How many is too many?
I’m fortunate, I have two BitD groups of five players each running in the same city on different nights.
What I’ve discovered, however, is due to the “thiefy” nature of the game, the party of five is a bit unwieldy for regular play. My Crowtalons crew, a Shadows gang, regularly spends a ton of time in the shadows, leaving the Cutter and Slide without a ton of play time. In my Dreamtraders crew (Hawkers), they are a very social group – in seven sessions they’ve only drawn steel once, leaving (again) their Cutter out in the cold.
Due to vacations, the Dreamtraders played a game with only three crew members this weekend and I found it went much smoother. The Cutter was one of them and her involvement was much more pronounced – because there was fewer players. During one previous score, she basically waited across the square for things to go wrong because the crew couldn’t find a role for her in the score. I introduced complications but realistically she knew the complications existed only because I wanted to involve her in play.
So, I guess I’m looking for thoughts. What’s been your experience? How many players do you run regularly?
Some of this is skewed by age groups as I tend to play with adults with full time commitments.
The optimal set up is 5 people (counting the GM as a player) for me. That way if the stars align and every shows up you have a group of means a lot of stress to spread around and trouble to get into. Most weeks what actually happens is 1 person can’t make it, but with 3 people that’s still basically optimal for the system and since everyone at the table knows it it’s very relaxed about people having to skip a week for things but it allows the game to keep going. On a bad week maybe 2 people are out, but even then we can run a 2 person score, it’s not optimal but again if the 2 scoundrels and gm are excited to play we can still play.
Chris McDonald My groups are all 30+ with one notable exception. They’re pretty fanatic about playing very consistently. This one session was so dramatically…. leaner, that I was left thinking I might need to break my groups up somehow.
If everyone is reliably consistent I’d go 3 scoundrels. In my games I like the 4th for absentee padding.
Maybe your problem isn’t the number of players? From your description, it sounds like in both your groups, you have one or two players being left out, because their characters don’t fit in with the general tenor of the group. Maybe have a conversation with the group around either reworking the type of scores they do to better for all the players, or else rework the out-of-place characters to fit better with the crew or else get the out-of-place characters to do more flashbacks so that they still get to be involved in scores where maybe their skills aren’t immediately obvious.
I’ve played with 5, 4, 3 and 1 player (the single player was me and I controlled 2 PCs though). Without a doubt my favorite number is 3. So much so that it’s making me rethink all other games to determine or 4 or 5 is really the ideal setup I thought it was? Something magical happened when I went down to 3 players from 4 and with the extra time they had the players started talking to each other in character voices and better interacting with the world.
I really like Thomas Berton​’s suggestion of flashbacks to help invite isolated players back into the score. Flashbacks aren’t just for spiders! Maybe your cutter came by before the score and scared some guards into leaving work early that day to make it easier for the others.
I have run games of blades in the dark with as little as one player and as many as 8. The result is I now will not run a game with less than 2 players or more than 4. The game just doesn’t flow if I break that rule. That said if someone brings their partner rather than have them sit the game out I’ll let them play, but generally speaking 5 players just breaks the game flow and is less fun…
Thomas Berton I concede that some of the characters “fit” better in the respective crews – but that’s really because they are the players who push their concept to the fore. My Hawkers crew is mainly a social one, but the Hound finds lots to do.
And because I’m really trying to make the game the players game, I try not to railroad positions or situations that the characters are going through pain to avoid.
On that note, the characters who “don’t fit” with the full group were very active and participatory with a smaller number – leading me to wonder if it’s just player mass that makes it cumbersome.
On the note of Flashbacks – my players love them and use them all the time. Mainly so they don’t have to spend so much time planning. It’s important to note, many times the players are volunteering to stand watch or step aside – not because they don’t want to be involved, but to be kept in reserve against difficulties. As a GM it’s frustrating.
The Spider in my Shadows game constantly tries to find things for all the characters to do (he’s a great party leader) but many times the players just say “It’s not that I don’t want to be involved, it just seems like having more of us there just makes it more likely we’ll get caught. Let’s keep this clean and simple and use who needs to be used to get it done.”
My experience has been completely different from what has been posted here. We routinely run with 5 or 6 players and don’t have any problems. Since Blades in the Dark doesn’t have initiative slots and rounds, any player can act nearly whenever they want to; it’s a game that rewards players for bringing initiative and drive to the table, but passive players mayto get left behind. This was my first thought when reading your post: are the players who are being left out in the cold less aggressive and outspoken? Shy? Quiet? Then, yes, a smaller group is probably better for them.
However, it has also been my experience that when a player feels that she has been skipped over for most of the game or that he does not have much to contribute, it’s often because their character has been built into a very specific niche and the player won’t branch out of that niche even if it means more participation and enjoyment in a game. You may wish to remind the players that playbooks aren’t DnD classes and they can try anything they want.
As Thomas Berton pointed out, Flashbacks are perfect for involving a character whose skillset seems out of place. And there are also Setup actions and Assists. That’s where my Hound lives when we aren’t in a score that directly involves shooting someone.
Lastly, I’m a little confused as to why the second Cutter feels left out in the cold in a social game. Cutters start with one dot in Command and several of their playbook abilities are very effective for social situations: Leader and Savage, but even Bodyguard (the Cutter could protect someone from mental harm, with some ingenious and tricky roleplaying)
John himself said it with the Bloodletters group. Having 3 players for a session is pretty ideal, particularly if you’re interested in depth of play rather than just getting from A to B. That’s not even considering the stress economy, which feels more interestingly tense with 3 players than 4.
Meaty Puffs I think 5 player games are still fun (there isn’t a problem with them), I just think 3 players was more fun. The issue with more players, at least for my groups, was not that that certain characters hogged the spotlight, but that with everyone having equal spotlight time, nobody got enough time to have really great RP scenes. With fewer players and the same amount of time, each player to do more, and their characters have been richer for it.
Meaty Puffs Left out is not necessarily how I would describe it: deferential to other players who have other social skills. She’s used her Command to great effect with consistency – but generally after things have gone sideways. And she does have Bodyguard and she bought it specifically for social situations.
It’s not my lack of familiarity with the rules, it’s the social contract of the game and the players which seems a little out of kilter with larger groups. That stacked with the fact that we’re Canadian and tend to be worried about stealing the spotlight overmuch, means having fewer players seemed to provide much more ample opportunities for RP scenes and participation. Good discussion – I’m glad I reached out. I’ll broach it with the groups and see where it lands.
Thanks for all the input.