Number of Players

A game that supports a larger range of player numbers will appeal to more people, and will more easily get published.

4

A game should support 4 players, unless there's a good reason not to. Getting a game published is harder if it doesn't. I've done it. The most important — and normal — range is 2-4. It's fine to omit 2, if your game has trading or voting, for instance, and doesn't work at 2.

5

If the turns are short, the interaction is very high, and each player doesn't have a lot of personal components, you can support five. If you're excluding 2, you should probably include 5.

It's increasingly a bonus to support 5 players. I see some publishers requiring it.

6

6-player games are so slow that they shouldn't be made, without designing the game around them. The game turns should be super-fast, or highly-interactive (such as in a trading game). Alternatively, the game can be team-based, or have simultaneous turns (or no "turns" at all).

3

Scaling isn't an exact science. The game will be somewhat distorted at different player counts, regardless of what you do.

For standard 2-4 player games, I try to optimise for 3 players, so that 2 and 4-player are both close to the mark.

2

If your game is very adversarial, just make it a two-player game. Don't sacrifice the gameplay, to add players. Two-player-only games are harder to sell, but do what's right for your game regardless. I wouldn't design a game that requires any other specific number of players, however.

Regardless of the player count, design for two-player first, so you can playtest. Then, add more players later on.

1

Some players will want to play your game solo.

Unless your game is designed for it, or you're a fan of solo games, I don't think a solo variant is worth your time.

Solo variants are much in demand amongst hardcore board gamers, but far less so outside that group.

I had some ideas about 1-player rules for Radlands, but never did anything with them. The fans of Radlands came up with solo rules that are probably much better than anything I could throw together.

Be honest

Don't try to shoehorn extra player counts in, with special modes or kludges.

I was having significant trouble getting Radlands published, and some publishers were telling me that they weren't interested in a two-player-only game. I added modes for 1 to 4 players, even though it was really a very adversarial two-player game. Roxley liked my game, and agreed to publish it. I brought up the 1-4 player modes I'd added. They said that sometimes it's best for a game to just support the player counts it's intended for. They had made this same mistake with their game Santorini, which was really just a two-player game.

I replied "Oh, yeah. I played that game with three players. Then, I went and rated it 5/10 on BoardGameGeek!"

Scaling

With more or less players, the map might be too big or small, or there might be too many or too few resources. Scaling is the process by which you make your game work properly (and hopefully well), regardless of how many people are playing.

It doesn't matter if the game plays differently at different player counts, as long as it's still good. Only scale if necessary. The best scaling is no scaling at all.

If you have games with more players, have less rounds, if possible, so the game length doesn't explode. If a game ends when its components run out, that can be a great way to scale the game length. Just use the same number of components, regardless of player count.

Modify as few things as possible, to scale the game.

Do not make the players go through the decks, to add or remove cards. Just play.

If your game has a board, a basic solution is to have a two-sided board — one for 2-3 players, and one for 4+ players.