The perfect party size is 3.
Ah fuck no, it's five.You need really good chemistry between just three party members for the players to be able to bounce off each other and keep the flow of roleplaying up. Also, if just one skips the session, then you are left with running a game for just two. Which is enough reason to skip the session entirely.Four has a similar problem, if just one doesn't show up tonight, you are left with three players, which is awkward for the aforementioned reasons. Four is also better, because you more likely have a more varied skill set among characters, which gives players more room to operate.Five is ideal, one guy dropping out isn't a big problem, five player character means a good variety of skills to approach problems. And even if one or two guys don't gel well with one or two other guys, they have the other three players to interact with.Six is when it becomes hard to manage from the perspective of the GM.
>>96803374Why would I change your mind?
>>96803374About 4 with 15 followers.
>>96803494Of course, people needing to get along is a must. If you are in a three man group and don't like one other guy, that's tough shit. 3 people is the ideal size if you are already friends with your fellow players. The problem with groups larger than three (plus one GM) however is scheduling gets exponentially harder with every added player. I never play with randos, so maybe that's a cultural issue, but if one of our friends can't come we usually skip the session and do something else.Also, one advantage 3 player groups have over 4 or 5, is that the number discourages party splits, which usually makes for more engaged sessions in my experience.
>>96803374For scheduling yesBut in games that have a lot of character variety I prefer 4
>>96803494Critical Role ruined a whole generation of roleplayers.
>>96803687>if you are already friends with your fellow playersYeah sorry, I wasn't arguing from an ideal group point of view.
>>96803374Depends on what system. Which is?
>>96804214The Dark Eye 5th edition
>>96803374"Perfect" is not possible as a state of being, so you're inherently wrong.
>>96803494I also read somewhere that five is the highest number of people who can effectively gang up on a single opponent. Any more and they just get in each others' way.
>>96803374Three is the minimum. Four it ideal. Five is the theoretical max. Beyond that, things get trickier and you're juggling so many schedules that you are statistically guaranteed to be running with 3 or 4 anyways, or the entire game will fall apart.
>>96803374Three is theoretically fine for party balance, but i usually prefer 4-6 since 3 feels like a minimum player count. Having more players means having more people to bounce off of and keep the game from getting too quiet
>>96803494You should not be playing an RPG if anyone is missing, regardless of numbers.
>>96804424Never played it.
>>96803494FpbpI'm running a campaign that started with 4, dropped to 3, then gradually built up to 6. 4-5 is the ideal range, 3 is a little small and 6 is a little big.
Parties less than 6 are literally unplayable for me, sorry.
>>96803494was about to say the same. Started running with 5 person team and anything different feels odd>>96805413based, however there are exemptions like one player not being able to attend for a long time
>>96803374A Five Man Band is ideal. A Leader, a Lancer, a fighter, a Thinker, & a Girl. Its a troupe for a reason. Everyone knows their role. You can break into smaller teams if needed. Etc.
>>96808015You just need face, fighter and smart guy.
>>968033744>ideal perfect3 or 5>good, acceptable2 or 6>concerning, not great1 or 7+>kill it with fire
>>96808170No, you can get by without a Girl if you have some sort of support network or the Girl role is folded into another or whatever, but even then you have the A-Team or SG-1, etc. which are a four man bands. Three men cannot safely split up. The Trinity is fine, & in some things it works, but its not ideal
>>96808170Who gets to be the girl?
>>96808246NPC
>>96803494Yup yup, 5 is the top number for a good party and the best number for players. More than 5 and the game becomes slow and people get distracted easily; and less than 3 is boring
>>96803374Depends entirely on the system.3 is a crowd in DitV3 is ok in modern DnD or CoC3 is nowhere near enough in Savage World or OutgunnedAnd as far as my experience goes, having a group of 5 is perfect. Someone isn't present? Still can play and run easily. Everyone came? Good, time to have fun together. Great deal of systems is geared toward party of 4 with regular hireling/NPC help, so 5 keeps you safe with this.Having 3 players and one of them couldn't make it? The game isn't going to happen in 9 out of 10 cases, and you just wasted your own and remaining 2 players time
>>96808170>Face and smart guy are separate people, and neither is good at fightingStop playing shit-tier systems
>>96808246The token female of your group, duh.Which is another reason to play with a group of five - 22% of players are women. Having 5 people means you are almost guaranteed to get one.
>>96809102Are all the systems you are playing centered entirely around fighting?
>>96809119None of them is even combat adjacent, not to mention centric.But they aren't designed by clueless faggots who merely copy 40+ yo ideas of different clueless faggots that think copy-paste of stale memes means they are paying tribute, rather than being designlets
>>96809119Nta, but let's take pic related>Character is a face first an foremost>Still has a wide range of utility skills to know what the fuck he's facing in the first place>Punches hard and shoots goodWow, that was tough! It's almost as if playing DnD and its clones makes people retarded or something. It's almost as if class-and-level systems pigeonhole you into really stupid situations and even dumber mindset.
>>96803374You need at least 4 so you can split up into teams of 2+ Scooby Doo style.
>>96809265Well you won't lose your virginity playing that game, anon. And yes, trans women are women
>>96803831nah it's just channeling faggots in a specific niche
>>96811382Why would you want to split up? Splitting up always drags the session.
>>96809113>playing with females
>>96803374Nah, too crowded.
The perfect party size is exactly as many good players as you know. A party of 5 doesn't mean shit if 2 of them are catatonic 90% of the session and only wake up for combat, might as well just have a party of 3 and balance the game for it. Party of 3 only feels ideal to OP because he only knows 3 good players.
>>96803374Me, and my wife, and the side hoe
>>968082312 or 6Neverwinter Nights is 2 and Dungeon Crawlers can be 6>1Solo RPGs are perfectly valid
I love DMing for 7 or 8 people at once. Play something rules light and work to keep everyone engaged. I ran a time travel campaign, bit like chrono trigger, everyone had a element and a class role ( this was a year or 2 after 4e dropped) I would often split the party into 4 groups of two, have them explore the time period of the week, and if two people lost momentum or hit a plot hook I would shift to the next two people. Running big groups is about getting players to compete for your attention. I swear half the time I run for a party of four everyone wants to be a polite passanger player
>>96803374I agree actually, though I think 4 is also near perfect and I would be willing to run for 5. Beyond that is a no.
You actually never play any game just like this specimen >>96805413
>>96813957More like you, your wife and her bull.
>>96814640What makes you think that? Skipping the session when someone can't make it isn't all that uncommon if the campaign is more about politics or social interaction rather than combat.
>>96814140I don't think it's ideal, but it's a ton of fun for me.But people have described my DM style as children party entertainer.
>>96803374I'm of the opinion that ideal is a four man band, but the fourth person has to be a wallflower, quiet and unobtrusive. Three people is enough to thoroughly engage, but the fourth is there to nudge things, while still being able to speak up when it counts.
>>96814140>I would often split the party into 4 groups of two, have them explore the time period of the week, and if two people lost momentum or hit a plot hook I would shift to the next two people. Not gonna lie, that doesn't sound appealing to me if I was a player.
>>96803374Any size of party works if you play with your actual friends who care about the game and who can actually show up. Those are the true qualifiers which makes for a good group - size means nothing. The only thing which increasing the size does is make scheduling more difficult for everyone.
>>96803374Incorrect. I have autism-beamed over this for far too long. While games can be ran with a large or small number of players, the actual optimal party size is 5.The meta-goal of a party is to be a group of characters that can play together on an adventure, interacting with one another and the world. In order for a party to be effective it needs to be big enough to cover a variety of concepts and abilities, but small enough that individual interaction and effort can be acknowledged.Five is optimal because of the following:Five divides unevenly into a 2 man and 3 man group, meaning that if the party splits up they are intrinsically in two vulnerable groups; necessitating close cooperation or else promoting rendezvous. On the other hand a split in 3 produces a solo group and a split in 4 produces two evenly sized pairs, so there is no 'weak' party that intrinsically is magnetized to the majority.Five allows for the party to fill the four major adventuring food groups with a spare: A fighter, a rogue, a cleric and a wizard or equivalent selections cover all bases and allow for a duplicate or unusual character to fit in with only the bare minimum redundancy.Five also leads the party to be, at least, numerically functional with an absence, and a sixth important NPC can be appended without breaking some mathematical assumptions that I collectively call 'stagecoach' or 'wagon' math. A party of 5(6) can all sit in a stagecoach or wagon (2 driving, 4 in the cabin) without any spares. Pairs can row canoes. They can comfortably occupy a 15x15ft room, or squeeze into a 10x10ft room, producing some but not excessive pressure in close quarters of dungeons.I find other numbers are acceptable depending on the game and 4 is highly functional, especially for DND dungeon crawling as well. 3 and 6 respective for players begins to either limit function (and interaction, as no character can interact with another alone without producing a spare) or complicate running.
>>96803494>this>>96803374>obvious bait
Had the same core group of 4 players for 16 years now, with an occasional 5th that usually lasts a year or so before other commitments.We only game ever other Thursday, but we've done it consistently barring major holidays.
>>96813968Dreadful
>>96803374>The perfect party size is 3.Facts>>96803494Is this bait? What flow of roleplaying? You mean a bunch of retards talking over each other? If the group doesn't have good chemsitry itll be a shit game regardless.
>>96808170>>96808015You don't need any of that gay archetype shit, how samey and unoriginal.
>>96809113>Which is another reason to play with a group of five - 22% of players are women. Having 5 people means you are almost guaranteed to get one.You suck dick at math so you must be a D&D player. If you have 5 players and 22 percent are women then your chance of having at least one is 1-(0.785) or 0.71. So 71 percent. Which isn't "almost guaranteed" you fucking retard.
>>96808170Having a "face" is lame.You need the muscle, the trickster and the mystic, but talking is everyone's job, it's a roleplaying game.In fact the advantage of smaller groups is players get to talk more.
>>96803494>watching frieren>party is super unbalanced>2 casters 1 martial no healer>they add a healer>hate him with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns>he fucks off one day at a fork in the road>thank fuck for thatjust like with a good cast of characters, I always hate it when we pad out the roster with one too many players, and the perfect social chemistry is ruined in search of a more "balanced" party.I think it's more interesting for a party to be missing something, and have to adapt through improvisation. like if the party didn't have a healer, and the martial became a battlefield surgeon who made potions with local herbs or something.
>>96803374Meh, I think 4 is perfect. 5 is at the limit and 6 only works if everyone knows what they are doing. 3 works but you requires everyone to make it for it to work. 5 makes it harder for the GM and can overwhelm the GM and make things too easy or too hard for some players. (Someone minmaxing can wipe low level foes. Where someone more support might be fucked and fully dependent on avoiding combat.)
bump
>>96803374I'm kinda split on this one. One of the most memorable campaigns I played in had 3 PCs and flowed pretty well. But you kinda need a meat shield, an ambulance, a spell slinger and a thief for the thief related stuff.
>>96803374Depends on the game. I've ran and played games where three is a perfect number. I think 4 is best for some games, and 5 is best for some other games. 2 is usually too few, and 6 is usually starting to get too crowded.
>>96808015Came to the thread just to type this
>>96803494I like having five because I know at least one isn't going to show up each week.
>>96803374It's 4, but you need about 6 because 2 will always flake.
>>96803374You're missing a party role and what happens if someone can't show up? For a long campaign, 4 > 5 > 3, but for a one-shot, 4 > 3 > 5.
