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

[rmcoen]

Given that my gaming group has been together (mostly) for 30 years, we don't generally have too much difficulty in this regard. As the "forever DM", I will generally give the players an idea of what restrictions (or lack thereof) the next campaign will have. And since our campaigns tend to span years of RL play time, everyone is interested in not causing a jarring issue. In the previous campaign - 4e, as it happens, but not too relevant - the players were allowed to pick any race and/or class, but were told their starting location and "required" background would be based on a choice between them (for example, "all" clerics hailed from the Godshome citystate, while "all" dwarves came from the Hammerdown mountain). One player wanted to be a warforged, so he ended up being a unique "sentient golem" invented by the mentor of another player's wizard, and we made it work. The party ended up being almost entirely human, with the warforged and one elf.

The current campaign - for Story reasons - was very restrictive; the players were told they would be the non-firstborn-children of Frontier Barons (Noble background encouraged, not required), and the only races available for initial characters were Human, Dwarf, or Elf. Classes had campaign-specific limitations and requirements - "Primal" magic is held under suspicion (as it is the "magic of the enemy", the goblinoids that surround the starting Kingdoms), for example; "Divine" magic is communal, so individuals wielding the power of full congregations are viewed as charlatans or saints; "Arcane" magic is either sorcerous in nature, and denoted Noble (Mageborn) blood, or "wizardous", and only taught in state-controlled Towers. The party still ended up with a Changeling, as well as two Humans, a variant (dragonmarked, but reflavored) Human, and a Dwarf. And one player wasn't a Noble scion, despite the campaign requirement, but I worked it in as him being a foreigner assigned as a bodyguard to one of the noble brats...

But a one-shot I played last month had a half-elf sorcerer, a plasmoid rogue, a tiefling barbarian, an elf druid, a dwarf "bartender" (fighter), a human cleric, and a tabaxi monk. Yep, Circus Troupe with no reason to exist altogether in the little town where the adventure took place... and I think that's fine for the one-shot. For a campaign, though... whether DM or player, I'd want to fit the PCs into the setting. Even the oddballs in my campaigns still "fit" (warforged was "created" to protect the squishy wizard student; changeling and dragonmark human are both hidden "mutants" caused by an underlying threat to the world, etc.).

 

[Remathilis]

Of course the usual problem regarding that concept in D&D is the resistance to starting characters above first level. You can potentially make it work in systems or varients with slow and compressed advancement, but in most D&D-alikes it looks odd that those veterans would all still be first level.

This is less a problem when you stop treating first level as "five minutes ago I was a commoner". Zero to hero demands you can't be anything but a nobody before game starts..

 

[Bae'zel]

People with decent family lives generally aren't taking up the adventure of risking life and limb to delve into dungeons and ancient ruins to grab treasure. They're living with the decent family and loving home.

Adventuring, by its nature, draws a very specific crowd, and a lot of the question of why someone is adventuring is just that: what set them on that road to adventure?

What? Are you implying that people who have loved ones never set off into peril to protect them? I wonder why people with families have volunteered or sought out dangerous careers. Or go to wars.

Interesting. I fully disagree.

Edit: adventure games are not always about getting fame and fortune. Sometimes it's to defeat evil, or a threat to their community.

 

[Belen]

A ban list doesn't tell me a damned thing about whether the setting is "coherent" or not. Great example: Several GMs I've spoken with have banned non-"core four" species options (that is, anything beyond human/elf/dwarf/halfling) with various sociopolitical excuses, only to then do absolutely zero thinking about how the ridiculously long lifespans of elves and dwarves (700 and 300 years, respectively, IIRC) would completely warp the social fabric of any society with large populations of these species. Remember, if there were a 500-year-old elf in the United States today, that person would have been alive before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. A genuinely just middle-aged elf today could have personally attended Shakespeare's plays. Can you imagine if we still had to deal with folks who saw African-ancestry people as "Blackamoors"? If we had to deal with the social and political fallout of conflicts that happened before any current government existed? (Remember, the United Kingdom only formed in 1801--the United States is actually one of the oldest governments on Earth.) 99.9% of the time when I see banlists like this, it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with even the slightest effort at "coherency", and everything to do with "ew, I think that's icky because it's unfamiliar to me".


And I applaud that! Additions tell me so much more than subtractions ever will.

I have "banned" 5.5 (2024). This means no Orc and Goliaths species. I also do not allow evil alignments.

I will never just run a "kitchen-sink" version of D&D. I craft a setting to fit the type of campaign I want to run. In this case, I wanted to explore the effects of a natural disaster along with a "Bronze Age Collapse" scenario. That is the basic background of the campaign. I give the players plenty of choice but if someone shows up with a Warforged without talking to me or the group first, then tough luck.

I always ask my players to write a backstory. Why? Because I incorporate their stories, NPCs, and ideas into every campaign. If the player does the work, then they can write a town, region, or country if they do desire. I do not care as long as they collaborate.

You always seem to see the DM as the bad guy.

Character Generation

Ashkelaan Highlands
The Ashkelaan Highlands rest at the feet of the Ashkel Mountains. It has long been seen as a remote, barbaric wilderness by the southern civilizations although ancient ruins have been found all over the northern lands.

The Highlands are home to a hardy, yet sparse population of isolated villages. The largest concentrations of people are found in the remote Ten Towns (Bailes), the dwarven settlement of Dun Carraig, or the wood elves of the elder wood forest of Eryn Na’Vrae, also known as the Old Wood or the Forest of Spirits.

The Ten Towns are connected by an old road network with a massive inn at the center called the Crossroads Inn. Each Town is roughly a day’s ride from the Inn and serves as a central meeting point for the Town leaders as well as a trading post for the annual southern caravan. A massive road runs from the northwest into an abandoned pass of the Ashkel Mountains to the southeastern port village of Phresia on the Ezmer Sea.

It has been a hazardous year for the Highlanders. A tremor shook the Highlands and then the sky darkened 18 months ago. The previous summer never arrived, and it is only now beginning to thaw into a chill spring. Starvation stalked the towns and only the timely aid of the dwarves staved off tragedy…

Ability Score Generation
Custom Array (17, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9) or 4d6 (drop the lowest)

Hit Points
Max (first level) followed by Half plus one (Example: A wizard divides a d6 by 2 and adds one, thus gaining 4 hit points plus constitution bonus per level.)

Alignment
Good or Neutral

Races, Classes, & Archetypes

• Classes: (PHB 5e 2014);
• Races: PHB 5e 2014, PHB-variant (Dragonborn-(Ahniss variant)), Aasimar, Ahniss (Lizardfolk), Changeling, Eladrin (Summer or Winter), Fairy, Leonin , Satyr, Minotaur, Moon Elf (High Elf variant), Wood Elf

Bonus Profession & Feat
Select bonus toolset at first level, such as blacksmith tools. Then goal is to have some skill or profession that could earn you a living. Select a feat at first level (must meet all requirements).

Character Background or History
Please provide a brief background for your character. It should be between one paragraph and one page. Your character should have goals and desires. Please make sure to provide character hooks as part of the story. (Note: The game should be fun for everyone at the table. Characters that thieve from the party, loners, etc. have been known to make the game less enjoyable for others, including the DM.)

Campaign Expectations
The campaign should be organic, and players should feel free to pursue their own goals and agendas. Recruit followers or build strongholds, pursue love or vengeance. The game is meant to be collaborative. You should not expect to purchase magic items although you are encouraged to quest for them such as searching for places of power, exploring old ruins, or dealing with ancient beings.

 

[Kurotowa]

Edit: adventure games are not always about getting fame and fortune. Sometimes it's to defeat evil, or a threat to their community.

And that's why the campaign concept pitch is so important. There's such a wide gap between "You were the promising young souls of your village ...and then the ravaging armies of the Dark Lord attacked. Now you've been forced into a dramatic series of quests to rescue your families and save the kingdom." and "Okay so we're a band of mercenary fortune seekers who delve dungeons and take missions so that we can make it big. Standard share division, one part set aside for miscellaneous expenses like bribes and resurrections, and by all the gods no beating up shopkeepers to try and get a discount."

 

[Belen]

This is less a problem when you stop treating first level as "five minutes ago I was a commoner". Zero to hero demands you can't be anything but a nobody before game starts..

Exactly! The vast majority of NPCs in the world never achieve level one. This includes many soldiers etc.

Level "Zero" is a thing in my worlds. Leveled NPCs are very, very rare.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, but Cook had been on the seas for 20+ years before the famed "First Voyage of James Cook" started in 1768, and he didn't initiate that voyage himself - he was commissioned by the Royal Navy and Royal Society. So, that voyage was not a snot-nosed young adventurer jumping into hazard. It was a seasoned professional and military officer being ordered to do it.

He also left his poor rural village in order to seek his fortune at sea.

 

[Umbran]

He also left his poor rural village in order to seek his fortune at sea.

But "seeking fortune" wasn't "go on adventures into unknown lands for treasure". It was "get a job." He first went to sea as an apprentice on ships trading coal along the coast, about as unglamorous as it comes. He spent nearly a decade on merchant ships around Europe before moving to the Royal Navy, and another dozen years there before "The First Voyage of Captain Cook".

 

[jayoungr]

"You aren't allowed to do X, Y, Z, W, Q, P, J, G, or M. Aren't you super excited to play now?!"

I've never gotten into Talislanta for similar reasons. Their only advertising slogan is "No Elves!"

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, the issue there is as much a matter of expectations. Rambo is not a starting character - if you want a "veteran" to automatically be a high-end Hollywood action hero, you're going to have an issue.

But one can play D&D such that anyone with a PC class has notable stats and skills compared to the bulk of the population.

Yes, but it still looks odd when all the "veterans of the recent war" in the PC party are level 1 when your game has a range of levels from 1 to 20 and the experience system doesn't take forever to level.

You could pull this off to a limited degree in OD&D because no one mostly took levels above 12 seriously, and it could take a long time in some games to get to even level 2. Its much harder in most non-OSR modern versions, including 5e.