Party creation instead of character creation?

Ry · Feb 16, 2007

Does anyone have a framework for party creation instead of character creation? Something along the lines of "this is how we got together, this is why we're an adventuring party, here's a few of our contacts, Ted the Ranger's a cousin of Tom the Fighter, Brinder the Dwarf is kind of the party father figure, etc." - but with more structure?

Have you tried something like this in your campaign?

wayne62682 · Feb 16, 2007

I used to want it with my old group, but nobody else thought that it was a good idea. The usual reason I got is that people don't always know each other beforehand and it made the game more fun if there was conflict. It usually meant that we had a borderline evil character in the same group with a heroic one and everything felt contrived as the PCs logically would never adventure together.

Adding to the OP's question, I would love to hear how others presented this idea to a group and actually got them to agree that it would be a good idea to create characters as a team instead of individuals who are "forced" together.

Joshua Randall · Feb 16, 2007

As DM, I mandate it. The PCs must all know each other and have a reason to adventure together. Period.

But I've never found a less heavy-handed system that actually works.

Lockridge · Feb 16, 2007

I think that the most common thing is for each person to create their own characters. They do this to get conflict as well as mystery (theres always one person who wants to hide his goals and such as well as to be aloof).

As a player and DM I do prefer team building. I've only seen it done for long range campaigns.

With one group I played with we decided that we would all be dwarven brothers and we made our personal histories together. I was the one who always got into trouble ect.

I find team building much more interesting.

Darklone · Feb 16, 2007

Just let the players do it and it'll work. Tell them they need to be a team and they should write up one reason why they trust each player except one.

Funnily most often everyone picks the same... and he still gets dragged along.

Ozmar · Feb 16, 2007

Our DM just said we were all from the same village, and we made characters together. Still ended up with three humans, an elf and a centaur. (And strangely enough, the elf & human were siblings, and the centaur & human were siblings. Adopted, you see...)

But that worked great. Best game ever, IMO. I personally like that kind of coordinated cooperative character creation. But it has also been the exception, not the norm, in my experience.

Later!
Ozmar the Loner

00Machado · Feb 16, 2007

In my opinion, the wanting conflict or wanting to be aloof thing is a thinly veiled "let me be the center of attention". I'm not sure the players realize that they're trying to get everything to revolve around them, but they always seem to want to rock the boat with players who pick good alignments, steal stuff from party members because they're "a thief" and/or have a secret agenda that for some reason the GM is always supposed to focus on and yet they don't want to tell the other players about it, so they end up monopolizing time with secret notes and other nonsense.

Those sort of character goals, and that sort of playing isn't "wrong" in my opinion, but it's a waste of time when you're playing with a larger group. I'd say have a solo campaign if that's what you want.

Keeper of Secrets · Feb 16, 2007

One of the things I have done in the last two campaigns I ran was spend one whole evening before play started where the players describe their characters and assist each other in building backstories and character personalities, etc. I suppose this is party building. This has been a huge success and is well worth the time. One of them went so well that the characters all decided to be related (a supers game) and the campaign has been quite strong.

Honestly, it is a very good use of time.

delericho · Feb 16, 2007

When creating a party for a one-off, I always put some extra effort into making sure they have reasons for being together and for trusting each other... to a certain extent.

When my players create characters for campaign play, however, they seem to approach it as a matter of filling the necessary party roles, but then each player creates their own character to fit. To a certain extent, I think this is inevitable, since some of my players put a lot more effort into backgrounds and such than the others, but I do sometimes wish the group as a whole would create their characters to mesh a little better.

I do inform my players of a small number of requirements for character backgrounds, though (such as "your character must have some reason for being in Sasserine", and "your character must have some reason to actually be an adventurer"), and amongst these is the requirement that the group must have come together before the campaign proper starts... I ran out of good ideas for "group origin" stories a long time ago.

xrpsuzi · Feb 16, 2007

All in the Family

We generally have some story that links the party together, even for the campaign that we played evil characters--we were members of a cell in a larger organization.

One campaign had myself, my older sister and her husband, my younger brother, and my sister-in-law (Joe's sister) and since we were all related and everyone sort of gravitied to playing human, elf, or half-elf, the storyline was built around the fact that we related in-game.

We had to investigate the disappearance of our grandparents; intrigue and carnage ensued.

It was fun having a role-playing twist on a real life connection. My younger brother, whimy elf wizard with no more spells, saved my bacon with his longsword.

-Suzi