PARTY SIZE

I like having a large party where I can pick and choose my team, Golden Sun 2 did this really well. You had 8 different characters that were very customizable, so you could make a party anyway you liked.

http://rpgmaker.net/articles/2/

This will likely interest you.

post=120995
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/2/This will likely interest you.

That was definitely a great article. Taking a look at some Final Fantasies:

FF6 actually turned out to be amazing, even with 13 characters, and each had some good backstory and contribution to battle. It kind of suffered because it didn't have a strong central character, though, and I wish it did.
FF7 did pretty well with 8 (9?) characters, and their individual backstories and contribution to the plot are very well-designed... but gameplay-wise, they were too similar. They shared everything but weapons and Limit Breaks.
FF10 expanded on FF7 by including around the same amount of characters with great stories, but also gave gameplay value by seperating them by individual characteristics. Some monsters required certain characters to defeat, and with the ability to swap characters on-the-fly, this made for a great, quick-paced battle system, and no characters got too much love... except Tidus.


So there's a need for balance. If your RPG requires tactical gameplay, you might need to add more characters to in order to add more skills/mechanics. But, if your story is too shallow, adding more characters will only detract from the plot, and people will be left wondering, "Why is this guy with me again?"

post=121057
Characters work best when they have others to play off of.

This, both in the foil/literary sense and in the game mechanic/synergy sense.

Characters are very important to Karsuman and I. While our current project has only six, each one is fleshed-out... enough. We don't necessarily write out every little detail of their backstory; who cares? We know what's important. Blood type and favorite ice cream flavor isn't exactly zomgunique or even interesting in the least. (I am glad that I know I can seduce Georg with Cheesecake3, however.) Most vital to our characters' interactions is that we know their political views and how tolerant they are of shifts in views. That way, we can know how a character will react to just about anything the story throws at them. This is fairly easy with six characters.

One thing I did for Demon Tower/Diablocide (which has fourteen characters that are always together) was set up a relationship chart with a bubble next to each pairing. When I had a dialogue session between two characters, I checked off a bubble. That way I could make sure everybody got to interact with everybody, and I'd know how they react.

In short: have any number of characters you want, just figure out how they interact.

To use an analogy, most TCGs today have about 1,200 to 2,000 unique cards, but only allow 40 or 60 in a deck. Well over half the cards are used in one deck or another, and that's not even counting decks that use multiple copies of the same card. So, about 600 to 1,000 cards are being used in combinations of 20 or so.

RPGs aren't nearly as meta as TCGs can be, but you probably won't have 2,000 characters so the analogy stands.

There's no straight answer to this.

Just pay attention to what you are doing. Does the character you are adding contribute to the story, or otherwise provide a function or benefit to the game? Then add them. Just don't get too carried away.

post=121174
Well... like people said, the more characters you have, the less you can flesh them out and detail their personality and powers. Doesn't mean that fewer characters is the best, though. One of my all time favorite games is Shining Force (II), in which you had to chose around 8 characters from a party of up to... I don't know, 50? Of course some characters were just weaker than others, but you could chose the ones you found cooler and invest on them.

That would depend a bit on gameplay, I guess.

When I was a kid, my friend and I thought the turtle you find as a party member was such a badass (mostly because he was a turtle). I replayed the game about a year ago and wow, holy hell is he the most useless character. He has about a million defense and 3 hp, and does 1 damage to anyone he attacks until he's level 40.

post=120993
For action based games:
No more than 4.
No less than 1.

I loled at this. How do you have less than 1 party members?

Oh, so your mean 1 OTHER than the main hero. I took it to mean 0 characters you control.