I know what you meant. See post #77.
D&D General Background Vs. Backstory
WayOfTheFourElements
Hero
Does the number of players in your group affect backstory expectations. I rarely DM for less than 10 players. Requiring them all to have a detailed backstory would be a nightmare to keep straight.
Chaosmancer
Legend
True, and you are right that they can.
I was simply pointing out that if they share backstory elements it smooths the road. I can drive over gravel, can even do so at speed, it is easier to drive on smooth asphalt.
Good lord!
My biggest table was 8, I usually only run for 4-6 (usually starts 6 and ends at 4) and I usually only get coherent backstories from like 2 of them. The rest are various levels of "I don't know, I worked at a temple or something" which gives me nothing to work with.
Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
Oh my god! I wouldn't/couldn't DM for a group over 6 players—that's my maximum load (I prefer 4, but what can you do?). Even without backgrounds, that would be too much for me to handle.
Celebrim
Legend
Yes.
One of the most important things I've learned in the last 2 decades is that the size of the group you have dictates the sort of game you can run. The implications of this are profound and often much under discussed or appreciated even by professional designers. For example, the reverse is also true, the sort of game you have designed to be played dictates how many people can play it.
For groups of above 8 people, such as the groups Gygax was running at his own tables in the early history of D&D, individual goals of play have to recede into the background in preference of shared group goals, because you simply cannot advance multiple story arcs at the same time and still maintain a good pace of play for everyone at the table. Imagine you have 12 players, and each player wants to take turns doing low melodrama with character introspection and internal character emotions and growth and intraparty relationships highlighted. You will have situations where it can be hours before its your turn for your character to do anything, and in the mean time you can only sit back and watch other people play. Most people have a rather low tolerance for such things. And from a DM perspective, you'll quickly get into a situation where you are not running one campaign, but several full campaigns in parallel with slightly different groups in each one.
Celebrim
Legend
I've done 8 before, but for every player you have above 6, the more sensible Gygax's advice in the 1e AD&D DMG becomes. Like, above 8 you will definitely want a party Leader/Caller who is essentially assisting you in organizing the cacophony of competing player requests for your attention. You'll probably want to back off of theater of the mind and invest in miniatures. You'll probably want a game heavily focused on tactical combat and not RP, because that's one thing everyone can do together. You'll probably want to go to a 'haven-delve' format and away from adventure paths because that way, if someone doesn't show up for the week, it isn't a huge problem.
WayOfTheFourElements
Hero
Agreed. I run an after school club with 17 players. It's a very different experience from running a game for 3-4 players.
I'd think it would have to. I won't run more than six PCs. Both of my parties are that size. As @Celebrim said upthread, with more PCs you can't do as much in the way of tying them to the setting. I can't help but think that your DMing in an after-school club might also make a difference, in that you may be looking at less reliable players (and players still focused on learning the game; the need to poke around inside our characters seems to arise for some players who've played a while).
DrunkonDuty
he/him
I'm just gearing up to start a new campaign. (My group is about 3 encounters from the end of the Reign of Winter AP.) And although we've enjoyed the outgoing campaign, character motivation has been a difficult thing to establish.
So with that in mind the next game is going to have a few session zeros.
First up will be a group brainstorm for the campaign setting and style. I want as much player contribution as possible because I want to encourage as much player buy-in as possible.
After we've done that I'll dream up the broad strokes of the setting based on the brainstorm. I'll send a summary to the players.
Then we have a second session 0 in which we all sit around brainstorming characters. This will be a mix of mechanical character design and working out background stories. Each character will have to have 1 connection to another character in their background.
I'm looking forward to it and I think it will add a lot to the game for everyone.
So with that in mind the next game is going to have a few session zeros.
First up will be a group brainstorm for the campaign setting and style. I want as much player contribution as possible because I want to encourage as much player buy-in as possible.
After we've done that I'll dream up the broad strokes of the setting based on the brainstorm. I'll send a summary to the players.
Then we have a second session 0 in which we all sit around brainstorming characters. This will be a mix of mechanical character design and working out background stories. Each character will have to have 1 connection to another character in their background.
I'm looking forward to it and I think it will add a lot to the game for everyone.
The Green Hermit
Hero
Yep! I'm dealing with a bunch of teens, including a relatively consistent turnover of new players due to fostering. If we just restarted the game every time there was a TPK I wouldn't have any players. When even one character lives, though, I can convince them to continue on and come up with a reasonable storyline about how their new characters show up and join in on all the fun.
The restarts usually have a lot of premonitions of bad things happening from one of the characters while everybody else jeers at them for being a wuss.
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