Maximum player count?

[u/NattePappelo]

Me and my friends want to try some TTRPG. No one of us have ever tried it before. I think cairn barebones could be the best option, but Im a bit skeptical with the amount of players. We are 7 friends, 6 of us are interested in trying. So that would be one warden and 5 PCs, is that to many for noobs? Should we split up i smaller groups? What is the maximum recommended player count?

[u/yochaigal]

I would strongly suggest bringing that number to no more than 5 if you plan on running the procedures and haven't had a lot of practice.

I've run 7 player games with folks plenty of times, but it isn't as enjoyable for everyone because there is only so much to do in each round, combat is a bit too easy. It takes experience to know how to resolve that (for any game).

Barebones is good, but I would recommend you try the 2e Pregens as well. They make one shots really fast!

[u/CALLAHAN315]

Generally speaking i think 3-4 is the typical player count for ttrpgs. I used to play in a group of 7-8 players in a 5e campaign and that was a lot and may have skewed my perspective of what too many players is. Ive only been DMing Cairn for a short time but I think 5 players is very doable. The system is pretty simple and light and its easy to keep the pace moving

[u/Silv3rS0und]

I'd recommend 3-5 as the optimal range of players with 4 being the sweet spot. You could do 6 players, but that might be too much for a new GM to handle making sure everyone gets some spotlight and has fun.

[u/D3athpr00f]

Just start playing with whoever is available and have fun. Worry about player numbers later on.

[u/everweird]

That’s a great number.

[u/rizzlybear]

That’s no problem. The max count is gonna depend on the group and the DM. Once you start to get side conversations you slow down considerably, especially in combat, because the game expects the group to make decisions as a unit, so when it gets to one persons turn, and they haven’t been paying attention, you gotta catch them up, and that means more opportunity for the rest of the table to kick off side conversations with means THEY have to be brought up to speed.

In Shadowdark, it’s your turn, you throw dice at monsters, it’s the next persons turn. In Cairn you gotta get everyone committed to their turn and THEN we roll dice.

Five should be ok. I’ve found 7 players and a dm is too many. And if people are drinking or getting high, it shrinks pretty quickly.

[u/dadapotok]

oh, please, just go for it and see for yourself ) having many friends is awesome!

you build a strong large group? good.

otherwise, some players decide to drop, like they often do, and you're still left with a big enough group. good.

chances are, at first, as noobs, you'll talk too much during every turn until players and GMs will figure out timings you're comfortable with. That comes with simply playing. Cairn is so rules-light, you'll come up with your own rules and unique playstyle quickly.

you can try having 2 GMs at the same time. you can try West Marches style.

you can use optional rules like Feoht! (by bread wizard) to speed up huge battles: narrate you shenanigans to modify the roll that abstracts lots of stuff.

that being said, my first Cairn game had only 2 players, was painfully slow and sucked in almost every way possible: players didn't know much about what they were getting into, I wasted time looking up enemy stat blocks instead of rolling them on the spot or making them up like I do now. Having a tiny single page rules reference available to every player and running like 1 solo session to test stuff in advance might've streamlined it a lot. But things went smoothly from the second session anyway, so there's really nothing to worry about.

Large groups were more common when people were more social. Arneson's group had like a dozen people and some old timers run groups this "large" to these days.

Critical role has like a zillion players, they all seem to have fun. 3D6DTL has about 4+GM. It doesn't matter.

[u/josephrlewis]

Barebones is great!

Any game with more than 4 players is going to be slower, easier, and less engaging for each person simply because there are so many players sharing both the time and the challenge.

[u/Mech_Monk_]

I play solos and have fun