Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SpiderMonkey" data-source="post: 2205596" data-attributes="member: 11385">I'm of two minds on this.  I rarely, if ever, get to be a player, so I can never make up my mind on what to play.  I wait for everyone else to make characters they really want, then I'll pick a class that we lack.  I can make up an enjoyable persona for just about any character, so for me the class abilities are secondary anyway.  Besides, with the way I play (knowing that it's a one-shot or I'm gonna have to resume DM duties next week) I know that my character's gonna die in some impulsive, entertaining fashion (e.g. "Oh...that was a fire hydra.  Oops.  Anyone have an extra character sheet?").  Basically, I like playing  in a party where all four basic food groups are respresented.As a DM, I encourage them to play whatever.  My only caveat is that they have some means of magic healing, because otherwise the game is bogged down severely.  As others pointed out, this doesn't necessarily mean cleric, but at least someone with CMW on their spell list so that they can get ahold of a wand at some point.One interesting thing that I see repeated in this thread is that some of the DMs here don't modify their campaigns for their players; this seems strange to me, as I don't design half of it until I see them.  I'll have the setting ready, of course, some of the overall political plotlines that they might get involved in, some general plot arcs in mind, and some 'secrets' about each of them, but I don't even start on modules or specifics until I talk with them about the kind of game and characters they want to make.To illustrate this, the most recent game I've run has had two groups in the same setting.Group A:Fighter/Paladin/Vassal of Bahamut: good tank, better diplomat, nobleCleric/Fist of Raziel: good tank, good caster, decent talker, nobleRng2/Ftr2/Rog2/Wiz1/Bladesinger (3.0): Mobile fighter, scout, lower nobility/illegitimateSorc: blaster (guildsman)For this group, it was all about social situations (lots of sense motive, dip, and bluff), intrigue, and all out brawls with some opportunities for ambush and tactics.  Traps were a non-issue. Strong emphasis on alignment (good) with this group helped me to present moral dilemmas much more easily in the game.Group B:Fighter/Duelist: Mobile fighter, peasant girl become notorious swashbucklerRogue: very skills oriented, commonerFighter/Bard: mobile fighter, decent talker, discovers later he's illegitimate nobilityDruid: the only caster, an outlander/commonerTraps, forest encounters, and much less undead were keys here.  I focused even more on giving this group human foes to shine against, and not too much in the way of overly magical foes. They were less of a philisophical/alignment oriented group, but very fun in the "let's not think about it too much and just do it" way. This made for some fun design on my part, taking this tendency of theirs into account.I find this approach helps me to feel like I'm designing different encounters each time I play, rather than the same old "F/C/R/W" paradigm.</blockquote>

Verification