My main group is between 10-14 players depending on the week. It's super chaotic outside combat, and each player only gets 1-2 turns in combat due to how many people there are, but it can still work fine
...perhaps that doesn't mean it's anything close to optimal for players?
How long on average does it take for a player at your table to complete a turn during combat?
I don't mean mentally evaluate how long you think it should take, I mean work out how long a combat takes to run, divide it by the number of rounds and then divide that by the number of players (including the DM).
Some good questions. Apologies, I edited the above to get to them more directly.
It may not mean it is optimal in all circumstances -- we like our role play during combat as well. Combat was for a long time a big problem for us, so we tried a lot of stuff, settling on the rules I mentioned above. We also timed things to be sure and had talks about how to speed stuff up.
That said, the average turn at my table is about minute and a half. Criticals add a minute to the whole. Then add a minute for DM flourish. That's for TotM -- if I use a grid and token system (miniatures), it actually takes longer.
THe average number of rounds in a session is about 4, but we go to 5 just often enough to keep it feeling more right.
Group of 8 (the usual size, with someone being out) runs about 15 minutes per round.
HOWEVER, and this is a big one (one that makes the above kinda meaningless, statistically), we have been playing together for 40 years. The core group is about 7 of us who have known each other since High School/College. Everyone else is family or friend that added on over the years (which is why we have a lot of kids). We alway know what we are going to do, because while waiting our turn we figure it out, and there is a lot of emphasis on doing heroic stuff, and as I describe outcomes I blend it into the stuff someone else is doing, so that it feels seamless (that's the flourish).
So a typical combat encounter is an hour to just a bit longer than that -- and role playing is going on around the turns that are being taken and feeding into the narrative of that round.
Our sessions are 4 to 6 hours long, on weekends. One on one sessions are half that, held as time permits during the week. For the last 5 years, we have been primarily virtual.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm a relatively new DM but an old hat to RPGs in general.
I feel like the sweet spot is 4-5. It allows players to fill all of the adventuring niches with little to no overlap while not having to supplement important skills and roles with NPCs, magic items, or house rules.
More than that and not only is there worry that combat bogs down, but then you have lots of overlap and stepping on toes for party roles. If you want your characters to feel powerful and "special" in the world, then having 3 people who all specialize in doing the exact same thing in the same party accomplishes the opposite.
The current party I run is 8, though it's fluctuated up to 10 with friends joining for some guest spots. Honestly I love the size, and would have to take some time to adjust back to the "normal" 4 PCs.
My only problem with the size is that combat easily becomes a slog if not treated correctly. I can't ever really have random encounters or smaller combats, because it will take up almost an entire session (or more, if it's a big combat). I've gotten adjusted to it at this point, and it helps that my players enjoy roleplay and exploration a lot.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
At my age, with my background, I still think of RP gaming in terms of a live table setting. In that setting, I'm most comfortable with 6 or fewer people, including the game master. More than that, and the inevitable cross chatter can easily bring the actual game play to a crawl.
I have tried online RP gaming, and discovered that it does not work for me. I have tried to make it work, but decided to quit online RP gaming after my third, 3-ish hour combat session. The choices of whether to stay glued to the screen and keep track of the action, live table game style, or to do what seems to be the online style, to do other things between turns and respond to pings, necessitating a "now where were we?" review of the combat map, pulls all of the fun from it. That, and the lack of connection with my fellow players, leaves me dissatisfied.
My main group is between 10-14 players depending on the week. It's super chaotic outside combat, and each player only gets 1-2 turns in combat due to how many people there are, but it can still work fine
So how long are your sessions?
4 hours, once a week. I don't think group size would really have anything to do with session length - if anything having a huge group speeds things up because there's always going to be someone jumping in and impulsively kickstarting the action. Doesn't always speed things in a productive direction... but it's always moving anyways. I've played in smaller groups of only 5-6 and it just feels overwhelming to have such a small group and so much focus on each player to make decisions
My main group is between 10-14 players depending on the week. It's super chaotic outside combat, and each player only gets 1-2 turns in combat due to how many people there are, but it can still work fine
So how long are your sessions?
4 hours, once a week. I don't think group size would really have anything to do with session length - if anything having a huge group speeds things up because there's always going to be someone jumping in and impulsively kickstarting the action. Doesn't always speed things in a productive direction... but it's always moving anyways. I've played in smaller groups of only 5-6 and it just feels overwhelming to have such a small group and so much focus on each player to make decisions
Huh?
I am confused. Are you saying that players are overwhelmed when there are 5-6 of them in a group?????
And in the case of when a group is in combat, how long does each player, on average, take to complete a turn? Are you playing on-line?
This is in person, so everyone goes fairly quickly (you're kinda pressured to by the other 10+ people). I'd say maybe 30-60 seconds per person on average depending on number of hits and number of dice rolls to add up. It still takes quite a long time between turns, that's the main downside of having so many people
well, I gotta admit, I feel a LOT less like an outlier, lol.
I mean, yeah, I still am, but I ain't alone.
As I said there is no wrong answer here.
Shortly after I posted this, in a different thread, it was asked what my ideal size is. Like many answered here, I said around 5.
As was pointed out, the game is designed around the idea of 4 to 6 people sitting at a table. Such things require the least amount of effort and work. For big parties I have to add in more critters and buff them up. I have to use rules that enforce a bit of discipline. I occasionally have to break out graph paper and put squiggly lines on it and break out a handful of miniatures or print them before the game.
And that last part may be a big part of the difference. I am primarily a theater of the mind, painting pictures with words. I don't rely on VTT or screen displayed maps. Those things slow stuff down for us.
I haven't been able to run a game with only 5 people in many years. When the kids get old enough, they want to join, and we aren't going to say no, and then they are part of the crew and they have friends and those friends want to join and over a very long time they end up with kids of their own who want to play and have friends who want to play and so you end up running the same thing three times with three large groups.
And yes, I run a game with grandparents, parents, and kids all in the same thing. And for those wondering, next year I will get second and fifth weeks, until two current campaigns end, and then I will have three weeks of each month. Our group is large, has several DMs, and we take turns. I am the only one is is *only* a DM, though I do play NPCs for other DMs once in a while.
When I saw the comment that triggered this thread, I laughed because it had been so long since I had run a "small" group of five or so that I had forgotten how much less work it was.
So, thank you to everyone for commenting. It helped me to overcome that wee bit of disconnect.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Personally. 5x Party Members for a weekly 4 hour session is comfortable and that gives me time to prep a "good" (hopefully) session and also take into account backstory and what the Player wants to achieve there. That can be short or long-term Player goals/character development/story arcs - but specifically tailored to each player. It also allows for real life to get in the way, things happen, kids get sick, there's an anniversary, birthday - people have busy lives. So if there's only 3x players that week we can still have a session and things can go on. By the end of a 4 hour session with an hour or so after to just socialise with everyone and write some Notes for the session - I'm pretty brain-fried. Time for relaxing music and winding down. It's good and the party are great. Those are reasonable numbers for me (DM) to have a good session. I've DM'd larger group and significantly less gets done/achieved in session.
Too big for me is not measured by a set number but rather the point at which players are no longer having fun or bored. Current group is 7 plus DM and it is starting to become too big due to the time some players take on their turn. If everyone is super prepared and acts quickly you can have more players. Personally, I prefer 4-5 players
How easy is it to manage lots of people? me and my friends are kinda newbies, but we got 10 people and a DM who knows their stuff. kinda (me)
Not.
Let's do some do some maths. Let's say the typical session is three hours. Half the time is taken up by the DM. In an ideal world, that leaves an hour and a half for players. Each player gets to participate for nine minutes spread over three hours. That's excruciating. That's also not accounting for set up times, those awkward silences, dealing with numbers etc etc.
That's only the start. When players get bored, they start forming their own conversations that take time to get them out of and back into the game, then you have to rebrief them...taking more of their play time away.
I have yet to be in a session where there are more than six and not felt it was a bad game. Even in games with five players, there are invariably points where I get bored waiting (but there advantages that balance them out so it's not a real issue).
Looking at combat, let's say it takes two minutes for someone to do their turn (that's very conservative for newbies), and thirty seconds per creature for the DM. That's twenty five minutes per round. Twenty odd minutes between each player's participations. Your standard combat is going to be an hour and a half, minimum. That's, again, excruciating.
I'd strongly suggest that you find another DM from the group and you'll have two nice sized groups there. I've only ever heard of one person claiming that it's worked really well when having that many in the party - and summarising what they said, they'd modded 5e so much to make it work that it's to the point that they weren't even playing 5e anymore. I'm sure some could pull it off, but not many, and certainly not with newbies.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Anything north of 6 players is too large a party for my DM preferences. I did run my fair share of large party 8+ players and nowadays i 4-5 is my sweet spot.
When I was running public games at a Comicbook shop, my hard cap was 8; past that I was able to split the party due to their being enough players to have two tables with a GM, though I personally wouldn't want to run a table larger then 6 usually since it makes it harder for good roleplay to happen in bigger groups.
The biggest table I've ever been in had a player count of 14 and that game was horrifically slow; in two and a half hours we managed to get 3 rounds out.
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So how long are your sessions?
Some good questions. Apologies, I edited the above to get to them more directly.
It may not mean it is optimal in all circumstances -- we like our role play during combat as well. Combat was for a long time a big problem for us, so we tried a lot of stuff, settling on the rules I mentioned above. We also timed things to be sure and had talks about how to speed stuff up.
That said, the average turn at my table is about minute and a half. Criticals add a minute to the whole. Then add a minute for DM flourish. That's for TotM -- if I use a grid and token system (miniatures), it actually takes longer.
THe average number of rounds in a session is about 4, but we go to 5 just often enough to keep it feeling more right.
Group of 8 (the usual size, with someone being out) runs about 15 minutes per round.
HOWEVER, and this is a big one (one that makes the above kinda meaningless, statistically), we have been playing together for 40 years. The core group is about 7 of us who have known each other since High School/College. Everyone else is family or friend that added on over the years (which is why we have a lot of kids). We alway know what we are going to do, because while waiting our turn we figure it out, and there is a lot of emphasis on doing heroic stuff, and as I describe outcomes I blend it into the stuff someone else is doing, so that it feels seamless (that's the flourish).
So a typical combat encounter is an hour to just a bit longer than that -- and role playing is going on around the turns that are being taken and feeding into the narrative of that round.
Our sessions are 4 to 6 hours long, on weekends. One on one sessions are half that, held as time permits during the week. For the last 5 years, we have been primarily virtual.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm a relatively new DM but an old hat to RPGs in general.
I feel like the sweet spot is 4-5. It allows players to fill all of the adventuring niches with little to no overlap while not having to supplement important skills and roles with NPCs, magic items, or house rules.
More than that and not only is there worry that combat bogs down, but then you have lots of overlap and stepping on toes for party roles. If you want your characters to feel powerful and "special" in the world, then having 3 people who all specialize in doing the exact same thing in the same party accomplishes the opposite.
The current party I run is 8, though it's fluctuated up to 10 with friends joining for some guest spots. Honestly I love the size, and would have to take some time to adjust back to the "normal" 4 PCs.
My only problem with the size is that combat easily becomes a slog if not treated correctly. I can't ever really have random encounters or smaller combats, because it will take up almost an entire session (or more, if it's a big combat). I've gotten adjusted to it at this point, and it helps that my players enjoy roleplay and exploration a lot.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
8 players and a DM, but not everyone makes it.
As a player, 7 is when it starts to get a bit tedious, 3 is my lowest threshold, 4 or 5 is ideal.
At my age, with my background, I still think of RP gaming in terms of a live table setting. In that setting, I'm most comfortable with 6 or fewer people, including the game master. More than that, and the inevitable cross chatter can easily bring the actual game play to a crawl.
I have tried online RP gaming, and discovered that it does not work for me. I have tried to make it work, but decided to quit online RP gaming after my third, 3-ish hour combat session. The choices of whether to stay glued to the screen and keep track of the action, live table game style, or to do what seems to be the online style, to do other things between turns and respond to pings, necessitating a "now where were we?" review of the combat map, pulls all of the fun from it. That, and the lack of connection with my fellow players, leaves me dissatisfied.
There's no hard line for determining when a party is too big
4 hours, once a week. I don't think group size would really have anything to do with session length - if anything having a huge group speeds things up because there's always going to be someone jumping in and impulsively kickstarting the action. Doesn't always speed things in a productive direction... but it's always moving anyways. I've played in smaller groups of only 5-6 and it just feels overwhelming to have such a small group and so much focus on each player to make decisions
Huh?
I am confused. Are you saying that players are overwhelmed when there are 5-6 of them in a group?????
Is that what you are saying?
Just speaking for myself there, not necessarily everyone. But yes that's what I'm saying.
For me I'd say the perfect group size is probably about 8 players if I had to put an exact number on it.
And in the case of when a group is in combat, how long does each player, on average, take to complete a turn? Are you playing on-line?
This is in person, so everyone goes fairly quickly (you're kinda pressured to by the other 10+ people). I'd say maybe 30-60 seconds per person on average depending on number of hits and number of dice rolls to add up. It still takes quite a long time between turns, that's the main downside of having so many people
well, I gotta admit, I feel a LOT less like an outlier, lol.
I mean, yeah, I still am, but I ain't alone.
As I said there is no wrong answer here.
Shortly after I posted this, in a different thread, it was asked what my ideal size is. Like many answered here, I said around 5.
As was pointed out, the game is designed around the idea of 4 to 6 people sitting at a table. Such things require the least amount of effort and work. For big parties I have to add in more critters and buff them up. I have to use rules that enforce a bit of discipline. I occasionally have to break out graph paper and put squiggly lines on it and break out a handful of miniatures or print them before the game.
And that last part may be a big part of the difference. I am primarily a theater of the mind, painting pictures with words. I don't rely on VTT or screen displayed maps. Those things slow stuff down for us.
I haven't been able to run a game with only 5 people in many years. When the kids get old enough, they want to join, and we aren't going to say no, and then they are part of the crew and they have friends and those friends want to join and over a very long time they end up with kids of their own who want to play and have friends who want to play and so you end up running the same thing three times with three large groups.
And yes, I run a game with grandparents, parents, and kids all in the same thing. And for those wondering, next year I will get second and fifth weeks, until two current campaigns end, and then I will have three weeks of each month. Our group is large, has several DMs, and we take turns. I am the only one is is *only* a DM, though I do play NPCs for other DMs once in a while.
When I saw the comment that triggered this thread, I laughed because it had been so long since I had run a "small" group of five or so that I had forgotten how much less work it was.
So, thank you to everyone for commenting. It helped me to overcome that wee bit of disconnect.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
How easy is it to manage lots of people? me and my friends are kinda newbies, but we got 10 people and a DM who knows their stuff. kinda (me)
Personally.
5x Party Members for a weekly 4 hour session is comfortable and that gives me time to prep a "good" (hopefully) session and also take into account backstory and what the Player wants to achieve there. That can be short or long-term Player goals/character development/story arcs - but specifically tailored to each player.
It also allows for real life to get in the way, things happen, kids get sick, there's an anniversary, birthday - people have busy lives. So if there's only 3x players that week we can still have a session and things can go on.
By the end of a 4 hour session with an hour or so after to just socialise with everyone and write some Notes for the session - I'm pretty brain-fried. Time for relaxing music and winding down. It's good and the party are great. Those are reasonable numbers for me (DM) to have a good session.
I've DM'd larger group and significantly less gets done/achieved in session.
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Too big for me is not measured by a set number but rather the point at which players are no longer having fun or bored. Current group is 7 plus DM and it is starting to become too big due to the time some players take on their turn. If everyone is super prepared and acts quickly you can have more players. Personally, I prefer 4-5 players
Not.
Let's do some do some maths. Let's say the typical session is three hours. Half the time is taken up by the DM. In an ideal world, that leaves an hour and a half for players. Each player gets to participate for nine minutes spread over three hours. That's excruciating. That's also not accounting for set up times, those awkward silences, dealing with numbers etc etc.
That's only the start. When players get bored, they start forming their own conversations that take time to get them out of and back into the game, then you have to rebrief them...taking more of their play time away.
I have yet to be in a session where there are more than six and not felt it was a bad game. Even in games with five players, there are invariably points where I get bored waiting (but there advantages that balance them out so it's not a real issue).
Looking at combat, let's say it takes two minutes for someone to do their turn (that's very conservative for newbies), and thirty seconds per creature for the DM. That's twenty five minutes per round. Twenty odd minutes between each player's participations. Your standard combat is going to be an hour and a half, minimum. That's, again, excruciating.
I'd strongly suggest that you find another DM from the group and you'll have two nice sized groups there. I've only ever heard of one person claiming that it's worked really well when having that many in the party - and summarising what they said, they'd modded 5e so much to make it work that it's to the point that they weren't even playing 5e anymore. I'm sure some could pull it off, but not many, and certainly not with newbies.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Anything north of 6 players is too large a party for my DM preferences. I did run my fair share of large party 8+ players and nowadays i 4-5 is my sweet spot.
6 is my upper limit but I prefer 4-5. More than 6 is too much.
When I was running public games at a Comicbook shop, my hard cap was 8; past that I was able to split the party due to their being enough players to have two tables with a GM, though I personally wouldn't want to run a table larger then 6 usually since it makes it harder for good roleplay to happen in bigger groups.
The biggest table I've ever been in had a player count of 14 and that game was horrifically slow; in two and a half hours we managed to get 3 rounds out.