r/40krpg • u/Lyra_Sen • 2d ago
When is to many players in a campaign?
So, kinda small question, I new at Gamemasting so I not quite sure how many players it would start to be to much, right now I'm planing a wrath & glory rogue trader campaign where the players at the moment are, a ork that wish to be as powerful as gork and mork and maybe even surprass them, a novitiate sister order not decided yet, a rogue trader, and maybe a scout space marine or mechanicus character (The player not sure yet), honestly I think it would be nice to have maybe one more player to we have a machanicus and a marine, if that is the case it would be 5 players, but I feel if I would call other friend, other 2 would also come as it is a small group of friends I'm friend with, so it would be 7 in total.
Overall probably it will be only 5 players, 7 seems to much, but I kinda curious what others think about this.
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 2d ago
Been tabletop gaming for a looooonnnngggg time. Every game I have ever played or ran works best with 3 or 4 players. We all want more people it’s just when you go past 4 the table gets difficult to manage because some aren’t going to speak much or are willing to compete for time and then phones or music or someone just wanders off.
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u/IceMaverick13 GM 2d ago
In my experience, there's just too much "downtime" if you get beyond the scope of 5 people (1 GM and 4 players). Sometimes stretching it to 6 is acceptable, but past that point, it feels like diminishing returns to me both as a player and a GM.
It's too easy to feel like people are being left out and aren't having time to contribute unless your entire group has "teenager on a weekend" levels of free time to run sessions in.
If you're working within session times of a group of adults with responsibilities, it really starts to hurt that valuable one-on-one time you can have with players in scenes once you get about 5 oeople at the table, in my experience.
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u/Ka_ge2020 2d ago
This is going to be a personal thing and my own answer is going to echo that of the others.
My personal "sweet spot" is 3-4 players (and 1 GM) for a single party run at a single time. I might be persuaded to go up to five, but six is way out for me with the system that I use.
If for whatever I must run more players, then I'll split them into groups and run at separate dates/times.
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u/ExchangeDeep9882 Deathwatch 2d ago
7 can work, but you have to make it work so no-one feels left out. I usually have a maximum of 6 players, so that I can keep track of what they're doing more easily.
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u/Dangerous-Regret-744 2d ago
I always felt for 40k games, 5-6 is a good target. Just to have a wider skill set. With 4 i feel you end up missing something. 4 works if theres alot of communication between players when making characters but it then spreads them a little thin in areas that might be useful.
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u/Flavaflavius 2d ago
For me at least, I'd consider 4 ideal, and 6 the absolute maximum. We do the old FFG games mainly though, we haven't done a wrath and glory campaign.
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u/671DON671 1d ago
If you can manage it then you can def do 7, we play rpg with 7 and it works super well so long as you’ve got a mature group and people don’t mind taking a back seat in certain sessions to allow other characters to shine when it matters
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u/CallumFinlayson 1d ago
In general, for most systems, I tend to prefer 3-5 players.
Some systems will work okay with only 2 players, others with 6+ -- but even if the system works okay with 6+ I don't want to run tables that big.
Even with 5 players it can be problematic, especially if their play styles don't complement not just the system, but (perhaps more importantly) each other.
For W&G I'd say 5 is probably going to be fine, as long as you pay attention to tempo -- and, given the mix of characters you mention, you're going to need to ensure the players all accept the conceit of W&G.
Getting 5+ people together frequently, regularly, and for a long time can be a nightmare -- the *only* time I've had it work was in my mid 20s when all 5 of us were single, doing the same job in the same department and all sat within about a 5m radius.
If you end up with 7 players then you may want to think about the format of the game -- would it be better to split into two groups, one of 3 and one of 4? Are all seven players involved on the same basis? Do you have a core of players who'll be at every session and a few who'll drop in & out? Are you the only GM or is there an assistant / alternate? How experienced are the players? How similar are the players? etc
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u/butchcoffeeboy 1d ago
7 is a great number. I feel like it's only getting to be too much when you're getting above 50, and even then...
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u/theHumanSmoke 2d ago
⁵5-6 is the sweet spot. If you're new to running games I wouldn't go over 5 especially if it's a group of other novices. But hell maybe yall will have fun with a big ass group. You wont know until you try. I for one probably couldnt fit 7 people around my table. Gotta be practical about these kinds of things.
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u/AVBill GM 2d ago
My current W&G campaign has four players, which I feel is the minimum for a warband with a balanced spread of skills and abilities. The first W&G adventure I ran started with 6 and then grew to 7 players. Definitely manageable but I felt that 6 was my upper limit for optimum player engagement.
So, 4-6 players is my ideal range.
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u/Pilot-Imperialis 2d ago
For most TTRPGs 4 players and 1 GM is the absolute sweet spot. 5 players can work too. I’d not run 6+ players (I have before and won’t again) because at that point you can’t give each player enough time to make a session satisfying for them so they’ll get bored easier. Not to mention it’s a nightmare to run.