PARTY SIZE

At first, I thought this was the "Panty Size Topic."

For party size, I personally like 1-3. I'm not a big fan of micro-managing who gets what equipment, so small numbers help with that.

Panty size, I personally think that depends entirely on who's going to wear it. So you should probably just use your common sense.

post=127420
Is this a mechanics question or a storytelling question?

Do you mean "in a party at once" or "available to choose from"?

I guess it could be both.

I personally think along the same lines as Karsuman, that the party (in terms of the cast i suppose) should be as many characters as the story requires.

In terms of an in battle party, I like no more than 3 members.

Perhaps. It certainly does seem more viable than having everyone get their own set of equipment (XX can use knives, while YY uses knives, swords and bows, meanwhile ZZ uses everything including stillborn kittens). I wouldn't know without playing it though.

I think that FFX proves that so long as it doesn't get enormous, party size can be fairly large without getting bad.

Also, I think Final Fantasy Tactics (You know, the real one) did a great job of introducing tons and tons of characters, but making them all interesting and having them all have a good chunk of importance in the plot.

4 parties of 4 for a total of 16 party members, with the ability to toggle through the 4 parties, from a choice of 22 classes.

That is the best answer.

I always get a little annoyed at games that have a million playable characters and you are forced to choose who will take part in the battle today and who will just sit back and watch

Me too, and most of the commercial games I like have this problem (everything from Final Fantasy Tactics to Mass Effect 2). What about games where you can have all the characters in your party at once though?

If you have the ability to choose your party members, a good number for your roster is at least 2x and at most 3x the number you're allowed to take with you. This holds pretty well for a traditional normal-length story-based RPG, though it sometimes falls apart for Tactical RPGs or for games with generic characters that have little or no story purpose.

If the number you can take with you is 5 or more, you might be able to get away with less than 2x. More than 3x is really pushing it, though. Unless you are forced to use multiple parties a lot, it becomes quite silly. I realize some games use differences between party members to let you customize your team, instead of letting you customize each individual character in depth. But after a certain point, you just have to wonder what options are really being added. If FF6 had combined Strago and Relm into one character, or left out Umaro, no one would have thought it was a lesser game.

It's possible to do it well. The Fire Emblem series is an example of a type of game that gives you a crapload of party members and makes them all meaningful. Of course, it mostly does this by making it impossible to revive anyone who dies.

post=127723
More than 3x is really pushing it? Hah! I'll take your 3x and give you 3.5x. Demon Tower/Diablocide has 14 PCs from the first playable moment on, and the party size is only four. You can switch them out on any turn, however - and really should, especially against bosses.

That mechanic made the final boss in Dragon Quest IV an epic battle.

Party sizes between 3 and 4 suit well with me. Just as long it seems fitting.