More the merrier? I don't think so.

[Joshua Randall]

I think this is an interesting topic.

First, it illustrates the fact that people tend to believe their own personal experience is indicative of how "everyone else" does things. People tend to believe that if they grew up playing the game with N number of people, that must be how everyone else played it, too.

But in this thread alone different people have said their experience with mostly with groups of 4-6, others 8-10, a few 12+. So what? So, your experience is not universal.

= = =

Having said that, I feel compelled to offer my personal experience.

I recently took over DM'ing duties for a group of 7 players -- much larger than my personal previous experience. It's hard! Not only is it hard for me to develop challenging encounters, it's hard to give each player time to shine at each session.

The other night, two people were absent, so only 5 players. I liked that much better. So, for me, it seems like 4-5 is the right size.

 

[Korgoth]

I think 6 is the sweet spot. More than that and it can get a little slow, less than that and the party has less flexibility (including the ability to absorb casualties). The exception here is 3E, where I think the sweet spot would be 4 because beyond that it's too complicated.

I played in a 2e game with about 10 players. It eventually got to fairly high levels and there could be a lot going on at once... it was fun but there were times that it got too slow.

If I was putting down a range that applied to all editions, I'd say 4-8.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I would say that anywhere between 4 and 8 is a "sweet spot" for me, and that this is system-independent. In 1e, 2e, and 3e, I've run games for as few as 1 player and for as many as 12 (more in 1e). I would say that, given good DMing, all three editions can give a good night's entertainment at least in the 1-12 range.

Now, I certainly take pride in the fact that, were I to announce today a new (in person) game starting tomorrow, I could still get over a dozen people asking to join. If I gave a week's notice, I could easily get three times that. Not because these people have no other options, but because they know that the game will be fun.

I've been lucky in my gaming career, because I've played under DMs who could say the same. I am sure that there are lots of DMs on EN World who could do the same. I have no sympathy for DMs who can't find players (my theory: Bad DMing is self-limiting) or players who whine about their DMs (start your own game).

 

[Garnfellow]

An interesting topic, for sure.

In my experience, if you graphed the level of 3e fun against the number of players, you would have a curve rising steadily until you hit 4 players, peaking at 5 players, starting to drop somewhat at six players, and then falling quickly above 8 players.

I think the case for older editions being far easier to run with larger groups is vastly overstated*; in my experience the older rulesets might shift the curve a little bit, moving the sweet spot from 4-6 players to 5-7, but for me, effectively running 10+ players in any edition (or any RPG, for that matter) is a real chore. (See attached.)

Physically it becomes hard to seat such a large group around a single table, and procedurally it's almost impossible to keep all players engaged at the same time. With 10 or more players I almost always have 1 or 2 snoozing or doodling or otherwise off-task, something I never get with 4 players.

I run a weekly game with 6 players, but 2-4 times a year I get together with a large group of long-time friends for a weekend get-away, and for those weekends I almost always run a big D&D game with 10-12 guys. (Almost all of my weekly players are also at the getaway games.)

Now, I love getting together with the big group, and right now the mammoth D&D game is just about the only gaming activity we can run with everyone at the same table at the same time, but I find the mammoth game far harder to run and far less fun than the smaller weekly sessions. Part of this is due to the difference between one-shot and campaign play, group dynamics, and other things, but I really believe that most of the difference is just due to the size of the group.

* I suspect that many of the older-edition advocates are also seasoned and experienced DMs, better able and equipped to run larger groups. Meaning their success running Gargantuan parties is possibly due more to their vast experience than any mechanical qualities of their preferred ruleset.