Forked Thread: DM advise for an all-striker party?-Pushing/Forcing players into roles

[Ahglock]

Something that is missing in this dialogue si something I've observed:

In many gaming groups, you will likely have at least one guy who will fill any hole the party needs. What class he plays really doesn't matter to him.

If one of these guys is in your group, then there's really no need to tell or force people to play what is needed, just say "Hey Bill, we got no muscle" or "Dang, you guys have no ranged support".

As a DM I encourage people to play the character they want to play.

As a player I usually fill holes, though I prefer to play magic types overall. My basic thought is its the personality of the character I am going to play that makes the fun not the abilities the character brings to the table. So if I end up a cleric or a fighter or a rogue I don't care. i'll be slightly happier if the spell caster slot was the hole that needed filling.

In one of the SR games i am playing we have 8 players so overlap was cool, my first character was the tank type since that was the only hole I saw. Troll with combat sense and a high reaction was fun too bad melee combat sucks so bad in 4e. Didn't help vs the drone with the assault cannon. My next character was a mage even though we had one, that was our biggest hole due to the player sucking at it. He mainly sat around doing nothing complaining that he had nothing to do, and I'm like why don't you cast a spell or summon something.

2nd SR game(my Sunday one)the GM initially said only 1 mage, we have riggers, we need a street sam. And hey its been fun. No bioware since the setting is 2050, but that left me lots of build points for edge and its been a blast, heck my last couple games due to an injury he has had only one arm and until I save up ore money for a replacement he will stay that way. Total blast, and i get to fill in a needed role which is fun to me.

 

[kerbarian]

Edit: double post (with large time lag)

 

[On Puget Sound]

I'm GMing for two different parties. One is warlord, cleric, fighter, rogue, paladin and wizard...quite balanced. We've had only one session and are halfway through kobold hall.

The other group is warlock, ranger, wizard, fighter and paladin. No controller or leader, and no rogue skills when we started. They just hit level 2 and used their level to patch the holes in their group... two took cleric multiclass, and the warlock took rogue multiclass. They seem to be figuring out what's missing and adapting for it on their own.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm seeing two possibilities here:

1) If the players seem to be interested to play only characters in certain roles, like the example all-striker party, this can indicate they're also interested in a certain kind of non-standard campaign.
If that's the case as the DM you can go with it and create a campaign that caters to the players' interest. I.e. they'll go on typical 'striker' missions rather than 'normal' adventures.

2) If it's just coincidence, as a DM I'd point out they may be in trouble if they're lacking a character with a certain role. Having been warned, I'd take extra-efforts to throw varied and balanced encounters at them. If they get through these just fine, then things are fine. If they don't they'll eventually rethink their class choices and the party will become more balanced all by itself.

 

[Ginnel]

For want of a better phrase I like being a special snowflake, I like bringing something to the group that no one else is, I like the feeling of people being dependent on an ability my PC has and I hate stepping on other peoples toes denying them something which I think is fun (And I put this above wanting to roleplay my latest character concept)

For these reasons I have never played a class which someone else is playing in a group, the only way I would consider doing this would be in something like 3rd Edition as a Wizard or Cleric where a class has many many many options and I would purposefully fill a different role than the one already filled Or if I've already played a character from each of the other classes that aren't in the group.

From my experience I'd judge that the majority of gamers don't step on other players toes the reasons may vary, wanting to be special or wanting others to be special etc so I would expect in reality this problem to not turn up that frequently

P.S To Shabe, I wasn't aware you forced him into playing the warlord I thought it was more like heres the classes people have chosen, why don't you have a look at the leader role that hasn't been filled yet if you want to give it a go.