Group size and roleplaying

What is the best group size, specifically for the purposes of roleplay, in your opinion? Why?

Small groups, solo players, duos? More 'average' groups (at least in my experience) of 3-5? Even larger? (if you're nuckin futs)

Smaller games seem like they'd be easier to make stories or hooks that wholly revolve around the characters, but they'd miss the opportunity larger groups have for more improvisation, the riffing off of others (as there's fewer people to play 'yes, and' with) and just general chances for different viewpoints and ideals.

3-4

A three player party has three possible sets of interaction to explore (A-B, A-C, B-C)
A four player party has six (A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, C-D)

Beyond that you start to have a partysize where internal roleplaying is diminished due to the number of possible permutations, meaning that cliques start to become more pronounced. Beyond five you might as well just subdivide again.

4 is best, then 3 and then things get weird.

2 sucks ass, but 1 can sometimes be really gratifying if the GM and player know each other well and both are proactive and good at what they do.

5 works if you have really narrow focus, like only dungeon crawling, and with that you can go up to 6, 7, maybe even 8.

Everything above that is a novelty.

4 to 5 players is ideal

Four is best. As the GM I'd really like to go to 3, but the players get often weirded out in too small groups. 5 is acceptable if the game is less focused on RP, but with 5 you're going to get decent RP from two players tops. More than 5 is going to be shit.

I really like the button on her right shoulder. it suggests that her top has been designed to allow ease of access to her breasts without the need for her to undress.

maybe she's breastfeeding.

>1 okay in very marginal cases ERP
>2 ok-ish in marginal cases
>3 Good size
>4 Excellent size
>5 Good size
>6 Okay, we're pushing it
>7 Uh-oh, this is going to be one of those games
>8 this is bad, my nigga
>9 OH SHIT, what are you doing nigga?!
>any more than that: I am speechless

This

Three exactly is the best, by far, in my opinion. It lets you have a tightly focussed game while still letting people play off each other in a way that doesn't get same-y fast enough to be a bother.

Four is like three, but harder to keep a grip on in terms of narrative direction. Two is mediocre at best, but one can be fun, too, since it amounts to just a player and his GM, and they can bounce back and forth a lot.

Five sucks balls and you should not do it. Either everybody splits or they turn into indecisive wrecks. This sucks for me, since I run Exalted, and everybody else wants five players to make a Circle.

Getting above that is silly, but can be fun (more fun than five by far). I've gone up to eleven at one point. You can't do it online imo, but at a real table with loose and fast rules (which means Lasers and Feelings) you can play duck-duck-goose with initiative and turn it into something stupid and amazing.

There are some sociological studys pointing to the optimal group of people being 5. So 4 players and a GM.

Three and below, three being the best, since there are no decision stalemates

Social studies, always concerned with what really matters.

>2 sucks ass
Speak for yourself.

5 is perfect imho.
But 6-8 is great for military action

3-6 works best for me. Any less than that and it's too much on the players, any more and it's too much on the GM.

Three important factors: Size, Time, and Rules.

> Size
Small: 5 - 3

> Time
Short: 5hrs - 3

> Rules
Light/Fluffy - 1
Medium - 2
Heavy/Crunchy - 3

Add together these three factors. Any sum greater than 6 is likely to result in suboptimal gaming experiences.

>57932864
Whoops swap Time values.

> Time
Short: 5hrs - 1

Think of this as like BMI: broad in application. Any group's mileage may vary.

My best games have had 3 players. After that people get more and more excluded. That said I regularly run Pathfinder for six people. Kill me

I'll say that 3 players to 5 players enables the most productive sessions in terms of immersion.

At 3, there's enough dynamic for there to exist a "group". In these situations, the need to be an active player will be crucial, or else the group will become a duo.
At 4, I find that the group can splinter into two smaller duos. In this situation, two players will find interaction easiest/richest between themselves, somewhat forcing the remaining players to to do the same.
At 5, I think it's now notably easier for a fifth player to lose more relative proportion of "screentime". It's certainly a workable quantity of players but subgroups will be more present.

Why does 2 suck? I was considering running a game just for 2 of my friends.

two is fine, it just has a different vibe

buddy-cop more than 'adventuring party'

She is punching a skeleton.

I definitely prefer 4 players and 1 DM. I made the huge mistake of thinking I wanted a 7 person party once, and if it wasn't for the fact that two of them couldn't play anymore after the 2nd session I would have necked myself.

I'd say four or five.

Don't go beyond 6. 6 can be manageable.

More than one GM is true enlightenment

Brudda, I've wanted to try that for years and years. Please teach me your ways.

My best roleplaying experience was had in a 5 man group in which 2 players were almost solely rollplaying but enjoyed watching the others roleplay.

I have almost same story.
>one player rarely talks IC, and when he does it's not a lot of words
>plays a strong silent type fighting person
>is not that great at tactics
>gets really excited for every game, loves to talk about it on our group discord
Some people just like to take the backseat and watch others do cool stuff sometimes, I guess.

She is defending her boobmilk from that skeleton who wants to put his phalanxes on that sweet calcium bonus.

I'm currently in a group that has anywhere from 9 to 14 players each week at my FLGS. It's open to the public so we constantly have new people and other people dropping out. It's a complete shitshow. Combat takes the whole night for like 2 rounds and consists mostly of people just standing around trading blows with undertuned enemies.

It's the only group I can play in so I shouldn't complain too much.

>She is punching a skeleton.
And skeletons get stronger with calcium.

It's starting to make sense.

Agreed. Three is the best, two and four are workable but five is only for dungeon crawly type games where story isn't the primary concern.

I don't bother with 6 or more, just too busy.

I co-dm'd a group of 13 at a community college. The idea was they all worked for a mercenary group and would go on 3-6 person missions that were all basically one shot campaigns. Eventually we started throwing in recurring characters and a rival mercenary group that was far more charismatic than them. The whole thing was a blast

It depends on the game. Running 6+ is pretty fun with an old school system and a caller. On the other hand some games will be a drag past 4 players.