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For those of you who have had a chance to play the game, what is the range for number of players? What have you found to be your "sweet spot" for number of players?

I am asking specifically because one of our players has moved back to town... and we're now back up to six players. Which is great! I love them all! But I know some games are better with different numbers of players. I'm wondering if that might be more than what we need to make T2K shine.

Thanks!

I've found 4 (not including GM) to be pretty good. 5 is fine, as I imagine 3 would be. 6 would be pushing it IMO, but it all depends on group dynamics, as always.

I haven't played this yet (other than by myself a little bit), but games in the Year Zero family are very use friendly and easy to learn, sure T2K v4 are a bit more complex and crunchier than the average YZE-game, but still not so hard. As soon as everyone has learned the basics of the game it will flow just fine, even with 6 players. One thing that can be a thing in many games with many players is combat, but since this game uses battle maps and tokens (or minis if you have that) as default, that will certainly makes life at lot easier. I used battle maps in other YZE-games (for bigger battles) and it creates a better flow of the combat. I am not an expert in VTT, but what I have seen, it can work well, if everyone knows it (something that I haven't seen much yet, but it is new so), but I think the game will work very well or even better around a real table with the players there. One issue that has nothing to do with this game is that with a large group, it can be tricky to let all the players shine.

I've found 4 (not including GM) to be pretty good. 5 is fine, as I imagine 3 would be. 6 would be pushing it IMO, but it all depends on group dynamics, as always.

In my opinion this is globally true for 98% of all rpgs.

I've found 4 (not including GM) to be pretty good. 5 is fine, as I imagine 3 would be. 6 would be pushing it IMO, but it all depends on group dynamics, as always.

In my opinion this is globally true for 98% of all rpgs.

I agree!

I think D&D and variants (especially the earlier editions) work well for larger number of players. (And games like Classic Traveller for example.)

In other words:
a) PCs as a tightly woven community/team
b) clearly pointed toward conflict to keep everyone  focused

I think Twilight 2000 fits those bills, however, and I'm thinking it might work. So I'm curious what experience other people have had.

Mid-July I'll be running a one-shot with seven players as a birthday special for myself. Maybe I manage to write up a small summary here.

When I played the original TW2000 we kept it to a maximum of four players and it worked very well. So I think 3 or 4 is about right.

I think that the ideal number of players is all about group dynamics. If your group is polite and doesn't interrupt each other, waiting their turn to talk to the GM, then six players are fine. If you have one or more loud and dominating players who interrupt and over-ride other players then you're going to struggle with a group of four players, particularly if you are playing on a VTT. For example, I ran a T2k v1 campaign back in 1989/90/91 for about 18 months with eight players and it worked fine because everyone was happy to let each other speak.

With a large group size the thing that you need to be careful of is several characters splitting off to do something that takes up your GM time, resulting in the remaining players are sitting around without anything to do, getting bored. That can happen in any game, regardless of the system, and the risk increases the more PCs involved. The T2k setting actually helps with preventing this though as combat is louder than in a fantasy game and radios allow communication between separated groups of PCs.

The last thing with a large group is to be strict on the initiative order with players only speaking to the GM on their turn and also being prepared when it is their turn. I've also started using the "on deck" system that I've seen on Critical Role, where the GM warns the player who is next in the initiative order to get ready while they are resolving the actions of the player before them. That ensures that each player is ready when you as a GM turn to them. I also threaten to have PCs hesitate if the player isn't ready, losing their action for the turn, even though I never actually enforce the threat.

Thanks for all the replies everyone!