How many PCs have you had in one session?

[Tech]

The topic name says it all. We've all had different amounts of players in our games, and the same applies to the number of player characters in a game session. So, what's the most amount of player characters you've ever had in one game session? I was going to make this a poll but had a technical problem with it, so back to this just being a thread.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think it was 10, teaching people Hero at a game store.  Anything over 6 for me gets out of control and is difficult to keep on track.  To many side conversations and distractions, things go too slowly.

[Killer Shrike]

10 or 11, for a short period of time, during the year or so I was running D&D 3e after it was released. I can't even remember all the players...various players brought other players and significant others into the group and suddenly we had too many. I felt like less the GM and more the Ringmaster. I pared that group down to 8, which was a size I was comfortable running at back in the day. These days I prefer exactly 2 players, or between 3-6 players and will run a different style of play based on the actual number. The main problem with large groups is there is an increasing % that at least one player will be unable to make any given session, and within a session there is proportionately less time for each player to take focus. 

[Tech]

A couple Saturdays ago, I did an episode with 28 characters in it, composing four superteams. It was a friendly contest set up by the city in a stadium, composed of various tests. The heroes got to duel each other, instead of supervillains. Of course, near the end, Terror Inc brought 10 villains along with them, most of them supervillain assassins. As GM, I was secretly concerned that the heroes might lose, given such villains as Mechassassin, Taipan, etc, considering a few could take on an entire superteam by themselves. Well, there was no need for concern: the dice didn't like the villains and loved the heroes. About 5 out of the 14 villains managed to escape after getting beat on. The heroes trounced the villains, came out looking very heroic, and the crowd got to see superheroes cut loose.

[massey]

I think we once had a game with like 5 or 6 players, and each player had multiple characters they were running.  It was a "wrap up the campaign" type adventure, like Avengers: Endgame, where we brought in the PCs of people who had dropped out of the game much earlier.  We probably had about 20 PCs and former PCs on the field at once.

[Barton]

At GENCON and ORIGINs  conventions years back I ran a Hero 5th edition melee game, two groups of players vs. each other. It was to teach new players. If I remember correctly the max was 14.

It went very well, a big battle mat, lots of minis, simple setup [do a bank robbery at night, stop a bank robbery at night]. A important thing was pre-generated characters from each archtypes [two of each each side could only have one of each archtype] at 250 points and power point limits. I had character sheets and two page how to guide for each player.

It was fun.

Especially when the players figured out "change dance partners" tactic. 

 

[Sketchpad]

I just came off a weekend game that was ran over three days and had around 13 people each day playing (and not all the same players). I think my record is in the upper 20s for an old D&D game I ran many moons ago.

[Scott Ruggels]

The Fantasy Hero playtest back in 1983-84 was 15-18 players every Sunday, run by Doug Garrett. Game started at Noon, ended at 10, with a one hour dinner break at 6pm. After the game was released, the player size increased to 22 for a while. But over a couple of years, dropped to a core 12 or 14. Campaigns changed out every two or three years, and only ended when Doug took a job in Japan, and stayed there in 1997. I still regard Doug as one of the finest GMs, I have run under. 

 

Myself , the largest group was 12, regularly, at conventions, and also was Fantasy Hero. But generally at home it was around 8. For 6-8 hours on weekends, and around 4 hours On weeknights. For other game systems, it tended to be 5-6. 

[megaplayboy]

I don't recall entirely, maybe around 9-12 people.  My recommendation for GMing groups larger than 8 or 9 is to use a "co-GM" to keep things running smoothly.

[Spence]

For myself the most I can remember was 7 (or maybe 8?).  My personal preference is 2-5.

 

One time back in the 80's when I was in A school (and dead broke like all Navy Airmen at that time) we played wargames and RPG's every weekend in the rec hall.  We had a group of about 20 regular players.  Deitz was our go to Champions GM and he and two assistants ran a marathon game that started Friday evening and ended Sunday morning when they kicked us out at 11:30am.  Everyone played from the big all in battle to multiple smaller sessions spread across the 3 GMs simultaneously.   Massive loads of fun but a nightmare for the GM's.  Luckily all of the players were familiar the rules and most of us had GM'd, the GM's didn't have to explain rules during play.  Plus it was before the portable device age so on table distractions were minimal.  Of course the house rule was "if you were not ready to act, your character held their phase and you were skipped until the next segment."    This has a remarkable property of keeping the players attention on the battle.  Of course that particular house rule wasn't used with new players, but once you were seasoned

Edited June 4, 2019 by Spence
making coherant sentances, maybe

[Duke Bushido]

10 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

I don't recall entirely, maybe around 9-12 people.  My recommendation for GMing groups larger than 8 or 9 is to use a "co-GM" to keep things running smoothly.

 

 

That.  So very much that right there.

 

The biggest I've done consistently is around a dozen-- usually shorter runs (four or five sessions-long adventures) an _boom_!  Everyone wants in.   I tend to _prefer_ groups of a couple of sizes: newer players, I like three to five.  Experienced players (system irrelevant.  Except Aftermath.  I like exactly _two_ players in Aftermath, especially if we're using hit locations and all the other options)

I like between four and eight, with five-to six feeling just about ideal.  Four feels a tiny bit thin for some reason.  Honestly, I think it's interaction-- in-game interaction, I mean. For me, it adds _so much_ to the depth of the game, and for reasons I don't get, groups of five to eight people seem to be more willing to dialogue with one another.  Four and under tend to do the "my guy does this and tells this guy that he should whatever."  Not unacceptable, of course, but not what I groove on.

 

Like Shrike above, I have all-too-often run into the "one guy can't make it" thing, and it's irritating as all get-out, particularly since I'm running three different games at the moment, one of which features a 90-minute commute each way.  I have, over the years, found a way to sort of make it a non-issue in _most_ cases, but when you get to the crescendo of the story, it's still an issue.  What I do is something of a compromise, since I've always preferred to end on... well, not a cliff-hanger, per se (though seriously: I love those ), but at one of those "Hunh?!"  or "this can't be the stopping place" moments.  Not only does it give me the perfect place to evaluate the action thus far and interject any changes for the next session's plans, but it tends too keep the players' interest during the time between games.

 

But I don't do it often anymore.  These days I prefer to end the story at a "characters all separate from each other" moment: Flying Guy has to leave because this is his weekend with the kids; Grim Avenger Man has found an interesting clue he wants to investigate; Mighty Lass is facing a deadline at work; Surf Ninja Dude realizes he needs to do a little extra training for his lesser-used moves-- whatever.  You know: those moments that lead to threads that your players off-table in their-- sorry;  Champions board; Champions parlance: Bluebook stuff.  You know.

 

I can't say I _like_ this approach, but it minimizes the damage done by players who can't show up. If Surf Ninja Dude can't make the next session, no harm done: he's still off in Narnia learning to focus his whatever it is he needs to focus.  Flying Guy's son wants to stay an extra few days to discuss some things with Dad.  Mighty Lass's completion of the herculean company-wide policy assessment has led to her being detained in meeting after meeting for the next several days---

 

The game can go on without random unexplained absences.  The absences are there, but they don't interrupt things.  And if the player takes the time to do a little off-table play to story-out the absence, they might even pick up an EP, maybe 2.  The game continues.

 

The drawback to this is having to have three or four possible "let's all break up" points every night; something you can work in at "a good time" late in the session.  And of course, sometimes you have to stretch the session a bit or cut it short a bit simply because the perfect opportunity is "right now" or "right after the next__."

 

So anyway...  The question I think was geared toward "largest head count ever."  If I recall, my largest headcount ever was about 16 for a one-shot.  I had concluded a game with one group two weeks prior, and was working toward "the stunning conclusion" of a game with a second group.  Five of the first group volunteered to play "guest characters" in the battle-royale that would be the culmination of the second group's game (one volunteered to both play a villain and help me run the thing).  Bad timing placed a college class reunion ( not my class) one the same weekend and brought a _lot_ of my old players near me, and several of them looked me up.  They offered to sit in and play NPC characters as well-- a couple were heroes (keep in mind these were not GMPCs; they were "lesser" heroes that the players had helped in a significant way at some point earlier in the campaign, and now that the Big Bads were all aligned against the players, these lesser NPC heroes were on the scene to even the odds and repay their debts) -- At any rate, all the NPC heroes had their own players, and several of the villains did as well. I _won't_ say the game was an absolute mess, because it really wasn't, but-- given the nature of HERO system combat, it was _slooooowwww.....    It was a success, though, as everyone was so jazzed about the oddity of the situation, and many of my friends had not met each other previously, and of course-- good triumphed spectacularly at the last minute, and everyone had a great time.                  But oh my God.....   _so_ _slooooooooowwww_..........

 

 

[theinfn8]

I ran a weekly open table Shadowrun event at the FLGS for about a year and a half. Player count could range from a couple up to about ten, swinging with little to no warning. Got orders to deploy, so I scheduled the final event. Word got around and I think the table hit about 16 players as people came to play one more time before I left. Heart-warming and a freaking nightmare for combat.

 

Private games, I stick to around 4 players normally. Granted, I used the open table as a means to meet people and build a group I wanted to game with. Still playing with those guys. So, mission successful I guess.

[Tjack]

    I wasn’t a player in it but I used to run a game down the hall (we used to play in classrooms after hours) from a long running D&D game with an average count of ten players, give or take two or three of any given night.

    When the combat scenes would come up players could take their action go out for dinner and if they came right back, be there to make their next action.

[Killer Shrike]

6 hours ago, Spence said:

Of course the house rule was "if you were not ready to act, your character held their phase and you were skipped until the next segment."    This has a remarkable property of keeping the players attention on the battle.  Of course that particular house rule wasn't used with new players, but once you were seasoned

 

I still use this table rule. Decide or hold.

[Killer Shrike]

6 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Like Shrike above, I have all-too-often run into the "one guy can't make it" thing, and it's irritating as all get-out, particularly since I'm running three different games at the moment, one of which features a 90-minute commute each way.  I have, over the years, found a way to sort of make it a non-issue in _most_ cases, but when you get to the crescendo of the story, it's still an issue.  What I do is something of a compromise, since I've always preferred to end on... well, not a cliff-hanger, per se (though seriously: I love those ), but at one of those "Hunh?!"  or "this can't be the stopping place" moments.  Not only does it give me the perfect place to evaluate the action thus far and interject any changes for the next session's plans, but it tends too keep the players' interest during the time between games.

 

But I don't do it often anymore.  These days I prefer to end the story at a "characters all separate from each other" moment: Flying Guy has to leave because this is his weekend with the kids; Grim Avenger Man has found an interesting clue he wants to investigate; Mighty Lass is facing a deadline at work; Surf Ninja Dude realizes he needs to do a little extra training for his lesser-used moves-- whatever.  You know: those moments that lead to threads that your players off-table in their-- sorry;  Champions board; Champions parlance: Bluebook stuff.  You know.

 

I can't say I _like_ this approach, but it minimizes the damage done by players who can't show up. If Surf Ninja Dude can't make the next session, no harm done: he's still off in Narnia learning to focus his whatever it is he needs to focus.  Flying Guy's son wants to stay an extra few days to discuss some things with Dad.  Mighty Lass's completion of the herculean company-wide policy assessment has led to her being detained in meeting after meeting for the next several days---

 

The game can go on without random unexplained absences.  The absences are there, but they don't interrupt things.  And if the player takes the time to do a little off-table play to story-out the absence, they might even pick up an EP, maybe 2.  The game continues.

 

Yeah, exactly. Rather than be character driven, the campaign becomes working around the logistics of having too many people and trying to stitch together a patchwork narrative from whoever happens to show up next session. The pacing is entirely different.

 

I like running my campaigns around the players in it; not knowing what characters will show up week to week makes it incredibly irritating for me to lay story down.

[Greywind]

I've run games that numbered from 1 player to too many.

[massey]

6 hours ago, Greywind said:

I've run games that numbered from 1 player to too many.

 

Depending on the player, sometimes one is too many.

[BoloOfEarth]

My current Champions campaign has 7 players, which is the most I've run consistently.  (I'm more comfortable with 5 players, but what can you do?)

 

I played in (but didn't run) a D&D game with, IIRC, about 20 players.  Very chaotic, definitely not cooperative (there were several factions), and eventually the GM got sick and tired of all the infighting and pulled a "rocks fall, everyone dies" moment to end the campaign and restart fresh.  I dropped out of that game after that (as I was also sick of the infighting and didn't think a fresh start was going to make a real difference based on some of the players' personalities).

 

 

[Spence]

19 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

not knowing what characters will show up week to week makes it incredibly irritating for me to lay story down.

 

This.   I prefer running games that are more than "travel, kill stuff, take treasure, repeat".  I like to run investigative games like GUMSHOE and CoC.  I like to carry this same investigative nature into a supers game.  It is not just one endless brawl. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

 

Of course the house rule was "if you were not ready to act, your character held their phase and you were skipped until the next segment."    This has a remarkable property of keeping the players attention on the battle.

 

 

I'll give people a reasonable amount of time to figure out something to react to something that just changed (like the previous segment some creature is stunned or dropped that they meant to target, etc), then if they cannot, they are holding their phase until they can think of something to do.  If they cannot by the time their next phase comes up, then they did nothing. 

 

This rule came up because we had a literal nuclear physicist who worked on the Hanford Reactor on his summer break from college who played a speedster.  This was the worst possible choice for the guy because he was incredibly hesitant to act and would be very indecisive whenever his NINE phases came up per turn.  He held a lot (honestly I think he was so damned brilliant that he was suffering from paralysis of having too many options.  He should have played a slow brick with few powers).

 

It works pretty well though, because then you aren't penalizing people for being uncertain or unready but still keep the game moving reasonably well.

[BoloOfEarth]

I've often skipped over players who had stepped out of the room just before their action came up (e.g. go to the bathroom, or upstairs to get a drink refill), particularly when the next character's action is unlikely to affect that player's character. 

 

If the player is surfing Facebook or otherwise wasting time on their PC or smartphone when their Phase comes up, however, they get no mercy for being unprepared.

[ghost-angel]

I currently GM a group in D&D5E of nine players, most of them show up at every session so it's almost always all 9. It works very well and the whole group is engaged.

 

I've played at a table with like 10,  which went pretty well, though things took a while to do. It was D&D4E which is not designed for a group that size and it showed.

 

And once we tried a big Champions Brawl of 20, it went badly - too much noise.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

If the player is surfing Facebook or otherwise wasting time on their PC or smartphone when their Phase comes up, however, they get no mercy for being unprepared.

 

Yeah people messing around on devices, they just lost their phase, no "held phase" you rude bastard.

[Duke Bushido]

5 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

If the player is surfing Facebook or otherwise wasting time on their PC or smartphone when their Phase comes up, however, they get no mercy for being unprepared.

 

Similar to the ever-popular "decide or hold" rule, I will completely ignore any character whose player is toying with a phone or other distraction from the game.  I mean skip right over them when their Phase comes around and they haven't notice to the (possibly petty, but I don't have to do it too many times to get the point across) point of tracking how many phases / turns / game hours they were "distracted" and continuing to ignore / skip over them for that same amount of time after they "come back to the game."

 

Particularly when I have a well-established "unless you're on-call, phones off at game time" rule.

 

I will make exceptions for he guy who misses one Phase because he was ordering a couple of pizzas.

 

 

[Greywind]

One of the main reasons I hate smart phones. More than happy to have a flip-phone still.