D&D General How big is your gaming circle?

[toucanbuzz]

5

Good lord you 10+ people circles! I barely have enough free time to keep pace with my current campaign!

 

[Blue]

I play in one group, which is five steady people plus a three or so based on campaign, with usually one joining us for a campaign.

I play in another group, which is a group I started 20+ years ago. The active membership has changed over the years, with six current and about ten more who are part of that circle but not part of the current campaign.

I run one game, with four people from the first group and one of the ones that's not an active part of the second group.

I run another game, with four regulars and one occasional, unrelated to any other group. These are my kids, niece and nephew, with other nephew who's in college being the occasional one.

I've recently started an online West Marches campaign with several other DMs, and we've brought in gamers we knew (including from those first two groups) plus another circle that's somewhere between four and eight.

I have significant (20+ easily) other gamers that I've gamed with in the past but the groups aren't together now, whom I'm still in at least "facebook chatting" levels of contact with.

 

[Shiroiken]

My current group has mostly been together since the D&D Next playtest. We've lost a few along the way, and picked up a new one a year or so back. We play on Roll20, using Discord (used to be Skype), but most of us have met IRL at one time or another. Three played in high school together, three remain from our old 4E group, and two were "friend of a friend" situation initially. While we mostly discuss gaming, we have an off-topic chat on Discord where we discuss a lot of different things, largely geek related.

 

[billd91]

Right now, I have 2 groups on Thursday nights that alternate - 7 of us in one, 11 in the other, 6 of whom overlap.
Then I've got a group on alternate Saturdays of 9 where the only overlap is me.
I also like to run and play at conventions - I've usually been attending Gamehole Con and Gary Con in recent years so that's another 5-7 per table or so and, of course, a lot of potential travel. The pandemic and going virtual for these cons has brought in players from a much wider area, which is kind of cool and a nice side effect of being unable to play face to face. But I'm definitely ready to get back to Gamehole in person this fall.

 

[Reynard]

Right now, I have 2 groups on Thursday nights that alternate - 7 of us in one, 11 in the other, 6 of whom overlap.
Then I've got a group on alternate Saturdays of 9 where the only overlap is me.
I also like to run and play at conventions - I've usually been attending Gamehole Con and Gary Con in recent years so that's another 5-7 per table or so and, of course, a lot of potential travel. The pandemic and going virtual for these cons has brought in players from a much wider area, which is kind of cool and a nice side effect of being unable to play face to face. But I'm definitely ready to get back to Gamehole in person this fall.

Those are some large groups! What style campaigns and/or what actual games do you play to accommodate so many PCs?

 

[billd91]

Those are some large groups! What style campaigns and/or what actual games do you play to accommodate so many PCs?

The Thursday game alternates between a 5e homebrew and a 5e conversion of Age of Worms (that's the one with the larger group). We've got some 2nd generation players in the bigger group. It runs a bit slowly and we can't get into a lot of RPing depth, but the kids are learning the game pretty well. A couple of the players have health issues that sidelines them from time to time and another occasionally has work responsibilities so I don't often have the full group.

The Saturday game is also a 2nd generation group - my kids, some of their peers in our broader friend group. Only one other player near my age. We're currently playing Return to the Keep on the Borderlands as a launch into Princes of the Apocalypse.

 

[Burnside]

I currently DM three campaigns and play in one. Total of 21 different people across the four games (plus me). There is only one person overlapping (my wife, who is a player in a game I DM and a fellow player in the game in which I play).

As an aside, I don't particularly recommend DMing Curse of Strahd, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden at the same time. It's a lot.

I also run free & paid one-shots regularly; between my email list, discord server, and social media the pool for that is maybe a thousand people, though new people often sign up and I'm not always 100% sure where they came from.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'm in three weekly online games (17 players total counting dms) with no overlap between them. I have played in other games with some of those people, but currently do not.

I'm in two variable-schedule used-to-be-live games, one with 5 (a group formed about five years ago) and one with about 9 people - that one is much more erratic, though. This second group includes my brother who's been gaming for longer than my own 34-year span, and several people I've been gaming with for a couple decades now. There's been some crossover between the group for one-shots, but all of three sessions in as many years, if that.

I won't count convention play since I'm not certain I've played with any one person more than twice.

Added together and it's just over 30 people.

 

[Reynard]

Do most folks with larger circles interact with those gamers outside actual play, or would you count them as "just gaming friends"?

 

[Mannahnin]

Do most folks with larger circles interact with those gamers outside actual play, or would you count them as "just gaming friends"?

Most of the people in my various gaming circles are "just" gaming friends, but I'd say at least a quarter are ones I interact or have in the past regularly interacted with in non-gaming contexts. Either because we were friends first and then started gaming together, or more commonly because we gamed together, became friends, and now do other stuff or at least stay in regular contact and talk about our lives, politics, or whatever.

 

[Burnside]

Do most folks with larger circles interact with those gamers outside actual play, or would you count them as "just gaming friends"?

Like 70% friends, 30% gaming friends and/or clients. The pandemic has complicated my answer to this, because in some cases it has greatly reduced or eliminated other activities I used to do with a lot of these people, so gaming has become more of the context for our friendship that it was before.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Do most folks with larger circles interact with those gamers outside actual play, or would you count them as "just gaming friends"?

The online ones are gaming friends, pretty much by necessity. Some of them live on the other side of the continent, so it would be difficult to hang out with them on a Saturday afternoon.

The live (when that was allowed) ones turn into regular friends - we hang out for other reasons fairly frequently.

 

[Reynard]

Most of the people in my various are "just" gaming friends, but I'd say at least a quarter are ones I interact or have in the past regularly interacted with in non-gaming contexts. Either because we were friends first and then started gaming together, or more commonly because we gamed together, became friends, and now do other stuff or at least stay in regular contact and talk about our lives, politics, or whatever.

Like 70% friends, 30% gaming friends and/or clients. The pandemic has complicated my answer to this, because in some cases it has greatly reduced or eliminated other activities I used to do with a lot of these people, so gaming has become more of the context for our friendship that it was before.

The online ones are gaming friends, pretty much by necessity. Some of them live on the other side of the continent, so it would be difficult to hang out with them on a Saturday afternoon.

The live (when that was allowed) ones turn into regular friends - we hang out for other reasons fairly frequently.

I wasn't aiming for a particularly "hard" line between "fiends" and "gaming friends". My circle interacts a lot outside of the actual gaming, whether it is actually hanging out or trading memes on the discord. I have very few people I want to game with that I also don't want to interact with otherwise, and even fewer who I don't want to interact with otherwise but do want to game with.

 

[DammitVictor]

My current gaming circle consists of essentially my closest friends, plus my girlfriend's closest friends, plus a handful of people I gamed with years ago and I'm always trying to rope into one game or another.

 

[Burnside]

I wasn't aiming for a particularly "hard" line between "fiends" and "gaming friends". My circle interacts a lot outside of the actual gaming, whether it is actually hanging out or trading memes on the discord. I have very few people I want to game with that I also don't want to interact with otherwise, and even fewer who I don't want to interact with otherwise but do want to game with.

For me, online gaming has helped to continue relationships that might otherwise have fragmented. For example, I have friends and co-workers with whom I used to interact regularly in all sorts of contexts, but people have changed jobs, relocated, etc. I know that even though none of these relationships started because of gaming, without gaming it is very unlikely I would still be interacting with these people at length on a weekly basis. So in a way some "general friends" have kind of become "gaming friends"?