Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7909045" data-attributes="member: 4937">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&amp;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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7909045, member: 4937"] 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. [/QUOTE]

Verification