Hello. I am about to select the characters for my first Play by Post campaign in these forums, and I got a question.
Is it possible/fun to have more than 6 characters in a game?
Has anyone done it? What happened?
Thanks for your input.
More than six (6) characters can be a real chore, especially during combat and I see that you are going to run Rise of the Runelords, which is a heavy combat campaign.
The only thing about more than six is that you will most likely have a few folks drop fairly early which will bring the number of PCs down.
For Instance, I started a campaign with seven (7) characters, and lost one (1) fairly quickly, then two (2) more. Over the 1-17 levels, lost a couple more but gained a couple back. Ended the campaign with five (5) characters, which in my opinion is the sweet spot for a PbP.
-- david
Thanks for the input DM Papa.DRB
I'll add in my experience as a player (as a PBP GM the party's been pretty small in my one campaign), the games I've played where there were numerous players (one I think even had nine or ten!) it became very difficult for me as a player to keep track of who was doing what and what was happening. Tremendous discipline was needed from the players to post clearly to whom they were saying what and what they were reacting to, which often sadly was lacking in practice. Everyone was competing for GM attention and interaction (and overwhelming the GM), and the most active players could easily drown out the least active--while this can happen in any game, it is noticeably aggravated in a large player group.
And while yes, it often makes sense to recruit a slightly larger group because inevitably someone will either need to leave or flake out, I find that more people leave a large-participant campaign quicker not because they are flaking out but because they are overwhelmed/can't find a foothold in the party. Sadly in several cases I've been in large group games where we lost some of our best roleplayers who felt overwhelmed or marginalized in the group, who thus pulled out for those reasons, while the merely persistent stuck around (and persistence is a good thing, but if they lose the roleplayers who push the party into interesting dialogue then the game can get stale quickly). In other words, the drop out rate accelerates, and the reasons for drop out often involve the player actively being turned off rather than their simply becoming busy or disinterested.
I've seen best results where about six people are recruited (maybe seven tops). A couple people will inevitably flake away, but that still leaves you with a perfectly workable group of four or so.
If you've got eight applicants to a game that you all really, really want to work with, consider creating a second "table," running two campaigns with four players each (and if later, both groups lose too many players, consolidate into a single group if feasible). That of course creates a lot more work for you, however, so be sure you're up to it.
Hi DeathQuaker. Everything you say makes sense...
Choosing characters is haaaaard... :S
But I hear you. 6-7 character max, counting on a couple dropping out...
I have found that 5 to 7 is a good number. In my RL group we have eight in our group with most of us (5) gaming together for well over two decades. In PBP I actually think a number around 5 to 8 is better. The problem with the 3 to 5 range is if some one drops out and it is a hit until you find a replacement. The DM has to bot the PC until they get him replaced and that can slow up the game. With a larger group if a player drops your party roles are often covered. I think the magic number is around six but that is a personal opinion. We have eight in the current group and they are still broken into two groups of 3 and 5. Once they join we will see how the first few encounters go.
I have never liked running two tables for the same campaign. I like being able to sink my teeth into a story and create the story as we go even if it’s a AP/ module. That just seems cumbersome to me but again that is totally personal angle.
Yes, I think I would make a mess trying to master the same adventure twice at the same time. I think I will start with a "big" group counting in some players dropping out.
Yes, I think I would make a mess trying to master the same adventure twice at the same time. I think I will start with a "big" group counting in some players dropping out.
That is my fear as well. Especially as they started to go along their own path. I am fearful that I would conflate the two and not do either of them the justice they deserve.
Another thing to consider is that, in a dungeon, you can easily get into a situation where the party + enemies can't all fit in the same room if you have too many PCs. If you choose to run with a larger group, you might consider making 5-foot-squares into 10-foot-squares so you have room for combat.
Good observation Joana. thanks for the tip.
On the other hand, you can use it to "spice" a combat!
I can't speak to how it goes in PBP since all I have done is dabble with things like Discord, but it worked just fine for me in a face-to-face game. As long as people seem to know what they are doing, it's not too much of a chore. I ban Leadership and put restrictions on how many summoned creatures can be in play at once, so your mileage may vary if you have an alternate take on that.
Right... yes, will have to take care of familiars, eidolons, cohorts and followers.
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My experience is that finding new players for a long adventure can be quite difficult, even much for the new players to mingle well with the group and the AP plot.
For that reason, starting with a slightly oversized group is a good idea in my opinion. It will probably happen that 1 or 2 people in a group of 6 will drop soon, and 1 or 2 more will do along the years.
At least that happened in my case for Shackled City where I started with 7 and at chapter 2 we had only 5 players. I am grateful that after three years of play, at chapter 7 (of 12) we still have 4 of the original players on the game and I managed to recruit a new one so we are still running with 5.
Thus, my opinion is:
- AP/long campaigns: 6-7 start
- scenarios/short modules: 4-6 start
PBP also make group splitting a bit easier, especially with a "two tables" type approach, granted, it also kinda add to the need of rewriting stuff.