Other What's your "Comfortable Number" in a Group . . .

[Heavenchi]

By your "Comfortable Number," I mean the number of people in an RP that you find easy to deal/interact with. So the question is,
"How many people do you prefer to be in an RP you make/join?" Also- Why?

For me personally, I like to have rather large groups. The previous place I RPed had on AVERAGE, twelve people per group.
My idea of a large group is about seven people plus, so I'd say seven is my comfortable number. Why? Because it allows for numerous areas in the world to be elaborated on while also offering a different array of interactions my OC can have. So in short, seven is my comfortable number, regardless if I make or join the RP.

Just curious about other RPers thoughts on the matter, much love ~ Heaven
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[Onmyoji]

Something around 3-5 people.
Three feels almost like 1x1. Five seems good for a lot of interaction and not overwhelming. Although it depends.

My biggest turnoff in group rp is when people don't care about posting order and do their thing without caring about other characters. The smaller the group is, the less bad experience.

But I rarely play in groups now. My only group has 11 people and it's extremely well organized. And even then I find it a bit overwhelming at times.

 

[marshmarrow]

A few years ago I would have said an intimate 4 for an adventure, but now I lean toward 6-8 people to (hopefully) allow for more diversity. When I'm not the GM, I allow myself to join roleplays that can have upwards of 10 people, but I am completely honest when I say I don't bother to know every single detail about every single character. I just memorize the basics and learn more as my character interacts with each of them.

That's the plan, at least. Many big RP's I happen to join tend to die off, but I have seen some flourish because of their numbers; someone's always interested enough to rally up everyone else or recruit new members.

 

[Elise Ebele]

I find y’all guys’ reasons so interesting.

My ideal number is from 5 to 8.

two years ago I would have said that more the merrier, but I’ve learned that quite frankly, you dont need so many people. I’ve always preferred active rp’s where I could expect to write a good five or more replies a day, or maybe more if it was short responses. That was mainly because I was super homeschooled and literally didn’t have any thing better to do with my life...

In a rp with, lets say, 7, there would usually be 3 of us on every day, two us us on maybe once a day or every other day, and one pop-up person who would duck in and out for whatever reason. These ratios are usually simular no matter what numbers you have. But with this amount I think rp’ers and characters really get to know each other personally, and the rp is more fun. I don’t care too much about the size, just the number of active people.

 

[Shuusuke]

5 or 6 I'd guess would be mine. 3 feels too constricted, and isn't that different from a 1x1 (which I'm not really interested in) in my opinion, especially if 2 of them decide to lock out the third player. 4 is alright I suppose, but if just one of those backpedals, then we're back to semi-1x1, so there's still a big reliance on each player. I wouldn't immediately deny a 7+ for that alone, but it starts to feel saturated at that point. It might be hard to remember every character, it might be hard to manage the plot, it might challenge the pacing, more people mean more chances of someone backpedalling, IC cliques may form which may also lead to OOC cliques if it's bad enough, and it goes.

The importance of the number itself is only due to its effect on pacing and management though. If somehow there's an RP with 3 or 20+ players that flows well, keeps things interesting, and doesn't make anyone feel left out or cheated, that will matter more to me. It's just a bigger gamble, and I prefer avoiding that.

 

[Idea]

Hmmm... I don't really have a specific number of comfort. I think a group with around ten people is fine, five for a very close-nit group. I also do 1x1s so there's that, though I've handled bigger groups in roleplay, some of which were among my most successful RPs to date.

That said, I don't think I can have a very solid opinion on this until I can get a more concrete grasp of very small groups of 3-4 people at most, since I have never done one of those.

 

[Tove]

I haven't done group roleplay in a very long time but when I did and if I ever come back to it, highly unlikely, that comfortable number for me is three. Definitely no more than that. The posting order is sure to not get messed up, everyone would know when and who is up to post next.

By chance if one of the players needed downtime maybe there's a spot in the plot where myself and the other player can comfortably keep the story going without drowning our absent partner under pages of posts but at the same time they can jump back into without needing to do a whole lot of reading.

 

[Genkai]

My ideal is 3-5 other people so it's cozy but not overly so. When I used to GM/DM, anything else became a burden to the story for some reason.