The thread about small groups made me suddenly wonder how big the average group was, these days. Three? Four? Six? Ten?

How many Runners does your group have?

Two in mine, currently hunting for more.

I'm doing one with one.

Typically I do 2-4, three or four is pretty ideal. Five is pushing it.

...for the Rhapsody in Shadow team we have five

For the SR4 campaign that alternates every other week with Rhapsody we have four

the last group I played with we had 13...
but looking for a new group that one is well...bad...

My longest running SR game had 6.

My 3rd Ed groups hovered around 6 as well.

At one point I had a group of 22 players. Before you freak out I have to tell you that they didn't all show up for every run. Basicly a run would be availbile and some would turn it down others wouldn't. And some wouldn't be able to make it to the game. This was in college so I was running a game Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights with the same general pool of players. It became a nightmare to keep track of everything after a while but it was fun while it lasted.

Right now I'm slowly putting together a 4th ed game and don't yet know the player numbers.

Usually it's 4.
Occasionally a 5th will join.

Back in the glory days of university - we had eight hard-core players and one single long-running campaign. GM duties rotated. Average all-day Saturday turnout was 6 or 7. That was table-top.

Now that I can only play here - the game I run started out with 12 one-person games, coalesced into two games of 6 and 4 (we lost two players).

A bit lopsided right now, but give me some time....

Historical facts aside - I think six is a MAX, but 3-5 optimal. Higher end of that if they are low-power characters.

My old group had 6 and my new one has 4, so far.

The best group I was ever involved with was 8.

Then I had to go and move to Forida where gamers are in short supply as far as Shadowrun goes.

Thankfully I found 3 guys that seem to be really good at being available every other week. There is an additional guy who is present maybe once every 2 months really wish he was more interested.

Then there are my days at Sci-Fi City where I do commando stuff that looks like it might take off with 3 to 5 players. Not to sure right now as this months game was the first time anyone showed up so heres hopeing for a good sized group.

the group I play with theirs three of us counting the GM but we are always looking for more people. used to have 5 but with work getting in the way of play time and famly...damn them work and famly grrrr heheh

Way back in 1st/2nd edition and long running game, had 8-12, currently group has gone through some changes but has settled in now at 5-6.

6 is my prime number, but I've gamed with groups as big as 24 (i'm insane that way)

Four to five is best. Three is possible with NPCs joining the team as needed. Six is the limit.

Something to consider when putting together a team is the complexity of communications among the group. Two people have one line of communication. Three people have three, four people have six, five people have ten, six have fifteen. Most people can only keep track of seven or so things at once (each person is somewhere between four and ten).

Ever been to a party or at a restaurant with a lot of people? Conversations tend to break down if there are too many people involved. When large conversations start, they tend to break down into conversations of two, three, or four if no system of order is imposed on the entire group.

I have three players. Talk of 2 more coming maybe.

five players total with two dual-GMing. it works quite well so long as the PCs are varied enough. at the moment, we have three cybered gunbunnies and one mage. >< i'm going to crack some eggs in chargen for the next campaign, as i feel we have to have a competent hacker/technomancer and a face.

Five Runners in My Group.

1. Human Adept (Male) - 8 Edge - Faceman
2. Human Adept (Female) - Monowhip - Muscle
3. Elven Mage (Female)
4. Human (Female) - Thief
5. Human (Female) - Street Sam.

No Hacker or Technomancer currently but they have 3 different Contacts for that if they need it.

My last group was 4 people, and then a 5th joined for the last few months of the campaign. I'd really like to put together a 2 or 3 player group. I just think a small group works really well in Shadowrun. I especially like the idea of a hacker, a mage, and a point man.

I've run other games (ad&d Darksun to be exact) with as many as 8 players, but the game needed to be fairly rules light and the story had to be pretty straight forward to keep things moving.

I'm starting a 3rd Edition game tomorrow and my group is starting off with 4 with a fifth joining us shortly as he can't make tomorrow due to Father's Day. Now in this group, we have no decker and the group's face character is the one that will be absent. And it's only 50/50 that we'll have a rigger (one player can't decide between a rigger and a mage/detective and I'm trying to subtly push him to play the Dresden character). Personally, I'm glad. I love deckers, but they slow things down and a rigger will spend a good chunk of the game sitting doing nothing and then doing everything while everyone else sits and watches (and shouts "They're right behind us! Turn right!" "No, turn left!" "Speed up!" "No no, slow down and take the I-5! The loop will be packed this time of day!" "Are we there yet?").

I have, however, run a group for the cancer-causing game with 17 people for one session. Everyone's either fighting for the spotlight or just sitting quietly waiting for their turn. And you know how every session you have, at least one player will do something incredibly stupid to screw everything up for everyone else? Now that once or twice a session is with four or five players. The number goes up DRASTICALLY the more players you have and at 17, they were going friggin' nuts with all the stupid mistakes they were making.

The Abstruse One

I have a group playing by Skype at the moment.
In theory there are 9 people invited to the game.
2 of them are on hiatus, leaving 7 who might actually attend any given session.
Out of that, I get between 4-6 per session.
In the past, my face-to-face groups are typically in the 3-5 range.

5 is probably ideal for me. 3 is good too. For some reason odd numbers tend to yield more interesting group dynamics. 5 is party time though. It just seems like the right size for cliques, backstabbing, and the feeling that one or more people are expendable.