While I do play miniatures games and a lot of board games I have never tried a role playing game. Last year I had edge of the empire beginner game in my hand and about to hand over my cash when the owner of my local store asked how many players could I get to play the game on a regular basis. I told him that there would be 3 of us minimum. He looked at me like I was stupid. He took it from my hand and said "stick with x-wing. 3 people isn't enough." I pointed to the 3-5 players and he cut me off with "trust me it doesn't work well with 3." Fair enough I thought, he knows best. Now nearly a year later FFG has brought the force to the game. This game has now caught my attention again. So my question after all that is, is this game worth buying for my regular group of 3. I get that one of us will have to be the GM so leaves only two playing but surely the box would say 3-5players + 1GM or was I given good advice in the beginning?

3 Players is absolutely enough. There will be other challenges to deal with if you are all new to Role Playing games of this sort but that store owner was both rude and condescending in my opinion.

I have played the beginner game quite successfully for all three systems with just myself and my wife, though one of us would both run the game and NPC one of the pregens to back the other up. It worked just fine. Having a GM and two players will also work just fine.

Many of the adventures for the full game are aimed towards a group of approximately 4 players and a GM. If you have fewer, the GM just has to do a little extra work and planning and reduce the number of enemies or the amount of damage the do by changing weapons, etc.. a few small adjustments can make all the difference in presenting a challenge but not obliterating the party. It will take some time and practice to get the hang of that but you can most definitely do it. Some of the product even have suggestions provided for how to adjust the encounters for smaller or larger groups.

If you are interested, your friends are interested and you're willing to accept that it might be tough to balance things out at first and get the feel for how the game plays, then I say go for it.

I've played RPG's with just two, a GM and a player, and had great fun. Several times. You said minimum of 3, which is completely fine since you will even have player-player interaction. Three has probably been the most common group number for me through decades of RPGs.

Go get it elsewhere, play it, then stop by and tell the hater how he is spreading false anti-RPG propoganda just before telling him you will be taking your business elsewhere after you get hooked and start dropping fat cash on the rest of the series.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to order all three of the beginner sets online now. Next time I'm in there I will gladly tell him that I shopped online after getting better advice off you guys lol. Obviously he's a hater.

The person who told you 3 players was too few must have had a bad experience. It makes me a little angry that a person would do something like that.

Over the years I have played in groups with wildly different numbers of players, from 1 to more than 10. There is no right or wrong amount, whatever is fun is good.

For us, that mostly means 3 to 5 players and I find 3 players to be quite nice as a GM, actually. Lots of space for individual players, usually a better action-to-talking-ratio and more snacks for me ...

For someone new to RPGs I would even advise starting with a more manageable number. So 3 is perfectly fine.

The guy probably though it was "just like D&D"...in which case he might have had a point. But this game is more flexible. I've played with 5, 3, and 1. All work fine, you just have to adjust the encounters appropriately.

I GM two groups, one with 3 players, one with 4.

Both work really well and I find 3 is a good number of players.

One of the (many) great things about this system is how well it works with any number of players (apart from just the one lonely GM). You can run one-on-one, two PCs, or the more conventionally larger groups without it throwing any spanners in the works.

My group is four people deep - three players one GM. Sometimes I almost wish for a fourth, so in a perfect world I'd go five players is ideal. However we've also done as few as two players and a GM, usually when one player is busy that weekend.

For example this weekend one player is skipping town on me. Of course all my planning for this weekend's game involves a lot of her characters expertise and she didn't tell me until the last moment, meaning I will most likely run the starter set and follow up adventure as a "Oh crap! I need a backup game!"

Mind you, we're not exactly starting characters - so I'll have to dial up the bad guys in the encounter, but it should be just fine with two.

TL;DNR - I hate it when one player bails at the last second! Argh!

Even shorter TL;DNR: 3 people at the table should be just fine

apart from just the one lonely GM.

Bah! I did that ALL the time in the eighties!

One thing I have considered doing with some of the games is setting up much of the game in Fantasy Grounds with linkages to various likely things that could be tried, etc.. and play the game solo. Have to let it sit for awhile and try not to read it too closely while setting it up but it could make for an interesting choose your own adventure style playthrough.