Optimal number of players?

[Tequila Sunrise]

I played a game last night that had 7 players and the DM. Game play was fun, but went pretty slow. In the course of about 2 1/2 hours I think I played about 5-6 times.

In a perfect world, where players never flake out and emergencies never happen, 4 would be ideal. This allows the players to cover the four combat roles, without slowing gameplay with too many mouths and hands.

In the real world, I'd say 5-6 is a good number.

 

[AwesomeOpossum74]

In a perfect world, where players never flake out and emergencies never happen, 4 would be ideal. This allows the players to cover the four combat roles, without slowing gameplay with too many mouths and hands.

Yes, I know this kind of thing happens all the time. So how do you handle the storyline when PCs are "absent"?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I keep a copy of everyone's character sheet, and when someone can't make it I give it to another player to run.

 

[GreyICE]

5 works absolutely the best for me. You get a good mix of powers and abilities, without things feeling redundant or people feeling inconsequential.

Really 4-6 is a good range though.

 

[Jester David]

5-6 is nice as you can still play with an absent player. More gets slow and fewer makes it harder to weather absent players.

 

[Cadence]

Matching up with what most of the previous posters have found...

Our group has had anywhere from 3-6 PCs at the table most nights and the numbers have seem to work pretty well. But we all get along and the DMs have seemed to managed things enough so that no one has felt left out. So that you don't have to cancel all the time, at least 4 or 5 is a good minimum number. For us, the PCs of the absent players just ghost along with the party unless absolutely needed (in a dungeon crawl) or hang out in their room at the Inn (if in a city). Of course if something particularly vital is coming up, then we'll postpone.

One of my all time favorite campaigns was a series of dungeon crawls that had 8-20 PCs on any given night. Some of the players had OD&D, some B/X, and others AD&D, and the major milestones for a character included making it past the first night, and making it to 2nd level. But we all knew what to expect and somehow the DM had the gift that it was great to just be in the room, even if you didn't get to do much of anything that night.

 

[timASW]

What would you consider the optimal number of players for a DnD session? My friend and I are working on building a group.

I played a game last night that had 7 players and the DM. Game play was fun, but went pretty slow. In the course of about 2 1/2 hours I think I played about 5-6 times.

I aim for 6. It lets us cover the adventuring needs and have a few players able to create floaters who might not be mechanically awesome but are fun to play.

 

[Elf Witch]

The most I like is 5 that gives the chance to usually have all the bases covered. I don't like more because combat starts to drag and the role playing often breaks down.

The least I like is 3 I have done 2 but 3 works a little better for coming up with ideas.

I have played and run a one on one and they can be a blast. You can really do somethings that you can't with more like court intrigue a lot of city adventures things like that.

 

[S'mon]

I would vote 3-5. It depends a bit on edition, but looking back on it I think players seem to have the most fun in a group of 3. Often though the newer editions assume groups of 4-5 as you need lots of PCs to survive the default threat level, and small PC groups lack robustness leading to frequent PC death.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

My favourite games in at least three editions have been two players with two characters each. I like four characters in my games but it seems having only two players has generally worked out better.