The classic and cliche opening for many an adventure has been, "You are all in a tavern, and you know each other somehow."
That somehow is what interests me. I'm curious, from an in-game and out-of-game standpoint, how do adventuring groups form?
I was the one who tended to push for party balance in my gaming group - as a player, I tended to start by picking roles we were weak in. If nobody was playing a healer, I picked cleric, for example. Later I encouraged the group to discuss their character concepts together, rather than just with the GM, before the game. Before, everyone would play what they wanted and if we wound up with three CN mages, a NE rogue, and a LG paladin, well, that was the party. And it probably didn't last long. (I realize some GMs can write adventures to compensate for an unbalanced party. Ours have historically been poor at this.)
However, while we often discussed concept and role as a group, we rarely discussed background. Consequently, nearly every game in my group starts with the GM's plot beginning with either a disaster/attack on an event we are all part of (requiring cooperation to defeat and later investigate the causes of), or some more powerful/wealthy patron bringing us together for some quest.
I toyed with, but have never implemented, an idea where everyone who wants to creates a concept for the group leader, and the GM picks the best one. Then the group leader character, as the starter member of an adventuring group, interviews and hires the other players in character - and has refusal rights on characters, in which case that character has to come up with a new concept. This fits better from an in-game standpoint, since that is probably more likely how an adventuring group would form.
How do other groups handle it? Both out of game and in game?
My most memrable begining was just that. "Your in a tavern..." We were all hired on as guards for a merchant caravan. The dm informed us of what was accepable backstory wise, then said, "Your in a tavern and the caravan doesn't leave for 3 days. What do you do now?" And then got up and left. We spent the next 2-3 hours just talking among ourselves (in character) and finding out obout each other. When we finally started up the session, the party was very much along the road to cohision.
In our current campaign, 2 characters were veterans of the previous arc to destroy the lich ruling the country to the south. Those 2 were the paladin and the shadowdancer. One player wanted to bring a character he'd designed a while back, came up with a good story for how he ended up on this world, and joined because he could look into things like how to get home. My character knew the contact of the previous veterans, not to mention liked the idea of destroying the lich that ruled her least favorite country. When the contact person, Jade, asked Morag to come and join them, Morag did so readily.
When the paladin left (player moved up to New York, we're in Maryland), the new character had to be a tank and party face. He's our eldritch knight, adding more hp than the paladin, more arcane power than the ranger/wizard/arcane archer, and all the paladin's diplomatic skills...in a nongood, nonlawful alignment.
We've made some effort from the get-go to compensate for missing roles, but we understand that some weaknesses still exist (no heavy-duty tank up front, for example). We all like our characters and we adapt.
Here is one idea a friend and I tried for a single-player game. The intention was to have me play two PCs while my GM friend fleshed out the party with GMNPCs, but there's no reason this couldn't be tried by a larger group with everybody playing one PC.
The backstory was an open call for adventurers to come to town X to deal with some growing threat. I made up and brought in a total of 8 possible PCs and the GM created a significant number of GMNPCs, both outsiders and locals. This monstrous group got together in character and formed up groups for a variety of short-term missions to help out the town. The OOC plan was to test out which PCs and GMNPCs we both liked and worked well together by constantly changing up the various parties. When a character just wasn't working out as well as others, it got written out, either by dying or finding some plausible in game reason why it left the town, until a normal-sized party remained to deal with the more long-term problems the town had.
We did this just when 3.5 came out, partially as an experiment unto itself, and partially to try out all the new bells and whistles that 3.5 had that 3.0 lacked by creating and testing a ton of characters.
The classic and cliche opening for many an adventure has been, "You are all in a tavern, and you know each other somehow."
That somehow is what interests me. I'm curious, from an in-game and out-of-game standpoint, how do adventuring groups form?
I was the one who tended to push for party balance in my gaming group - as a player, I tended to start by picking roles we were weak in. If nobody was playing a healer, I picked cleric, for example. Later I encouraged the group to discuss their character concepts together, rather than just with the GM, before the game. Before, everyone would play what they wanted and if we wound up with three CN mages, a NE rogue, and a LG paladin, well, that was the party. And it probably didn't last long. (I realize some GMs can write adventures to compensate for an unbalanced party. Ours have historically been poor at this.)
However, while we often discussed concept and role as a group, we rarely discussed background. Consequently, nearly every game in my group starts with the GM's plot beginning with either a disaster/attack on an event we are all part of (requiring cooperation to defeat and later investigate the causes of), or some more powerful/wealthy patron bringing us together for some quest.
I toyed with, but have never implemented, an idea where everyone who wants to creates a concept for the group leader, and the GM picks the best one. Then the group leader character, as the starter member of an adventuring group, interviews and hires the other players in character - and has refusal rights on characters, in which case that character has to come up with a new concept. This fits better from an in-game standpoint, since that is probably more likely how an adventuring group would form.
How do other groups handle it? Both out of game and in game?
Sometimes I start them off as a group before the adventure begins. Sometimes they are not a group, but they have worked together before. Another time they were highly recommended for a job, and it was just a group of specialist being brought together. I have never used the bar thing, because I would not trust my life to someone in a bar. We may have to fight together to get out of the bar alive, but after that we would part ways.
Normally there is some history so mistrust is not an issue.
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My group dedicates one night to creating characters. We use a system where each player writes down a title of the novel that stars his character. He then trades it with randomly with another player. They then work out how the PCs interacted in the novel. This is repeated three times. So far this has led to a good mix of characters and relationships.
We do not assign party roles, though this tends to happen naturally during our discussions. Our group is fine with players running characters they want to run rather than what they need to run.
Currently, we are running through the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. Our group is focused around a minor noble house, House Merivanchi (the name choice is an inside joke from the STAP), and two of the PCs are members as well as two reoccurring NPCS. The party paladin married into the house, but his wife (and sister to the two PCs) was murdered by Gaedren Lamm.
We also have a PC who is a long term associate of the house and another PC who was rescued (alongside her daughter) early in the adventure path. Our newest member is a sorcerer who is related to Grau.
Two of our NPCs (both PCs at varying stages) are adopted sons of another minor noble family and have both fallen from grace. One has become a wererat (explaining his disappearance) and his twin brother has never been a fully cooperative ally throughout the campaign.
Generally, our group tries to establish strong links amongst two or three of the PCs and then tie in others. Sitting down beforehand and discussing ideas and characters really helps, though you need to be open and cooperative.
Party Cohesion is a very important thing. Or not.
If you are a non-RP group (wich is fine) you have no worries.
*automaton voice* We work toghether because we work together.
That is the 'not' case.
Character backgrounds should mesh well, but not always seamless. It is often a good thing when the party knows one another...
Had a game start when the PCs were all from the same village and had been selected to go to town with the village's goods and sell them for a fair price. The adventure started when they returned to find their village razed, it's Temple (of Iomadae) burned to it's foundation though scorched revealed a trap door...
Really it depends on the group and how (to borrow from White Wolf) Prelude-oriented the players are :)
The only bad thing is when *some* of the players are a tight knit bunch and never think to include other members and leave them out. Just beware of that; it's not cool to have 'factions' in party unless everyone knows that is what is happening and agrees to it :)
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In a homebrew sci-fi campaign that sadly lasted all of about two sessions (based on d20 Modern, with bits and pieces of Star Wars RCR and Pathfinder RPG mixed in), the entire party were members of a fleet similar to Starfleet. (The setting was described as "Star Trek: Enterprise meets Mass Effect, only without the stupid parts." (Friend: "So it's Mass Effect? =p")
The entire party started the game in a starbase's brig following a particularly downhill bar brawl. I let them fill in the details to their CO.
In our current campaign, 2 characters were veterans of the previous arc to destroy the lich ruling the country to the south. Those 2 were the paladin and the shadowdancer. One player wanted to bring a character he'd designed a while back, came up with a good story for how he ended up on this world, and joined because he could look into things like how to get home. My character knew the contact of the previous veterans, not to mention liked the idea of destroying the lich that ruled her least favorite country. When the contact person, Jade, asked Morag to come and join them, Morag did so readily.
I also connected the Ranger (the character from another world) to Jade, who knew of him as a local war hero. The Ranger, as a high level elf, had lived long enough--and long enough in that world--to have been involved in the Haven Rebellion 40 years in the game's past. She asked him personally to help the group, since she knew they'd need someone with some rangering skills since their old ranger friend was off keeping an eye on the old party cleric.
When the paladin left (player moved up to New York, we're in Maryland), the new character had to be a tank and party face. He's our eldritch knight, adding more hp than the paladin, more arcane power than the ranger/wizard/arcane archer, and all the paladin's diplomatic skills...in a nongood, nonlawful alignment.
And he joined the group story wise because the party at the end of the last story arc came to be aware that the results of wrapping up the lich's destruction was going to lead to civil war in his home country, and he decided to join up with you guys to make sure--as you all were going to--the wrong faction wouldn't win leadership of the country.
We've made some effort from the get-go to compensate for missing roles, but we understand that some weaknesses still exist (no heavy-duty tank up front, for example). We all like our characters and we adapt.
The party is very cohesive, and you have a ton of magic at your disposal (even the Shadowdancer has access to Shadow Conjuration and Evocation). You guys only do poorly when you decide you are a mobile tank unit and not the guerrilla spellcasters you are, which is seldom and I think mostly that was because the players were tired. :)
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for a supers game I run, I had the characters all created in the same event, as children. I ran them through about 2 hours of childhood before the event happened that destroyed the facility. At that moment, i told them to explain to me what happened to them after they fled the collapsing building.
I think that was a great start to a set of characters.
Mr. Fishy did an intro like this.
The sorcerer was a trouble maker and sent out of town by her family. The cleric was hired as a guard to the sorcerer. The second sorcerer was fated at birth do great things the signs pointed to the cleric and sorcerer #1. The pair of rogues were in the middle of a botched theft and ran into the party leaving town...we're with you guys. The first adventure getting to the the next town five day to the east.
It takes a little prep and a little ad libbing but it is fun.
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I've made a practice of trying to come up with unusual ways for parties to be brought together.
My favorite was having all the characters falsely arrested. We began the game play with everyone in a set of jail cells, unsure of how they got there or why. It was a pretty effective way for everyone to have time to roleplay their introductions and give them a reason to hang together (or they'll hang apart!) from the start.
In my experience, it is almost entirely irrelevant how the PCs form a party. The thing that really matters is that each PC has a reason to stay with the party. Entrances can be happenstance, but motivations have a constant effect on the plot and dynamic between characters.
This last time around, I just discussed motivations with the new PCs, and then let them kind of "fall in" to the party. But because they have a motivation to stick with the party, I think everything will be okay... we'll see!
Well in my upcoming game that im running, my players are starting as "Notable Members" of Various Factions being recruited for a Party to go where the Factions can't to keep peace and eliminate threats to the Good Kingdoms of Golorian, they're all in to the Idea.