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Post by Simon on Aug 12, 2014 11:39:09 GMT
What is the optimum number of players for the game?
A number of a dozen players have been suggested. Personally, I would like to have a solid number of teams to run, even if we use smaller ones...
Obviously, a bigger number means a more memorable and unique game. And, more teams mean more discussions alliances and back-stabbing...
But it also make organisation trickier and finding a place to host the game a great deal more difficult...
What do people think?
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Post by auburney on Aug 13, 2014 10:44:01 GMT
Hm, I sort of agree that with more teams, the possibilities for interaction (both of the co-op variant and the backstabbing variety) increase dramaticallly of course. And that that would be a good thing. Then again, I still hold by my earlier point of "keeping it small and simple", at least for our first venture in this complex and logistically (potentially) enormous type of game. We can always make the next-bigger game next year or something  , and given that all of us are new at this, and assuming that we do not draw on the support of that certain Brittish company who seems to have invented those MGs (say, for experience or other support), I think we should be careful not to overload ourselves with responsibility and organisational tasks. No fun for any of the players either if we overwhelm ourselves on our first try, right? Some quick points I think we should keep in mind: * Orga and scheduling - simply put, finding a date for 22 people is about five times as hard as it is finding one for 12 people. Also, estimating what amount of time would be good for 1 turn in the game (I've seen games that use 20 mins = 1 turn, and games where 1 hour = turn...), might be more difficult to guess correctly for lots of teams than for just a few... Likewise, estimating what amount of time the *whole* thing might/should/has to take could be more difficult if we have like 28 people divided into 16 teams or something... will we even be able to finish in one day? Who can say? We have no kind of hard experience with this kind of stuff after all. * Location - for 12-16 people, Spielbar may work nicely. We just reserve maybe 4 or 5 tables (or 6, whatever) instead of our usual 2 or 3, and we might just be good to go. For upwards of 18 people (say), we might have to look for a new location, and while I'm sure something could be found, there's a certain amount of location-scouting, deals-negotiating, potential monetary investment and other effort involved in that. (about the money thing... we need to figure out whether to ask for entry fees to this game, most likely based on location provided (if it costs us, it needs to cost the players) and other stuff provided (free drinks? snacks? stuff like that...)) * Theme and Setting - this may ba a minor point, but then again it may not... the more "vanilla" the theme and setting of our game, the more players it will potentially attract. The more exotic, unusual or "out there", the more people may potentially be "not all that into it after all"... *especially* if there is an entry fee, the game takes up a whole precious day in the middle of a holiday season, and other factors that I haven't yet thought of... (There may however be the reverse effect instead, too. It could happen that a "vanilla D&D-esque heroic fantasy" themed game attracts not so many people, while a "Space Ogres from the Future on Tentacle Amazon Planet" game (or something may attract more interest because it sounds more unusual... We have yet to try this out [and could do so via a poll or something, perhaps]... but in the end we'll basically be reduced to guessing at it...) ... just sayin'  |
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Post by auburney on Aug 13, 2014 10:58:48 GMT
TL; DR of the above: I can indeed imagine more teams than in my original suggestion (which was basically "3 teams of 3 players each, and 3 mods/GMs to coordinate them"), and more people too - to a certain degree! I assumed more of a "classical RPG structure" in the beginning: every table has a GM, there have to be at least 3 player to make a sensible group, the GM spends most of their time with the group etc. ... but if we move a bit more away from that, we can indeed get smaller teams (of 2 people each, perhaps), and (constantly moving) mods instead of (mostly stationary) GMs So, new variant / vision / suggestion: We have maybe 5, or well lets say 6 teams, of 1-3 (average 2) players each (gets us to ~12 players), and then add about 3 or 4 mods that move between the teams and coordinate their play activity. How's that sound? Or do you still want more players? As in, say, 7 teams of 3 players each, with no less than 5 or 6 mods...? PS.: another of my bullet points, whoudl have gone in the above post, but well: * Gaming Materials - every token, marker, counter or battlemap etc. we provide needs to be either obtained, or made somehow. This might be as simple and basic as character sheets (or team sheets), or Research Tokens and Nobel Prices (as seen in the Watch The Skies! video posted here somewhere)... and of course we'll need somekind of huge-ass map (or perhaps several maps?), and more than likely we'll also need some kind of miniatures or blips to show where everyone is on that map... (of course I would again argue to "keep it simple" on this, and in order to reduce costs (even printouts cost *something* for most of us - if only the time and effort to make them for free during office hours ), we could plunder and loot our various existing boardgames we have at home. There, we could find everything from gold-coin markers to little miniatures or other blips. The only question then is, in what quantity do we need them, and are we willing for them to be potentially damaged/lost in the course of game - where they would circulate through many hands and couldn't easily be kept track of...) |
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Post by Simon on Aug 13, 2014 13:15:15 GMT
These are all valid points.
I agree that we shouldn't over stretch ourselves.
I was thinking about one GM per two or three tables. Passing from one to the other and waiting for the players to need him (as a lot of gameplay will hopefully be player to player a d not need GM).
Starting small is probably prudent at any rate. Which means that we could fit everyone in a bar, which means that there would be no need to collect money to rent a local/buy food.
I think it might be a good idea to decide what kind of setting and game we want to play, it might help us better picture the event and its organisation...
Tom and I started a discussion about this in another section of the board...
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Post by thopthes on Aug 13, 2014 14:46:15 GMT
How about we meet before one of our thursday games and talk a little a bout the setting and the group size?
Brainstorming on the forum is nice but it would probably work better in person.
My two cents:
I can imagine anything between a couple of bigger teams and many smaller teams. Of course it would support interaction if more teams are involved because there simply would be more sources of friction but that might also lead to a split-up effect where some teams interact more with each other than others. Some might not even meet during the game.
So I reckon it would probably be best to have a good groupsize/groupcount ratio.
But before we can actually talk about that I think it would be best to stipulate on a setting/scenario. Because some scenarios make more sense with smaller others with bigger groups and the interaction between those groups is tied to the scenario as well.
So we could ...
a) gage the number of interested players.
b) stipulate on a scenario / setting
c) think about the involved factions/parties and how they are arranged (size).
to get to a baseline that we can use for the whole game.
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Post by auburney on Aug 13, 2014 23:40:34 GMT
I could try to arrive early tommorrow before the games, for a talk, yes! true, although that doesn't have to be all bad I think Remember how almost no one got to talk to the Alien faction for the entire first half of the Watch the Skies! game? And even after watching the video two times now, I'm not entirely sure how many "human" factions (i.e. Nations) were actually being played by players... If you stipulate that the team which the video follows around talked to all of the other human factions at some point, there are probably only around 5 or 6 of them... But it could easily be that there are 8 or 9, and some teams just never had contact? I think it could even be fun, when during the game you never have reason to (or get around to) talk to a certain faction... but you hear the results of their actions from your allies (and vice versa of course) But yeah, let's settle on a concrete idea for setting/theme/plot first. While we keep fleshing out setting ideas, it might be a good idea to keep thinking about things like "I could see this setting played with very many / very few factions" ... or "this setting would need factions with rather many players in each, because intra-faction tensions/rivalries/friction is desirable for this game"... and stuff like that... However, I politely dispute your putting "gage number of interested players" at the a) priority I think we should settle on a number of players we want, AND a setting we want, (both will probably emerge pretty much simultaneously), and then we'll be able to start recruiting much more effectively. If we go forward to the "public" (i.e. our small community) with what we have right now, the most likely answers we're gonna get are ~3 "hell yes!!!" reactions, and probably around a dozen "yeah, maybe, sure" replies On the other hand, when we go to the people with a concrete idea and the right amount of enthusiasm and planning - they'll come to the game, I have little worries there  |
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Post by thopthes on Aug 14, 2014 0:32:12 GMT
About the part with certain factions not talking to each other:
I'm not saying that this is something we should strictly avoid. Of course this can be fun and is probably even more realistic than everyone talking to each other cause (depending on the scenario of course) certain factions might simply be too far away from each other so it wouldn't be logical that they'd meet or talk.
What I mean is that we should consider this possible effect during the creation of the game and make sure that we don't hit a deadlock or a dead end during the game. And one way to do that could be making sure that there aren't too many or too few factions - so there always is something that keeps it going and gives options to the factions.
The priority part:
We basically got a system with a lot of variables: setting, number of players, number of groups, etc...
The reason why I ranked the estimation of interested players first is because it's something we can do without knowing what scenario, setting or ruleset the game will actually have and thus can be done without requiring the values of the other variables. Of course some might only join the game when we explain it in detail but others might already be interested because of the nature of the game (it's a big game!).
I think your estimation of 3+12 should be about right (which is actually all I wanted the 'a)' to be - an estimation)
In addition I reckon that the number of interested people will probably change quite often. Especially when we come up with an actual date.
I'll try to arrive earlier tomorrow, as well!
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Post by auburney on Aug 14, 2014 8:45:26 GMT
very briefly, have to get to work: .) Yes, deadlocks, foregone conclusions/alliances/outcomes and dead ends are of course bad. Agreed there. .) Valid point about "its something we can do without knowing the other stuff yet". Okay, let's say Spielbar at 7, then? Or is half past 6 better? (been a little out of the loop with regards to showing up early, no idea when most people arrive these days actually  ) |
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Post by Simon on Aug 14, 2014 10:32:44 GMT
I will do my best to arrive early, but I am supposed to go and pick up my car from the shop today...
Tom is right about the number of players being a critical decision that we can take independently of any others.
Although, I think we should decide about the number of factions instead, because some factions can be run by one person or other could fit several people if we end up having more players than anticipated.
I would suggest Around 8 to 10 factions, most of which can be run by one players but a few of which could be expended to welcome bigger team as needed.
For example we could have one player in charge of Austria or Japan but two or three to play the U.S or the conspiracy of garden gnome that is behind the mysterious rains of meatballs...
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Post by thopthes on Aug 14, 2014 11:05:18 GMT
I guess since nobody posted a starting time for today it's somewhere between 7:00 - 7:30 and maybe 8:00. The good thing is if we're all going to play the same game (run by Simon) the starting time won't matter.
I'll try to be there at about 6:30.
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Post by auburney on Aug 14, 2014 11:56:37 GMT
Okay, 6.30 i'll try to make that, too!
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Post by Simon on Aug 14, 2014 12:07:12 GMT
I'll do my best.
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h
Game Organisers
Posts: 77 
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Post by h on Aug 31, 2014 20:17:59 GMT
Just for the record, after giving this further thought, I'm still firmly in the go big or go home camp. |
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Post by auburney on Aug 31, 2014 22:03:17 GMT
duly noted "go big" meaning something around "20+" or more towards "30+"? Just roughly... |
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Post by thopthes on Aug 31, 2014 22:13:21 GMT
I guess he means it's over 9000!!
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, and given that all of us are new at this, and assuming that we do not draw on the support of that certain Brittish company who seems to have invented those MGs (say, for experience or other support), I think we should be careful not to overload ourselves with responsibility and organisational tasks.
)