Recently, two new aspirants for becoming a true Space Marine have arrived near my GM domains, but, as every evil master, I would like to ask to others who are more evil and wise before indoctrinate them...

[GM rol mode: OFF] So, I would like to ask you, veteran GMs, how many players are the maximum that a single person can Game Mastering, mantaining a fluid game? With this to new players, the Kill-Team would be formed by 6 Marines. I know that this can depend on each GM's habilities but, appart from it, its 4 players better than 6?

It would be a good thing to have new players, but it wouldn't be right to make the game slowler. Should I reject new players or accept them?

And if the number of players is 7 or above? It would be needed to have more than a Game Master?

Thanks in advance

It all depends on how experienced GM you are. I've run games with 12 players, but that was an accident . To answer your question - 4-5 is the optimal number, with 6-7 it can be done, but expect that some players will experience downtime, especially if the groups splits - but also in combat, because it takes time to rotate through 7 players declaring their actions, rolling dice etc.

It also depends on the type of scenario. Deathwatch is combat-heavy, so everyone will be useful at some point. Investigative scenarios tend to highlight one or two players.

Another factor (often overlooked) is the players' personalities - you'll have make sure that they understand that with 7 players they need to be more disciplined at the table.

In a nutshell - you won't know until you try!

Personally I am not a fan of having seven or more players at the table (whether GMing or playing), it can be hard to keep things on track.

I used to set a maximum of six players for campaigns (which generally worked out) and I'm going with four or five for my upcoming DW campaign. But other GMs mileage can and will vary.

DW is one of the few games where I might be willing to run for more than 5 players. The roleplay rewards teamwork and so long as your players don't expect a lot of individual character development compared to "team time". I compare it to reading the JLA rather than reading the Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern titles individually. One tells quite different stories with the "team" book and they can be quite entertaining even if the individual characters get less time and development. If this doesn't float your boat - and there are some great stories that can be told with a much greater focus on an individual Astartes - then I'd suggest dropping the number of players down.

I usually go with the following, simplistic mathmatical system:

++Each player requires approximately 1 hour of game time++

It's rough and ready, but in my 20-odd years of gaming experience, I have found that, on average, each player needs about 1 hour of game time for him/herself. So if you have about 4 hours to play, go with 4 players. Less players and more hours to play means that each player will have more game time.

This system doesn't really scale up or anything, though. I wouldn't take 8 players just because I have 8 hours to play.

So far, I'm finding that 4 players is working nicely in DW.

My current group is 6 players plus myself, which is typical for my games - occasionally, with certain games, I run smaller, but 6 is the upper limit of what I can handle as a GM, while still allowing room for one or two people to be absent and still having enough people to play.

I have 6 players in my game. 5 are the Kill-Team (1 Tactical, 1 Techmarine, 1 Assault, 1 Devastator and 1 Apothecary), then we have one female who plays an Inquisitor/Psyker of Rank 9 from Dark Heresy/Ascension. It seems to work out pretty well since the Inquisitor/Psyker somewhat fills the niche that a Librarian normally would.

I have always enjoyed having more players, and I always welcome others to join. II would bring the two new add-ons in as rank 1 characters and let them build up.

To me, 4-5 players mean the group has to stick together. 6-8 means you can split into two groups and tackle two objectives. You may have to split up some time between players but as long as you are taking your time and moving between characters, the players will understand. One of my favorite situations is having the more combat oriented characters holding a pitched battle while the more skill based characters are trying to disarm or arm the bomb, recover the data core, or rig some form of escape.

I like 4-5. 6 is also good if any of you players are slightly undependable because then you can still run easily without having to make changes if a player is missing for the session. 5 is probably optimal, as it gives everyone good 'face time' and you can still run with a man down.

That said, DW can be run as quite a laddish 'beer and skittles' type game, rather than a deeply angsty in-depth roleplaying experience. Which means that you can fit a few more round the table if you're happy to run that kind of thing. However, if you do want a very deeply in-depth roleplaying game, then 2-3 is a better number.

Best solution is to start small and then get big if you feel like it, rather than starting big and then struggling to run a good game and perhaps having to ask players to leave.

I've been running a game for a Kill Team of 3 Battle Brothers (1 Tactical Marine, 1 Dev, and 1 Librarian). Our combats ran very fast, but they were extremely brutal requiring me to dole out Fate points every few fights to keep them on their feet. Epic fights were not in short supply, and the three players felt they were well deserved after taking on four Genestealers (Nevermind the eight genestealer encounter in the governor's palace in Final Sanction!). Adding a fourth battle brother (An assault marine), lengthened the combats noticeably, but I am no longer harboring the dread fear that I will TPK (total party kill) my Kill Team. Four is a comfortable number for the players, and I welcomed the added Marine for my Tyranids to feast upon. ..Er.. I mean, the extra marine to soak damage.

In truth, if I were to start over, I would consider 4 Marines to be the bare minimum, as damage in Deathwatch spikes considerably. Damage I find either bounces off the considerable Toughness + Armor of your kill team, or triple 10s come up from that Hormogaunt horde, hitting one of your players for half his Wounds. Four marines lets you spread damage at a more manageable, less terrifying rate.

Really, the maximum number of players really depends on your patience and the patience of your other players. 3-4 players allows for fast combats, and most of the Deathwatch materials are calibrated for a team of 3-5, I feel. Also, if you're playing this as a role playing game, 3-4 is the best split for time/roleplaying to each person, in my opinion. Again though, it really depends on your patience and the patience of your players.

I would start with the core of people you know will reliably attend (Up to 4), and find out what they want. If they want an elite kill team of 4 marines kicking ass and taking names, you have your crew. But maybe you and your players want 6, 7, even 8 players. If that's what you all want, go for it (I'm envisioning custom Space Marine minis and a Tyrannid army on a game table now...). Just my two cents, best of luck to you.

5 is the maximum for me, 4 is the sweet spot

if everyone shows up for my friday night game, i'll be in a position to tell you from first hand experience as we technically have 7 players with characters... that being said, prior attendance would indicate that there is a snowball's chance in hell that no one will cancel at the last minute. from my prior experience as a GM of a large group (8 players when everyone showed for my old d&d campaign), i do have some recommendations.

1) keep cross-player chatter to a minimum during combat. i noticed that the biggest time sink in the large games was when other players were second guessing the actions of others and giving detailed tactical advice outside of their own turn. each player's turn became a debate session and it would take upward of an hour before a player got to do something again during a combat because of all the chatter. in the end, i would give players 10 seconds or so to *start* telling me what they were doing and would allow other players to give them advice as long as it was a single sentance that fit into roughly 3-5 seconds (counting as a free action in the old d&d rules). no debates... PERIOD!!! i found that this actually helped the flow of combat feel more realistic in an RPG as it wasn't a spontaneous yet somehow micromanaged coordinated ballet of movement and action between 8 people occuring in 6 seconds of game time (yet taking a whole hour in real life). if they were preparing for combat (setting up an ambush or planning an attack), they could take all the time they wanted in game and at the table to prepare.. just not during the actual combat. roleplaying encounters naturally support cross table chatter and multiple people having separate but related conversations and no change is needed there.

2) plan NPC actions ahead of time and fudge rolls as needed for expediency (taking averages for unimportant rolls). also, not much of the case in DW but moreso in d&d, don't allow separate complex actions for NPCs controlled by players. having a NPC-like creature under a PC's control (like an animal companion or familiar in d&d or a servitor in DW) effectively doubles the length of a player's turn. when GMing a large group, simplify the rules (unfortunately to the detriment of the player's character but to the benefit of the group as a whole). whatever the player attacks, so does the NPC under their control using a standard attack action. no full auto burst from a servitor heavy bolter that affects multiple targets... another even more drastic (and even more time saving option) is to simply eschew their actions altogether and turn it into a check to aid the character in the same action (the servitor makes a BS check to aid the character, giving him a +10 on his check if the servitor successfully does his). one roll for a non-pc and that's it for expediency.

3) keep a strict count of the initiative and remind players who are going next to start planning. if jim is at initiative 8 and bob is at 7, when you ask jim what he's doing, tell bob he's next. when you call on them and they're not ready with a plan (because they're doing some cross table chatter or simply waiting for the outcome of the prior player's actions), skip them if they can't tell you coherently what they're doing within 10 seconds. i'm not saying that they have to actually complete the action in game with all the rolls and modifiers but just that they tell you a coherent sequence of actions. at the beginning of the game, tell players that if they want to do an extremely nonstandard action or one that is complicated, to look it up BEFORE their turn and not during it. if they're not sure and you're not and it sounds too complex, make up a house rule and stick with it (as proclaimed ahead of time). i hated the old d&d grappling rules (frequently getting modifiers wrong) and my players NEVER learned any of them... yet wanted to grapple and wanted to look up the rules only after declaring their actions, taking up too much time. they either went with my quick houserules if they didn't know them themselves or skipped their turn... no looking up and deciphering complex rules when they could have been looked up by the player prior to their actions or changing their mind because they didn't plan ahead. mind you, this doesn't mean that you should look up stuff in general, just that in large groups the PLAYER should be the primary rule researcher and not the GM (who has to manage the whole group and all the NPCs). if a players screws up a climb check, falling down a cliff and you don't know the falling rules off the top of your head... look them up. if a player wants to throw an exotic alien grenade in zero g while kicking off a bulkhead using a character who is on the crit table with several levels of fatigue... then he needs to do some looking up PRIOR to acting.

the above is quite strict but, trust me, you'll need it when running a large group. the key is to get the combat to flow quickly and smoothly as you can easily spend 3/4 of the game time in combat for a large group without streamlining. my players at first balked at the rules i incorporated but later appreciated them when they got in twice as many actions during an hour of combat compared with the slow morass that the early large game combats were. much of the above is actually the wrong thing to do when GMing a smaller group (3-4 players) and of no benefit to normal sized ones compared with the normal rules (5 players).

I'd also recommend breaking the fingers of any player who sits there fiddling with a 'phone, laptop, or with their head in a book...

As mentioned above large groups need more discipline. I like my groups between 4 and 6 players. I like to have a group of 6 players. When one of the players is absent the group is large enough to continue. With 4 players this can be a problem as you miss certain disciplines.

Thank you for your answers. Especially for those about discipline, I will try it with my players. To make them learn a bit of rules, I say. It's going to be difficult, because none of them is good at Shakespeare's language but, I will try it, at least to look how it goes