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[Frocto]

So I've been considering possible ideas for rpgs lately and it seems like I'm just, without any effort on my part, leaning towards very small groups of 1, 2 or 3 players. For example, the DnD 4e game I'm trying to organize now has only two players, a Bard and a Barbarian.

The more games I run, the more of a hassle it seems to be to get a lot of people coordinated and I'm sick of having to cancel games due to lack of player attendance, especially when those cocksuckers don't even turn up for the first session. On the flipside, I've run games with up to 11 players and it was a fun disaster. I didn't hate it, it was funny and I didn't really care that the story wasn't even slightly advanced as long as everything was exploding and players were fucking up in humourous ways.

All of my most successful rpgs have generally have about 5-6 players, though, but is that because of the number of players or is it totally unrelated?

I think the more people you have playing, the less personal an rpg is, and the less investment a gamemaster is likely to have in it. A 1-player game by definition will have an extremely clear vision between GM and player to the point of fetishism (take that how you like), whereas the more people you have the more you are constantly struggling to keep the story on track and the more it mutates out of your control.

I'm considering embarking on a series of games with 3 players. A lot of the fun of rpgs comes from PCs interacting with each other via the guidelines laid out by the GM and dirty-dealing and backstabbing each other, which you cannot have in 1 player games. Likewise, in 2 player games you cannot have the thrill of PCs forming alliances amongst themselves, outvoting and even outgunning their own friends.

I thought about making this a poll, but I was just curious for our gamemasters to share their experiences with "non-standard" party sizes and how they handled it. Why is 4 a perfect number and why does it feel more reasonable and valid than other party sizes?

Hard mode: Don't fall back on stupid shit like "Tank, DPS, Healing and Utility." You can get the exact same thing out of a 1 or 2 player game just through careful character creation in any rpg that affords you even the tiniest amount of flexibility, ie anything but 4e.

[Makaris]

I just have as many people make characters as possible and whoever shows up is my party.  The general people I gamed with before my move were fantastically poor at attending anything consistently.  I'd often end up with half the crew missing and a separate group of 2-4 people itching to play but who just 'showed up'.  The latter happened more often 'back in the day' of high school... but that was preferable to having no game happen at all!

This was especially frustrating because I was a very meticulous DM.  Not rail-roady, but I like to have all the information I could in order to make the best game possible.  Now adays I just kinda throw shit down because I can't ever get a consistent group.  Everblue (see the thread in Online Hookups) is pretty much my best option to get consistent game, but even that didn't work nearly as well as I had hoped.

So anyone here good at keeping to a schedule that wants to have a game?  I'd rather play than DM (always the goddamn DM), but I take what I can get!  I don't care about the system either.  Sorry for the RPG personal ad in your thread, guy!

EDIT:  To be more ontopicy, the best games I've both run and participated in had 5 people pretty much always.  Seems to be a magic number.

[Frocto]

You are unforgivable.

Also, probably, maybe. I am hoping a few current rpg projects work out, one of which is playing an rpg with people I met from /d/.

[JDigital]

The more players you add, the longer each player has to wait for his turn. Combat rounds take much longer, and each individual contributes a less significant amount to the victory. You end up with slow, boring combats where nobody gets to do much.

Two or three player games can work well. Four or five players gives more opportunities for teamwork and better specialized roles.

[Frocto]

I don't care about combats. I'm asking if more or less players makes the story more compelling.

[JDigital]

Four or five is a good number of main characters for a story. More than that and you don't have time to cover the relationships between the characters. If it's about the adventure more than the characters, I think you can still have a good story with only one or two main characters.

[Shinra]

Four or five is a good number of main characters for a story. More than that and you don't have time to cover the relationships between the characters. If it's about the adventure more than the characters, I think you can still have a good story with only one or two main characters.

This.

Truth is, it's always nice to have more players at the beginning, but by the end you really only want four or five at most. The best game I ever ran had 3 players and a DMPC.

[Makaris]

I would say it has way more to do with the DM than the amount of players.  I had a game with six players (sometimes up to nine!) AND a DM PC.  The story worked and everyone really liked their characters.  Came away with a lot of good anecdotes that are remembered to this day.  Thing is, you can't really get away from the fact that combat IS an integral part of most games and when it gets slowed down to the point were players can't expect their turn to come around more than once every twenty minutes, no story will bring them back into the game.

[Frocto]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

I will try again!

I am aware that more players means your game goes slower and less makes your game go faster. I get that. A three year old could get that.

What I am asking is what opportunities are presented to a gamemaster based on the number of players and how valid non-standard party configurations are for telling different types of story. For example, one thing I've always had a hard time correlating is that the only fantasy fiction featuring the "party of four" is stuff based directly on DnD. Fantasy seems to almost always have a central protagonist who spends a lot of time doing his own thing. He'll occasionally have some hangers-on, but they typically come and go. Conan, Magician, Berserk and samurai and cowboy epics must immediately come to mind here, right?

Berserk is also an interesting example, because you've got Guts who does all the fighting and then you've got a bunch of useless dudes who either can't fight (Puck) or won't fight (Caska). This is another thing you almost never see mirrored in rpgs, either, which I would like to change.

On the other hand, a lot of fiction is about soldiers or explorers and have hordes of characters. TNG has Picard, Riker, La Forge, Worf, Crusher, Troi, the other Crusher and Data and it's not so easy as just regulating them to NPC roles. How would you handle a story with such a large cast of PCs? ("I would not" is not a valid answer)

So, my point is, I guess, is I am sick to death of this implausible scenario where four guys who are all equally good at fighting tool around, getting better at fighting all at roughly the same rate. I would like to hear about people's experiences where they have structured their RPG around their concept and THEN picked a number of players to suit it, rather than the other way around, which is how it has always been forever and ever and ever. I seriously cannot be the only one who thinks that way of doing things is fucking gay as hell.

Question: Suppose I wanted to run an rpg where the PC's spend the entire campaign in a car (or a spaceship where the steering and guns are operated entirely by one person if you need a more reconcilable example). How would this work with the standard party of four guys? Or how about that situation in every rpg where one guy goes to scout ahead and everyone else has nothing to do? How do you deal with these situations? Can they be avoided without reducing the number of players to one, and if so how?

[Frocto]

Also someone other than JD should totally reply hey, I think I'm about ready to kill him

[McDohl]

I really hate working variable schedule workweeks.  I'd like to play and run D&D, but life prevents me from doing this shit.

[Makaris]

Frocto, if you ran a Berserk game I would love you forever.  Like, seriously.  Serious.

I once did totally free form LARP (lololo), and once along with Kayin co-GM'd a LARP.  The amount of players varied occassionally, but we maintained really good story telling pretty much regardless of player count, up to I think 12 people at one point.

I figure a key to having a large amount of people is to have a very light hand in GM'ing.  Allow the players to pace themselves, interacting with each other as they will and perhaps even wandering off and chatting outside of your direct supervision.  You're roll would be more to control big events but otherwise you stay out and let the players build themselves up.  

In respect to your car example, in one of these games I mentioned the party was actually divided into two groups.  They were the ambassadors in laying down a treaty to control a piece of land.  That was pretty much it!  The players created the conflict on their own.  I think this easily fits in with your StarTrek example.  Having a reserve of a few experienced players to use as antagonists (or just bieng a really good GM) would really improve this.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you, as a GM, have plans to tell a story that doesn't reeeeaaally depend on your players input other than to enjoy the ride, you're going to have a hard time managing a lot of players.  However, if the players feel like they can pretty much do as they wish without the GM telling them what to do, you'll have a lot more interparty roleplaying that won't require much guidance.  It will just work.

My response probably is really rambling, but I'm tired.  wah

Edit:  For your 'rogue goes to scout for traps etc' example... you are pretty much stuck, unless the party is composed of the sort of players that can make their own entertainment by actually roleplaying with one another.  In that regard, it has very little to do with the GM and more to do with the attidudes of the individual players.

[Frocto]

I was toying with another idea after I made my post: An rpg where there is one fighty guy who does all the fighting and everyone else is an investigate or other non-combat role, along the lines of, say, Captain Planet or Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is the classic example here, since you have three guys who literally have nothing to do when combat starts. If I were playing Merry or Pippin, I would not even bother turning up to sessions, seriously.

I think once you hit a certain number of players, the GM has a responsibility to make sure everyone is involved. Captain Planet is a surprisingly good example, since it hits on something I was thinking about earlier. Suppose you have a game with a very large number of players, to the point where RP scenes are great, but story scenes drag. Why not allocate everyone a non-combat role, for handling investigations, roleplaying and party discussion scenes, but when the plot needs to move ahead, you do the unthinkable and give them group control over a single PC, who is not only the guy who handles the fight scenes, but also moves the plot ahead.

Now that I've had the idea, I really want to try it for my next rpg. Encourage everyone to make a fun, interesting character for PC interaction and then have them share a character when they need to get shit done. There's less static, combats would go faster, everybody's happy. But at this point, I bet someone is thinking that is a totally implausible idea and would never work, to which I say, [spoiler]combining giant robots a la Power Rangers/Voltron.[/spoiler] I am honestly surprised I didn't think of it sooner.

Anyway, the theory should be applicable to other genres, but probably not as easily. I think a solution for speeding up online games could be hit on, though, with a bit of work.

Frocto, if you ran a Berserk game I would love you forever.  Like, seriously.  Serious.

After my last online rpg, where only three of the five players turned up to the first session, I am honestly a little leary of online games right now. Still, I could see if Lee-Ham and Meikai were up for something, since they are basically my dependable rpg homies currently. ALSO I AM NOT MUCH OF A FANTASY GM, AS HAS BEEN DOCUMENTED. Feel free to hit me up on Aim if you want to toss some ideas back and forth.

[Makaris]

I for one would not like sharing control of the 'tank' much unless it wasn't a single person so much as a... well, a thought comes to mind.  SciFI StarTrekky setting.  Have each character have many non-combat specializations.  Then during 'combat' the party bands together and controls the ship.  Each person would maybe have a certain amount of action points, guaged in time, to do stuff.  So X character might control the weapon systems, another person the point defense flak cannons, another the shields/power diversion, another the helm, another positional data, another communcation/jamming... dunno, just thinking off the top of my head.  I guess that's a lot like the power rangers example!

@ Berserk RPG
doitdoitdoitomg

Berserk is my wife.  Like, I married the comic.  It's legal.

In regads to what I believe your train of thought is, that being everyone having a non-Guts character and then everyone bands together to control guts.  I don't think it would work out right.  Believe it or not, I'd rather maintain control of my useless character than be a 1/5 of a powerful one.

The way LOTR did it was it divided the 'game' into multiple parties, so that no one was ever really overshadowed.  Merry and Pippin were only rarely involved with the goings on of Aragorn and the like.  In how it relates to Berserk, I'll reiterate that I'd rather be Isidoro than Guts right leg.  Actually, that's not true, bad example.  But my point stands!

Honestly a game in the Berserk universe would be better than emulating the existing characters.  Especially with the current story arc being so open to interpretation.

[Niku]

frocto remember when i played a seven year old girl who's only use to the party was as a gm prophecy mouthpiece

that was pretty cool.  :D

[Frocto]

I spent all day trying to remember Jeiku's name. Man, he was a baus.

[Niku]

hells yeah i miss the TRUE vault boy :(