D&D 5E How Many in your Group?

[I'm A Banana]

I averaged my various groups out to 5.

I think minimum group size is 4 (3 players, 1 DM), maximum is probably about 7-8 (6-7 players, 1 DM).

 

[jmd]

My group's got four PCs. Sometimes we're short one (one of our players sometimes has to work late), but when that happens we still play and somebody runs the missing player (just for combat). We never play with fewer than three players present.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I answered 3, on the assumption that you were asking about number of *players* and not PCs. I usually have three, lately four, sometimes two, and one guy who wants some solo time--but I think there are something like twelve PCs between the three (four) of them. Only one PC per player is onscreen per session though.

I don't enjoy groups with more than four players, and frankly even four is pushing it. Two or three is ideal--even if they split the party you can still give enough attention to each player to keep things moving. Or rather, each player still has ample opportunity to perform the describe/decide/declare/resolve loop which is the essence of D&D. I've played as a player in larger groups (10-ish) and it was like herding cats--took forever to get any decisions made, and there wasn't any realistic possibility of a given player getting to do individual actions (i.e. splitting the party), which is why individuals were prisoner to the needs of the group, which is part of why decisions took so long to make.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I have as many players in my game as can get to the house on game night, which is a number from two to ten not counting myself. Every week there is typically a few people that can't make it, so we have four or five players present more often than other numbers.

I answered the poll as 7 or more because I don't have a cut-off point at which I say "no more players" or a particular number of players that I aim for. Quite the opposite, actually, as I will base the decision of what game system I am running to match the number of players, which resulted in me not actually running D&D for a while there since the number of players was too many for the available editions to handle well since a number of the players refused to play AD&D (hooray for 5th edition fixing that problem by giving us a system we all like and that handles as many players as I can fit at the table).

 

[Rya.Reisender]

As I'm playing Lost Mine of Phandelver right now and it's designed for 5 players, I'm playing with 5 PCs right now.

Before D&D (most freeform), I used to have much smaller groups, because I couldn't find anyone who would like to play with me, so it was usually just me and my best friend playing. We often had another friend joining in but they all lost interest and disappeared eventually.

Then I learned to DM D&D E5 and suddenly I just had to say "I'm DM looking for players online" on the internet and had like 30 applications instantly. So I filled all the 5 spots for Lost Mine of Phandelver because then even if someone quits or is busy, the group will still be large enough to continue. But so far nobody actually quit.

I think 5 players is quite perfect. A large amount of PCs can make strategies more interesting, but it also slows down the game a lot and means more work for me (because I'm also checking if players are doing everything correctly), so I'm not sure if I could handle more than 5. A lower amount of players would speed up play, but it wouldn't be as much fun. So I think 5 PCs is perfect.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I answered 3, on the assumption that you were asking about number of *players* and not PCs. I usually have three, lately four, sometimes two, and one guy who wants some solo time--but I think there are something like twelve PCs between the three (four) of them. Only one PC per player is onscreen per session though.

I don't enjoy groups with more than four players, and frankly even four is pushing it. Two or three is ideal--even if they split the party you can still give enough attention to each player to keep things moving. Or rather, each player still has ample opportunity to perform the describe/decide/declare/resolve loop which is the essence of D&D. I've played as a player in larger groups (10-ish) and it was like herding cats--took forever to get any decisions made, and there wasn't any realistic possibility of a given player getting to do individual actions (i.e. splitting the party), which is why individuals were prisoner to the needs of the group, which is part of why decisions took so long to make.

This is a bit difficult for me to wrap my head around. You like splitting up the party? Doesn't most of this make your campaigns...rather meat-grinder-y, unless you make special effort to avoid it? I mean, no edition I know of has terribly well supported a solo, duo, or trio group--at least, to the best of my knowledge. Are there any other ways people can "do individual actions" without splitting the group? "Don't split the group" is probably my number-one personal rule of thumb--groups that split are groups that die.

 

[Ezequielramone]

I chose 5. I'm dming 3 groups.
Using pathfinder I have 5 players, using 5th ed I have 5 and 4 players.
Playing 5th we are 4 players.

For me the perfect number is 4 players. In order to keep control inside and outside the game. And everyone can get their 15 minutes of fame (that is an expression here, don't know if that exist in English).
I tend to play with 5 as a safe mode, if someone can't show up for a game the group will not be decimated, and 5 is not aa extremely high number of players, still I feel better with 4, having another playing is like paying a cheap insurance (?)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[cmad1977]

I have a hard cap of 6 players. We currently have 5

 

[the Jester]

Couldn't vote, I have multiple groups and my answers aren't that clear-cut.

Team Alpha is regularly six pcs, with several more who come once in a while.

Team Beta is a highly variable group, with probably 15 players total and usually 3 to 8 at a time.