Session 1...Creating characters in character. Roleplaying into a cohesive party.

[Aberzanzorax]

I'd disagree with that about 4e and roles.

If that's true, that's incredibly unfortunate for 4e (or 3e or any system).



I don't want to turn this into an edition war.



But I would argue that even without the proposed method I've put forth, such an attitude where a party MUST be balanced at the expense of the players' choices hurts all the players.


Even in a "sit around and honestly decide amongst one another" situation, I can imagine the statement "so, who's gonna play the <insert unpopular role here>?"


My answer, if dming, would be "nobody, unless that's your first choice." Play what you want.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That system could take some time. I'd have a look at the Spirit of the Century system for backstory where everyone guest stars in everyone else's novels.

And 4e, I don't think any role is necessary - merely explicit. That said, the expliciteness can lead to social pressure. (It certainly isn't in the situation where someone had to play the healer - as earlier editions sometimes were).

 

[Kareyev]

I like the OP's idea of an interview, but I would shy heavily away from giving a player the power to tell the next player in line "your character is fired". I would change the roles around a bit to say the two players are then responsible for coming up with why they are going to work together, with in game or meta game themes. The might mean they both end up changing parts of their character concept so the story they each want to tell works. The next person can then grow off of that. In my mind the first game is about the players making a party, not just an individual character.

As for some of the role balance concerns while all editions reward role diversity in various ways, few groups I have played with give much attention to this and we have plenty of fun. I'm DMing a 3.5 group with no significant arcane casters which has just reached 10th level. I also play in a 4e game also just entering 10th level where we have had no strikers at one time and now have no controllers. Both are fun games with tough, yet interesting battles.

 

[Hussar]

If I'm understanding this right, it's not that the new PC interview is going to be an in-depth investigation of the entire character background. Instead, the Head PC has a ready made plot hook that he wants to investigate. Since he's holding the ball here, he's got to find people he can work with.

So, none of this has to be extremely in depth. It's more, "This is who I am, this is what I want to do. Are we going to have any problems?" If no, then on to the next guy.

This could be fairly quick actually. The first guy up to the plate doesn't have much prep time, but, the other players are going to be watching what's going on, and hopefully by the time the second guy steps up, he's already stroked off a number of options that just aren't going to work (Oh, hey, Bob's a priestly type, Jim's a Paladin, perhaps my cowardly assassin heretic is a bad idea.)

By the time the last guy comes up, the group should have a pretty solid feel to it and he can start from what they've already created and build on it.

None of this needs to be particularly class dependent. It's all about personality.

Really, it's just shifting the burden off the DM's shoulders to ensure coherent groups and putting the ball squarely in the player's court. Something I'm all for.

 

[Mallus]

The trick to creating and running for a cohesive party is to get the players to agree to having their characters work together. And by 'work together' I'm also including supporting each others' fictions (that is, the players help each other to characterize their PC's, rather than constantly undercutting each other).

If the player agree to work together, then virtually any group of characters can function as a cohesive unit. Conversely, without a metagame agreement between the players, no amount of backstory or mechanical synergy will guarantee a cohesive party.

That said, the OP's idea sounds like an interesting way to create a party.

 

[baradtgnome]

That is an interesting suggestion that may work for some groups with experience and time. As Umbran mentioned, those experienced and competent enough to be fully comfortable to do this well likely do not need it to have a cohesive party. Is that the problem we are trying to solve - having a cohesive party?

What if one of the candidates blatantly lies, as part of role playing their character? Is that dynamic role playing or destructive behavior?

Our method: we have an open discussion about the adventure. I do not allow evil player characters in my campaign, so that eliminates some problems. The DM lays out the adventure premise. There is a quid pro quo that players will bring in characters that are suitable and interested in being on that adventure. Our game has tactical elements so a somewhat balanced party is necessary, usually the players discuss among themselves who will take on what roles. Then the players submit their character drafts for DM approval and assistance with the back story. The assistance is usually giving names and places to story elements and adjusting elements that conflict with the campaign feel/environment/history. Back stories vary from a couple of sentences to several pages depending on the player interest. Final character sheets are review by DM and off we go. Players sometimes suggest how their characters meet up or know each other as part of back story. Otherwise the DM makes the connections via NPCs. Much of this work is done between gaming sessions.

If a character concept turns out not to be working with the group, the DM and player have a discussion. Either the character has some sort of epiphany in game that changes them for the better (fit), possibly due to the heroic and selfless actions of comrades or the character leaves the party and another (more suitable) character joins up in their place. This rarely happens for cohesive reasons and more likely the player finds they just do not like playing this character.

This seems similar to many of the posts so far.

As a long running group of mostly mature players, we do not have a problem with cohesion. A player role playing a character in a game disruptive way is considered bad manners and not tolerated. That is not to say that characters do not have flaws. Interesting and less than ideal actions are undertaken by these characters and the results are handled in game but it does not reach the proportions of being game breaking.

 

[.5 Elf]

Necro!

I sort of hate to Necro bump but since I feature this on the Obsidan portal site for my upcoming campaign and it's getting a lot of views I want to make it available to you guys too. I created a pdf of my take on the OP's idea and tried to provide it in a clean fashion.

If you dont play RuneQuest you can ignore that bit of course. It is available as a download on Bad Wrong Fun here 3rd bullet down Cooperative party building (it's the pdf link.)

 

[Umbran]

I hope your system works well - more power to it.

I have recently heard of (but not yet seen in action) an idea that reaches similar goals, but removes the blockage of serial processing. It is found in some recent RPG (my memory says it's the Dresden Files RPG, but don't quote me on that), but it seems applicable to many, perhaps most, games.

1) Everybody creates their characters. Then, sit the players down in a circle.

2) Each player writes a paragrah describing their most recent adventure - what the problem was, who the bad guys (if any) were, and so on. They then pass their paragraph to the person on their left.

3) The person who receives it write a sentence describing how they assisted the first in that adventure, and then passes it to the left.

4) The next person then writes another sentence, describing how they assisted in that adventure.

5) Stop.

Now, each character has three adventures with others in their backstory. One of their own, and two that were involved in. Each PC knows up to 4 other PCs - the two who helped on his story, and the two on who's stories he helped.

If you've got more than 3 people, then nobody was involved in all the backstories. If you've got more than 5 people, each PC gets to meet someone new when the party pulls together. But, the party is still rather well hooked together by mutual assistance.

This avoids the issue of having early players being dominant in the process, and is probably takes less time than the sequential generation of characters.

 

[.5 Elf]

Yep its Dresden. I am a fan of the Dresdenverse and all things Dresden. I think that is a pretty good way to do it as well. I have tried it in the past in fact with a small foray into that game system. It works well, a lot of games that place emphasis on character and story have a system like it. Its a shame that the market leader doesn't do this as well in my opinion.

Regarding serial processing - I really don't eat that much cereal these days, I espouse fruit for breakfast usually so I don't process that much of it.

*Edit* - As pointed out below more correctly yes it is the Fate system I believe.

 

[Hussar]

I hope your system works well - more power to it.

I have recently heard of (but not yet seen in action) an idea that reaches similar goals, but removes the blockage of serial processing. It is found in some recent RPG (my memory says it's the Dresden Files RPG, but don't quote me on that), but it seems applicable to many, perhaps most, games.

1) Everybody creates their characters. Then, sit the players down in a circle.

2) Each player writes a paragrah describing their most recent adventure - what the problem was, who the bad guys (if any) were, and so on. They then pass their paragraph to the person on their left.

3) The person who receives it write a sentence describing how they assisted the first in that adventure, and then passes it to the left.

4) The next person then writes another sentence, describing how they assisted in that adventure.

5) Stop.

Now, each character has three adventures with others in their backstory. One of their own, and two that were involved in. Each PC knows up to 4 other PCs - the two who helped on his story, and the two on who's stories he helped.

If you've got more than 3 people, then nobody was involved in all the backstories. If you've got more than 5 people, each PC gets to meet someone new when the party pulls together. But, the party is still rather well hooked together by mutual assistance.

This avoids the issue of having early players being dominant in the process, and is probably takes less time than the sequential generation of characters.

This is the FATE system in practice isn't it?