Hi peeps,

I recently had an inkling to run a Star Wars game and figured after several years of being put off by the dice mechanic that I'd give the game a shot after listening to a couple of actual play games (which seemed to lay to rest some of said reservations around the dice). The issue I have is that our group is now quite large (1 x GM and 7 x Players), until recently it wasn't really an issue as 4 of the players were very hit and miss in their attendance leading to having 4-5 players for most of our weekly games but now everyone's schedules seem to have aligned and it looks like there will be 8 of us around the table most weeks moving forwards.

So, for those who have run this system, does it scale well to groups of that size or is it a bit of a nightmare?

Eight people around a table can be quite a lot.

In my experience, this game is optimized for 4-5 players, and may tend to break down somewhat as you exceed those limits.

That said, I’m currently running my game for six players, and I think I’m doing okay. At least, for now.

And there have certainly been others on this forum who have talked about the games they’ve run for ten or twelve players or more.

I’m in a roll20 game where we have ten players (of which I am one), and the GM there seems to be doing a pretty decent job.

I wouldn’t want to try to take on an extra player right now, but that doesn’t have to be an impossible task for you.

IMO, the player personalities and the GM personality are what I think will be the key driving factor. The more you can let your players decide and narrate, I think the better you will be able to handle a larger group.

The group I'm playing in has 7 players plus GM. So far, he's balancing and juggling just fine. There are times that we split off into 2 or 3 smaller groups during a session, but it doesn't seem to cause any problems, as the group(s) not in an active encounter are able to talk amongst themselves, plan strategy and determine what we want to do.

Thanks for the responses guys - sounds like it's a bit of an easier prospect to run this system for larger groups than a lot of other systems so it might work out quite nicely for my group

My game has six players, and it's doing fine. :-) That said, with our focus more on RP than dice rolls, there's not been much for me to judge game balance on... I will say, though, that a low Duty score is essential, and I would recommend keeping the number of Force-Sensitives down (I never use Obligation, and don't relish the idea of having lots of player throwing Force powers around).

Had a Group of 8 players on my last con.

The important part is for not let the player thoughts stray away.

as long as you don´t focus your "Face-time" on just on player it should be easy to handle.

Also Nytwyngs idea of splitt the hole group in to or three parts is good! that way the players have enought time to think about theire actions.

Keeping the intime slots at 5 minute slots so you have a rapid change between the groups and a good speed in the gameplay, would be my advise.

I have to agree with about everyone here and say that this system can handle up to whatever in limits of group size. I don't think the dice mechanic is really a factor in deciding how big the group could be. I have been in other systems that can handle larger group sizes, but the GM could not handle that many people.

I would have to say not to limit the group size based of a system or dice mechanics, but it should be based off the GM and the group itself. As a GM, I like to have 3-6 players. I feel anything beyond 6 for me is unmanageable in terms of story, group relations, and table management. I have also seen groups of three or four people do well, but when it was increased, those same people no longer did well. Perhaps they were used to getting more of the spotlight and became bored when they had to share the table time or just sometimes people don't mesh well together.

Sorry I don't have more concrete info for you, but the size is really what the GM/Group can handle. I myself do not enjoy playing in or running large groups. I feel that they are not very effective for this type of game, and more time is wasted than actually playing the game, but I'm sure for some groups, having 8-10 players works fine for them. I guess it depends on what everyone wants from the experience.