More thoughts about Mi Gran Sueno (and a post-gaming report)
In reverse order of the title, last night we played another session of J Evans' Mass Effect RPG (a home-grown affair using the Cortex+ rules. You should totally ask him about it!) We were missing no less than four players from the group, meaning we had a modest three players.
Which reminded me about how good it is to only have three players. Our group's large size has continually been a problem. Trying to occupy the attention of even six, much less seven people, poses a challenge. It's compounded by where we have currently been playing, because the table layout is pretty spread out. So having three players meant that all three were pretty engaged; the smart phones stayed in pockets and everyone contributed.
Even before this, I had considered the possibility of trying to find some way of limiting the size of the gaming group without offending people. One thing I considered was running a game more frequently than I normally do (say, weekly) and offering slots for people to sign up. You could, for example, sign up for two slots a month with five slots per session. That way a potential player could sign up around his schedule, but there would still be enough slots for everyone hopefully to get a game in once a month. You could theoretically manage ten players that way. The downside would be if a player's personal life ran up against a full schedule, in which case I would hope people could negotiate. If the group was fluid enough you would also be able to play at least once with everyone in the group once a month.
That would mean, almost by necessity, that I would have to do a sandbox game, which lends itself to two of my favorite genres: fantasy and superheroes. I could see a sort of "adventurer's club" format where a group continues to explore a large megadungeon or wilderness, or alternatively for supers a sort of "Arkham City" where people wander around resolving different quests. Time to think...
And as always, opinions welcome.
Which reminded me about how good it is to only have three players. Our group's large size has continually been a problem. Trying to occupy the attention of even six, much less seven people, poses a challenge. It's compounded by where we have currently been playing, because the table layout is pretty spread out. So having three players meant that all three were pretty engaged; the smart phones stayed in pockets and everyone contributed.
Even before this, I had considered the possibility of trying to find some way of limiting the size of the gaming group without offending people. One thing I considered was running a game more frequently than I normally do (say, weekly) and offering slots for people to sign up. You could, for example, sign up for two slots a month with five slots per session. That way a potential player could sign up around his schedule, but there would still be enough slots for everyone hopefully to get a game in once a month. You could theoretically manage ten players that way. The downside would be if a player's personal life ran up against a full schedule, in which case I would hope people could negotiate. If the group was fluid enough you would also be able to play at least once with everyone in the group once a month.
That would mean, almost by necessity, that I would have to do a sandbox game, which lends itself to two of my favorite genres: fantasy and superheroes. I could see a sort of "adventurer's club" format where a group continues to explore a large megadungeon or wilderness, or alternatively for supers a sort of "Arkham City" where people wander around resolving different quests. Time to think...
And as always, opinions welcome.
To me, it might work in terms of game and planning, but I'm not sure I'd like that type of game as much. The players might lose out on some of the social aspect - or find that they are trying to work harder to see someone who has an different schedule or "group shopping" for the team they want. Plus, if I was leading it, I'm not sure I'd be able to (or want to) commit to doing it every week indefinitely. I think maybe for 3 months or so, with s break built in or something.
ReplyDeleteEvery week is probably way too often, and I'd get burned out. It's funny--Scott mentioned the possibility of people self-selecting groups based on who they liked more too. I'm also probably WAY overestimating the group size: one player hasn't been there in some time, while another couple (you know who they are) are likely going to find it harder and harder to make sessions. That means I'm really down to a handful of people, three of them children.
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