Small groups

[Nifft]

Some great games, just me & one player, with some NPCs helping him out. Lots of fun. Two players is even better. And four ... ah, the dream of having some predictable free time.

-- N

 

[IronWolf]

I've DM'ed D&D games with two players before. As long as they play it careful and smart it isn't too bad, in fact it was pretty fun.

 

[pogre]

I prefer 5 or 6 for D&D, but I really like smaller groups for modern style games. I have run a police partners game for a couple of guys that was a blast!

 

[Greylock]

IMO it depends more on the personalities than the system.

What that guy said. I've been in games with 2-3 PCs that totally rocked, and ones that were, uhmm, meh. Granted, I'm usually the least creative player (HI! I'm the Tactician!) at most tables and I really, really, really need someone around to cover my slack.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

While any game can be adapted by a diligent DM to work with a small group, some games are just particularly suited to it. Cyberpunk 2020 for instance, is better suited for small groups than Shadowrun, out of the box, because Shadowrun has more niches that are "necessary" to fill. Top Secret always worked better for me with a small group. WEG Star Wars is excellent with a small group, as is Amber.

Those games that aren't partuclarly suited for small groups still have types of characters they handle better in small groups. D&D, for instance, is good with multi-classed PCs, or skill-based PCs, but not so hot with just a couple of combat monsters or spellcasters.

 

[S'mon]

I find very high level D&D works best with very small PC groups, 1-2 is fine. That way I don't need ridiculous cheesfests to challenge them, and surrounding 20th level PCs with 15th level NPCs (friend or foe) gives them a sense of accomplishment.

 

[sniffles]

i am currently running a 3.5 games with 3 players. It actually started as 2 players running two pcs a piece. A third player was added, who started out playing 1 character and eventually adopted a second.

This has been good since it's hard for our group to convene regularly. Combat has run preety smoothly since no one player is out of the action for very long. The one drawback is roleplaying. The 2 characters that are controlled by the same PC tend to follow eachothers lead (so there is much less time spent debating, but also less time developing characters). I have tried to offset this with a good deal of character background for each of the PCs, but it tends to work out taht there is one primary PC (who does all the talking) and the secondary (functional PC).

Defintely something to think about with small groups.

I've always wondered how well it would work to have a smaller group of players and have everyone run multiple characters. Most of the GMs I play with are really opposed to anyone running more than one character on a regular basis.

The group I play with typically has 5 - 7 players per campaign, although there are a couple of campaigns running with only 3 players. They seem to get a lot more done per session than the bigger groups.

But the biggest drawback I see to smaller groups is that if one player is missing you've got a bigger hole in the party. Most of the players in our group are couples, so if one is absent the partner usually is too. If you're only working with 3 players to start with, 2 of them missing is a major stumbling block to running the game.

 

[Henry]

Anyone here routinely run with 2/3 players+1 dm? Call of Cthulhu obviously is fine with just two players, I was wondering about other systems that work well with that few numbers. Any observations out there?

WEG Star Wars (d6 Star Wars) absolutely THRIVES in smaller groups - after all, the Star Wars movies could be really seen to be about 3 main characters and a host of supporting characters. The WEG version is really easy to throw two or three players into some serious and have them handle it rather well.

Aetherco's Continuum is a game that works very well in small groups; in fact, the larger the group of players, the more "wired" the GM has to be into the game to keep track of what everybody is doing, IMO.

 

[Morrow]

I just started DMing a D&D 3.5 game for three players (the story hour is here). While I certainly wouldn't mind adding a player or two, a three person party has worked pretty well so far. My initial analysis is that the party can handle challenges at their encounter level pretty well. However, things get dicey when they face challenges above their level, particularly if they've already had a number of encounters that day. They simply don't have the resources that a larger party would.

Morrow