How many Players in your game?

[Jazz]

I play in 3 different campaigns.
1- Star Wars. GM (that one is me) and 7 players. Usually we play we 6 playes.
2- Mage. 6 players and one Storyteller.
3- D&D. 8 or 9 Players and one GM.

Thats it. We also had an Earthdawn campaign that had 6 players and a GM but is in stand by mode now.

Best regards.

Jazz

 

[nothing to see here]

Uh... didn't I say that ENWorld isn't representative? And I do agree with that theory, for what it's worth. (But, until I see clear market research that makes a definitive distinction of what the "majority" is, the word "supposedly" stays.)

Oh, and I realize I didn't answer in the thread: my group has 5 players and 1 DM.

I prefer that kind of certainty too. Not just on the numbers of players for group, but on all the market assumptions Wizards makes...Unfortuneately we may never be privy to a company's internal market research...for all kinds of reasons, such information in the public domain puts you at a competitive disadvantage.

At the end of the day the people who stand to lose the most from shoddy or unrepresentative research is WOTC themselves. With us, at worst we get subpar products that stay on the shelf while our money stays in our pockets. With them they lose sales and market share and have to increasingly rely on the dominant position of their brand (which continues to be industry-defining, though not necessarily perpetually so). Actually, you could make the argument that that's the direction they're headed in.

Of course, that's an issue on which you could run a separate poll altogether...

 

[fl8m]

for the last 10 years or so 2 players and 1 gm. it's made gaming rough, especially when 2 of the 3 got married. a game with 3 players sounds like a dream to me much less 6

 

[Desdichado]

Great pic of Jugs, fl8m. By the way, how do you pronounce fl8m, floom? Fleightm?

I wonder, a little more on topic, what drives the "optimum" number of players? For me, I prefer 3-5 because that way I actually have a group, but it's small enough that I can focus on roleplaying and character development in a way that I wouldn't be able to with a larger group. But in that case, I can clearly point towards my playstyle preference as driving my optimum group size. Anybody else have any comments?

 

[MonsterMash]

The group I DM for has 4 players and before that I was playing in a group of 4 or 5 players.

 

[billd91]

I answered 8 but I really have 5 hard core players, 2 semi-regular, and 1 who appears when college is out of session making up that 8. There are 2 more who have been out of the game because it currently conflicts with bagpipe lessons (really).
Having 8 isn't a bad number when dealing with WotC's market research-driven 4-PC party. I just aim to double the size of the encounter and it works out pretty well.

 

[DiamondB]

I checked 8 as that's our current number, but our table usually ranges from 6 up to 9. Of course, having 9 at the table is pretty rare and also a huge pain in the butt, imho. I prefer 6, as it's a manageable number and is far more capable of being a balanced team than WotC's "recommended" 4.

 

[Voadam]

I put down 4 because that is how many PCs are in the game I DM. In the one I play in it is 2 PCs, and I would have preferred just going solo.

I prefer fewer when I play so that each player is more central to the action and there is more opportunity for direct roleplaying. I enjoy playing a main character dealing with diverse situations, not a niche character in a group with a defined but limited role.

I used to DM about six but I prefer around four in the group to have everyone involved as much as possible.

 

[fl8m]

i pronounce it flame oddly enough, although i have a friend who always said fleightm.
a decade ago i had 4 players and 1 dm that worked very nicely so i've always viewed it as the optimum number of players

 

[Omote]

I run 2 seperate games, in each game there are 8 people. I do like smaller games, about 5-6 is usually my max, but when so many want to play, it's hard to turn 'em down.

................................Omote
FPQ