Number of players in BW

[jb.teller4]

(Sorry if this is the wrong forum--I wasn't sure which to use)

From your experience, what would you say is the ideal number of players for a BW game? The maximum? (I've heard solo games work well, so I don't need to ask the minimum.)

Some games work pretty well with large or small groups, but some games really bog down with more players. I haven't played BW yet, but my guess is that it does better with relatively fewer players. Is that true?

Thanks,
-John

[mtiru]

From your experience, what would you say is the ideal number of players for a BW game? The maximum?

Hi John -

As a GM, my ideal group is four players. Five works too. More than five and I feel as if someone is always being left out.

Good luck!

[Thor Olavsrud]

I think the BW sweetspot is a GM and 1 to 4 players. Five players still works quite well.

The experience starts degrading after that as screen time starts to be an issue. Rachel (EarthenForge here ) is running her Taranis game with something like nine players. That seems like a nightmare to me, but she gets consistently great results judging by her actual plays.

My personal favorite is 4 players, which is few enough that you still get a substantial amount of screen time, and just enough that you can really squeeze a lot of juice out of the Helping rules.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hi John -

As a GM, my ideal group is four players. Five works too. More than five and I feel as if someone is always being left out.

Good luck!

Jinx!

[RedBoxer]

My current group is running with 4 players and two GMs. The two GMs take turns with NPCs, and also give a chance for them to talk amongst themselves in the player's presence without it seeming terribly weird. Past games have been more traditional with 1 GM and 4 players in the 2 circumstances.

[EarthenForge]

Yeah, I was doing 9 players (plus me) for a while. We're now down to 7 players, and honestly - it's not much different. I think once you hit 6 players or more, it's just a matter of more ridgedly applying good GMing techniques, like cutting back and forth when scenes go long, and being sure that everyone gets screen time, even if they're not pushing for it. Larger groups also require more cooperation between players. They need to be a little more patient and work more to include themselves in each other's scenes. That doesn't mean though, that the characters need to be BFF. Our game involves a lot of inter-party interaction, sometimes with quite moments, and sometimes heated arguments. Yeah, Inter-party stuff becomes more important in a large group so that everyone gets more time. One really nice thing about a large group is that several people can not show up and you'll still have plenty of people to play. :D We've been gaming together for a year now, and have played together almost every single week. Not having to cancel means the momentum never fizzles.

That said, I wouldn't recommend a large group. My group is proof that you can make it work, but if I were to form my own BW group from scratch, 4 would be my dream number.

[Caesar_X]

I was so impressed with Luke's posts about his one-on-one games, that I ran a mini-campaign with myself and two players.

We got into some really intense play because everything revolved around their characters. But the characters certainly weren't buddy-buddy; in fact they didn't trust each other at all the first few sessions!

[jb.teller4]

Thanks for the replies.

From most the other games I've played recently, I'd say 4 was my sweetspot, so I'm not surprised to hear the same about BW. Six months ago I was running a campaign with 8 players and it was okay but the number of players really impacted the game, I thought.

Now I'm trying to decide between four and five players for the BW game I'm going to be starting soon. The fifth player is a long-time player, but has been really unreliable in attendance and half-hearted when she's there lately. Also, I don't think she's a great match for BW anyway. She's explicitly said that she just wants to sit back and have the GM create situations, and then react to them (we've been playing FATE, which has a similar push and mechanics to give players more "co-authorship") and she really isn't interested in learning rules for any game, prefering to ask the other players what she should do in character creation and in rules situations in play. So I'll probably cap the campaign at 4 and nicely explain why I'm not inviting her. I don't think it'll be a big issue (she's also said lately that she views rp-ing only as a chance to hang out and doesn't really care about the games anymore), but effectively not inviting her is still uncomfortable.

-John

[stormsweeper]

The fifth player is a long-time player, but has been really unreliable in attendance and half-hearted when she's there lately. Also, I don't think she's a great match for BW anyway. She's explicitly said that she just wants to sit back and have the GM create situations, and then react to them (we've been playing FATE, which has a similar push and mechanics to give players more "co-authorship") and she really isn't interested in learning rules for any game, prefering to ask the other players what she should do in character creation and in rules situations in play. So I'll probably cap the campaign at 4 and nicely explain why I'm not inviting her. I don't think it'll be a big issue (she's also said lately that she views rp-ing only as a chance to hang out and doesn't really care about the games anymore), but effectively not inviting her is still uncomfortable.

My advice is just to talk about this with her. BW is a game that requires a lot of player investment in the system and premise. It doesn't sound from this description that she's going to be into it, but who knows. Communication is key in any relationship, gaming or otherwise.

[Saphim]

For me personally the sweetspot is me + 3 players. I am going to try out pbp with 7 players now (as a player) and I am curious about how that medium handles that.

About your problem. Talk to her, be upfront and let her make an informed decision. If she is really up for it and motivated to play the game then well... I think a motivated player is always an asset to the group and the game!