Hi All,

Having run Pathfinder for WAAAAYY too long now, I've decided to come over to FFG's Star Wars. I've GMed the old D6 Star Wars back in the day, and am dying to try the new system, in particular the narrative dice mechanic.

The issue that I have is that I will probably only have 2-3 players. Now as I said above, I've primarily been a Pathfinder GM which has the whole "can't really play with more than 6 or less than 4" mentality - primarily due to the d20 rules system.

So my question is, how does the system work with smaller groups? Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of? Are there problems the players should be aware of?

Thanks in advance.

I've ran this game with 2 and 3 players and it worked out just fine. 3-4 people may be my preferred group size. As long as the 2 players are comfortable roleplaying with each other and are creative, then there's no problem with having only 2 PCs in the party. The good thing about Star Wars is that you can also use droid NPCs to fill in any holes and the PCs can order them around. If you go this route, don't have an NPC face. When you are the only participant in a dialog, players can quickly lose interest and not catch every important detail.

I ran my group with 3 players for several weeks. I only bumped it up to 4 because another wanted to join in.

Our usual group is 4 PCs and a GM but we're regularly a man down. Some of those adventures have been the best - everyone gets more screen time, standard inter-PC relationships get shifted*, everything's a little more desperate as skill-gaps force creative work-arounds.

If you're going to be playing with a small group continuously I'd recommend giving each player a single rank in one or two non-career skills for free. If nobody can use a computer or pilot or deceive it could really limit the stories your group can tell.

* Does anyone else find this happens? Most of my Characters tend to buddy up with those of another Player.

(E.g. In War of the Dead Adam Cooke (my survivalist/sharpshooter) looks after the child-like danger magnet Rolf Auspice.)

This system lends itself very well to small groups. The fact that enemies come in three distinct flavours - minions, rivals and nemeses - makes it easy to customize encounters without making it seem like you're holding back.

The best games I've ever run have been with one to three players. The big difference I find in the smaller group is that you become more focused on the story narrative and the characters, and this is one of the most narrative and character driven systems I've seen. Biggest thing I would say is that your players need to have their characters well thought out, with some good backstory. Since every character is going to get a lot more screen time, they need a bit more substance. Your NPCs, at least the major ones, need to be fairly fleshed out as well, as there are fewer players drawing attention from them. Mechanicly the game becomes simpler, fewer players, fewer rolls, story moves smoother.

I have one game that started off with 2 players, and is now 4. This has worked really well at all levels. The brilliance of this game is that social or technical encounters can be just as tense and involved as combat encounters, so you don't have to have the mentality of needing a fighter/thief/wizard/cleric in every group. I think the game also lends itself to characters with broad competency, especially if the characters have several 3s as characteristics rather than a 4 or 5 in one and the rest average. So your pilot is going to be a decent shot, your mechanic can also be a decent medic, etc.

The fact that anyone can throw dice at any challenge and have a chance to succeed (not the case in d20, particularly past 5th level) actually lends itself to small groups. A character with a three agility can shoot decently, even if they never pick up a skill rank. A three intelligence can do some decent computer work untrained, particularly if they picked up a slicer kit at some point. Ultimately, I think you'll find the system works well with small groups.

On the subject of NPC droids, if you start your players with a stock Astromech (R2) unit, the little guy will take care of a lot of your potential issues, be Star Wars flavorful, and have no risk of overshadowing your players. It knows Mechanics and Astrogate, the two you really need skill to use, has no combat utility, and because if it's low stats works really well "Aiding" one of the PCs. (IE, giving it's skill score to a PC use)

Ultimately, playing Han & Chewie is totally possible in this system.

As it's been stated many times, this game is great for small groups.

I have a table of 5-6 players, but it normally functions as though we only have 3-5 (people being late, illnesses, classes, etc). That said, it really does work. It's easy to scale the combats based on the members who are available (i.e. last game the Heavy was out due to a family emergency and the Assassin had class, so I scaled combat down by ditching the nemesis, replaced some of the rivals with minions and gave an alternative to combat), and any character can do any skill, just not as well as someone trained.

There's also fewer "gaps" in the game as far as I can tell. Yes, some characters are specialized and it's always nice to have a few of them (like a pilot, for example), but you can live without them. My former group had a Scoundrel, Doctor, Politico, and Mechanic before adding a Bodyguard months later. Even with that setup, it worked REALLY well.

Hopefully that helps set your mind at ease!

I find the game is actually more fun with fewer players. As others have suggested have an R2 unit around to help with missing skill sets and you're golden. I ended up making an R2 Droid PC that I play as an NPC but I don't let the Players see the sheet, instead I have the Players, through their PCs, tell it what they want it to do and then I play it to the best of it's ability. Before they learned a little better what the guy could do it lead to some pretty humorous situations...

One other thing is if you're going with EotE is to encourage one of the Players to have Piloting skills, it makes it easer to deal with that portion of the game. If you're planning on more of an Age of Rebellion game you can live without a Pilot.

We've been running EotE with 3 players and the GM for over a year now, it works great. It helps that we've been gaming together a LONG time so are pretty comfortable role playing with each other.

Problem with having 2-3 players are the 3 other people who are not in your group wanting to play. I've ran 2 players with 3 pc's for a while I'm just now putting 2 more in for fun.

I'm about to run a campaign with only 3 players. It should be fine. The only thing that will make it suck is if you aren't providing a compelling story, I think.

I may end up adding a fourth player, because I think someone else really wants to play. But since one of the players I already have is usually prone to not showing up to sessions, then it should be okay. Other than that - I will probably have 1 NPC that follows them around at some point or another. Why? Well... because I want to play too Even though I'm the GM, I still want to have interaction with the other players AS a Player Character, and not just as some NPC that has no depth.