How many of you run Themed games? By a theme game I mean stuff like the whole party is rogues amd part of a thieves guild or all witches in a coven or all Paladin on a crusade.
If you mean "all of the characters are the same class", then never. A thieve's guild would greatly benefit from a sorcerer and a fighter. A crusading party would probably benefit from some sort of scout and a priest-type.
But if you mean "the game has a cohesive purpose and general underlying message", then absolutely all of them. Every single one. It's one of my requirements for session 0; theme, tone and genre go a long way to helping guide players to build characters that fit into the setting and into the specific story. I don't want some Victorian-esque Dr. Jekyll in my Arthurian legend. A perfectly virtuous white knight-type probably won't fit very well into a game about the horrors of war and moral gray areas.
Rarely, and when I do, it's generally as a one shot or only goes a handful of sessions. It can be fun having, for example, an entire party of Fighters in the city watch try brute force their way through solving a crime for a few sessions, but the appeal will dry up pretty quickly.
Increasingly but still loosely. For example, one of our current campaigns is finally our first "evil campaign". Turns out being evil lost it's appeal to some who requested it and ended up making a neutral character, and that our characters mostly end up doing the same neutral-ish merc work though with a few nasty sidelines.
I think part of our issue is that players don't collaborate much on character creation and thus mostly end up a ragtag group of murderhobos no matter what theme we are trying.
I think part of our issue is that players don't collaborate much on character creation and thus mostly end up a ragtag group of murderhobos no matter what theme we are trying.
I've hit some snags regarding this sort of thing, too.
At my table, I am extremely careful to outline what players may expect out of a game and what will be expected of the players. Is it a gritty survival-horror, or more of a grand Tolkienian-fantasy? Will there be a lot of political intrigue or is it going to be a traditional dungeon crawl?I am usually heavily involved in everyone's character creation, and encourageven players to get involved in each other's.
But some players seem to take this as a violation of their sacred right to bring a psychic half-demon ninja were-yeti into a low-fantasy fairytale.
If my style isn't for you, okay. I can accept that. But if you say you'll be cool with it and then start "suggesting" I run things completely differently to suit your expectations (where you got them, heaven knows. As I explicitly spelled out what I'd be doing beforehand), then you can take a walk.
My regular home group starting playing some PFS Core games with an all-cleric party. We ended up with only deity duplicated in the group (and one of those has since been rebuilt to avoid the overlap). We haven't done much with them (we're only 2nd level), but it's been an interesting challenge. We don't lack for healing, but we're short on skills, especially knowledges. (My Callistrian dipped rogue at 2nd level to help offset that a bit.)
Lots of good stuff
Pretty much everything Quixote said. Understand there is a difference between occupation and class. Thief is an occupation; anyone can steal stuff. Rogues may be better at it because their class is built around it, but it a thieves guild will have more than just rogues.
Knights of the Round Table is an occupation, but that table will be made up of fighters, cavaliers, clerics, paladins, warpriest, and more. Remember, Merlin was there as well, so any spellcaster would work. Mix them and have a magus at the table. Maybe one from the uncivilized tribes works with the king, that adds druids, shamans, rangers, barbarians, hunters, and more. Advisors from distant lands gets you monks, ninjas, etc.
See what we're saying here?
Lots of good stuffPretty much everything Quixote said. Understand there is a difference between occupation and class. Thief is an occupation; anyone can steal stuff. Rogues may be better at it because their class is built around it, but it a thieves guild will have more than just rogues.
Knights of the Round Table is an occupation, but that table will be made up of fighters, cavaliers, clerics, paladins, warpriest, and more. Remember, Merlin was there as well, so any spellcaster would work. Mix them and have a magus at the table. Maybe one from the uncivilized tribes works with the king, that adds druids, shamans, rangers, barbarians, hunters, and more. Advisors from distant lands gets you monks, ninjas, etc.
See what we're saying here?
Yes, sure. But then again... If you start with the theme "we are all thieves", and then everyone makes just about anything, because thieves can be just about anything, how different off are you than if you hadn't said you were thieves to begin with?
Saying "everyone's a rogue or rogue hybrid", on the other hand, will have more dramatic effects on peoples' characters and thus the campaign. How will you handle healing without a cleric? How will you address non-combat challenges without the wizard? How will you handle the big bad evil guy without a barbarian? If you've got the same army compositions and builds as you always do, the diversified "themed" party won't be much different than an un-themed one, and much of the appeal is lost.
Of course, everything's not just about party composition and a diversified party of thieves can have a very different questline than a diversified party of a holy order. But then also comes the balancing act of what the GM wants and what the players want. Consensus must be reached.
In that regard I'll concede I may be a bit of a hypocrite myself. As a PC I tend to favor less restrictions (especially for races, I just have a penchant for monstrous races like goblinoids and such), while in the game I'm GMing I imposed "human" for everyone. But that's what allowed the game to start with the strongest theme we've tried so far, with all of the players being human nobles pledged to the central human empire. Which I'm hoping will serve as groundwork to then explore other things than railroad murderhoboing (though we do enjoy it).
Yes, sure. But then again... If you start with the theme "we are all thieves", and then everyone makes just about anything, because thieves can be just about anything, how different off are you than if you hadn't said you were thieves to begin with?
I find that the vast majority of a character lies well beyond "race/class/traits/equipment". Five fighters with the exact same build could be five totally different people. One's a veteran soldier, grim and jaded. One's a caravan guard, loud and boorish. Another might be a bodyguard for a local crimelord, discreet and efficient. Then there's the gladiator, an uhinged and reckless maniac. Or maybe a monster-hunter who's s worldly and cautious.
As I said before, it's all about how you set up the game before people actually begin the character creation process. Why does your character have a given ability, and how did they come by it? Do they know the other characters, or was their team selected with a purpose?
In the game I'm current trying to get off the ground, I've told the players they'll be members of one of several small, nomadic tribes that live in the arctic regions far beyond the more European-like countries and peoples. There's a barbarian, a ranger and a druid, but thanks to the information I've given the players about the tribal culture, environment, etc., they all feel like they come from the same story, rather than a mix-up of The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance and Skyrim. I've tols them the theme of the game, at present, is "the veil between worlds is thin."