off at about 6 people. This was ok for a while, but the DM has just kept adding people so that it's now 10 people including the DM and it's now it's an absolute clusterfuck beyond all hope.

Game I just left had a DM, five others at the table, one Skyping in, and one alt friend of a player who came to maybe two sessions ever but was never removed from the roster.

Fucking nightmare, and that's ignoring the Skype guy and one of the table players being autists who would try to take over DMing

>table players being autists who would try to take over DMing
Thats THE WORST
>disrupting the game to boost their own ego
>undermining the GM
Great job you totally improved the game

DM + 3 to 4 players is the sweet spot

OP here, i'm having a one-shot as a player this Saturday with a new system and group. I was real happy about the thing until yesterday when the GM decided to pick up 2 more players. We're 6 now and it seems like he wants even more D:

I'm afraid he'll overexert himself and ruin the adventure due to bad planning + too many players

Personally, 3-4 players is ideal, 5 is a bit of a stretch, 6+ is too many. I know GM's who can handle more, but I've never been able to do it myself.

Never more than 4. Never less than 3.

Nvm we got 7. Gg

>>join online group as a player
Found your issue right there. Unless you're already friends with the players and trust the GM, the game's gonna turn out to be shit.

Hey man, sometimes a campaign needs to burn out before you can learn from the wreckage. My first time GMing was for an eventual 12-player group, it went about as well as you can imagine. Try out different numbers until you find what suits you, and don't be afraid to let a campaign die.

I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT BE AFRAID TO LET A CAMPAIGN DIE. Sunken-Cost Fallacy is a terrible reason to drag yourself and your friends on an adventure nobody really wants. Fail as fast as you can when you're starting out so you can figure out what works and what doesn't. It's hard as hell to do, but please, please tell your GM (in private after the session preferably) when you're not having fun. The worst feedback you can give to a GM is "I love it, it was great" after you spent the session bored out of your mind.

I'm not certain where the line is drawn, but 16 is definitely too many. In 4 hours we got through 2 complete rounds of combat.

The important lesson is, if at first you don't succeed, holy shit why do you have so many players

I've got 2 groups who more or less work out with the right number of players

>I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT BE AFRAID TO LET A CAMPAIGN DIE. Sunken-Cost Fallacy is a terrible reason to drag yourself and your friends on an adventure nobody really wants.

I'm ready to let this die but honestly i'd rather have the GM see reason before everything fails. 7 players is atleast 2 too many and thats honestly enough to ruin an adventure

I told him i wanted to talk about my character and the setting but im gonna be honest i'm pretty sure hes not going to take me seriously

I've got all these interesting ideas for my character but i won't even have time to do anything if theres too many players fucking around who also want the spotlight
>The worst feedback you can give to a GM is "I love it, it was great" after you spent the session bored out of your mind.

I'll keep that in mind. Hopefully he'll accept that

With a group of good friends who are all decent people, I've managed six players pretty well, although I would prefer four to five players. Anything above six is definitely too much, five to six is too much for some.

It is assumed that 4-5 is the ideal standard playerbase, but in my experience the best lies from 2 to 3:

>action more tight and focused on characters
>story arcs more easly centered on characters
>combat is faster
>less work on gm part into remember stuff about characters

Because it was a public FLGS group and the GM was adamant about not splitting the table, because the moment we announce splitting the table 3/4ths of the players leave.

Not because they don't want to split the table, but for some reason gameplanning always ends up that way.

I mean lets be real its no biggie if players leave
Cant make everybody happy

In reality it's no biggie but it can certainly feel biggie, Smalls.

Both that GM and I tend to worry that players spontaneously leaving is due to a lack of interest in our games that we can't really solve without knowing what made the person want to leave, and neither of us really gather enough player contact info to ensure that we can get an appropriate review.

Simply put: if I didn't kick the player out, I don't know the reason they left. If I don't know the reason they left, then the default assumption is because they lost interest. If they lost interest, it's because I fucked up as a GM and didn't deliver.

It's weak and pathetic contrived Millenial anxiety, but in a weird way it makes us better GMs because we feel the need to make our players happy.

>Simply put: if I didn't kick the player out, I don't know the reason they left.
Well shit maybe u should send them a pm or smth

Except, as mentioned before, I never really bother getting contact info from spontaneous pickup game players. I don't even really message the core group whose contact info I already have.

Using mobile devices to continuously balance contact networks is a massive fucking hassle when normally if I wanted to talk to someone I'd probably see them eventually to talk to in person.

I played in a game with 55 players once, that managed to run well surprisingly.

Was it text only?
Because that is the only way I can see it work.

No, it was in person in a big room.

I'd say six is ideal, it's the most players that a tabletop rpg can really handle but usually there will be a player or two who can't make it and this way you don't have to cancel sessions when that happens.

But when people come in time it will be awful and if you have 2 differnet people missing each time the way the game goes will be inconsistent

if you have the same 2 people missing they'll just be useless

bump

I usually try to have at most 4 players. More often than not, the players will specifically make characters to support each other, so they usually don't have much overlap in skills and abilities. Which is nice. The most players I've had in a single session was 6, and it was chaos. Right now, I'm in a group of 6 plus the gm, and I'm so used to everyone else talking over each other, I'm currently shit posting on the internet while I wait for my turn

including the GM
1 is schitzo and it's glorious and scary
2 is erp
3 is comfy but can be boring.
4 is balanced and recommended.
5 is crowded, but doable.
6 is many, straining default turn-based combat systems and sometimes robbing the less active players of spotlight completely.
7 is a social gathering with more chatting than gaming.
8 and above aren't games anymore unless some sort of wizardy's applied.

Anything below 7 has been workable for me for plenty of ddifferent systems. Once you get above 6 most systems that aren't ultra-light crap just take way too long to get through a round to be any real fun

>1on1 has to be erp
cmon dude

Straight up, it's seven or higher. Six people (including the GM) is often fairly manageable, 'though I prefer four to five. However, once you add even one more person, almost any game will suffer in very obvious and immediate ways.

I've been in a game for years now that fluctuates between 7 and 10 players, GM included because he has a GMPC. It's absolute pandemonium and things hardly get done. It's made worse by the fact that the GM is pedantic as fuck. We spent 4 hours looking for a bath house once. The only reason the group functions is because half of the people there are wallflowers who only speak when the GM speaks to them or when they want to burn the city we're in down. Honestly this game would be so much better if we cut the furry, the psycho, and the co-gm's gf.

Anything above 5. Who has a table that comfortably sits 7 or more people?

People really underestimate how good a campaign with only 1 or 2 players can be.
GM can focus on what interests and challenges the players more easily, scheduling a session is easier, players get to spend more time playing and less time waiting, etc.
Having a balanced party composition may be important in a video-game, but it doesn't matter much in ttrpg. The GM can either design encounters around the fact of the party missing a role, or the players can simply deal with it and use superior coordination and clever tricks to win.

>2 is erp
I don't understand why this is such a common fear. Is this attitude connected to never hanging-out 1-on-1 with a friend or sibling?
1-on-1 campaigns are great. Easy to schedule, the gm only has 1 person they have to keep interested, player gets to have the story be about them and doesn't have to wait as much for their turn, and since you only need 1 other person you don't have to settle for anyone that annoys you.

As a DM I like 3 players ideally but will stretch to 5.

3 lends to more personal games where players have less time to switch off and get their phones out or slink back out of play.

With a good DM keeping the pace FAST big games can be ok as the player. I like wrangling the group and inspiring the newer/younger players.

vote on it strawpoll.me/14318562

>How many players is too much
4. Fourth player don't add anything into social dynamics and gobbles up chunk of everyones screen time.
5 and up is unplayable garbage online.

I hate the fact that you're right so much, because there's always someone that's dead weight in the 4 person games I'm in.