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Message: <blockquote data-quote="scourger" data-source="post: 2303167" data-attributes="member: 12328">Creating a cohesive group dymnamic requires a paradigm shift within the game.  D&D (like most RPGs) rewards the survivors and punishes the dead.  PCs who survive have more stuff & xp for the next adventure than the replacement PCs.  This model of play encourages tactical & strategic play by each player to ensure that his individual character survives even if the group fails.  That motivator prompts munchkin PC builds (especially multi-classing) and favors individual choices over group choices (especially in combat).  This is my expereince (over the past 25 years).  Here is how I have corrected it recently.As a DM, I have set different tones for the game.  In my last D&D hybrid, I told the group that they were the good guys.  I allowed aasimar paladins without the level adjustment.  I disallowed bad guys and bad abilities.  I just didn't want to run that kind of game.  The specter of death was over all of them, even if they were in the "safe" position in combat or exploration.  In the prior D&D hyrbrid, they were all cowboys from the same ranch and heirs to same fortune if they could just find it from the map fragment they inherited.  Before that, they were all pirates among bad buccaneers and even worse things.  Before that, they were all from the same villlage in a post-apolyptic world.  Before that, they were all soldiers in the same unit of the armed forces of the Coalition State of Free Quebec.  Before that, they were all judges trying to keep the streets of Mega-City One as safe as possible.  Before that, I hadn't realized that a unifying element of commonality could help my game.As a player, I encourage other DMs to run a game with some cohesion.  I prefer to play in the current all-jedi Star Wars game to the prior "D&D in Space" version of "kill an alien, take its blaster, rinse & repeat."  I vote for our old Omega World game in which we have a mission rather than the D&D game that I dubbed "The Last Halfling Campaign" after one player kept himself safe in combat and gained two levels on the rest of us.  In the latter game, my replacement PC did nothing before the halfling was committed to the plan by action.  If the halfling fought, I fought.  If the halfling ran away, I ran away.  It really got the point across.  I also got the point across in a prior D&D game by renaming it after a particular DM pet NPC once that NPC began dominating the game.  When my original PC died, I made a replacement PC so careful and combat averse (the antithesis of my original PC) that it showed up the DM and a couple of the other players.  I learned that trick in a prior game of Wheel of Time.  Beforehand, I don't remeber party cohesion being that big a problem.  That's my advice.  Try to make the party cohesive as a DM with unifying elements of commonality.  If you're a player, find out what style of play the DM and other players foster and then make the most exaggerated example of it you can muster.  After all, people play & enjoy the game in different ways.  I find that I may have to play against my normal type (powergaming) depending on the game (tactical, strategic or storytelling).</blockquote>

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