NUMBER OF CHARACTERS?

I think you should stop when you run out of ability to make them interesting and unique. Even the Suikoden games only manage to make about 40 of them actually have anything resembling real personalities, and even fewer have legitimately different play styles. And that's with multiple writers and a 60 hour game. If you are mostly relying on blatant tropes like "HEY THIS CHARACTER IS A SHAVED MARTIAL ARTIST," and you give him about two minutes of stereotypical dialogue when he first joins and maybe another two minute sidequest later where you learn he has a sister, and when you bring him to plot events he says pretty much the same thing as all the other characters but manages to somehow always mention "warrior's spirit" in his one text box worth of dialogue, and that's his entire role and characterization, personally I feel like that character might as well not be in the game.

What kinds of gameplay differences will there be between the characters? Twenty or even thirty characters that play differently is way more doable than fifty characters that play differently.

It also makes a difference: how many characters are mandatory?

Like Lockez said, if you feel you have to water down your characters so that you can make 50 of them, you have too many. FFVI had 16 and it felt like just enough to make each unique, without making them feel too overlapped or any single one too gimmicky. Chrono Cross had like... 50... and one of the common complaints is how a good 80% of them never get used. If that's the case, why add them?

That would definitely fall more in line with something I'd want to play.

SaGa Frontier is a game you might want to look into for inspiration/comparison. It has about 40-50 characters, but you can only get 15 in a single playthrough. Some of them are also locked based on who you pick as your main character. There are four different races that play very differently from each-other, but all the monsters are nearly identical to each-other aside from their starting skills (which get quickly replaced), and the humans really only differ from each-other in how fast they learn certain skills. So there are a lot characters that would normally feel redundant if not for the limitations on recruiting, but instead feel tolerable (if unexciting).

SaGa Frontier 2 has a similarly large cast, but the game's story spans over 80 years. Some of the characters join automatically at the beginning of a scenario and then leave at the end of it without ever saying a word; most of the others have some minor dialogue and characterization but still eventually leave the team. In fact only one character lasts all the way from the beginning to the end of the game, and even he's only used in about a third of the playable scenarios. You control at least seven different main characters throughout the game that I remember. Your team members are constantly being replaced.

Fire Emblem games also have 40-50 characters each. But there are gameplay reasons for this: 1) You can take 10 to 16 characters into each battle, and 2) if a character dies in battle they cannot be revived and are lost forever. They do go out of their way to give as much story dialogue as possible to about 75% of them, even the optional ones, but you can tell that about half of them are pure filler characters and even the non-filler characters mostly have extremely one-dimensional personalities like a mage that mentions hamburgers in every sentence. Because of how the gameplay works, the filler characters are tolerable. Because, you know, you really do end up using a lot of them.

Notably, both of these series get away with their huge casts by placing severe limitations on recruiting and keeping characters. This feels like a stark contrast to Chrono Cross or Suikoden, where a major emphasis of the game is GOTTA CATCH EM ALL. (Also none of these games have half as many characters as Suikoden)

Though I prefer all of these ways of handling large casts to the Suikoden/CC method, I still find the characters themselves far more boring. There's probably a reason most of these games are intercontinental war epics that focus on political intrigue and huge-scale battles. IMO it's because there's very little room for character-driven stories when your characters have to share the spotlight with that many others.

@ OP: You should definitely focus on less characters. The game with the most characters I've played is Chrono Cross at 50. Storyline wise only about what maybe 12 were significant and only about 5-10 characters NOT part of those 12 were okay to use in battles. So at most I felt something for less than half of the cast. Which is horrible.

The next largest cast was Final Fantasy 3 at 16. I cared for the whole cast except Gogo and Umaro. That is only 2 out of 16. Really believe the sweet spot is between 7 and 9 permanent characters depending on the max of in-battle characters and whether or not you can also change out the leader.

If you can give them the same love & care for all 50 as most of the FF 3 cast was given then go ahead. If you are going to give them Chrono Cross love. Then no.

That brings up another question. Are you talking about 50 permanent characters a la Crono Chross or 50 coming and going with only a few becoming permanent party members?

author=LockeZ
What makes them not feel like a waste of space (except maybe Umaro) is that all of them had important unique skills that made them play very differently from each-other. So even if they didn't feel fully fleshed out story-wise, they still had a distinct purpose. Gameplay uniquetitude can be an acceptable replacement for fleshed out story, sometimes (though obviously it's best to have both).

This is very true. Currently playing FF 9 and although Quina and Amerant have not said much that affects the storyline their battle skills have made them very important to me. Which is alot more then what can be said regarding Chrono Cross's cast.

Now I think about it a couple of games do this which helps to make the characters memorable.

So to the OP, make 50 PCs if you want. Just make sure they have:

A) Good storyline/background
B) Unique battle skills (compared to the rest of the cast)
C) All of the Above

And if they don't fit into one of the three choices then get rid of them. You want more LockeZs not more Umaros.

When I think about RPGs with a lot of characters, I think about Pokemon. Looking at Pokemon as a traditional RPG, it is the exception to the "character number rule" which RPG designers encourage having a small and manageable amount of characters. Traditional RPGs are focused on having a select group of heroes to complete a story. Having a select number of characters allows players to switch characters from time to time while progressing through the game's story. Having too many characters in RPGs overwhelm a player and he or she will stick to using a specific team and stick to it. The other characters end up becoming neglected or worse..unused. People who play Pokemon don't want less characters, but demand more.

If you analyze the game's "character rules" like a traditional RPG, we get some interesting lessons that I was going to post, but the effort in this post might turn into my first article......Pokemon is so damn brilliant.

I think a good number is 10. Chances are, you're going to have other characters in the game that you'll want to develop, who you might not want to make playable. When you get to 10 and decide you want more, nobody is going to stop you. Like what others are saying, anything higher than around 16-20 just becomes excessive. Players aren't going to play them all, and it's going to water down the other characters you actually want to develop.

Pokemon is actually a really bad example of hundreds of characters being used effectively, because there are shitloads of pokemon that are objectively worse than others. If you check out what teams people tend to use in the competitive circles, you'll see the same pokemon being used over and over again (I know, for instance, Skarmory was a popular choice in the D/P/P days, at least).

So, while there are hundreds of skills and characters in battle, some are just filler. Honestly, unless you're making a game that requires fifty characters in your party, I think you should cut it down. 4-6 are my magic numbers for a central party, and anyone else who's important is bumped down to important NPC status.

(a-also on the topic of Amarant and Quina being useless: Quina is comic relief and Amarant is a foil character, and are more notable for being unique in battle. Of course, I am the BIGGEST FF9 FANGIRL EVER and will defend every single bit of it to death, even the You Are Not Alone scene. OTL)

I hate filler characters in RPGs, or characters who are just there for no apparent reason. <10 characters is fine by me, if the writer can give all of them unique or interesting personalities/backstories etc. But if you are going to throw 30+ characters at me, most with generic personalities, I'm probably just going to stick to the group that I've let's say... 'bonded' with, i.o.w, characters that have grown on me after a while.

author=emmych
Pokemon is actually a really bad example of hundreds of characters being used effectively, because there are shitloads of pokemon that are objectively worse than others. If you check out what teams people tend to use in the competitive circles, you'll see the same pokemon being used over and over again (I know, for instance, Skarmory was a popular choice in the D/P/P days, at least).

So, while there are hundreds of skills and characters in battle, some are just filler. Honestly, unless you're making a game that requires fifty characters in your party, I think you should cut it down. 4-6 are my magic numbers for a central party, and anyone else who's important is bumped down to important NPC status.

(a-also on the topic of Amarant and Quina being useless: Quina is comic relief and Amarant is a foil character, and are more notable for being unique in battle. Of course, I am the BIGGEST FF9 FANGIRL EVER and will defend every single bit of it to death, even the You Are Not Alone scene. OTL)

Pokemon is a terrific example for craploads of characters. You are always playing with stats, moves, and elemental types. When it came to the game's story, I have to make my team strong to beat the game. When the game is beaten, I have to worry about the competitive players. Now I must really know my Pokemon.

It is tough making an optimum strategy in Pokemon. When I was playing with other people in the battle tower, I had to change my strategy and Pokemon choices to trump the other Pokemon trainers. Then when someone else finds out something new, it becomes popular and I must either fit in with that strategy or figure out how to beat that strategy. I have learned that with competitive environments, even an unrecognized Pokemon can turn the tides of the entire match.

I think other games can emulate that experience. Some characters can help you greatly, but when a new character surprises you, then you want to learn more about how to use this character or find characters of that same class It's like building a strategy that really works, and then a goo accident happens. Then I am exploring a brand new strategy. Ahh..The wonders of the Psychic and Dark Type Pokemon

Also, I love FF9 as well. Every piece of the game fits for me.