D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Kurotowa]

I find it the opposite. "You're all part of a Thieves' Guild" is right up there with "you all meet in a tavern" unless you put some solid work into the guild and its role in the world and its relationship to the PCs.

I mean, that's true of any campaign hook, isn't it? At least with the Thieves' Guild concept you've got a lot of fertile ground for roles and backstory. The housebreaker, the enforcer, the informant, etc. And then you've got past jobs done together and friendships and rivalries and all that good workplace drama stuff.

It's a great hook if everyone puts in a little work, which you can't say of "you all met yesterday in a tavern".

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I find it the opposite. "You're all part of a Thieves' Guild" is right up there with "you all meet in a tavern" unless you put some solid work into the guild and its role in the world and its relationship to the PCs.

Of course when I use the Thieves Guild example, I mean it as a it's a campaign about that. Not "you're part of a thieves guild but we're going into another unrelated adventure". I think what I mean is that I like to force a certain tone and purpose in a campaign. The players can break out of that if they wish, and they do sometimes, but it's always given me much more solid start to campaigns than having them start in a tavern with a bulletin board with three jobs available.

Heck, even if everyone does start in the same guild, I'd want them to each have their own goals.

Of course. They're not exclusive!

 

[Umbran]

It's a great hook if everyone puts in a little work, which you can't say of "you all met yesterday in a tavern".

So, any hook is a great hook if everyone puts in a little work. Even the tavern one.

While it has since been clarified, the original statement didn't speak to that work.

If the original statement had been, "I prefer a fully fleshed out central origin for all the characters," we could have talked about how several people with their own agendas meeting in a tavern can itself be a fully fleshed out central origin, if you put in a little work....

 

[Kurotowa]

So, any hook is a great hook if everyone puts in a little work. Even the tavern one.

I figure it as the hook concept having latent potential and the effort invested is what unlocks that potential. So a "good" hook is one with a lot of fertile ground, while a "bad" hook is dry earth that needs a lot of extra effort to nourish. You can make anything work with enough effort, but personally I'd rather have a good starting point with lots of easy potential to play around with.

Edit: Which to bring it back on topic is kind of the problem with circus troupe PCs when they go wrong. The player is grabbing and many weird and wild elements for their character as they can, but then they don't put in any effort to actually developing them and so all the potential goes to waste.

 

[Xethreau]

Try it in 3.PF, where you can also ban the core  classes.

Oh yeah. I also banned wizard and cleric and have never been happier!

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I figure it as the hook concept having latent potential and the effort invested is what unlocks that potential. So a "good" hook is one with a lot of fertile ground, while a "bad" hook is dry earth that needs a lot of extra effort to nourish. You can make anything work with enough effort, but personally I'd rather have a good starting point with lots of easy potential to play around with.

The hook is definitely one part.

But it's also constraints. It says to everyone "you can make whatever character you want, but it has to make sense that they are where they are and want to do what they're about to do". It's a box where everyone starts in. Some games don't have this issue has much. Traveller takes for granted that you're a crew that's already travelling together. Your ship is your home. Blades in the Dark says that you're a group of thieves, or assassins, or smugglers. Spire says you're revolutionaries caught between oppressors and your own faction, etc.

 

[Mind of tempest]

this topic re appears often so I must ask? if say the players want to play centares rather than dwarves and spirits rather than elves why not also cut out the classics and factor what they would prefer in?
limited options does not mean the classic demihumans and humans only it mean only say 7 options exist at all not what those options are or should be.

 

[Mind of tempest]

To me, neither Middle Earth nor Eberron exemplify the issue in the OP, because both settings give guidelines for how different races can interact. In Middle Earth the rules are stricter and in Eberron the rules are more lenient, but there are reasons and guidelines for both that allow you to make a group that has some level of cohesiveness.

D&D 5e, OTOH, just gives you a literal demon race (tiefling) and a demon powered class (warlocks), and throws them right alongside a traditional white knight (paladin) and holy messenger of god (cleric). With no justification, guidelines, rules, or anything. 5e just shrugs its shoulders and expects the DM to accept that as a baseline level cognitive dissonance. The gonzo nature of of the "circus troupe" the OP suggests isn't inherently about diversity. It's about a lack of reason.

That being said, this does start to push into the question of "What should be the base setting for D&D?". Which, IMNSHO, is a question WotC has gone out of their way to pointedly not answer. I think as D&D gets more and more options while refusing to define a baseline setting, increasing the level of gonzo in the baseline is an inevitable side effect.

how is a tiefling that odd? Some legends of merlin, one of the archetypal wizards, have him as being that happens when you baptise a cambion.

how is made a Fuastian bargin not fitting in a setting with palidins and clerics? Not everyone gets chosen by god, but they desire mystical powers for whatever reason.

 

[Bravesteel25]

this topic re appears often so I must ask? if say the players want to play centares rather than dwarves and spirits rather than elves why not also cut out the classics and factor what they would prefer in?
limited options does not mean the classic demihumans and humans only it mean only say 7 options exist at all not what those options are or should be.

I think some people think I'm waging a war against non-standard options and that's not really what I'm saying. Rather, it is that a DM can create a specific campaign and then the majority of the players want to play something off-the-wall for the sake of being different and non-homogenous with the region in which the game takes place.

For instance, a game set in a frontier area with the majority of the population being Dwarves, Humans, Warforged, and Centaur and then the party consists of a Fairy, a Dhampir, a Half-Dragon, an Ogre, and a Gnome.

Granted, it's not specifically about the species choice, but the character concepts brought to the table that clash with the game world presented, often creating an arms race of who can create the most special and mind-bending concept to win the Crown of Uniqueness +1.

I forget who said it up-thread, but they may be right: It's not about players creating a character for your game, but rather the players bringing one of their characters TO your campaign.

 

[Vael]

Sorry, but I love the whacky Mos Eisley cantina, circus troupe vibe, it's what I like about DnD. My two current campaigns don't have a single human ... the closest is a Half-Elf in my Daggerheart campaign, and an Orc (with two Dragonborn and a Tabaxi) in the Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure I'm in.