by Motormouth Jamie
At a single table, twelve players are too many people for a single games master to handle. I know this because nearly a decade ago now I was one of twelve invited to a campaign of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. At that time, I had already been running games myself for some years at my friendly local game store and a new GM had started coming to the store. He was a nice chap, keen to learn to run games, and I had been happy to give him pointers, because we all should be wanting to inspire others to take up the robe and wizard hat and it is just the right thing to do. In return, he asked me to turn up one Saturday to be one of his first players. Happy to help and expecting little, I agreed.
I did not know I would be one of thirteen people at the table beforehand. We sat around a long, long table, the GM taking a position on one far end with his books and recently bought DM’s screen, and I, turning up last, took a spot at the other far end. The other players were not familiar to me, friends of his I assumed, and I quickly came to realise my dwarven Zhentarim bastard was not going to be able to roleplay much. I spent most of the session talking with the five nearest players, piping up only to direct some guidance to the frankly massive party and to answer the GM’s rule questions. It was a very strange three hours, full of newbie GM foibles, but the greatest mistake of that day has always left me puzzled. We barely spoke again after the fact, mostly due to scheduling though he would later borrow my copy of FATE Core and never return it. All these years later, though, the experience sticks with me… Why did he invite so many players?
Good day, you beautiful loot-share thieves. This is Motormouth of the Black Pants Legion and today we are talking about party size. Specifically, I wish to talk about what the perfect party size is. Before we begin in earnest, it is best to get the opinion-hedging out of the way: yes, every game will be designed around an expected party balance; yes, the best group size is the one that includes all of your best mates; yes, this is a subjective opinion and you may have another and yadda yadda yadda. I think we can all agree twelve is near always going to be too much. Let us start this off with us nodding our heads to that, at least.
That said, the three-player party is objectively the correct answer to what the prefect party size is and you will never convince me otherwise.
Before I get into why, I want to address the answer I suspect most people will eventually come up with. That answer, I have found, is usually four. Four is the number of archetypal adventurers looking back to the ancient days of the hobby– it is the warrior, the thief, the mage, and the cleric. The martial, the skilled, the arcane caster, and the divine caster. All areas of play are considered, all ready to get their hands dirty and do some dungeonbashing. Even to this day, the vile wyrm Dungeons and Dragons is designed with a Challenge Rating system based around an assumption of the enemy being a worthy but not deadly challenge to a four-person party of a level equal to its CR. Let all us GMs take a moment to laugh at this premise, knowing how flawed CR is and how poor it is to work with when encounter designing. No, a four-person group is not mechanically suitable.
Mechanics are not all that matter, of course, we have talked in the past in my column of the distinction between the roleplayer and the roll-player. Is the optimal size of the player ensemble, then, whatever number allows the best story to be told? Partially, I say, but that is with the knowledge that most roll-players don’t care for the story insomuch as it is a method to get to the stabbing, and most roleplayers tend to enjoy their time in the spotlight while juggling the social pressure of whether or not they’ve taken too much or not enough time themselves. The earlier group benefits from a GM that understands encounter building well and the later benefits from a smaller group that gives them more of those precious hours of game time to chew the scenery.
With these ideas in mind, I have consistently found that three players are optimal to best please people no matter where they fall on the roll/role spectrum. Smaller parties are easier to balance encounters around: you as GM have fewer known variables to deal with and combats tend to go faster when you have less people humming and hawing over what to do for their turn. Smaller parties also roleplay easier; there are few people to take centre stage, there are three connections to play character connections around, and you can dedicate more time to their characters’ particular desires and interests. Perhaps the greatest boon for all groups is that an odd number always leads to democratic groups having a tiebreaker vote in the party, needing no awkward debating as a hung group of two-on-two struggle to move the plot along and disincentivise splitting the party in half.
I have dabbled in parties of many sizes. From one-on-one games to running campaigns for six people to my fond if confusing memory of that twelve-player game. In over a decade of being in this hobby, I have always found the smaller parties allow for more intimate storytelling, more personable adventures, and better RP. Being fair, it does make any player being unable to turn up to a session all the more damaging to a session, yet it is worth it for the greater playstyle. Your group does not have to be like your favourite real-play podcast, you do not need to stress yourself over having so many characters to manage. Consider the cosier three-person party. I am sure you will see the wisdom in what I have said yourself. Just as Andy Warhol said: one’s company, two’s a crowd, and three’s a party.
Jamie’s Homebrew Corner
Dancing in the Ashes continues to slowly being made, in no small part thanks to the kind words and great feedback I have received from people like you, loyal audience member. Today I bring to you two additional updates: the Coteries and Familiars chapter and the Psychic Disciplines chapter. Want your space elves to have some interesting animal companions to sick on your players? Maybe you want an encounter with a Bonesinger with particularly strange and memorable abilities? Give these documents a read, rip your players to shreds with ‘em!
Dancing in the Ashes Psychic Preview
Dancing in the Ashes Coteries and Familiars Preview
A vile creature from the dark and dank lands of the old world — England — Motormouth is one of the BPLs foremost consumers of table top systems, voracious in appetite for overpriced paper and ink.
