Field guide · How many
The Size of the Table
Table size limits available moves and shapes. Track channels (pairwise links), airtime (1/n per person), and audience (when people begin performing for the room). Counts include you.
Size by size
| Size | What changes | Watch for | What dominates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two the interview |
One channel, always through you: hub-and-spoke is geometry, not failure. Silence is powerful, but the guest never rests. | Interrogation feel; no recovery time for the guest. | Drawing Out, silence, the Second Answer; prep the person (Dossier). |
| Three the first table |
Three channels enable Table moves and give each guest thinking time. | Triads drift to two-against-one. Rotate which pair is active. | Surfacing Difference, Cross-Pollinating, Bouncing the Ball. |
| Four the conductor's sweet spot |
Six visible channels; the last size where one conversation holds without enforcement. | Coalitions and a guest who hides. | Sequencing as an active duty, Inviting the Quiet Voice; prep the pairings (The Setup). |
| Five–six the fission threshold |
The table wants to split. Choose one enforced conversation or planned side conversations that later reunite. | Unplanned splitting; ten minutes per person per hour; one loud register setting the key. | Asking the Table, The Round, Registers; the Table Timer on a visible screen. |
| Seven–nine enforcement or federation |
One conversation needs rounds, named turns, or a referee. Otherwise, route among side conversations. Disclosure drops as the room becomes an audience. | Quiet contributions lost in noise; the shy guest after the comedian. | Amplifying (highest value at this size), Harvesting across the split, structural Care; The Wheel. |
| Ten and up architecture |
The format hosts: panels, programs, breakouts, and reconvenes. Live work narrows to openings, transitions, whole-room moves, and time. | Believing you can conduct a hall the way you conduct a table. | Prep the format: Run of Show, Participants, Event Packet. See large-room examples in History. |
Three patterns across sizes
- Host centrality is U-shaped. Highest at two, lowest around four to six, then rising from seven. At ten-plus, hosting is mostly structural.
- Silence changes meaning. At two it targets one person; at six it is ambiguous; at ten it marks a segment boundary.
- Preparation shifts: person → pairings → format. Use a Dossier at two, pairings at three to five, timers at five to seven, and a Run of Show above that.
Thresholds are abrupt: three changes intimacy, five begins fission, seven ends spontaneity, and around twelve the single conversation ends.
See Shape. In Palette Draw, use Drawing Out moves for two and Table moves for six.
On film: Parkinson widens a two-man duel to the whole hall (29:39).