All one class

[randomling]

Yeah - I thought about gestalting the campaign: rogue-wizard, rogue-monk (ouch), rogue-cleric, rogue-fighter...

Do let me know if you run that, Nifft! It sounds like enormous fun!

 

[alsih2o]

I have been wanting to do something similar, but with clerics.

Lots of cross-religious bickering and accusations, multiple goals, and lots of theological chatter.

And probably less inter-party pick-pocketting

 

[Nifft]

Another thing you could do is start above 1st level, say 2nd or 3rd level, with the requirement that the PC's first level be of Rogue.

No-one hates skill points...

As to why, ask them what made them turn to a life of crime so early in life, and why they joined the Guild instead of striking out on their own. Parents dead? Parents apathetic drug addicts? Parents in the Guild? One parent a rich human, but disowned half-orc child because such proof of her youthful indescretions would emberass her now?

-- N

 

[randomling]

Probably!

Clerics would work really nicely - especially since I'm going to use the Greek pantheon for the campaign - lots of bickering potential there! Equally, all followers of a single deity (or bound to a single church) would make a nice campaign theme, possibly highlighting the different attitudes and factions within a single faith.

I'd like to try a mercenary campaign at some point too, where all characters are members of the martial classes - fighters, rangers, barbs, monks (paladins wouldn't work well, I don't think).

An all wizards game would be fun. So would an all psions game - although I might wait for the new PsiHB to come out for that one...

The other thing I'd like to try is a themed campaign where the focus is very heavily on defending a forest (druid, ranger & barb characters), or seeking out and destroying the forces of evil (knightly order of a particular faith - paladins, LG clerics, maybe devout fighters).

Me, I'm full of ideas!

 

[randomling]

Another thing you could do is start above 1st level, say 2nd or 3rd level, with the requirement that the PC's first level be of Rogue.

No-one hates skill points...

As to why, ask them what made them turn to a life of crime so early in life, and why they joined the Guild instead of striking out on their own. Parents dead? Parents apathetic drug addicts? Parents in the Guild? One parent a rich human, but disowned half-orc child because such proof of her youthful indescretions would emberass her now?

-- N

That might be an idea. I'm certainly offering XP awards for interesting backstories, and I think I'll say that 1,000XP would be my maximum award - enough to have two levels, for those who want to go for an arcane trickster concept, as one potential player has suggested. Then I can say that the first level must be of rogue, and after that you can multiclass freely.

Thanks, N!

 

[Altalazar]

"Theme" parties like that can make for very interesting games. It does make using established modules harder, because they assume at least some variety in classes.

I did a game where the whole party was gnomes (see my .sig) but there were a variety of classes. It did make for a fun campaign.

 

[Wolfspirit]

I've thought about DMing an all cleric group, if nothing else to show that clerics are fun to play so that I don't have to be the healer all the time. Only problem is that we've got a fairly non-religious bunch in my main group (One Bona Fide Catholic School Survivor in there), and I'm not sure how that would work out. All rogue could be cool, though yeah, watch out for inter-party pickpocketing.

I think it would be usefull to try and have the party as part as an organization, thieves guild, millitary unit, something like that. Clerics, you could go the old route of having multiple religions sending off one of their acolytes to investigate some happening or reported artifact.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Haven't run a single-class (or race) based game at all--the closest I've come to this is running a Lankhmar game, which is an all-human setting (however, the different cultures were statted up differently, so there was a bit more variety).

I'm not sure how feasible this may be, but how about using generic classes from Unearthed Arcana for this idea (like all the PCs beginning with the expert class)? Each player would be able to focus on certain skills, & even gain particular feats/class abilities.

This may work better, because each PC will definitely have a specialty/role in the group, & it may be a bit more clearly defined: 1 is the second-story man, 1 is a pickpocket, 1 is a safecracker, 1 is an enforcer/tough guy, 1 is a seductress/mole/decoy, etc.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I've played with ideas like these a few times, but never realised any of them. I'm just too stout a believer in the players's right to freely customize their characters. (I'm just a big softie, really... )

The closest I've come to running a campaign with uniform PCs is the one we just started, where all four players independently decided to play humans. Quite a strange coincidence, since only one of them normally consider human a viable race option! One of them always plays a dwarf, another always plays an elf and the third alternates between dwarf and gnome (I suspect he just likes the CON bonus! )...

Oh, I just remembered: We had another campaign once, with the same four players, where they all got together and decided to create wild elf characters! Guess it slipped my mind since the campaign ended in a TPK after two hours...