How large is your RPG group? Small? Large? Average? What are the ramifications of each size of group? Do you have too few players? Too many?
It all depends on what you’re looking for in your games and sessions. Back in early high school, the largest group I was part of had 15 players and 22 characters spread across those 15 players. Joe, our wonderful GM, ran it all with ease and style. He did have a co-GM sitting at the far end of the table to wrangle the players and help keep them focused. Joe made all final rules arbitrations, but if a rule was clearly written (kinda rare in those days of the late 1980s), then the co-GM could make a ruling for his end of the table. Joe handled all story elements and NPC interactions. Of course, this is an extreme example of a large group.
Then again, people think that my current group of 7 players (plus the GM) “too large,” but it works very well for us. We can continue playing even if 2 or 3 of the players have to miss for various reasons. We like being able to consistently get together on a weekly basis for our 6-9 hour sessions. Yeah. You read that right. Our “short” sessions are 6 hours long, and it’s not unusual for us to hit 9 hours of game time on Saturday. However, the length of sessions is a topic for another day.
Today, I’ll be talking about how group size changes up how the sessions are played and managed. While talking about “group size,” I’m working with the assumption of a single GM and the numbers presented below are the player count.
Size Definitions
I’ll be using the phrasing of “small,” “average,” and “large” to describe group sizes. For the purposes of this article, a small group has less than 4 players. A large group has 6 or more players. This leaves the middle ground of 4-5 players being average. These numbers area all based on what I’ve seen across 41 years of tabletop RPG experience.
Spotlight Time
Small groups allow for more spotlight time for each PC during a session. It can also cause the spotlight to change or cycle between PCs in a faster fashion than with larger groups. This high level of attention being quickly moved about leads to less boredom, downtime, or lack of involvement with each player. This is generally considered a good thing, which is why recommended group sizes have shrunk over the decades since those days of yore when a dozen players could be called typical.
Larger groups are on the other end of the spectrum. Even if the spotlight cycles quickly between players, there are more cycles to get through as a player waits their turn. This is not just during combat, but during all other facets of the game. This puts some more weight on the GM to be aware of when a player has not had the spotlight in quite a while.
Average-sized groups seem to be the sweet spot for spotlight time. The GM can spend a little more time with each PC to get things accomplished with that PC before shifting to another PC. Also, each player doesn’t have to wait overly long before their turn to get the attention comes along.
Threat Level
With smaller groups, the threat level has to be carefully considered and balanced by the GM. Even one monster too many in a combat can leave the entire party in danger. This is especially true if the monster has some method to neutralize a PC (or more than one!) with a single action. Things like hold person, paralysis, petrification, knock-out poisons and such like that can remove one-quarter (or more!) of the party’s potency in a fight. This can turn an “easy” fight into a “difficult” one or even up to a “deadly” one.
Larger groups don’t suffer from this as much since the still-standing characters can fill the gap of the fallen character, or come to the rescue to revive them and get them back into the fight. Taking out a large percentage of the party’s firepower in one fell swoop is much more difficult in larger groups. Of course, this means the GM will need to increase the power level or numbers of enemies found in a published adventure.
Trying to stick with the average party sizes works well for published adventures since this is the expectation in modern games and their published adventures. A good adventure will have advice throughout for scaling the adventure up/down based not only on character power levels, but the number of PCs involved in the adventure as well.
Energy Levels
Here, I’m talking about the player energy levels. Smaller groups can exhaust everyone (player and GM alike) more quickly since they don’t have as much mental downtime between actions or spotlight time. This can lead to shorter sessions, more breaks, or a need to just pause for a bit to let everyone catch their breath.
Larger groups usually don’t have this problem, except for the GM. Juggling 6, 7, or 8 players’ desires and actions and reactions and consequences and abilities can be mentally taxing for a GM. I personally can’t run Fate because I can’t remember (even with cheat sheets) the aspects for 3 PCs let alone more than that. I couldn’t imagine trying to run Fate with 6+ PCs at the table. I’d completely and totally melt. The GM energy levels might dictate shorter sessions like with small groups. This can lead to the players leaving the game session amped up and ready for more while the GM just needs a glass of wine and a hot bath to recover from juggling all that was in front of them.
Like with above, average-sized groups are perfect for maintaining the energy levels of everyone involved. There’s just a good balance there for downtime, activities, and allowing the GM mental space to track the PC vitals (just the vitals, not every little detail).
Plot Complexity
This area gets tricky. With fewer PCs, the GM can inject more complex plot elements into the story because there are fewer details to track and get involved with on the players’ side of the screen. With more PCs, the plot can naturally be complex and deeply interwoven as each player brings their character’s goals and motivations to the story. With larger groups, the GM might have to let the PC’s desires and goals direct the flow of the game. There is nothing wrong with a PC-driven plot.
With an average number of players, everyone (including the GM) can get involved in putting things into the plot elements of the story. While some will float up to be an “A plot” and others are relegated to “B plots” and “C plots,” everyone is involved in the story.
This is another article topic on juggling plot elements, but don’t let one PC’s goal become the “A plot” for too horribly long unless several other characters have their backstory or other aspects wrapped into the A plot as well. Let the A, B, and C plots shift and change position on the priority scale as makes sense and to allow different PCs to have “story spotlight.”
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many different things that come out of having different groups of different sizes. There’s lots to handle and juggle here, but I hope this insight and information can help you be better prepared for what you present to your group (regardless of size), how you manage the group at the table, and how to be a better GM (and player!) within your cohort of gamers at the table.
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