Game Wish asks:
What do you think is the best cast size for the games you?ve played? What are the factors that go into your answer: genre, play group, gaming system, etc.?
The simple answer is “four or five players, plus GM”, regardless of game system. Ironically, I rarely GM groups that small.
Right now (or recently) my group sizes were (NOT counting the GM):
- DnD: 7 (and too big, really)
- OA: 4.5 (with .75 npcs)
- Nobilis: 4, or 7, or 8, depending on how you look at it. I’m currently running two groups of 4 in a concurrent intertwined storyline on different days. While I might do a massive Group Thing in the future, doing all eight people regularly would drive me nuts and probably be less fun for most everyone in the long run — that said, we started the Nobilis story with one group of seven.
- Pulp: usually six, which still feels big, but it’s mostly designed for Convention play, so what’re you gonna do?
- Star Wars: six, and again, that was really a bit unweildly.
- Amber: I ran TiHE with anywhere from two to seven people, plus the GM. We started with five and when we dropped to two I didn’t know if I’d ever figure out how to run the game at that size. I figured it out, and it went really well for awhile — it was just different — then we added a few other people and it took me awhile to remember how to deal with a larger group.
I’ve got other games I want to run and a genral idea of how many players I’d want for each, but I’ll keep all that to myself for now.
FYI: You didn’t ping, but I found your answer anyway.
I get the feeling I’ve been spoiled in some of the DnD-type groups I’ve run, because when I’ve run with eight, it’s been good and not overbusy.