Not counting tournaments, OP, and one-shots: I'd say about 9. Many of them are morphs from previous groups, but the dynamics changed enough to consider them new groups. The first two were AD&D friends from high school. The third was 2E and 3E in college (I continued to play with the group after graduating for a while). I had 4 different groups that played 3E, mostly because of the length of the edition and the fluctuation of the groups (the largest group broke into two group due to personality problems). In 4E I had only 1 group, which fell apart due to a dislike of 4E, but the group tried 2E and 5E for a while before disbanding. My current group is from the DnDNext playtest, has continued during all of 5E, and I think is the best group I've had due to the maturity of the people (the fact we have 4 DMs out of 7 people also gives us a nice variety of games).
D&D General How many groups of players have you played with, face to face?
David Howery
Hero
biggest group I ever had was the last one, me (DM) and 7 players. That was about as many as I could handle. Considering the tiny MT town I was living in at the time and the rather small group of RPG players in it, that was probably a majority of the D&D population there....
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Glad you could form a group in such a small community!
FWIW, my largest group was something like 15-16 towards the end of high school. It was our normal crew (usually 10-12 if most people showed) plus some extras (old friends) who joined in for the summer. Looking back, I'm surprised we got as much done as we did, but tracking everything was crazy especially since this was in 1990 and computers we not quite as useful then.
Stormonu
Legend
Not including Con games:
Holmes/BX: 3 groups
1E: 2 groups
2E: 2 groups
3E: 4 groups
4E: 2 groups
5E: 4 groups
So, 14 groups altogether that I can recall. I’d say somewhere around 40 people overall (some of who were in multiple groups). Biggest group had 10 regular players, in 3E. Smallest group was in Holmes - 2 players + DM for 2 years.
Holmes/BX: 3 groups
1E: 2 groups
2E: 2 groups
3E: 4 groups
4E: 2 groups
5E: 4 groups
So, 14 groups altogether that I can recall. I’d say somewhere around 40 people overall (some of who were in multiple groups). Biggest group had 10 regular players, in 3E. Smallest group was in Holmes - 2 players + DM for 2 years.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Ignoring con games and one-offs:
One.
One great big sprawling continuously-morphing crew of people, a few of whom have been around since day one while many others have come and gone over the years, of which sometimes-overlapping subsets play(ed) in different games at different times with different DMs and sometimes using different systems.
At a rough guess I'd say this crew has consisted of about 70-80 people in total, of whom I've DMed and-or played with maybe 60.
One.
One great big sprawling continuously-morphing crew of people, a few of whom have been around since day one while many others have come and gone over the years, of which sometimes-overlapping subsets play(ed) in different games at different times with different DMs and sometimes using different systems.
At a rough guess I'd say this crew has consisted of about 70-80 people in total, of whom I've DMed and-or played with maybe 60.
Ath-kethin
Elder Thing
How long does a group have to be playing together to be considers "stable?" In high school (25-ish years ago) I was playing in as many as six campaigns at once, running two or three of them, and the membership in each fluctuated a bit but had a core of three or four people who were in each game (as players or DMs) plus variations of a person or two who were only in one campaign each.
That setup lasted almost three years, then three of us continued playing together for a few years afterward, again with occasional variance here and there.
I showed up every weekend for the Pathfinder Society game at my FLGS for about a year; the GMS were the same but the player base varies a but from week to week. Same with the D&D Adventurer's League a year or so later.
I've been running a game for my now-7yo for about a year and a half, and playing in one run by said 7yo for about a year, as well. On occasion our neighbor and/or the neighbor's kid joins us too.
That setup lasted almost three years, then three of us continued playing together for a few years afterward, again with occasional variance here and there.
I showed up every weekend for the Pathfinder Society game at my FLGS for about a year; the GMS were the same but the player base varies a but from week to week. Same with the D&D Adventurer's League a year or so later.
I've been running a game for my now-7yo for about a year and a half, and playing in one run by said 7yo for about a year, as well. On occasion our neighbor and/or the neighbor's kid joins us too.
toucanbuzz
No rule is inviolate
Wow so far reading this thread! And wow thinking about it:
1. D&D Basic (red box). Junior high, friends/neighbors. Barely counted as a "group." Mostly people who'd never played before in a small town where, at the time, D&D was taboo. If you're too young or new to the game to know what I mean, here's a start.
2. AD&D, high school. Basketball team + "outsider" crowd. Small town, had to wait for the gym after school. My house for an hour courtesy of a friend with great charisma. 10 people around a dinky card table. Must've been a good bonding influence. We won district the next year.
3. AD&D, high school. The crowd thins. 10 people is too many, and the group whittled down to a select 4 players. My most nostalgic times, likely in part because we had no real responsibilities and I came up with some crazy stuff. This group stuck together through freshman year of college until we all started to head separate directions.
4. AD&D, college years. Small group of regional friends (university was close to home) plus the occasional college buddy interested in trying the game. Largest quantity of overnight marathon games (8+ hours). Plus, the occasional "wander the dorms" to find a random game days.
5. AD&D, post-grad years. Moved to a new town, found new gamers through a "players looking for DM" signup the local game store had. Met some of my lifelong friends this way, who were older and settled in the area. While the marathon games were at an end, game took on a new dimension.
6. D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, 1st job years. Moved to a new job, didn't play for over a year. Moved to another job, about 1 hour away from the #5 crowd, the post-grad crew. Got married. Decided it was worth the 1 hour commute each way to keep the game going. Wife took a job in our college town. Time to relocate?
7. D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, real life. Wife and I relocated to our college town because it was (is) a cool place and because I took a new job. Win-win. Reunited with the post-grad crowd. Lost a pair to real-life changes. Added and subtracted several over the years, meeting some friends I still keep in touch with today. Table grew to 6-7 players. Players were split over editions. Some liked the numbers-crunching, video game aspect of 3.5/Pathfinder, and other half wanted a return to the simpler AD&D days. I went with them.
8. D&D 5E, real life. Switched editions when it came out. Stuck with my old school gamers. Kept in touch with the other group because despite feelings about editions, we were friends.
9. D&D 5E, 2019. Got a new job I couldn't refuse out-of-state. Meant leaving lifelong friends that I'd been gaming with for 20, 10, 8, and 5 years respectively. One of the best, and most difficult days, finding out. Thought about all these wonderful ways I could go out with a "bang," but instead settled for playing another "routine" session run by a player between my campaigns. It was great. It was goodbye, but we didn't make it feel that way.
10. D&D 5E, 2019. Tested the waters with some 1-shot games after a few months, pre-Covid. Found a group of gamers that immediately clicked. They've been great. Covid changed our lives, but we still game, albeit after about a 6 month hiatus. To each their own, in these times, but we have put in protocols so we can play in person, unique to our crew, at my house 1x a week. Everyone masks up, sanitizes, and is work-from-home employed, with limited interaction with crowds. Big trust system here.
1. D&D Basic (red box). Junior high, friends/neighbors. Barely counted as a "group." Mostly people who'd never played before in a small town where, at the time, D&D was taboo. If you're too young or new to the game to know what I mean, here's a start.
2. AD&D, high school. Basketball team + "outsider" crowd. Small town, had to wait for the gym after school. My house for an hour courtesy of a friend with great charisma. 10 people around a dinky card table. Must've been a good bonding influence. We won district the next year.
3. AD&D, high school. The crowd thins. 10 people is too many, and the group whittled down to a select 4 players. My most nostalgic times, likely in part because we had no real responsibilities and I came up with some crazy stuff. This group stuck together through freshman year of college until we all started to head separate directions.
4. AD&D, college years. Small group of regional friends (university was close to home) plus the occasional college buddy interested in trying the game. Largest quantity of overnight marathon games (8+ hours). Plus, the occasional "wander the dorms" to find a random game days.
5. AD&D, post-grad years. Moved to a new town, found new gamers through a "players looking for DM" signup the local game store had. Met some of my lifelong friends this way, who were older and settled in the area. While the marathon games were at an end, game took on a new dimension.
6. D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, 1st job years. Moved to a new job, didn't play for over a year. Moved to another job, about 1 hour away from the #5 crowd, the post-grad crew. Got married. Decided it was worth the 1 hour commute each way to keep the game going. Wife took a job in our college town. Time to relocate?
7. D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, real life. Wife and I relocated to our college town because it was (is) a cool place and because I took a new job. Win-win. Reunited with the post-grad crowd. Lost a pair to real-life changes. Added and subtracted several over the years, meeting some friends I still keep in touch with today. Table grew to 6-7 players. Players were split over editions. Some liked the numbers-crunching, video game aspect of 3.5/Pathfinder, and other half wanted a return to the simpler AD&D days. I went with them.
8. D&D 5E, real life. Switched editions when it came out. Stuck with my old school gamers. Kept in touch with the other group because despite feelings about editions, we were friends.
9. D&D 5E, 2019. Got a new job I couldn't refuse out-of-state. Meant leaving lifelong friends that I'd been gaming with for 20, 10, 8, and 5 years respectively. One of the best, and most difficult days, finding out. Thought about all these wonderful ways I could go out with a "bang," but instead settled for playing another "routine" session run by a player between my campaigns. It was great. It was goodbye, but we didn't make it feel that way.
10. D&D 5E, 2019. Tested the waters with some 1-shot games after a few months, pre-Covid. Found a group of gamers that immediately clicked. They've been great. Covid changed our lives, but we still game, albeit after about a 6 month hiatus. To each their own, in these times, but we have put in protocols so we can play in person, unique to our crew, at my house 1x a week. Everyone masks up, sanitizes, and is work-from-home employed, with limited interaction with crowds. Big trust system here.
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