In the chronicle I'm currently running, I started with four players and ended up with eight or nine. Having such a big group slows things down a bit, but we've managed to keep the story going nonetheless. I do have to agree with Kroack that it's a gigantic pain in the ass to run games for larger parties. Sometimes, I have flashbacks to my semester of student teaching, as I have to try to keep everyone constantly entertained or the group's attention starts to drift. Once this story wraps up, I think I'm going to try to run smaller games so that I can give each player a bit more face time.