Number of Players

[Scotty]

When I first started narrating, i had about 6 players. Each of them took a department head. It was hard and we eventually switched to DnD.

Now that I'm starting up fresh, I have 3 players. I was thinking of putting them as CO, Cheif Security and Science Head. That should give them lots of screen time.

What about other positions? NPC's for them all?

How do the rest of you do it? Lots or few players? How do you assign positions, etc.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Well I assign players depending upon what type of character they want to play. They pick, and I fit 'em in, whereever possible.

As far as numbers, well I'd say anything between 3 and 5 is an optimum number. We have 10 players in total, so tend to run with either 2 GMs in two groups, or run alternate adventures, and mix and match players.

Three should be a fair number for a game.

[Captain Zymmer]

My ideal group is 4 players

But my current group is 6 and I love them all, go figure.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

I have 4 players and whatever they feel they want they can get
On the most part though, they like to start at low lvls without being in charge of anyone and work their way up. Most of my campaigns started as "below deck" where they did menial tasks and had "unexpected events" happen to them.

[Paul]

My current group size is 4 players - Command, Medical, Operations and Security. I had a 5th player (Engineering), but other commitments forced his withdrawal from the games we are playing.

Like all the others, 3-5 is an ideal group size, with 6 being the largest you'd want to cope with. Any larger, and you start running into the problem of "What can I do so that no-one gets bored?"; any smaller than 3, and you get the problem of "What can I give them that they'll be able to achieve without using NPCs too much?"

[Michael Barratt]

My current Tabletop gives us:

* The CMO
* The Navigator
* A Science Officer (not the chief, not yet)
* A Tactical/Security Officer (not the chief, but 3rd in order)
* The Engineer's Mate (next up for promotion to Chief if he ever decides to move on, or should something happen to him (insert evil laugh)).

I'd really love to have an Ops officer and an XO, but we function just fine with those as NPCs (partly because it allows GM "override" on any given away mission cuz the XO is usually there, and on any given ship mission, cuz the Captain is usually there...)

One of those always reverts to semi-PC status and whoever runs that episode keeps their character that way, and plays the Captain. Does well. The CMO is mine...

The Doc

[CmdrBluejeans]

I currently play Troupe Style, with 4 players each playing a command or department head officer (CO, Chief Science Ofcr, CMO, and Ops Mgmt Officer), as well as one more junior officers, senior NCOs, or civilian advisors (between the same four players, 2 junior tactical/security officers, a junior social science officer, a junior engineer, and a Cardassian ex-smuggler who advises on the criminal bands of the region).

Before each session, I tell the players which players I *expect* to give screen time over the course of the session; the others get brief appearances, if at all.

It's worked surprisingly well. I also give each player a chance to guest narrate a session during which I play one of the major NPCs (XO, Security Chief, Transporter Chief, or a senior Engineering NCO) and wear the 'producer' hat only to help in continuity and background matters that come up in play.



BJ

[qerlin]

2 players. Normally one plays the captain, the other some other dept. head. I've had up to 4 players in the campaign at any time.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Our player breakdown is as follows:

Captain (and primary GM)
Science Division Admiral and Chief of Security (Assistant GM)
First Officer
Operations Officer
Tactical Officer
Engineering Officer
Diplomatic Officer
Mission Ops Officer
Junior Science Officer
Cardassian Security Officer/Obsidian Order agent (about to retire)

[Ineti]

The longest-lived campaign I was involved in broke down as follows:

Captain (co-GM)
XO (co-GM)
Chief of Sciences (PC)
Chief Engineer (PC)
CMO (PC) (when he showed up)

We had a couple other PCs show up from time to time; most players ever in one episode was nine. I'll never have 9 players in the same game again. It was a mad house.

Five players and myself is the best combination for me. It doesn't hurt if one of those other players also happens to be a GM.

[Scott MacGregor]

I would start by covering off each of the uniform colours / major fields (red, gold, blue - command, security, operations, engineering, medical, sciences). If you have a sufficiently large group of players you might want to specialize in particular skills (pilot, sensors, weapons (tactical), shuttle, transporter). These considerations might be tempered by the type of campaign that you anticipate running. As to the size of our game. I have been running for over two years, once a week, with an average of about seven players each week, though there are currently about ten or twelve player characters. The largest single session had nine player characters / players. I don't normally play unless someone else has taken over the GM role. Needless to say we are having a blast.

[Anarchy Bob]

I usually run games with 6 players no more no less.

It's a great number to fit around a table and it allow specialisation enough, without too much redudancy.

Can't explain why, but i find myself bored with less than 4 players. Weird quirk of mine i guess.

Oh and for those curious, i once ran a game of Star Wars RPG with 12 players. The trick there is to stay away from combat, focusing on activities that require one skill roll to resolve. Oh and setup an area with munchies and video games for those that aren't involved when the group is split up. And make them understand it's gonna work that way from the beginning.

[qerlin]

We're now up to 4-6 players. The reliable players have lead characters in dept. head positions (captain, tac, and CMO), while the others are more modular & can drop in and out of the adventure as need be.

[Keny Suda]

I'm new to the GM's seat, but I strongly favor a PC as CO.
Security/Tactical, Conn and perhaps Engineer are good positions to keep players busy (avoiding boredom).

Always disliked by many players of our group: Science.
It seems a position to far away from "the action", but if you are not concentrating on stories on intelligence, interstellar war etc they come in handy, because the players are much more demanded to find a solution by themselves. Our group likes to rely on NPCs very much : "Can't Lt Anyone do this for us? Afterall he IS our local capacity on Temporal Dynamics Inside Inverted Warp Shells...!"

Speaking of Temporal... ever had a player arguing with you about the CONSISTANCY of a time travel episode for one whole hour!!!

[First of Two]

My current players (when I can get them together) number 4, plus me. But we run 7 bridge-level characters, because I play 2 major NPC's, and one of my gamers plays 2 characters sumultaneously (she's very good). I used to only play 1 NPC, but my Klingon Engineer dropped out early on when he got a new job, married, and moved away all inside of one month.

I like small, living-room groups, and I likely wouldn't play more than 4-5 others again. I was a player in a group of 10, once, and just felt steamrolled by some of the others.