Zach asked on his blog: Number of Players In Your Group?
Number of Players In Your Group
I answered in a comment but wanted to highlight my preference for a West Marches style game.
I play in several campaigns. The two Monday games have 5 players and 1 DM; one Sunday game has 5 players and 1 DM; the other Sunday game has 6 players and 1 DM; the irregular game has 5 players and 1 DM; the large campaign 8 players and 1 DM but for any one particular session we’re limiting the number of players to 5; the game with the kids has 3 players and 1 DM; the Rolemaster campaign has 7 players and 1 DM (but I’ve never seen all of them attend a session).
I’ve run D&D 3.5 games with seven players on a regular basis and I thought it was OK, but when one of the players left and I asked the group, they said they preferred the smaller size.
I think it’s much easier to run larger groups with simple rules, and group activities like fighting and riddle solving work better than social interactions (where usually just one person does the talking).
What works admirably well is *having a big player pool but limiting the number of players per session*. I like it! I’m not doing more of that because the players I have right now want to come to every single session.
I’m suspecting that this sort of session structure encourages (affords) simple hit and run missions that you can play through in a single session. As time passes, players come to realize that every session seems to follow the same structure: Move out, reach target, search around, small fight, small fight, boss fight, treasure, home. If you find yourself in that situation I encourage you to think about a trade-off: Just treat the changes in party composition between sessions as “editing mistakes in the movie” – I find that my players are comfortable with *ignoring those continuity bugs*.
#RPG #thoughts #affordance