D&D and AD&D - 10 Players?

[rogueattorney]

Did these modules seriously require that number of players? I know things were more hack 'n' slash back then, and many of the modules were conversions of tournament modules, but I can't imagine how I'd get that many people together and have a cohesive session. I suppose it was just de rigueur to have each player handle multiple PCs?

Yes, the modules assumed parties were bigger than the 4 that the current edition assumes.

6-8 PC characters was assumed, with nearly the same number of NPC henchman and hirelings.

Many of the issues newer players have with the old modules, particularly deadliness and amount of treasure and magic, are taken care of when the dangers and rewards are being split among 12 characters rather than four or five.

R.A.

 

[Quasqueton]

WotC and the D&D Designers did market research when they were working on D&D3. They discovered that the normal/average game had only 4 Players (or 2-6) in it. So they designed the system to work around that number.

Quasqueton

 

[Chaldfont]

Many of the oldest modules were themed more as expeditions (think Louis & Clark) than action movies. This probably comes from D&D's heritage--wargames. The RPG forefathers probably went from scores of units down to about a dozen or so.

Later, more emphasis was put on story and individual PCs evolved from not much more than playing pieces to angsty powerhouses with arch-enemies.

I think WotC redesigned D&D based on market research that showed most groups had about 4 players--not 6-12.

I like both styles of games, personally.

 

[scadgrad]

Actually, IIRC D&D 3.0 was already well into the design process before that infamous marketing research was done, much of the results of which WotC ignored.

But yeah, back in the day Henchmen would have raised the number of characters considerably and most players enjoyed playing more than one character.

Have fun running C&C w/ those old mods. I've done a good bit of it myself.

 

[gizmo33]

There's no edition of DnD AFAIK that allows 10 people to talk simultaneously. IME the 1st edition games with 10 players were just as chaotic as the 3E ones. I don't know how this really got handled in the old days, I don't remember 10 players ever being the norm in my neighborhood.

IME the old modules weren't too deadly for 4 PCs with some help. We used a number of house rules: 4d6 method for stats, max hp at 1st level, some Unearthed Arcana rules, etc. that made the characters tougher that I suspect they were in the playtests. I've also always strongly suspected that a lot of these old modules were "ports" from ODnD days without percentile strength and some of the powerful spells.

 

[kenobi65]

Back in the early 80s, when our 1E group played through most of those modules, we regularly had 8-10 players at the table. Everyone in that group had multiple characters, but we weren't allowed to play more than one PC at a time (so, the beginning of a module was often filled with the players bargaining / debating over which of their PCs to play). We had a couple of characters with henchmen, but that was the exception to the rule.

Yes, it was sometimes chaotic, but I think most of us restrained ourselves from too much table-talk, just for the sake of getting through the game. (Then again, we passed a *lot* of notes back then, too.)

 

[diaglo]

There's no edition of DnD AFAIK that allows 10 people to talk simultaneously.

it was common to have a "Caller"

 

[Glyfair]

I don't know how this really got handled in the old days, I don't remember 10 players ever being the norm in my neighborhood.

It was the norm at conventions, however. 8 was the standard number of players per table at almost any roleplaying game.

The longest running RPG I played in had anywhere from 2 players to 12 players at a time. However, it was a very imaginative group. If characters weren't directly involved with the GM, it was normal for them to be interacting with each other.

 

[kenobi65]

it was common to have a "Caller"

Yup...the rules even suggested this. We resorted to it once or twice, when the group got too big and unwieldy, but never used it often.

 

[Quasqueton]

marketing research was done, much of the results of which WotC ignored.

Like what?

Quasqueton