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Monday, August 13, 2012

How Large is Your Typical Gaming Session?

How large is your typical gaming session?

For me, it seems to be in the 4 to 6 range for my regular weekly ACKS game, but 3 or 4 for my DCC sessions. So overall, I'm in the 4-6 range.

I'm curious how it is for the rest of you.

GM or player, cast your vote and add a comment below.

One of the commenters will get a $10 gift certificate to RPGNow.




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45 comments:

  1. Erik JensenAugust 13, 2012 at 8:19 PM

    Averaging 5 players lately, but anywhere between 4 to 6.

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  2. M:keAugust 13, 2012 at 8:21 PM

    Regular groups contain 4 players which works out pretty well. There is one group where we range from 3 to 8 players, but normally we are 5.

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  3. Phoenix182August 13, 2012 at 8:23 PM

    My preference is 2-5 players and a DM, but my current main group is 7-10 and a DM. It's just an entirely different type of gaming. I'd LOVE to split it in two, but it's time I just don't have.

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  4. Josh HallAugust 13, 2012 at 8:24 PM

    Pretty much looks like I'm with the mainstream here. The game I'm running is at 6 players, though we'll run with 4.

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  5. Wayward JourneysAugust 13, 2012 at 8:25 PM

    3-6. Sweet spot seems to be 4 to 5.

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  6. Neko--kunAugust 13, 2012 at 8:28 PM

    I'm typically in games of 2-3 players + GM. I play online, so invariably there will be flakes.

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  7. ScrivenerBAugust 13, 2012 at 8:42 PM

    Three or four players, usually. Much beyond four or five and it seems hard for me to keep them focused.

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  8. KnightErrantJRAugust 13, 2012 at 8:49 PM

    My Pathfinder and Star Wars Saga games kept creeping up to seven, which is past my comfort zone.

    Eventually I got those down to six, and my year long DC Adventure held pretty firm at six.

    Current Marvel Heroic RPG is standing at four.

    So it rounds out to five to six overall.

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  9. ChrisSAugust 13, 2012 at 8:50 PM

    My current campaign started off at 2-3 plus DM, but has grown down to the 4-6 plus DM range. And looks like it might be growing further over the next few sessions.

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  10. KalooAugust 13, 2012 at 9:25 PM

    2-3 is what I tend to have, though I enjoy playing in larger groups sometimes.

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  11. DranceAugust 13, 2012 at 10:05 PM

    Four players seems to be a good sized group to me. With five, I feel like things get a little crowded and slow at the table, truth be told.

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  12. Joseph BlochAugust 13, 2012 at 10:17 PM

    I have to cap mine at 6 players plus me as DM. I organize my games using meetup.com, and usually have a waiting list.

    In some respects, it sucks turning people away, especially if they're regulars. But I just don't feel comfortable DMing for more than 6. I don't feel I can do them all justice if there are more than that.

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  13. DaveAugust 13, 2012 at 10:51 PM

    The game I ran in high school (early 80s) ran 7 to 9 players most of the time.

    Currently I'm only running a Classic Traveller game for my son and his friends: we started with 10 PCs, but due to scheduling issues, we usually have 6 or 7.

    I like running groups of 6-10, which works just fine with OSR!

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  14. AndrewAugust 13, 2012 at 11:14 PM

    I have my regular crew for one campaign at 4 players and me, then I've got open table games that have up to 7-8.

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  15. zeroheroAugust 13, 2012 at 11:47 PM

    We have consistently had 6 players and DM for the last few years, although the last couple months we've been down to 5 plus DM.

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  16. Josh D.August 13, 2012 at 11:53 PM

    Lately it has been 3-5 (+GM), my preference is for 5-7 (+GM).

    That it is for in-person gaming - I have found though that it is more difficult online, 3 players seems pretty good for G+.

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  17. Keith SlettenAugust 14, 2012 at 12:32 AM

    These days, it's 3-4, down from 6-7 and turning people away 10 years ago.

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  18. BlUsKrEEmAugust 14, 2012 at 2:23 AM

    Back in my early days 10+ player groups was nothing to blink at. Today I usually stick to three or six players. I miss the larger games some times, but since our games have switched away from sandbox games smaller games have been a bit of a blessing. A large group can always find somw interesting plot when roving around Carcosa or Chicago, but they can be a bit hard to desighn for when module and episodic play become the norm.

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  19. Yannick Men HuonAugust 14, 2012 at 2:54 AM

    I've started with 3-4 players, then ran a game for 8-12, nowadays the group is 5-7.

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  20. shortymonsterAugust 14, 2012 at 4:20 AM

    Weekly society games tend to aim for 6 players, but can get more due to the usual early drop outs from students who try it and realise it's not for them/they don't have the time. When gaming with friends, at the moment it's a GM and five players.

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  21. Kelvin GreenAugust 14, 2012 at 6:28 AM

    Our group fluctuates due to various complicated reasons. Most weeks we can manage the GM plus two or three others, but if the whole gang are present it's the GM plus five.

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  22. Michael BolamAugust 14, 2012 at 9:49 AM

    Our home Labryrinth Lord game is typically 6 people. I also play in an LL game at the local gaming club that is usually around 8, plus the DM. I run an occasional DCC game with 4 or 5, usually.

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  23. JeffStormerAugust 14, 2012 at 12:05 PM

    Counting myself, usually 2 to 4. I play a lot of solo games with my wife, and try to do some gaming with friends when they're available.

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  24. Windsor Gaming ResourceAugust 14, 2012 at 2:22 PM

    As usual with these things it depends on the game. I would run a game of Marvel Heroic roleplaying with just me and one player, I would also run the same game with 8 players (and did at Free RPG day).

    For your more traditional fantasy RPGs I refuse to run with less than 4 players. To that end I usually gather a group of 6 or 7 gamers with the, usually realistic, expectation that only 4-5 of them will show up each session.

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  25. Bryan MullinsAugust 14, 2012 at 2:33 PM

    I usually dream of running a GM plus 3 game, and wind up with a GM plus 4 or 5 game. It hardly hurts my feelings though. =)

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  26. OmletAugust 14, 2012 at 6:43 PM

    Not so long ago I had 8-9 players in my games. Now I play with 4-5 players. At the beginning it was kinda hard to play with *that little* amount of players :D

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  27. CapheindAugust 14, 2012 at 7:16 PM

    Like everyone else my sweet spot tends to be less than ten but more than two. We used to run 20-30 player hack and slash dungeon crawls with two or three assistant GM's back in high school due to the dearth of kids who could/would GM.

    It was its own sort of fun, far less character development, far more camaraderie and grandiose battles. We used to have to break them into squads of five, each with a speaker to tell the GM what their squad decided to do.

    Had to stop when the group grew to 40+ kids and the school banned us from the library for filling it up every break and lunch-hour.

    In retrospect I wish I'd had a Copy of Tunnels & Trolls back then, its group combat would have come in handy.

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  28. The Raging ZephyrAugust 14, 2012 at 9:17 PM

    I like to play 4-6, and that's what I usually end up with.

    My preferred group size for DMing is 3-4, but it's rare that I get to play with that.

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  29. Dra8erAugust 15, 2012 at 12:19 AM

    5 to 8 players for a typical RPG game. I won't run anything over 8 players...

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  30. JonasAugust 15, 2012 at 2:31 AM

    It's pretty much everytime GM +4 players.

    I guess my DM'ing would start to break down after that if no drastic measures like callers would be implemented.

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  31. ElfshadowAugust 15, 2012 at 2:59 PM

    I prefer about 5 players in the group, plus the GM. That way we can have a player miss a game and it doesn't force us to miss a game.

    At this moment my current local group has 5 players and a GM and my online group has 5 players and a judge.

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  32. Boric GAugust 15, 2012 at 4:07 PM

    Tough one to answer accurately: my once-monthly group has been together for 12.5 years and numbers GM +5 or 6.
    However, for the past year I've been running a 3-4 times weekly GM +1 session with a buddy via the Internet.

    But I went ahead and stayed with the table-top group answer of 4-6.

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  33. Eldric IVAugust 15, 2012 at 8:05 PM

    I think 4-6 is my favorite, whether player or DM. Just 3 players can be good (my long-running game while in pharmacy school was 3 players) but I really like the dynamic of 5 people at the table.

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  34. sirkerryAugust 17, 2012 at 11:27 PM

    I consider 5 players and 1 GM ideal for my Savage Worlds games, it's large enough for some interesting social dynamics but small enough that the game flows quickly.

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  35. JimAugust 18, 2012 at 1:11 AM

    I've been at 6-8 players for about a year. I now have 10 players for this upcoming Weds night. Whew. :)

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  36. rorschachhamsterAugust 18, 2012 at 6:22 AM

    4-6 and sometimes seven.
    Thjere are seven players but as we play weekly at a set time, there are almost never all players there. Wich is fine for me, because seven is a lot...

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  37. Thomas MartinAugust 18, 2012 at 7:04 AM

    I luckily have two groups going on, my main group that primarily play for is 1 GM and 8 players and we primarily dungeon crawl in that group. With that many players, combat tends to be very slow. While I would expect a bit more interparty role play it hasn't really turned out that way.


    Then my other group I run for, is about 3-4 depending on who can make it that night. This group we are much more sandboxy and story based. Because most of these players started with 3.X, I get to relate stories about the "good old days of gaming" and some of the history of the hobby. I also to pull from my collection of modules more when the players throw me a curve ball. Which I love when they do.

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  38. Tim KnightAugust 18, 2012 at 11:04 AM

    We're managing an average of six round the table (inc. GM) once a month - with a couple of possibles who drop in (on rare occasions), which is really impressive for us these days.

    It's also (probably) the maximum we could fit comfortably in our dining room!

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  39. elricsAugust 18, 2012 at 12:39 PM

    My most frequent player group is my three daughters + me = four of us at the table.

    If we could attract 2-3 more players, that would be ideal...I think OSR games really hit their stride with 5-6 PCs plus about 2x that number of player-controlled henchmen/hirelings.

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  40. mwschmeerAugust 18, 2012 at 5:35 PM

    A group of 4 + GM is optimum for me. We can move quickly and don't get bogged down in too many split-the-party double action situations.

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  41. kvndv1August 18, 2012 at 5:50 PM

    In my college days, I ran an AD&D campaign off campus at a friend's house...said friend being somewhat immature for his age. Please keep this in mind with what I am about to relate...
    We played in the basement, and there was an average of 8 gamers, one female included. The campaign ran for nearly two years, but was derailed when I made the mistake of letting the host's Ranger character have the equivalent of Elric's STORMBRINGER in a specially tailor-made sword. I shortly thereafter got a severe cold and was out of action for a few weeks. When I had completely recovered, I tried to get the others together to resume play, and was told the gaming group had broken up because the Ranger had become intolerable because of the sword and the other players ganged up on his character and tried to kill him. The ranger squeaked through, but the AD&D get-together was kaput. Live and learn....

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  42. RogerAugust 18, 2012 at 5:51 PM

    For my limited abilities, 4 players is the highest I like to go.

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  43. waywardwayfarerAugust 19, 2012 at 3:01 PM

    Our usual group is myself as DM, plus my brother, his wife, their two daughters, my sister, and occasionally my wife. So, 5-6 players, which seems to run pretty smoothly.

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  44. McWiegAugust 19, 2012 at 11:41 PM

    I've discovered that the more PCs are at the table, the less I care about them individually. I think six PCs is my absolute limit, though I prefer five.

    One silver lining about having six, though: if you get two cancellations, you still have a group big enough to play.

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  45. JoshuaAugust 20, 2012 at 8:37 AM

    Four players would be considered my favored number. For the last year however, my typical game has had two to three players though, so this is the option I've picked.

    ReplyDelete

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