How do you assemble your party in your Game?

[Hand of Evil]

My players and I talk, some side bars during the game but mostly during non-game time about what they want and expect from me as a DM. I then think about it and IF possible try to take and merge those elements into my game.


I will some times do questionnaires/surveys of my players. Such as:

• how much combat do you want to see in the game? 1= lot less 3= we are good 5= a lot more
• how much more political intrigue? 1= lot less 3= we are good 5= a lot more
• how much more dungeon crawl? 1= lot less 3= we are good 5= a lot more
• how much more outdoor adventuring? 1= lot less 3= we are good 5= a lot more
• how much more city adventures? 1= lot less 3= we are good 5= a lot more
• in the near furture where do you want the adventures to be? comments
• rate the game/last few sessions? 1=boring 3= good 5= kick ass
• rate your interest in the game/last few sessions? 1= little 3= good 5= it has been about me
• what can I do better? check what you will: interact with us more, better decriptive action, more maps, voices for NPC, FX, minis, etc.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Now how the characters get together in game, I ask the players how they meet. It is great for some outlandish background info.

 

[Hassassin]

What I did with my current campaign worked very well, so well that I think I'll do it from now on.

I had fleshed out the starting point of the campaign and told about it in advance. (The PCs would be members of a guild in training for special ops.) I asked them to come up with character concept before the first session, but as normal some had while some hadn't.

The first session was longer than normally. (6 hours rather than our normal 3-4.) We started with everyone rolling their characters and making up their stories, while I told them some generic background about recent happenings in the area. They also discussed the characters' relations to each other as they had known each other for at least a couple of months and came up with shared back stories.

When everyone was ready they introduced their character to the others, like one might introduce themselves in a new class or working group. They also passed around notes with secret things they would only tell a friend or that they wanted me to know.

We then had a short intro adventure, after which I asked them about where they'd like the campaign to go in terms of combat/intrigue and so on.

 

[Traveller From Afar]

It generally involves a lot of muttering, feverish scribbling and glinty eyes over the top of character sheets in my experience, with occasional skirmishes over the rulebooks. Once that's out of the way, they get along more or less fine. You can even run groups with diametrically opposed characters in it as long as they keep the rivalry to verbal sparring.

 

[steeldragons]

For character creation, my preferred method is the "creation session" you mention. Get everyone together...get some pizza (or chinese or whatever) and let everyone roll up together, discuss things in a relaxed evening.

When I've been in long-time groups of experienced players, having everyone roll up separately and come together just to play has worked too.

But, especially, with new groups and/or inexperienced players, I very much like generating that sense of "this should be a fun and social gathering" as well as a sense of unity/comradery among the characters with a session for creation. Familiarize the players with the setting and/or campaign premise (if there is going to be one) as far as their characters would know, anyway. Work out backgrounds (which I really only require a bare minimum, but I've had many players who like to get very in depth...and they are welcome to).

If it goes quickly/smoothly, then I also like to get in a quicky "meeting scene" or start the first adventure that first night....so it's not like a week (or more) goes by of "Ok, well I made this character now what do I do with it/when do I get to actually use it?"

I'm there and on hand to fill in world details like places of origin or naming conventions in various races/nations and just generally answer game related questions.

But I let the players talk out the types of characters they each want to play...sometimes they have pre-formed ideas that they'd like. Some people are content to say "well, if you're going for 'fighter type' and you're doing the mage, I'll go for a thief...", but I let them create their party as diverse or uniform as the players decide they want...and ideally, everyone gets a character they are excited about (and/or interested in developing).

For the "coming together", sometimes certain players might work out mutual backgrounds/have met before (I once had a group with a couple of guys who were best friends. They usually insisted their characters were either related somehow-cousins, step-brothers, some kind of blood relation or had, at least, "worked" together in the past.) Or a real life couple who merges their backgrounds' to include a romance of their own (Unfortunately, this always ends up a mess when that real life relationship hits the rocks...)

Most commonly, though, most of the PCs are not familiar with each other and so we have the "common enemy" scenario to bring them together...or, clicheed or not, I still am a fan of "You're all hanging out at the tavern." It's just a simple smooth beginning that gets forgotten as soon as the adventure starts anyway...and gives the group, at least subconsciously, a common "home base."

...I've done the "town gets raided on a random night of drinking" thing. I've done "the PCs are all invited to a party by some mutual NPC friend, who then has something he'd like his friends to take care of for him/her." I've done the "you are all there to sign up for this job you saw/heard about in/at a posting in town." Or "you're all passing through this village en route to a common destination." I've brought parties together in a variety of scenes.

But generally, it seems, causing them to fight together pretty much immediately cements the "we're a party now" mentality. Knowing that it is, pretty much the premise for the whole game, I rarely have had players put up an argument about this or deliberately say, "Well my character is going this way. See you guys later."

Have fun and happy character creation.
--Steel Dragons

 

[ThirdWizard]

First we pick a system. D&D is really our only campaign length system, but we run some one shots. Usually this happens between campaigns, but sometimes somebody wants to run a one shot as a break during an ongoing campaign.

Then, we figure out who wants to DM the next game. If its a one shot, its probably the person who brought it up. If its a new game, its up for grabs. Sometimes its the current DM, sometimes someone else wants a chance at the wheel. There is never a time when nobody wants to DM, its always who gets to!

Then we typically discuss what setting we want to play. We bring up a variety, DM homebrew, Planescape, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc. Then we vote or come to a consensus on where we want the game to take place. Sometimes the DM doesn't want to run that setting so we decide either to switch who gets to DM or setting. Last time this happened, it was either me running Planescape or another guy running Ravenloft. Group chose to go with Ravenloft, so he got to DM.

Then we start talking about what kind of characters we want to play. This can be race/class combos or it can be overall concepts. We all decide on what we're playing, then we make our characters out of session on our own time. We probably call up or email the DM to ask about specifics, and usually the DM works with the player to fit the PC in the game, but we don't take up a gaming session for it.

Then we show up to the game and play!

 

[OnlineDM]

The way I plan to do it in the future is pretty much as described by many in this thread - we all get together, talk about what can be expected from the campaign, and then the players start brainstorming character ideas and how they might fit with one another. We then roll up the actual characters and tweak them to fit as a party.

The way I've actually done it so far has been much more haphazard (keep in mind, I've only been DMing for about a year, so I have much to learn). In some cases, I've provided everyone (via email) the guidelines for character creation (what source material is in and out) and then they've all created characters on their own. They've checked in with one another via email to make sure we have a well-rounded party, but characters have not been made with backgrounds and connections to one another in mind - we've tried to add that during the first session.

I think that using the first gaming session to do character creation is time well spent and I plan to do so in the future. But in the past, everyone has been so anxious to actually USE their characters that we've wanted to do the creation on our own and then use the time of the first session to go adventuring. That's an impulse I'd like to resist in the future.

 

[DragonLancer]

I sit down with the players and they roll characters. Usually just as simple as that. If it's a big AP like Shackled City then I'll say so and they take that into account otherwise they just say who wants to play what and work from there.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Heaviest characters on the bottom; lightest/smallest on top.

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[Haltherrion]

We use a rather elaborate process that is a bit of a game in itself. The most recent incarnation of it is described here.

In short, the painter in our group prepares a slate of 25 or more figures, one or a pair of co-refs create a selection process and some information on the figures. It varies by draft but generally, the figures come with a set of stats (altho not in 4E; that proved unworkable in that system), some quirks or bonuses, a race, possibly allowed classes and alignments.

Players round robin select figures until all are selected. Then we usually do something like draw tarot cards for various perks/background hooks for each figure. Then the group together picks which of their figures they want as a PC with an eye to putting together a viable party. Sometimes there is some "pre-game" to it. Once a ref ran basically a tournament where your gained the perks. Most recently, we formed the figures into teams, one player's figure per team, and ran each team through an arena. Arena rankings determined starting stat options.

Details aside, this sort of approach has several aspects our group enjoys:

• We get to see a lot of very well painted PC figures
• The figures, the cards and the figure restrictions nudge us to play outside of the box and try different things
• The pre-game process creates some player-PC affinity before the game even starts
• The draft process is fun in and of itself as everyone analyzes the aesthetic and in-game options.

But we're an unusual group. I've never heard of anyone else doing anything similar.