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Otogi
2010-09-22, 11:38 PM
I don't know about you guys, but every now and again, even if I know I'm going to join a game, I swing by the Recruitment board to see what people want to run. Now, in these games, concept and game system counts for a lot, as does things like presentation, known dedication, set up, the works. One thing that always catches my eye, though, is the amount of players that the GM or recruiter is willing to accept. Now it's usually around 3-5 with maybe 2 alternates, a pretty good number for me in games I not only GM, but want to play. And then I see people accepting 8+ players in a single group and I always feel a minor awe in how much they're taking in characters, wondering how they'll manage the game.

Of course, while it's odd for me to see that many people, what's the most amount of players you want to GM in campaign, or even join with?

Cadian 9th
2010-09-22, 11:50 PM
I read the "Swing by the recruitment boards, even though I know I'm in a game" and thought for a second.

I've gotta say I'm in way too many games, and I'm DMing a fair bit too. The Tower of Deadly Evil has more than 12 players at the moment, but I've got to say it comes down to game effort.

I'll be happy to run a game for a larger number of people if there's less work on my part; For example, running a published adventure or running a dungeon crawl. I personally am against parties of more than 4 players; I find that even if the DM is profficient I'll always feel a little swamped by other characters.

For players, they must think about the other characters when formulating posts; the more players around, the harder it becomes to truly RP with them.

For DMs, I find my perfect number is 3 players for some reason. Simply becase, in PbP, its easier to keep a small number of players interested and staying than appease a large group. Other DMs tend to do 4 - To answer the OPs question, I regret to say nearly all games that the DM took on more than four players have crashed and burned, at the end emerging with the truly dedicated guys.

So the message is: Take care of your dedicated players, DMs, they deserve it. I'm off to practise what I preach.

Elemental_Elf
2010-09-23, 12:11 AM
I have GMed 6 people at once and I refuse to ever do that again... Combat takes too long and you an never really give each player a fair amount of time in the spotlight each session. I suppose if you GM a group that large you will eventually get used to it but... It is a hassle and a half.

Currently I am GMing 2 players but there are a lot of problems with a group that size (chiefly not having enough characters to cover all the bases) but also problems with attendance (one person misses the session is pretty much canceled) and a single person's disinterest in the session can bog the group as a whole.

My true preference is for 3-5 players + the Game Master.

EDIT: Just to be clear this is for both IRL and PbP. :smallbiggrin:

Zaydos
2010-09-23, 12:14 AM
My preference is 3-5 + GM.

Although in the PBP I'm running right now there's 8 because I expect some of them to quit fairly quickly. In the one I'm starting soon there are 3 and it would have started sooner except we were trying to get a 3rd person (the day after we gave up on that we got a 3rd person).

mucat
2010-09-23, 12:20 AM
In a live group, a DM plus three to four players sounds about right. In PbP, I don't at all mind going larger; there's more time to plan and to give them all spotlight time, so I focus on quality f players, rather than number.

Besides, PbP games almost always suffer some attrition, so starting out on the high end of the range gives you some room to manuever if players have to withdraw. For the PbP game I just started, I had seven players submit strong character concepts, so we went with all seven. If one or two have to leave at some point, we won't have to immediately re-recruit. If all seven stay for the long term, that's great; it must mean everyone is having fun!

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-09-23, 12:33 AM
My RL gaming group is 14 people. For one semester, I was the only DM.

Never doing that again.

Currently, I try to go for 4-5 for PbP, since any more makes keeping things going difficult, and I split my RL group with another DM, so 6-8 there.

RebelRogue
2010-09-23, 12:36 AM
My RL gaming group is 14 people. For one semester, I was the only DM.

Never doing that again.

Currently, I try to go for 4-5 for PbP, since any more makes keeping things going difficult, and I split my RL group with another DM, so 6-8 there.
14? Fourteen??!?!?!? :smalleek: Give this man a medal!

The most I've done is 8 or 9 IRL, and that was pretty hard to manage (inattentive kids most of them, too. Whew). The PbPs I do have about 4-5 players, give or take.

ffone
2010-09-23, 12:44 AM
A few things I've found helpful for PBP:

1. Group initiative for enemies.

2. On the PCs' turn, i.e. between the enemies' 'group turn', let them post in any order. (If you don't, the slowness goes with the square of the number of players, since they have a 1/n chance of being 'next' when they check in, and then that has to happen 'n' times...) Mechanically it's as if they use delay actions, in a way that never moves them 'after' the enemies, unless of course a reason to comes up. If they care about the order, like when it matters tactically, if they're a good group they can use OOC posting / notes on 'conditional' actions to manage it.

3. Discourage Combat Reflexes + Reach type characters. AoOs slow things down a lot. So do trip attacks. Encourage players to let the DM do their AoOs for them.

4. Go easy on the traps. As soon as players know traps are around, they basically just quietly wait/follow the PC with Trapfinding, and god help if you if that player is slow or bad.

Katana_Geldar
2010-09-23, 01:22 AM
AoO can be rolled on the DM's turn with the consent of the players. And as for triggers and interrupts, I find that waiting 24 hours after the DM's post is enough. Then declare the round on again.

I asked for 8 people for ToH because that is how many people I have playing it in real life...and we could be up to as many as 10. :smalleek: But hey, I can handle big groups, I've even run two encounters at once with different initative orders without going absolutely insane.

Serpentine
2010-09-23, 01:37 AM
I'm currently running one in which I'd allow 8 players (only ended up with 7, haven't checked how many have actually posted yet). However, this is a particularly silly, loose sort of game, in which I am more than willing to break the fourth wall to fix problems and to skip or act for characters if need be. In a "real" game, I wouldn't want more than about 4.

Ajadea
2010-09-23, 01:40 AM
I DM for 3-6 in a PbP, and anywhere from 2-8 IRL. I tend to not give my PCs breaks because they are out of stamina if such breaks would be illogical. They have to find their own haven, or make it, most of the time. So they need the extra muscle.