How many players should you aim for in your tabletop RPG group? What is the ideal number of players, and how many is too few? Too many? Each of these questions can bring unique challenges and limitations to the table even before the campaign is off the ground. The answer to each of these questions is different for each Game Master (GM) and each tabletop RPG group, but there are some common benchmarks and metrics to examine as you're planning out your next tabletop RPG group.

A tabletop gaming convention created by the cosplayers and RPG DMs that call themselves the Five Sided Fates. In 2025 they’re having their second event, which is a 2 day event focusing primar…

A tabletop gaming convention created by the cosplayers and RPG DMs that call themselves the Five Sided Fates. In 2025 they’re having their second event, which is a 2 day event focusing primar…

A tabletop gaming convention created by the cosplayers and RPG DMs that call themselves the Five Sided Fates. In 2025 they’re having their second event, which is a 2 day event focusing primar…

A tabletop gaming convention created by the cosplayers and RPG DMs that call themselves the Five Sided Fates. In 2025 they're having their second event, which is a 2 day event focusing primarily on tabletop RPG sessions, paint and take minis, vendors, mapmaking, and panels. Most games offered were Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, though there were a handful of GMs running non-D&D tabletop RPGs.

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

Many years ago now, one of the founders of the Storygame community called Ron Edwards wrote a blog called the Forge where he argued that System Does Matter, objectively declaring the GNS (Gamist Narrativist Simulationist) theory and declaring that systems are vital to the hobby. This became directly associated to Edwards and the storygame movement as a whole. In the modern day, the storygame movement has produced some designers whose work I very much value and am intrigued by (Vincent & Meguey Baker, John Harper, Jason Morningstar, amongst others), but Ron Edwards' name itself doesn't seem to have had the same gravitas.