The Number of Players

[Carthrat]

Having played in everything from a 1-player game (thanks, Dune and Mako) to a 10+ player game (thanks, Drac), I'm now interested in the experiences of others in this regard.

The most obvious thing I've noted is that the more players in a game, the less time there is for individual character growth and bonding. Any growth that there *is* must be spearheaded between the players themselves; for the GM, there's often simply not enough time to keep a watch on all but the mos interesting of players.

On the other hand, when you play as just one character, three things happen- the game moves pretty damn fast, as all the action is focused on you; it's possible to get quite attached to even a mediocre character concept (ahem), but most crucially- I've found it hard to cause a character to grow, and when I do try, it feels.. contrived.

Now I suspect that this is because of the lack of interaction with
*other* PCs. While it's very easy to like particular NPCs and such, the game feels.. static. I can't say if it's bad or not, or even just because of the way the games I've played in went.

Another game I played in (briefly) was a 2-player game, and I'd like your input on this, Hal; remember, that one Panda GMd for a bit? I found it was pretty cool, and I was actually more interested in your character than I was in mine; in games with 3+ players, I tend to focus more on my own development than others.

Since most games I've played in *have* been around the middling numbers, my experiences are limited. Any thoughts on this, guys?

[thepanda]

You just had to bring that game up, bastard. :P

I wish we had gotten farther than that. It'd be fun to try again.

On topic, the most notible thing I've witnessed about numbers is conflicts in player times. The more people you have playing, the harder it is to establish when everyone can play. Those who have done a spell on the SMRPG with Dune know this one far too well. We've all had the odd omake session or side story when critical players cannot show up but everyone else is there. It's a problem that seems to crop up more in online gaming than it does in RL. I don't know; it just seems easier to make concrete playtimes in rl. There is definately something to be said about the draw of hanging out with friends, ordering pizza and chinese, and gaming like its 1983.

[Dracos]

Mmm.

There's a lot to be said about numbers of players.

One Player games well...  They're tough.  From the GM perspective, all of a sudden you're providing all of the interactive stimuli a player receives rather than only some of it.  They really demand good player/GM interaction and well...  they also limit some of the drama of it.  Usually the sense of actual danger is removed by the knowledge that the GM is pushed even harder than normal to keep the player alive.  Character to character dramas?  Yeah, no prob.  A dramatic character death fighting down enemies to save the rest of his party?  A bit more eh in this area.  The whole contrived thing?  Yeah, I really hear that.  On both sides, since there's only one player in the mix, it can be too 'oh, this is how it is and we're just playing it out'.  It's difficult to keep the game factor in it over simply collective storywriting.

Two people and a gm can be pretty fun, even if it tends to naturally lead itself to dynamic duo type gameplay.  The characters tend to be pretty mighty in these, as I find, mighty being defined as excessively competent in the relevent areas or some mixture of competence and incompetence.  I've not run or played a good deal of these though.

Three to five players.  I think this tends to be the most common group size and the most optimal one.  All of a sudden, you have enough characters that their skill sets can start to interleave.  They can take weaknesses more naturally knowing other characters will cover the weak areas and that there's more flexibility overall (both player and GM side) for doing different or strange things.  The general characters, I feel, tend to be able to be played more humanly.  It also tends to match a nice middle ground between letting several people play and keeping the overall group size managable.  There also tends to be the broadest set you can do with these.  Sure, certain types are ruled out by there being more than one player, but at the same time, there's a huge range of campaigns that can successfully be run with this size crew.  It's enough to make a war team, an adventuring party, a group of political leaders, a believable hangout of friends, etc.

And...I'll continue more later.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

I think the media and format of the game makes a big difference, too.

In a table-top game, I think a group of three to six players is really ideal.  That gives enough players to have player-player interaction be a dominant factor instead of just player-NPC, and is small enough that everyone should be able to be involved.  An inexperienced GM, or timid/new players would want to keep to the smaller side.

A forum-based game, though, I think you want a smaller group -- two to four players, tops.  There's a lot of factors that contribute to this. Scheduling is a big one, and pace.  Even when everyone's available at the same time, it takes a lot longer to type out a sentence than it does to say it.  A conversation between characters that might take five minutes in real life can take a day, and while that's happening, no one else is doing anything.  Things tend to be a bit more awkward and broken up in forum games, too --  everyone has to make sure they don't go too far in a single post, since you can't be interrupted.  Lastly, since people generally *aren't* available at the same time, a game can easily end up being hijacked by players who happen to have similar schedules.  Probably most of us have had the unpleasant experience of coming back and finding a huge number of posts have been made, and our character has been left in the dust.

IRC is a little better than forums, I think, but not incredibly so.

All of this, of course, presumes a game where character development is important.  A hack'n'slash dungeon crawl, for example, can work with more players than a courtly intrigue game.

[Dracos]

Mmm.  I'm not sure of that last bit so much.  Sure, it's true, but my experience is keeping a small group is equally important in combat heavy games because otherwise what occurs is either combat ends too quickly (The one-two round fight) without absurd amounts of enemies and/or the stall where between each turn of yours, you're sitting around for twenty minutes (or longer!), even in quick resolving combat actions.

Sure, it doesn't have the organization issues with folks going off, holding private chats, etc, but it does have a good reason to keep the number still small.

Dracos

[Dracos]

Mmm...

I think a fair difference is people are less willing to schedule for net games.

With tabletops it is a yes/no situation.  You're going somewhere.  There's only one chance and it is expected that you be there.  If you can't make it, odds are you aren't going to get into the game much less keep being there to have schedule issues.  People recognize that they need to schedule to be there if they're in the game.

This is less a consideration on online games.  I've found that as bad as folks can be offline about it, they're often a dozen times worse in scheduling themselves for online stuff.  It's at home.  It's casual.  They don't have to go anywhere so it isn't classified on the schedule.  So what should be a pretty standard "Let's schedule an IRC game.  Collect times.  Pick one.  Stick to it."

"Real Life" events, parties, whatever tend to take precedence more easily for most when it puts out a bunch of text then when they have to deal with jim on monday saying "Dude, where were you?  We waited an hour for you to show up."

Mmm, maybe.  Either way, taaaangent.

Dracos