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Message: <blockquote data-quote="roguerouge" data-source="post: 4224798" data-attributes="member: 13855">"Okay, so the first thing that I disagree with is this. When a player makes a character, that player is saying, "HEY!!! I think [this] is important. I want to do [this]!!"I agree with this. That's very true and it sucks to play a role because there's a role to be filled, rather than because you want to fill that role. (And we can call it role, hero type, icon, or archetype.)There's a balance to be struck. I find that I have a difficult time striking that balance. My concern is that when 2+ players design characters to do the same cool thing X, problems can result. Sometimes, in that situation, neither player gets to do X frequently enough to be satisfying. Sometimes one player is better at designing his character to do X and the other player rarely gets to do X. And sometimes, doing X requires that someone else do Y. (Healing, tanking, etc.)With some things it's easy to resolve as a DM, such as when two players want to be the front line fighters or be the face of the party. You just add more mooks or have two different plot lines that push a different face to the fore. And sometimes, an item or a power will resolve things. But in DnD, not everyone can play Legolas, because it's a small-scale, close combat game and they'll get destroyed with no front line. And having three Gandalfs kind of ruins the charm, don't you think? And sometimes it takes months or even a year to identify a problem and find an elegant solution that doesn't look like a handout to the player. That's where I was coming from, which is that it's so much easier if the players compromise and work things out at the outset. Duplication can work, so perhaps the ban language I used over-simplified things, but it's so much more work for the DM and extra risk for everybody if the players can't compromise and share their fantasy.</blockquote>

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