I have been asked to run BW for a group of friends. There are 7 interested players. They are a mixed group with a few experienced players in TTRP and some with no experience except for board games with some RPG elements.
I myself have been running BW for over 16 years now. But mostly I run for 3-4 players, usually 3.
I’m interested in hearing other Storytellers’ thoughts on upscaling to a group of 5-7 players.
The plan:
I want to play the Gift as an introduction to the system. (Is there anyone with experience in this scenario?)
Set up a game and setting as usual, but with only human characters
3 or 4 livepaths
only 2 believes per player.
if magic becomes a thing, use the art magic system
I plan to leave out the complex fight! mechanics and ranged combat. Because they are really time-consuming, and I am afraid it will become a drag. I am in doubt about the duel of wits. In my experience, I have enough to model play using bloody versus, a simplified range and cover, and standard mechanics.
So are there people here who have more experience with larger groups, and what advice or thoughts can you share?
Hi there. I don’t really have any advice to share, I’m afraid. Five players and a GM has been my upper limit. It really does work better with fewer players.
I don’t care for Art Magic but I also don’t think it will help you in this regard. In my experience it is more intensive at the table and requires more rules mastery. Standard sorcery might seem more fiddily but players will only have a small handful of spells that they’ll get to know quite well. Once you learn the standard sorcery system, it is quite quick.
In my view, the whole of Burning Wheel is built to funnel characters into meaningful conflicts, by which I mean Fight, Range and Cover, and Duel of Wits. You miss out on a significant chunk of the game if you don’t use them. Much of the math around Artha and advancement is built around the assumption that groups use them regularly. Without them, Artha will bloat, particularly Fate points, and advancement will be slow because most players won’t get much more than 4 or 5 rolls each per session.
In my most recent two-year campaign, I aimed for two conflicts per session, which I think is the sweet spot. We hit it more often than not.