Do You Prefer 4 Or More Players (+ DM) When RPGing?

[Troll Wizard]

After 25+ years of DMing I find my minimum is 3 players (and running 2 PCs each) or 6 players (1 PC each) mine maximum. I run a "realistic" (about as real as a fantasy game can get) and pretty lethal worlds. While it my be months between a PC's death, it does happen and multiple PC deaths in a single session (though rare) does occur.

 

[Wombat]

My "sweet spot" is 3-5 players.

 

[delericho]

Depends on the game.

For 4e, I would prefer the standard 5.

For 3e, I would vastly prefer at least 4, so the four basic roles can be filled. 6 would be better. (Although with 3e, I'm not hugely averse to some players running 2 PCs - we've done that before with some success.)

For many other games, it doesn't matter so much. Indeed, with the likes of Vampire, 3 or fewer players seems to work better than more.

IMO, of course.

 

[knightofround]

I've done 11 before and it was actually one of my better campaigns. However it requires a much different DMing style, as you need to delegate many of the DM duties to the PCs.

I rarely had all 11 PCs together at the same time; they went out on missions and the people who didn't make the cut became basically assistant-DMs, and would RP/play my NPCs for me and handle rules stuff, so I could stay focused on story and description.

I DMed for two people once, and it felt weird. I think with smaller groups you need higher-quality players. The nice thing about larger groups is that you can include more people, and if one person isn't making the game fun....well, its more diluted.

I think 5-6 is optimum for most campaigns.

 

[EricNoah]

I find 4 is actually the perfect number. 3 and 5 work too. I probably would have trouble with six or more. I have done one and two before -- the one-on-one campaigns I've done were actually pretty fun, but two was often a bit weird feeling for some reason.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I prefer either 1 player (+1 DM), or 4 to 5 players (+1 DM). 5 players allows for one player to flake out each week, and still leave enough players for a good game session. With 4 players it's tougher to account for real life's intrusions.

 

[blargney the second]

What the heck is going on with digging up Mark's two-year-old polls lately?
-blarg

 

[HellHound]

Nope.

I'm all about 2-3 players. 3 is the ultimate sweet spot.

 

[Kristiano Tiago]

I voted "No". For me, 2 to 4 players (+DM) makes the perfect gaming party.

 

[ccs]

I prefer 4-6.
Though I can handle up to 7 easily enough & our Sunday game bounces between 3-4 (depends on 1 work schedule & another players current health situation. About 1/2 our sessions are missing one of them)