How Do You Create a Cohesive Group Dynamic?

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

The group that I play in has recently started a new campaign. We've put the old one on the back burner for a while b/c of some inner-party/group dynamic issues that created a lack of "team play"/"group cohesion". The hope is, a new game and some new players will help to develop a new sense of cohesion, but only time (and effort put in on behalf of all of the players) will tell.

So - just wondering EN World - how do you create a cohesive group dynamic?

 

[DaveMage]

Well, the players have to want to have a good dynamic.

I metagame a bit before play starts and get everyone on the same page. Generally, I have the party linked together in their background somehow. What a DM of mine has also done, is give the party a common enemy in their background. That way they are all more than willing to set off together to defeat said enemy.

 

[Lhorgrim]

At gunpoint

I try to make sure that everyone has an in game reason to work together with other party members. Sometimes it is useful skills or abilities that only one character has, and sometimes it's that the party members have saved each others lives and developed the "band of brothers" dynamic.

If the players are having issues, then I try to help resolve them, at least as they relate to the gaming group. Sometimes these things don't work and you have to change the lineup. My last group just split up, and I'm forming a new group with two new players and two from the old group. Come to think of it, maybe I'm not the best source of advice on this topic.

 

[fredramsey]

To tell the truth, I insist on it before the campaign begins. If someone finds this "stifiling", and insists on playing the lone wolf, destructive character, then they can go do it somewhere else. There's nothing worse at the table than a frustrated novelist with an axe to grind

 

[fusangite]

I have never found that changing an in-game variable has been able to fix an out of game social problem. When I want to change the group dynamic, I change the composition of the group. What were the problems with cohesion that were happening before? Are there ways they were linked to in-game rather than out of game issues?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I've had to be pretty heavy-handed with it in the past (though it worked out well). I've basically said, "Okay, y'all need to be part of a distinct group, whatever the group is." Once they elected to be a band of renegade drow, which was cool (although it didn't last long ... drow are fragile), and most successfully they created a group of siblings, scions of a merchant house sent to create commercial inroads in Freeport. (Alas, that group died in Black Sails.)

More recently, they've been pretty good about it themselves. The current group is a bunch of Chaotic folks in the prosperous tyrannical kingdom of Calastia. They've become outlaw slave liberators, and although they don't know it, they're (hopefully) on their way toward changing the history of that kingdom, and thus all of the Scarred Lands, for the better.

 

[Aeson]

In many of the games I've played in there was little cohesion among the characters and sometimes the players. It has most of the time been all about the loot. They would work together from my point of view only becuase the players were friends. Everyone alsways has their own way and direction.

My current group seems to work together better. I'm not real sure why. Maybe they have less of an ego and are willing to work with others better.

We did have one that was disruptive, he chose to leave on his own but we most likely would have sent him packing. You can't force people to do things they don't want to.

I might say created situations that require teamwork. Recently I had the PCs going into cave system that required them to work together to make it. They are slowly learning how to work with each others strengths and weakness.

It would also help to have them show up all the time. If you have people only play once in awhile or introduce new people and PCs every game it throws everything off.

 

[Aeson]

I think also my group does not hang out away from the game. We email about it and that is pretty much the extent of it.

 

[Janx]

disallow character types that won't mesh with the rest of the party
keep party size low, more people = harder to keep together
play with people you actually enjoy hanging out with, if you wouldn't invite them to your birthday party...
Make sure each character has a reason to be in the party
keep things moving in the game

Janx

 

[Joshua Randall]

I've had to be pretty heavy-handed with it in the past (though it worked out well). I've basically said, "Okay, y'all need to be part of a distinct group, whatever the group is."

I have done this in the past and plan to continue doing it for the forseeable future. I insist that the PCs be a cohesive group. If not -- I won't DM them.

Heh -- for that matter I won't play in a non-cohesive group, either.