Minimum and maximum player/character counts for roleplaying games (especially D&D)

[MerricB]

I've just cancelled my Pathfinder campaign after having seven weeks in a row of people cancelling on me - sometimes I'd get to the session only to find that someone couldn't make it. So, unfortunately, it seems that the Way of the Wicked is "on hiatus" in the true BBC sense of the phrase.

In any case, it made me think about the minimum number of players and characters that I really require to run a game. It's not quite the same thing, and it also depends a lot on system.

In AD&D, I probably require a minimum of 3 actual players, but these days I require at least 6 characters... and more regularly, 9. Characters in AD&D are *not* hard to run, so it's quite easy for some experienced players to have men-at-arms and henchmen to round out the group. The last two sessions of my game have run 4 PCs + 5 henchmen and then 6 PCs + 3 henchmen. Running more than 9 characters tends to get a bit messy, so we're sticking with that count for the time being. Of course, I'm also running the game as a lot of dungeon crawls, which requires the characters more than a role-playing intensive game would. Meanwhile, putting the player count above six rather reduces the time each actually gets, so, while I've run tables with nine players, I'd far rather not.

In D&D 3E and Pathfinder, my minimum count of characters is four: one of each of the major roles. This also tends to be the lower end of players as well, although I'd probably run 3 PCs plus a cohort. The maximum count is probably six. Characters are complex enough in 3E that splitting attention between two, especially at higher levels, has a much bigger effect on the speed of the game. Adding more characters also slows things down. Against that, especially when running published adventures, not having a wizard and a cleric of the appropriate levels is often just asking for trouble: a lot of monsters have "you must have A to defeat them", where A is a spell. A fighter-type who can do masses of damage is also good; rogues a little less.

In D&D 4E, the numbers really head downwards. Thanks to the companion characters from DMG2, I'm very happy to run two players each with a companion. Indeed, I ran through the last adventure of the HPE series - at level 30 - with that and the balance was fine, thank you very much. I've also run three PCs with no henchmen. The idea of "required" characters is nowhere near as strong as in 3E/PF, so they don't need that cleric/wizard pairing, although it's very nice to have the cleric about. So, for 4E, a minimum of 2 players and a minimum of 3 characters. (Scaling works well). However, the maximum numbers are lower due to combat speed. Five players/characters is about my limit, and I'm probably happier with four.

So, that gives the following ranges for each game:

Player/Character Rangers for Games
AD&D: 3-6 players, 6-9 characters
D&D 3E/PF: 4-6 players, 4-6 characters
D&D 4E: 2-5 players, 3-5 characters

So where do you stand on your preferred table sizes for your RPGs?

Cheers!

 

[delericho]

For D&D (or Pathfinder):

Minimum 3 players (plus DM), though I prefer 4, and my maximum is 6. I prefer at least 4 characters, so if there are only 3 players, I prefer they run two characters each.

I should note that I don't run 4e, so those numbers may well not apply.

For other games:

Minimum 3 players (plus DM), maximum 5, playing one character each.

But...

I also have a "quorum" rule, which is that for an ongoing campaign, we need a minimal subset of players or the game is cancelled. This depends on the number of players signed up to the campaign - if that game has 3+1 players, we cancel if one person can't make it; if it has more than that, then we cancel if 2 people can't make it.

 

[Li Shenron]

IMXP the minimum has been 1 player/PC and the maximum was 6-7.

I think too few players are bad for them, because more people at the table typically means more ideas. I wouldn't be happy if I didn't have at least 3 players at the table.

OTOH too many players is bad for everyone, each player has to wait idle for a long time, and there is always someone dominating the whole game at the expense of someone else. With 3-4 players, even with a drama queen at the table, every player typically manages to contribute significantly, but the more the harder job for the DM also.

Thus I guess my sweet spot is also something like 3-5 players, maybe 6. More than that, I'd probably not even try (neither as a player nor a DM)...

I have less problems with varying the number of PC. Sure, the less PCs the more probable to end up in a situation where they really wish they had someone for a job, but a good DM knows how to compensate for that, or at least how to avoid deadlocks like the proverbial locked door that blocks the whole adventure if you don't have a Rogue. But in theory, a good DM should be able to provide adventures for an all-Fighters group or something like that (just don't use published adventured as-is, if this is your case). All that's needed, is a combination of scaling the number of monsters, dialling the monsters' difficulty (e.g. changing HP, replacing solo monsters with weaker/tougher ones...), and keep an eye on those possible deadlock situations.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've gone as low as 2 and as high as 10. To me, the rules and filling roles and whatever aren't a big deal; it's more about managing and engaging the actual people. To that end, I think anywhere from 2-6 is workable and 3-5 is ideal.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall, most games seem to work best at about 3-5 players for me, regardless of D&D edition.

 

[Jacob Marley]

My preferred range is 3-5 players each controlling 1-3 PCs/Cohorts/Followers/Companions/Henchmen/Whatever. This applies to both AD&D and 3.x games. I am also a fan of character stables and encourage my players to have multiple characters active and adventuring in my campaign.

 

[Tuft]

Played 3.5 with bard-cleric-wizard and now Pathfinder with bard-sorcerer-barbarian without problems. For 3-player groups everybody must be able to make it, but with 4-5-groups we play with one player absent, and cancel with two absent, no matter what roles.

 

[Umbran]

I'm generally of a one player, one character bent. When a player runs more than one character, I find the division of attention and changes in mindset mean that either one character is getting short shrift, or the role-playing suffers to the point where players are thinking mostly about mechanics, and not much about personality. For the games I prefer to run and play in, that's a problem.

From there, my party size limits come from the following:

1) The GM is great for presenting the Universe, but let us face it, wearing many hats, the GM just isn't going to do as much justice to each NPC as the player can do for their one PC. It then follows that the most rich interactions at the table are apt to be between the PCs, not the PCs and NPCs.

2) The more players you have, the less attention each can get from the GM - both in terms of NPC interaction and rules adjudication.

I find that I prefer a table of 5-7 players as a result.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I prefer having exactly 5 players +1 DM.

Combats last just the right amount of time and roleplaying is usually very good. With less players each player is more important and I don't have enough very active players for this to work. With more players combat bogs down, and even social encounters can get boring.

I have played a lot of sessions without a leader (healer) in 4e and must say I am impressed with how well the games run with a totally random combination of roles.

 

[Manbearcat]

My take is that it depends on the system and the people involved. As general rules, each of the below "features/bugs" (depending on how you see it and the acumen of your players), create an increasing propensity for decision points to be "weighty", and therefore, combat turns to become lengthy, specifically, or combat, generally, to go pear-shaped.

- A robust/deep Action Economy.

- Robust/deep PC build schemes.

- Complexity of deployable resource interactions rules (eg PCC force multiplaction - teamwork, status effects, frequency tracking, complex durations).

- Robust Obstacle/Terrain:Movement interaction rules.

- Complex PC/NPC interaction with the physical world rules.

- Inelegant, vague, opaque encounter building rules, math, and/or disfunctional challenges (monsters, hazards, traps, etc)

Each iteration of D&D has had a different collection of each of these features/bugs. Due to this, whenever I play each of the various systems, I will have a hard ceiling that I will not move past. In 1e, megadungeon, one-offs, I have no problem entertaining 7 - 8 PCs. In my 4e campaigns, I (personally...there are plenty of folks who enjoy a 7 - 8 PC game) do not like to go beyond 4 PCs.

Of course, part of this is system-neutral and due to the available player pool and/or type of players you are playing with. Chemistry and cohesion are paramount. There are a lot more narcissitic, pathologically unaware (or indifferent), and overall, disfunctional people in this world than there are humble, sacrificing, mentally present and highly functional people. The gamer populace, unsurprisingly, follows this trend neatly. As such, I've seen "addition by subtraction" a thousand times more than I've seen a new player (one time ever) be an extraordinarily additive influence on an existing campaign or gaming group.