Number of players

[Marc_C]

So, I think it depends on what you're trying to accomplish in your sessions.

If your game is, for lack of a better description, strongly focused on achieving tactical objectives, that tends of favor aiming for groups just small enough to fit all the roles needed for those objectives.

If your game is more focused on drama and social interactions, that will tend to favor larger groups, because interaction with dedicated players who are each playing a single well-realized character, will generally be more rich than those presented by the GM, who has to wear so many hats and does not have time to develop any one of them deeply. The higher end of this is up in live-action role playing games, where it is entirely possible to have 80 players in one session, but only a handful of GMs. Indeed, most larger live action game delegate the NPCs to a cast of NPC players, so that even those roles are more rich than could be presented by a GM who has to handle 27 other things as well.

One doesn't exclude the other. You can most certainly have deep and rich role-playing games with just 3 players. It's about the quality of the players not the type (tactical or not) of game being played.

 

[Umbran]

One doesn't exclude the other. You can most certainly have deep and rich role-playing games with just 3 players. It's about the quality of the players not the type (tactical or not) of game being played.

Yes, but broadly speaking, you will have more, and more varied, social interaction with 5 players than you will with three. With three players, there are only three different pairings of interactions between players. With four players, there are six pairings. With five players, there are ten pairings. With 80 players, there are 3160 possible pairings¹.



1. For N players, the number of pairings is N*(N-1)/2.

 

[billd91]

I take for granted that we're talking about 4 to 6 players or something close to the traditional D&D/PF way, but all boardgames specify that stuff right on the box.

That’s part of the paradigmatic difference between RPGs and board games. Board games have strictly limited physical space and materials, while RPGs generally don’t. Board games are pretty thoroughly play tested at all planned player numbers, RPGs generally are not.
RPGs are comparatively loosey goosey compared to the tightness of board games, by intention.

 

[Marc_C]

Yes, but broadly speaking, you will have more, and more varied, social interaction with 5 players than you will with three. With three players, there are only three different pairings of interactions between players. With four players, there are six pairings. With five players, there are ten pairings. With 80 players, there are 3160 possible pairings¹.



1. For N players, the number of pairings is N*(N-1)/2.

Yep. That is what I learned during my communication degree (a very long time ago). Less channels means less distortion and less noise. Which I prefer.

 

[Umbran]

Yep. That is what I learned during my communication degree (a very long time ago). Less channels also means less distortion and less noise. Which I prefer.

Yep. Basic combinatorics. N things, choose two, assuming order does not matter.

 

[Marc_C]

My experiences with more than 4 players is that those furthest from the GM tend to talk about non-game topics very often. They feel less engaged.

Maybe that would be different with a round table? Never been to a rpg convention.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

My experiences with more than 4 players is that those furthest from the GM tend to talk about non-game topics very often. They feel less engaged.

I've had similar experiences. I definitely had groups of five or six with which I had amazing sessions. But it happened much more often that some players got disengaged, or a bit bored, or started chit chatting with others. With three players these things are almost non-existent. I might be me too. Sometimes you just fail to catch everyone's attention. Some sessions are better than others!

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I prefer three to four players plus one DM. This is whether I'm running the game or playing the game. Anything over four and I find it hard to engage everyone as a DM and I don't feel as engaged as a player.

However, I'll play in just about any size group and have run groups up to 8 and still had a blast. Much depends, as usual, on the stable of players/dms and how engaged they are with the game.

 

[payn]

I do find virtual games very difficult to keep everyone engaged compared to in person no matter the number of players.

 

[J.Quondam]

I prefer 3-4 players plus DM; though I've also done a lot of 2 plus DM successfully, too.
Maybe up to 7 or so plus DM with a really lightweight system or a beer-and-pretzels game.
And just 1 can be fine for learning or teaching.

Who the specific players are, the system used, and the genre of the campaign all matter a lot.