Personally, i prefer about 4 players and a GM/DM/whatever the eff they're abbreviating themselves to.


Much more than that and there's too much room for conflict and too little for individual characters to do. Obviously, less than 4 and you have a hard time working through situations that ineveitably arise.

ok, everyone tirade about how i'm wrong (or right!) and..... GO!

There is no right or wrong or winning and loosing.
There are so many ways to do a game and that is what makes the hobby interesting.
Personaly I do not mind a small group of 2 to 4 players. There can be a lot more depth put into a story run for smaller gruops and it allows more involvment from the players :)
I have ran very successful storylines with 2 or 3 players and myself as GM. With peeps haveing more trouble getting a game started it might not be so bad to do smaller groups.
And thats my three cents lol :)

My current group size is perfect for my style running games, I have 6 players, most of which are meet-up members. Which has yet to make a game that are dry or dull. We each feed off of each other pushing both our roleplay and mental abilies to the limit.

Oh... Gordon won D&D... I have to say that... DM's if your going to put the big bad guy at the end of your story in a fortified tower... Don't let the wizard (whom has a high skill in engingeering blow out the support structure.... Yes.. Gordon won D&D.

I don't know if there's a perfect size, but in my experience 5-6 is the sweet spot. More than that and characters start to get lost in the shuffle Makes me wonder how Gygax and crew did the 8-12 player games back in the day...

I think it depends on the people and the game. I've played one-on-one in D&D and it worked, but I dont think that would work in Shadowrun. There are so many specialized tasks that you couldnt do it with one player, and the GM playing a half dozen NPCs would be tedious.
The more people you have the less time each person has to do stuff - you spend a minute explaining how your character does x, and everyone does the same, in a group of 12? Mr. ADHD here just wouldnt pay attention.

The problem with large groups is also social interaction - the more people you have in a group, the more relationships you have. Group of six people you have six relationships per person - and with a role playing game, you also have six relationships with the characters. So the more people you get the more likely you are to have personality clashes, in-game or out. This doenst mean that smaller is better - had five players in an SR game, two of the women hated each other so I often got Reservoir Dogs in-game, and one of the guys, nobody much liked him, and I ended up booting him out.

-Don

It totally depends on the system (games like Paranoia can very easily be run with 2 or even 1 player), but if we're talking about D&D-type games, I agree that the "sweet spot" is 4-6. Keep in mind that AD&D was designed with the assumption that you had 6-8 players (if not more), while 3.x was retooled to make the 4-man "dungeon strike team" more playable. I top out around 8; even at that point, it starts to get a bit hectic for my tastes. All the same, a large party makes those support characters and "in-between" classes (Bard, Ranger, Druid, Monk) really shine.

One of the things that I'm digging about HackMaster is that, while the ideal party size is much more in line with "classic" D&D (6 characters and above), it's much more playable with a smaller player group, because it has a very in-depth system for "party NPCs."

Essentially, any PC can have one sidekick, and up to four proteges; these are available once the PC hits 2nd level. A sidekick adventures with you, is under your control (although the GM can still dictate their actions where appropriate), and receives a half share of experience (usually treasure as well). Proteges don't generally adventure on the front lines with you, although they can either stay at home or come along to watch the wagons. You can then funnel up to half your earned experience points to them by describing your adventures to them. (Up to half if you tell them face-to-face while it's still fresh in your mind, less if a) time has passed or b) you're writing it in a letter or journal.) These, collectively, are "PPCs (potential player characters). If your PC bites it at any point, you can "activate" any one of these characters as a PC, saving you the trouble of starting over at 1st level. They're subject to loyalty checks, so if you abuse them, they go away; in addtion, if they ever reach your experience level, they go off into the world to adventure on their own (as you've taught them everything you know).

This is nice, because a) it gives you the ability to come back into the game at a higher level of experience without the GM giving you "free levels," and b) it's with a character you already know, and who has a ready-made link to the party. (How many times have you heard this: "Wow, what a shame Jim-Bob died fighting that ogre. Let's open this dungeon door. Gee, it's Joe-Bob, the new PC we've never met before! You're coming with us!") It also gives a small party the ability to have the "support classes" along while they play the flashier roles. (How many times have YOU been strong-armed into playing the cleric or the thief, just because no one else wanted to?)

I tend to play support characters, actually.

Battle has its place, but can be very monotonous. With only 3 other players, everyone gets more turns, and anything you do is a lot more helpful than when there's 6 other people and all you can do is take one shot at one monster... then 6 other people bash it, and rounds finally come back around to you and you're like "uh... i shoot the other one."

I've also found that when you've got 6 or more people in a party, you're just that - a party of adventurers who are just romping around together. Whereas when you've got 3 or 4 people, you're much more likely to know the character names and some of the backstory of your friends who you've been through some crazy sh*t with.

Whereas when you've got 3 or 4 people, you're much more likely to know the character names and some of the backstory of your friends who you've been through some crazy sh*t with.

Well, but I think thats more dependent on who you play with. I was in a large Shadowrun group, but our GM liked using our backgrounds for plot elements - my combat mage was a bit of a Mary Sue, but it allowed the GM to pull in Wasp spirits and the new Tir nAn Og suppliment because my character was Irish.
The most violent character of the game had his disfunctional family show up - as crazed scientists in a Saeder Krupp reserach facility gone horribly wrong.

The one question every PC and GM should strive to answer is 'why in the world are these maniacs doing this?' - and the answer should be one of the primary motivators for the PC, and should enter into the plot for each character at some point in the campaign. These are people, at least in a very broad sense, and their lives should intrude every once in a while.

"Its all plush toys and wierd gods these days. What ever happened to 'you enter a ten by ten room, an ork is guarding a chest'?"
-Yamara

I think it depends greatly on the DM. Some can handle a large group and keep things moving without losing momentum. Its a rare but joyous thing. I prefer 4-6, but im always willing to stretch as i hate to refuse anyone interested in a game of DnD.

I currently run in a group of 6-7 and I like it because it certainly helps with the occasional missing player and my group usually works together well anyhow (though we are occasionally sidetracked by one person's occasional idocy)