New game

[Aaron]

Hi everyone,

So I'm going to be starting my first Agon campaign shortly, but it looks like I might only have three players.  Do those with experience think this is enough for a good game.  I'm a little concerned that they might not generate many oaths between them with so few and the competitiveness might also suffer.  Has anyone any experience in running smaller groups and any tips on how to promote oaths and competition?

Thanks.

Aaron

[Darren Hill]

I've played it with a 2-player, 3-player, and 5-player group. Even the 2-player group had no problem generating plenty of oaths and competitiveness.
I'd say 3- or 4-players is the ideal number for Agon.

The main thing is to ensure that the game session provides the right arena for that competitiveness to develop: if you make each fight a tough fight where they have to use many resources to win, then they'll most likely work as a close-knit team and competitiveness won't be part of the game (except near the end when the fight is won and they jockey to be the one who gets the last blow).
If you give them a nice mix of hard fights and not-too-taxing ones, they'll have the opportunity to compete in the less taxing ones.
Also, be prepared for it to take a while for them to catch on to the oaths and competitive element of play, or encourage it openly but if you do, make those early fights fairly easy.

[John Harper]

What Darren said. :-)

Most of the Agon games I've run have been with 3 players. It's my preferred group size, really.

Good luck with your game, Aaron. Let us know how it goes.

[Aaron]

Thanks guys, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

It's funny, I thought I'd run a greek inspired game using the D20 variant Iron Heroes.  I made up a bunch of house rules to make it more epic and encourage competitiveness, was ready to start writing an adventure then thought.  Why go to all this trouble when I have Agon just sitting there untried?  So now I'm super keen to give it a go.  I think the thing holding me back was the thought that I didn't have enough players, thus my original post.  But now thats all cool.....

Thanks again.

Aaron.

[Nathan Frund]

I'm a little late to the conversation.  I've run Agon with 2 players with as many as 8.  The game scales well through that player number range very well.  While the larger groups are fun, I've had as many memorable game moments with two players.