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To a limited degree, a lot of my regular players tend to play the same character over and over. Some are more extreme than others- while one always plays the same exact character in every way except name, another will play the same archetype or two repeatedly. Others mix up their race and class, but usually have a similar personality and combat strategy.
I myself am guilty of this, but I'm running the game, not playing in it, so they're gonna have to do as I say, not as I do. :p
Anyway, we're running a campaign now, which should last at least a few more months, but I'm always looking to the future and trying to come up with ideas. The next campaign I think will be the Shackled City AP, mainly because I just got a shiny hardcover volume of it at half price (thank you Paizo!).
I'm curious about how others encourage people to play characters very different from themselves and from what they typically play. I've given thought to a few ways. I'm hesitant to hand out characters that I made and tell them to deal with it; they're a flexible and fun-loving bunch but some of them are really attached to what they play.
Try sitting down and just.. explaining to them the issue and see if they will mix it up abit.
I wouldn't try forcing them to do it. There really isn't anything wrong with playing the same character whether it be in theme or a virtually identical character sheet.
You are both just trying to have fun.. and if its fun for them to play the same guy all the time.. well.. thats fun for them.
-S
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Personally I would give a choice like 28 point buy OR roll anywhere from 5d6 to 9d6 (whatever tempts them) IN A ROW: Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Chr keep the highest 3d6 but the stats stand as they fall: Then its THEIR choice. Just watch market forces slowly drive them all to random character generation. 5d6 is normally sufficient if you only allow the lowest point buy.
Although I try to stray away from super high-power characters with such high point buy or rolling, I do like that idea. Give them the choice of an extremely attractive random generation, or a so-so point buy.
I'd probably go with 15 point buy versus 3d6 replace the lowest with a 6, in order.
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The problem with any of these stat generation is what we saw that moved us away from them; you'll have a 42 point character and a 15 point character at the same table. That often dictates a level or two difference; it's pretty sick how they stat out.
Yes, point buy is min-maxing, and you never get the oddly intelligent fighters or the likeable druid or the sorcerer that works out; but it makes for a far better long-term game. I never miss the days of dice dictating my place in the power structure; really I wish they would take 4.0s cue and do away with HP rolls too (though no GMs around here still roll HP).
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Try sitting down and just.. explaining to them the issue and see if they will mix it up abit.
I wouldn't try forcing them to do it. There really isn't anything wrong with playing the same character whether it be in theme or a virtually identical character sheet.
I don't want it to come off as me complaining- far from it, I enjoy the game regardless. But having unique characters and tailoring the adventure to those interesting characters makes my job more fun, and I like to challenge them.
When I say challenge them, I don't just mean with difficult CRs. I try to incorporate real-life puzzles, make them roleplay through scenarios when they're feeling lazy and just want to roll diplomacy, and the like. This would be another kind of challenge- a metagame challenge, but valid nonetheless.
At least a couple of my players play a certain type of character because it's comfortable. They don't have to think a whole lot about roleplay and they know what they're going to do with things go down. I'd like to see what they could do when they have to really think from a different perspective, and I think it would make the game more fun and inspire everybody to branch out and be more imaginative.
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The problem with any of these stat generation is what we saw that moved us away from them; you'll have a 42 point character and a 15 point character at the same table. That often dictates a level or two difference; it's pretty sick how they stat out.
Yes, point buy is min-maxing, and you never get the oddly intelligent fighters or the likeable druid or the sorcerer that works out; but it makes for a far better long-term game. I never miss the days of dice dictating my place in the power structure; really I wish they would take 4.0s cue and do away with HP rolls too (though no GMs around here still roll HP).
This is the one situation in which I would do point buy. I've done campaigns where the min-maxer got super lucky with rolls and ended up with about 40 points worth of point-buy, while the less power game-y of the group wound up with average characters. It made the game a lot less fun.
I'm also considering a game where the players start with a single level of an NPC class and stats that I generate specifically so that it would be hard for them to fall back into the same habits (the fighter who dumps charisma constantly gets a character with low strength and high mental stats, for example) and let them decide on how their character progresses from there.
I would approach them with the idea of playing something different. They might go for it. My group lightly complains about it with no results so the for the next Star Wars game I have already called the tank/damage dealer spot. I normally play the rogue type, which I have told them I am abandoning for the time being.
I've had similar problems, here's what I did:
1) Have everyone write up their stats, but ask them all to bring a quick, two or three sentence description of their characters as well.
2) Sit them all down, pause a moment for dramatic effect, and tell them all to pass their character sheet and description to the player on their left.
3) Begin game.
It's worked for me in the past. This method got a super hard-core melee character to try Wizard, and he loves the class now.
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In actuality, if you want to make things interesting and fresh, take a cue from Ed Greenwood's book... make the characters, give them backstories, and ask people to roleplay them. They don't get to customize, keep magic items as something "rarely available for purchase" so you dictate what magic items go out; even have them only be able to get spells from monsters they defeat. This will focus the game, and if they are playing a specific way you can give them feats to match.
I thought about this some; it kind of takes me back to the old Temple of Orcus. Here was an 18th level module that ACTUALLY worked; and was fun and interesting. The key was we played with the pre-gen; the wizard had awesome spells, but none of the world-shattering bombs. And characters were well made, but not perfectionists. Many remember that as one of the best modules I got to run.
It seems with a cooperative group of players it'd make an interesting game. Spice it up a little bit by having it be a prince and his entourage, each with interesting little back stories. It's more work for you, but I think it'd give you the campaign you're looking for.
I have this problem myself. I have one player in particular who wants to play nothing but small sized characters (read: gnomes and halflings), preferably rogues. Problem is, she plays them badly. When asked why she plays them, her answer is simply "Because they're fun." Unfortunately, not so much for her DMs or the rest of the players.
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Those are both good ideas, Convict and Thalin. I'm leaning towards writing their characters and just politely asking them to try to get into it and have fun with the situation.
I'd go to the effort of writing a page or two for each character of background, important events, motivation, et cetera. I like to imagine that if I give them a lot of fun stuff to work with, and then make references to those write-ups and work them in as much as I can to the campaign, it will help them get into it more.
I've had similar problems, here's what I did:
1) Have everyone write up their stats, but ask them all to bring a quick, two or three sentence description of their characters as well.
2) Sit them all down, pause a moment for dramatic effect, and tell them all to pass their character sheet and description to the player on their left.
3) Begin game.
It's worked for me in the past. This method got a super hard-core melee character to try Wizard, and he loves the class now.
I did this once.
The crying still haunts me to this day. Especially because the min-maxer got another player's 14 year old sister's character, and the hardcore spell-using-but-actually-doesn't-know-how-spells-work player got a fighter type.
It haunts me.
Something I intend to try in the near future: Ask them to make up a party of just the new 6 base classes.
I prefer to ask the players to write a bit of a backstory for their character FIRST (with my participation) and THEN build the character.
It allows you to tie them in, and gives them a broader purpose in the game, as well as inspire their choices a bit more... they realise that they don't need to take the same 'sword and board dude' or whatever as they aren't just participating in the story (campaign), they are the fabric.
That said, at the start of each campaign I normally took each player through one or two solo sessions before the campaign proper, then tied the all in. Just made things smoother. Then again, my last big campaign ended up running for around six years and we lost count at over one hundred different players so...
I have this problem myself. I have one player in particular who wants to play nothing but small sized characters (read: gnomes and halflings), preferably rogues. Problem is, she plays them badly. When asked why she plays them, her answer is simply "Because they're fun." Unfortunately, not so much for her DMs or the rest of the players.
That's a tough one...
Maybe just a bit of friendly 'guidance' would allow them to still have fun, but cut the disruption!
For ability generation, here's mine. It starts with the 3.5 "Organic" rolling method:
4d6, drop lowest, assigned in order.
Pick one. Reroll it, taking the better result.
Optionally: pick two. Swap them.
You get to do this once and only once, with me watching. If you don't like the results for whatever reason, replace them with the Elite Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) assigned as you choose.
The only exception is if the numbers you rolled are actually equal to or worse than the Elite Array, in which case I'll let you have a full reroll. By "actually worse," I mean your highest number is no more than 15, your second highest is no higher than 14, etc. -- a set with a 16 is a keeper, even if it comes out to less than 15 points.
Now, as to the other half of the problem... I have a player who came up with several characters when he was in high school. He's 35, and hasn't come up with much else since. And of course, they're high school characters: vampiric bloodline, mage-arsonist, Oafish Brute, and "can I be a half dragon this time?" When the latest campaign started, I sat him down and laid it out that he had to bring something new this time, because everyone's tired of the same old over-the-top crap. We held a brainstorming session: I had him rattle off his ideas for how to build the character, but put my foot down whenever he started drifting toward an old trope.
After a little back-and-forth I convinced him to turn one of them on its ear. Now he's playing an undead-bloodline sorcerer, but he's from a long line of undertakers and his motivation for adventuring is to put the undead back in the grave (because crawling out of it was an insult to his profession). Vampires are for killing this time, not fawning over. Plus he wields a shovel. It's completely unlike any character I've seen him play, both in method and motivation, and he's totally enjoying it.
TL;DR: don't just tell them to make something different, help them do so and make sure it's still theirs in the end.
We held a brainstorming session: I had him rattle off his ideas for how to build the character, but put my foot down whenever he started drifting toward an old trope.
Awesome story, goes well with what I was saying about sitting down with people and building the character before ROLLING the character.
Awesome story, goes well with what I was saying about sitting down with people and building the character before ROLLING the character.
To be honest, either way works pretty well with that rolling system. If you build your character before seeing your ability scores, you're probably going to have to bend the concept in a couple of places depending on where the numbers lie. There's enough customization in steps two and three (and of course, the option of swapping out for the array) that you can generally make any concept work, but for instance another player was dead-set on trying a PF Paladin and wound up playing a gnome with 8 Dex (but 16 Str, 16 Con and 20 Cha). His first feat was tower shield proficiency. A very unique character.
However, if you roll first, it can really stimulate the imagination. Knowing that your character is going to have certain strengths or weaknesses can immediately get you into the role, thinking about the decisions such a character would have made growing up with those traits, yielding a completely natural concept.
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I have this problem myself. I have one player in particular who wants to play nothing but small sized characters (read: gnomes and halflings), preferably rogues. Problem is, she plays them badly. When asked why she plays them, her answer is simply "Because they're fun." Unfortunately, not so much for her DMs or the rest of the players.
How do you play a short race badly?
How is what she is doing not fun for the rest of the players?
I had a little bit of this issue myself at one point...
For a change of pace I told the group we were using non-PHB classes, and they could choose any base class from the 3.5 complete books or other WotC source books.
It made for an interesting game.
I have this problem myself. I have one player in particular who wants to play nothing but small sized characters (read: gnomes and halflings), preferably rogues. Problem is, she plays them badly. When asked why she plays them, her answer is simply "Because they're fun." Unfortunately, not so much for her DMs or the rest of the players.How do you play a short race badly?
How is what she is doing not fun for the rest of the players?
Question #1: She over-exaggerates the races traits. They become caricatures. For example, gnomes gain their +1 against goblinoid opponents. She takes the "hatred" listing literally, attempting to kill all goblins even if the party wants to take one alive for questioning, or if it would be an alignment violation, such as slaughtering non-combatants. However, it is not just the race, but the class, which leads to...
Question #2: The prior example with the goblins shows part of the problem. Wholesale slaughter leading to an inability of the other players to enact such tactics as interrogation. When playing a rogue she'll often slip into the old "I'm a thief, therefore I should steal things all the time, so I'll just try to take stuff from this chest before the rest of the party gets here." Her tactics are poor. She'll try to use stealth first, then move across an intervening space, even though it will take her out of the combat for rounds, when she could just as easily double move for one round, then use Acrobatics to flank. Or she'll go into hyper-aware mode and want to search every 5' square or door for traps, even when there aren't likely to be any. (Who traps the door to the privy?)
Part of the problem is that she's not picking up the rules as quickly as the rest of the group (which is strange, because she's played 3.5). The other part is that she gets defensive when people try to give her advice, taking it as someone else "trying to tell her how she should play her character."
I have this problem myself. I have one player in particular who wants to play nothing but small sized characters (read: gnomes and halflings), preferably rogues. Problem is, she plays them badly. When asked why she plays them, her answer is simply "Because they're fun." Unfortunately, not so much for her DMs or the rest of the players.How do you play a short race badly?
How is what she is doing not fun for the rest of the players?Question #1: She over-exaggerates the races traits. They become caricatures. For example, gnomes gain their +1 against goblinoid opponents. She takes the "hatred" listing literally, attempting to kill all goblins even if the party wants to take one alive for questioning, or if it would be an alignment violation, such as slaughtering non-combatants. However, it is not just the race, but the class, which leads to...
Question #2: The prior example with the goblins shows part of the problem. Wholesale slaughter leading to an inability of the other players to enact such tactics as interrogation. When playing a rogue she'll often slip into the old "I'm a thief, therefore I should steal things all the time, so I'll just try to take stuff from this chest before the rest of the party gets here." Her tactics are poor. She'll try to use stealth first, then move across an intervening space, even though it will take her out of the combat for rounds, when she could just as easily double move for one round, then use Acrobatics to flank. Or she'll go into hyper-aware mode and want to search every 5' square or door for traps, even when there aren't likely to be any. (Who traps the door to the privy?)
Part of the problem is that she's not picking up the rules as quickly as the rest of the group (which is strange, because she's played 3.5). The other part is that she gets defensive when people try to give her advice, taking it as someone else "trying to tell her how she should play her character."
Let her mistakes kill her a few times. That does not mean set her up to be killed. I am saying let her hang herself. After she gets tired of making new characters she might come around. You have already tried giving advice. There is nothing more that can be done.
*snip*
Part of the problem is that she's not picking up the rules as quickly as the rest of the group (which is strange, because she's played 3.5). The other part is that she gets defensive when people try to give her advice, taking it as someone else "trying to tell her how she should play her character."
What rules specifically is she not picking up? (considering the change over 3.5 to Pathfinder isn't that big.)
If there are specific rules she has trouble with... one way to help with that is to print up or photocopy the specific rules to be kept with her character info. (An easy way to do this is to copy/paste specific rule blocks from the to a notepad and then just print those rules) As DM, its then as simple as telling her to refer to the rules in question.
This is a generally good tactic to use for any player. If there are specific rules your character relies on constantly simply print up those rules to keep with your character. It saves allot of wear and tear on your game books. Eventually, you become very familiar with the rules from constantly reading them all the time.
One method to consider is to tell each of your players to make up a character, but they cannot make up xxxx. With xxxx being their usual class and race (if appropriate).
Add in a nice stat generating system (that 5d6 drop lowest 2 sounds nice) as a small incentive and they may surprise you.
To a limited degree, a lot of my regular players tend to play the same character over and over. Some are more extreme than others- while one always plays the same exact character in every way except name, another will play the same archetype or two repeatedly. Others mix up their race and class, but usually have a similar personality and combat strategy.
Here's another thread on that subject that you might be interested in looking at:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/dnd/archives/whyKeepP layingTheSameCharacter
I've tried something I never did before in my current campaign. Just gave out a list of classes/races that were available and asked the players to email me their choice by order of preference 1,2,3 ....
They didn't feel robbed out of their choice but I still had some control on who played what.
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Well, the searching 5' thing... the GM should just tell her when to make a roll. Throw in a few random rolls to keep it a bit more random on the metagaming.
I've seen play up the hatred thing all the time. Just take it away from the race and that will solve it.
Nothing wrong with trying to be stealthy in combat, but her character should know, even if she doesn't, that it a waste of time in most situations.
Some people have different play styles. Doesn't make them wrong.
There is little difference between 3.5 and Pathfinder.
Have he find a deck of many things and change her into a barbarian. (who cares if it isn't in the rules... it's a DOMT. It changes sexes and alignments, why not class levels?
Stealing form the party is lame. I don't allow it my games, unless it is to keep the plot going. She ends up stealing the cursed items and the rest of the party gets the non-cursed ones. (That might help...)
If all else fails, ask her to find a different group to play with. (I've had to do this before and the person changed their attitude and things were great afterwards...)
My $.02
I've found most players tend to play one character type/role most of the time.
However they can be encouraged to player another role if you assure them there will be opportunities to succeed in the new role.
You can throw ideas at them for what to do or how to do it during character creation and during the game, you can hit the pause button, ask for ideas from the players (or just give them ideas yourself), and within a few sessions they will find they are in the swing of things.
Many players have more than one side/aspect to their nature, if you know them then you can get them to indulge their other traits instead of just bringing their same persona to the table.
You can even point out some examples from film or novels where said hero did this, this and that.
If someone plays fighters because they like the armour and weapons, asking them to play a wizard might be abit dramatic, but they can be encouraged to play a cleric or druid who wear some armour, and have some spells to boost armour and a range of other neat stuff.
If someone players wizards and worries about lack of ranged area of effect options for fighters and rogues, point out alchemists fire, thunderstones and tanglefoot bags.
You need to tell them with examples that the change is an opportunity for some cool stuff, not a big risky mistake in which they do not know what they are doing.
I'm curious about how others encourage people to play characters very different from themselves and from what they typically play. I've given thought to a few ways. I'm hesitant to hand out characters that I made and tell them to deal with it; they're a flexible and fun-loving bunch but some of them are really attached to what they play.
The "easiest" way to encourage players to run different characters is to use a random ability score generation method (such as 4d6 or 2d6+6) assigned in order. This forces the player to adapt the character to the ability scores, instead of choosing ability scores to suit the character concept they "typically" play. The choice of race also becomes a very big deal in many instances, which can cause the player to choose a different race than normal (i.e., the "dwarf guy" choosing to play an elf or vice versa); the versatility of half-elves, half-orcs, and humans probably will make them popular choices.
Another option is to incorporate a "random background generator" that partially defines the character's history and personality. You can even go further and have it partially define (or encourage) skills, feats, and equipment. Even something as simple as randomly rolling for traits (available as a free download on the Pathfinder RPG Resource Page) before choosing the race/class can often direct the character development in fresh and new directions.
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In my younger days (almost 20 years ago now) I was very guilty of this exact thing. I had Tovar Moondragon, and for variety Tovara Moondragon. Always Elven. Always arcane casters, no matter the game system.
I would just name them by gender (Tovar = Male, Tovara = Female) and then add the iteration as a number. I think I got up to Tovar Moondragon the 27th before I stopped playing for over 10 years.
And now my Beloved Spouse (Kobold chorus: "We love you!) is letting me play Tovar again.
And I've written both of them as a split-personality deity into my homebrew world.
*sighs* I am SO guilty.
Now, however, I never play the same character twice and I'm much happier.
To a limited degree, a lot of my regular players tend to play the same character over and over. Some are more extreme than others- while one always plays the same exact character in every way except name, another will play the same archetype or two repeatedly. Others mix up their race and class, but usually have a similar personality and combat strategy.
I myself am guilty of this, but I'm running the game, not playing in it, so they're gonna have to do as I say, not as I do. :p
Anyway, we're running a campaign now, which should last at least a few more months, but I'm always looking to the future and trying to come up with ideas. The next campaign I think will be the Shackled City AP, mainly because I just got a shiny hardcover volume of it at half price (thank you Paizo!).
I'm curious about how others encourage people to play characters very different from themselves and from what they typically play. I've given thought to a few ways. I'm hesitant to hand out characters that I made and tell them to deal with it; they're a flexible and fun-loving bunch but some of them are really attached to what they play.
It's not really on topic I suppose, but it sounds to me like you dont really have a problem. Your group (including you) likes playing the same/similar characters from campaign to campaign. I can understand trying to stretch them if you have a particular story you want to run (featuring 'all thieves' or 'all nobles' or something like that). However, is there really any advantage in pushing people to play their second or third choice of character?
Obviously if people are bored then it's a good thing, but probably not something you need to push for - the suggestion may be enough to spark some fresh enthusiasm. Basically. I'd be wary of trying to live up to "how you think it should be" rather than "how your group likes to play". My experience is, if people want to try something new they will. Even if you can persuade them to experiment outside their immediate first choice - is everyone going to be enjoying it as much?
I've found most players tend to play one character type/role most of the time.
However they can be encouraged to player another role if you assure them there will be opportunities to succeed in the new role.
You can throw ideas at them for what to do or how to do it during character creation and during the game, you can hit the pause button, ask for ideas from the players (or just give them ideas yourself), and within a few sessions they will find they are in the swing of things.
Many players have more than one side/aspect to their nature, if you know them then you can get them to indulge their other traits instead of just bringing their same persona to the table.
You can even point out some examples from film or novels where said hero did this, this and that.
If someone plays fighters because they like the armour and weapons, asking them to play a wizard might be abit dramatic, but they can be encouraged to play a cleric or druid who wear some armour, and have some spells to boost armour and a range of other neat stuff.
If someone players wizards and worries about lack of ranged area of effect options for fighters and rogues, point out alchemists fire, thunderstones and tanglefoot bags.
You need to tell them with examples that the change is an opportunity for some cool stuff, not a big risky mistake in which they do not know what they are doing.
I agree that you have to support your players trying new concepts and help guide them as they stumble through learning a new class. You already have in mind what they preferred in the past, so that should be a good reference point in regards to how they prefer to interact with the campaign world. I would also approach the whole group, versus a single individual, and have everyone take a change of pace. Hopefully it will bring back the excitement we all had when first starting to play roleplaying games. The DM also must commit to mixing up things on his or her end to make the experience complete.
I had a little bit of this issue myself at one point...
For a change of pace I told the group we were using non-PHB classes, and they could choose any base class from the 3.5 complete books or other WotC source books.
It made for an interesting game.
This is the closest to my system. The rule is simply you can not play the same class or race in back to back characters. I limit what classes and races are allowed (core and a few splats).
One player who usually has a sneaky rogue, instead played a sneaky fighter followed by a sneaky scout, and plans the next to be a sneaky axe wielder. The others are stretching their wings a bit, but they have a certain mindset on how to play. When the wizard was out one day, they collectively had him cast troll shape and enter melee. The practice of spellcasting was so foreign to them they all nearly died.
I will no longer force anyone to play a class they do not want to (including/especially 'the party needs an X' :).