fellowship size

[saltmarsh]

Hi all I'm looking to start a campaign and was wondering what size fellowships other lore masters find work best I was thinking of between 5-7 your thoughts please

[Hermes Serpent]

Four or five characters is good, too many will bog down both social interactions and combat.

[zedturtle]

Yep, somewhere in that range seems to work well (as long as you can wrangle that many players). That way you can have 1-2 archer characters, which (with the right Virtues) can change things... now you can engage the canon fodder whilst the archer wears down the big guy or goes for the lucky Pierce.

[Falenthal]

Four or five characters is good, too many will bog down both social interactions and combat.

Fully agree. 4 or 5 players is the perfect balance for me when roleplaying.

[Fridokind Wargaug]

It depends on your characters. If you have really out-going characters who not only want to play your adventure but also discover middle-earth, 3 is a nice size. If you have a "normal" group 4 should fit and if you have some shy people 5 would be best.

I started my group with 7 players, which in the beginning, was really annoying sometimes. Decisions took for ever, until we ruled that a hero can pursuade the other in-game.

On the other hand, we once had a maxi-round with 9 heroes where we did nothing but fight. This was fun, too.

[Rich H]

In my experience, there's definitely a sweet spot of 4 to 6 characters as best; I really enjoyed running my campaign with 4 players as that was enough to cover journey roles but also allow each character to shine in their chosen field with little overlap. We've lost a player to personal circumstances and I really don't like running the game with just 3 players. Therefore 5 or 6 players give you a bit of a buffer against this.

[Otaku-sempai]

Six or seven players seems a little high to me. But if you're comfortable with it, go for it!

[poosticks7]

The company of the ring shall be nine, nine walkers against the nine riders... oh wait I'm getting mixed up.

I've run games with 2, 3 and 4 people - 4 was best.

[Jussi Marttila]

I started out with five players, looks like I end might end up having eight players before the campaign is done. Horror.

[Majestic]

I had 7 last night, and have run this game with 8 before as well. In my opinion, that many is just a tad too much (in combat it can take awhile until it comes back around for one's character gets their opportunity again, and numerous characters don't get involved in Encounters).

I think 4-6 is the sweet spot, where everybody gets a chance to shine and you have enough PCs to cover all the necessary skills and abilities.