Optimal is 4. Minimum is 3. Maximum is 5.
I'm in a 6 player game right now and its slow as molasses. Even worse is a 8 player game.
Preferred is 3 or 4.
I have GMed for 1 player. Did that quite a bit back in the day actually. 2 players is fine also. No extra characters. Each player has one character.
My max though is 5. Anything over that and I feel like I cannot give the individual players enough attention as a GM. .
Three to six players.
If less than three, a single PC death could grind the campaign to a halt. If more than six, things become chaotic and hard to schedule for that many people on a regular basis.
Having PCs with cohorts can help with two or fewer players and still not worry about action economy or making campaigns that run intensely on one person.
Having a co-GM can help with groups larger than six, yet combat does get bogged down quickly and group cohesion is a rarity at best (so two of you run away, three of you attack, one tries to talk to your opponent, and two of you have no idea what just happened?).
If all players are familiar with the PF rules set, I can see 8 players which is what I am to have on the next meeting of my Rappan Athuk game. I guess my minimum is 4, I would say my max is 8. If there are new players then my max is 6.
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Minimum 2 maximum 6 optimal 5
If I had a 2 player game id let them run two PCs each. GMPC is a no go option for me. I wouldn't play in a game that the GM wanted to run one or more.
I find 6 to be crowded and wouldn't play with any more than that. I like to add a lot of RP to my games and too many people make it difficult to make the rounds. Also, combat system is almost too complex for its own good and I hate having to make adjustments im not used to I.E. anything outside 4-6 players.
5 is optimum because of scheduling. If one player cant make it we can still play. If scheduling isnt an issue I still like 5 because it lets people try out some things that are not the classic Martial/skillmonkey/divine/arcane paradigm.
I've run Pathfinder games with 8 people without great difficulty, but you need solid communication and maturity from the players. One disruptive person can upset the whole apple cart. 7 is good as a regular max, with 6 being the norm in my group. That said, I've run with as few as 3 and not had difficulties.
I'll agree with EvilTwinSkippy here and say 5 or 6 is good for the games I play.
Our group is 7 players and we are doing just fine. The GM thinks that 4 players is minimum for the game and any fewer than that we play Arkham Horror.
Also depends on system, though I'd assume that most here are talking about Pathfinder. I prefer 4 to 5 for Pathfinder, but I'll run with 3 to 6.
For games like World of Darkness, I've had games with 8 players that ran really well, but others that failed (mostly because some of the players didn't understand the concept of sharing the spotlight and kept forcing their way into every single situation, leaving some others without any time to shine). Ideally I'd still say 6 at most.
Not including the GM...
3 is, in my opinion, the absolute minimum. Not that you can't play with two people doubling up characters, or even one, but I believe that three people is the minimum needed to get the proper banter and brainstorming going. You're still going to be short on class abilities, barring gestalt rules.
4 is good enough to play a fairly well-rounded group, though you tend to default to basic choices to make sure all the necessary skill and abilities are covered.
5 and 6, as many mentioned, gets you a nice collection of abilities, enough to be able to experiment with different character types without worrying about leaving gaps. Enough people to get some good banter going, and though some overstepping of other people's RPing may happen, it's easier to quash when it does.
7 is starting to get too crowded. (Especially at my table, where it literally gets fairly crowded) Turns can take a long while, people can end up forgotten, and the party has a greater likelihood of splitting up, stretching out game time even more.
More than that, and those problems just increase. Some groups may be able to make it work (I've heard of some tables using multiple DMs to organize it) but I think sticking to the idea 5-6 is probably the best.
Hmmmm... IME
2 Players (double characters) + GM is the minimum.
3 to 5 Players + GM is the ideal.
6 Players + GM is the maximum that allows decent gameplay.
7 Players + GM is the breaking point. Only for "emergencies".
8+ Players is unbearable and just not worth the headache. It pretty much sucks the fun out of the game.
Depends on the game.
OD&D - 2e = anywhere from 4 players to 8 players seems good. 5-6 players seem about optimal. Up to 10 players still isn't that bad, so max of 10. I've actually played in a group bigger than that, it was sort of a pain at times.
3.e/3.5 = actually seems similar to OD&D or 2e in optimal players. However, group size seems better if its 4 to a MAXIMUM of 7 players.
4e = 4 players. Period. 2-3 players are possible...but anything over 4 and it gets tedious to me. 5 players MIGHT be doable...but everyone has to figure out their moves and powers and things so the more there, the longer it takes by exponentially longer time periods (more so than any other edition in my opinion).
Star Frontiers = never hit the limit on this yet, had 12 players I was with once...still a great game
Cyberpunk 2020 = Optimal is probably 5-6 players...probably don't want anything over 9 players though.
Fighting Fantasy = Don't know what the max would be. so simple and fast, easily could play with 7-9 players...However expect one or two players to totally outshine everyone else everytime you play.
Dragon Warriors = Optimal is probably 5 or 6, couldn't tell you what the max would be as the most I've ever played with is...5 or 6.
Pathfinder = I'd probably play as low as 1 player, optimal is 4 players, I'd probably play up to 8 or 9 players but I don't know if the DM could handle it or not. In essence, unless it's a stellar GM, probably like a MAX of 6 or maybe 7 players. I HAVE played in a game with 12 players...we steamrolled over that dungeon so not sure if the DM really was up to creating challenges for the group, but at least he kept the game going.
Star Trek (LUG) = 3 or 4 players from what I experienced with a GM on this one. Characters seem pretty complex, so it could just be an inexperienced GM with the system, but it went slow...
I spent a good amount of time gming for a party of 1... come to think of it when I started gaming I was a party of 1 quite often... Even in our new group some of our better sessions happened when it was a party of 2 whose goals lined up well...
That was with 2e and various palladium systems though.
The more people you have the harder it is to get everyone on the same page
Talking strictly Pathfinder, I agree with the assessment that optimal is 4.
Minimum is 3, and the three players can always toss around an extra NPC between them to round out the party.
Maximum I would play with is 6 (not counting GM). I've done it and its workable, but only just.
What do you think is the optimal group size/number of people?
Minimum size you'd play in?
Maximum size?
For us, it's 3 to 6 (not counting GM).
Optimal? For us, probably 5.
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*gets a haunted look* Eight players man...eight players..
The group 'shrank' to 6 after about three years of play. On the upside its taught me how you deal with a large party, the answer is, go quietly insane and learn a lot about the ins-and-outs of Challenge Ratings.
I find that 4 is nice and small from behind the screen. The party is big enough to handle stuff, the game is built for 4 so the math works out better, and everyone gets appropriate screen time.
With three, the party always has a hole in it. And no matter how much forum philosophizing about how martials or rogues are unnecessary, their absence results in your wizard getting punched, snuck attack, and stumbling into traps much more frequently (or expending resources to avoid same). As a DM, my suggestion is don't fill these holes. The party just needs to learn to deal. Don't bring a DM PC in.
At six, the party clicks along but they're more powerful and there's more likelihood that somebody is getting their foot stepped on.
My current party of 6 is a summoner, bard, barbarian, paladin, scout rogue, and cleric. The buffing flows freely, and a party with more martials increases their punch considerably. They still have a 'hole' though since they used to have a monk and wizard, and now they have to contend with not having area control or a really quick high save striker.
Due to the nature of action economy, the more PCs the higher above their weight class they punch as well.
My optimal is 4-6. My min is 3, max is 8.
If I have 8 players interested in a game, then I run two games of 4. Otherwise I feel I'm cheating everyone. I don't know how some groups manage that many.
Really depends on the game and the group. For Pathfinder and other games with a similar complexity level, yeah, 100% agreement from me. For games like WoD, if the group is able to work together to share the spotlight then 8 is fine. My personal preference is 6 at most no matter the system, but my former housemate was able to routinely run with 8 to 9 players in a WoD game with no issues, until we started a new game and a couple of guys decided that they wanted to be the only characters that mattered.
Minimum (not counting myself): 1. I've run solo games for people, it can be alot of fun because it's all about them, and can be highly customized.
Optimal: 3 - 5
Maximum: 12. Things get hectic at this point, and some systems handle it better than others. A D&D game with a dozen will feel like small scale warfare, but a World of Darkness game can feel more like a community. (I'm not including LARP either, just tabletop)
One of my favourite WoD games was a "then there was one" style game, where a group of 12 characters were moving through a maze in the spirit world. At intervals there were challenges, and each time one person had to volunteer to stay behind and face the challenge do that everyone else could continue on. At the end, only one would be left to face the great beast at the center. What they didn't realize was that succeeding at a challenge would grant some power to the final survivor, to help them face the creature a little less alone.
Minimum (not counting myself): 1. I've run solo games for people, it can be alot of fun because it's all about them, and can be highly customized.
Optimal: 3 - 5
Maximum: 12. Things get hectic at this point, and some systems handle it better than others. A D&D game with a dozen will feel like small scale warfare, but a World of Darkness game can feel more like a community. (I'm not including LARP either, just tabletop)
One of my favourite WoD games was a "then there was one" style game, where a group of 12 characters were moving through a maze in the spirit world. At intervals there were challenges, and each time one person had to volunteer to stay behind and face the challenge do that everyone else could continue on. At the end, only one would be left to face the great beast at the center. What they didn't realize was that succeeding at a challenge would grant some power to the final survivor, to help them face the creature a little less alone.
I've run a couple of one on one games. Only systems I've used for it are Hollowpoint and the appropriately named One Shot. One Shot was the best for it, but it's entirely designed to be one on one, with the player taking on the role of someone who's been given free reign to seek vengeance on someone who wronged them (even more than Hollowpoint, it feels like 100 BulletsL: The Game).
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In Pathfinder I think the optimal number is 3 or 4 players (not including DM), but I'd lean more toward 3. 5 is ok, 6 is pushing it, 7 is too many. Combat is incredibly time consuming in Pathfinder but also a big part of it. Less players makes everything go so much faster so more gets done per session. It's amazing how much of a difference it is between 3 and 4 players time wise, let alone between 3 and 6 players. The less players the more time to develop and engage them as a DM too.
5 is the sweet spot for me. Why? Because inevitably it ends up being 3-4 players who show up, while the other 1-2 either don't show up consistantly or drop out. Of course, this is going off my experience with playing over virtual tabletop (roll20). When I did in-person, I almost always had 2 people (my sister and her hubby), though a couple times there were more when friends from out of town would visit.
First started out with 3rd edition playing with 7 people, after switching from 2nd edition. It was fun, and we had no problems. My first game of Pathfinder was a game with 12 people total. 4 ended up having to drop due to life issues. It wasn't exactly slow, but there wasn't much in the way of RP either. This set up my experiences with the system in finding out that too many people were just interested in the numbers, and treated their characters like numbers on a sheet; no rp and all combat. And that's the only type of player I ever came across in Pathfinder, except for a single group of 6 players + 1 DM. So yeah, I don't play Pathfinder anymore.
So yeah, back to the topic at hand: 5 is what I try to aim for. 2 is fine (with the players playing 2 characters or the DM having a support DMPC that is only there for healing and/or buffs and such with no real combat ability), 6 is probably the max, 8 wasn't too bad, anything more is a bit too much.