Number of Players

I have been recently re-reading the entire original D&D books (the "LBB") for a little personal project that may be revealed someday. It has been enlightening to say the least. So many wonderful little gems of gaming wisdom, and surprisingly tight and excellent design work I hadn't notice before (like Cleric's continual light spells being "like full daylight", unlike Magic-User's version. And you realize why when reading through monsters and seeing the ones affected by full daylight...)

One thing that jumped out at me immediately:

Number of Players: at least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ration should be about 1:20 or thereabouts.

-Men & Magic, page 5

That's FOUR to FIFTY players. And the recommended ratio is 1 to 20!

Can you imagine even finding 20 player's willing to play a campaign nowadays? Even for a one shot at a convention you'd be hard pressed to pull that many together. Wow, those were the days.