Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6132614" data-attributes="member: 3586">I've just cancelled my Pathfinder campaign after having seven weeks in a row of people cancelling on me - sometimes I'd get to the session only to find that someone couldn't make it. So, unfortunately, it seems that the Way of the Wicked is "on hiatus" in the true BBC sense of the phrase.In any case, it made me think about the minimum number of players and characters that I really require to run a game. It's not quite the same thing, and it also depends a lot on system.In AD&D, I probably require a minimum of 3 actual players, but these days I require at least 6 characters... and more regularly, 9. Characters in AD&D are *not* hard to run, so it's quite easy for some experienced players to have men-at-arms and henchmen to round out the group. The last two sessions of my game have run 4 PCs + 5 henchmen and then 6 PCs + 3 henchmen. Running more than 9 characters tends to get a bit messy, so we're sticking with that count for the time being. Of course, I'm also running the game as a lot of dungeon crawls, which requires the characters more than a role-playing intensive game would. Meanwhile, putting the player count above six rather reduces the time each actually gets, so, while I've run tables with nine players, I'd far rather not.In D&D 3E and Pathfinder, my minimum count of characters is four: one of each of the major roles. This also tends to be the lower end of players as well, although I'd probably run 3 PCs plus a cohort. The maximum count is probably six. Characters are complex enough in 3E that splitting attention between two, especially at higher levels, has a much bigger effect on the speed of the game. Adding more characters also slows things down. Against that, especially when running published adventures, not having a wizard and a cleric of the appropriate levels is often just asking for trouble: a lot of monsters have "you must have A to defeat them", where A is a spell. A fighter-type who can do masses of damage is also good; rogues a little less.In D&D 4E, the numbers really head downwards. Thanks to the companion characters from DMG2, I'm very happy to run two players each with a companion. Indeed, I ran through the last adventure of the HPE series - at level 30 - with that and the balance was fine, thank you very much. I've also run three PCs with no henchmen. The idea of "required" characters is nowhere near as strong as in 3E/PF, so they don't need that cleric/wizard pairing, although it's very nice to have the cleric about. So, for 4E, a minimum of 2 players and a minimum of 3 characters. (Scaling works well). However, the maximum numbers are lower due to combat speed. Five players/characters is about my limit, and I'm probably happier with four. So, that gives the following ranges for each game:Player/Character Rangers for GamesAD&D: 3-6 players, 6-9 charactersD&D 3E/PF: 4-6 players, 4-6 charactersD&D 4E: 2-5 players, 3-5 charactersSo where do you stand on your preferred table sizes for your RPGs?Cheers!</blockquote>

Verification