individual fun VS party needs

[robberbaron]

What a bunch of pathetic dorks!
They want a cleric in the party but can't be arsed to run one themselves.
It's OK for them to have the characters they want but not the new guy?

Play what you want, mate.

 

[billd91]

The player should play what he wants to play, but I can't fault anyone encouraging him to play a cleric or other healer. Note: That's encourage (maybe even offering bribes), not bicker, whine, or brow-beat. If if the player decides to continue on with his other plans, that's the end of the story. The player gets to play what he wants to play (as long as it fits within the game world, etc).

I generally give my players enough rope to hang themselves. If the can't equitably figure out who plays what and there's overlap, that's fine. But they'll have to figure out their own way to cover their needs, whether it be by hiring an NPC cleric or buying a lot more potions, or having the bard pick up cure wounds spells. I won't force a player to play a cleric if they don't want to. Usually, at least one player is either flexible enough or doesn't have a set concept of his character in mind that he'll volunteer to be whatever character is lacking.

Browbeating and whining about things like this is a non-starter at the tables I DM.

 

[Brother Ezra]

Although I wouldn't mind having each of the four character "types" well represented in my campaign, I also give each player the free choice to play the class that they prefer. Shoehorning a player into a class that they don't enjoy or understand defeats the purpose of the game, which is to have fun.

My current campaign features seven players. When the seventh joined well after the campaign started, I let him know the race and class distribution of the current characters, and also let him know that the group was very heavy on combat-proficient characters, and had absolutely zero arcane spell casters. His choice of character: ranger.

But if that's the character he wants to run, I'm not going to overrule his decision because of a perceived inbalance in party class choices. So the party is a combat-heavy group; that's not really a big deal. They do great against brute-force opponents, and spell casting enemies tend to wreak havok. If one of the characters die as a result of the lack of defence against arcane spells, perhaps the next character created will be a wizard or sorceror. If not, that's okay too.

The adventures I design are done independently of which character classes are represented in the group. I don't downplay traps or spell casters just because they aren't represented in the current group. While they might breeze through a relatively tough combat session against an ettin, a 5th level enchanter might be able to take out half the party with a single spell. They benefit from their character choices in some respects, suffer from them in others. It tends to balance out in the end.

 

[RFisher]

He was in a heated discussion with several of his players who were angry that he was allowing the new guy to play a character other than a cleric.

That DM should politely explain that they are free to find a new DM.

While the DM certainly has the right to limit what classes are available to PCs in his campaign, it's not his place to dictate which class each player will play.

While the people I play with will happily suggest & even debate--in a friendly fashion--what class another player should play, they would consider it rude to try to dictate what class another player plays. Instead, they would accept the PC & try to work together to make up for any weaknesses the party had.

Actually, the thing that bugs me is the players I've known that go out of there way to round out the party. The person who always plays a cleric & always mumbles about how they always have to play the cleric because no one else does. Hey, we'll get by. I mean, sure, I consider the good of the party when creating a PC, but not to the exclusion of other factors.

 

[JesterPoet]

The one time I was forced to play a particular class, the game totally sucked, and now I associate "forcing balance" with "crappy GM and/or players."

I truly believe that. A good group will work with whatever it has, regardless of the setting or whatnot, and a good GM will mildly compensate for lacking balance if it is a problem (or, perhaps rather than compensate, simply don't overemphasize situations that the characters can't handle at all).

 

[spectre72]

I agree that a person should not be forced into playing any specific type of character, but our group does have a slight twist on this.

When a character is introduced our party will not invite any stranger they meet into the group and we will role play out the situation.

Sometimes the character someone made up just doesn't work and is not invited into the group.

One extreme example was when someone thought up the great idea of an Orc Psion and tried to introduce it into our group including my monk who had a deep hatred of Orcs.

So we were traveling through the woods and my monk was scouting. I saw the Orc behind a tree and snuck up and did a flurry of blows. A few seconds later the Orc who was surprised was dead.

Next character...

In our session over the weekend one character died and the player wanted to play a pixie rogue. Since it was such an unusual character he discussed it with the group who agreed in principal that the character sounded OK he will still have to gain acceptance of the group before being a part of the party. We really need another front line melee specialist, but will deal with the consequences of the pixie (if it actually makes it into the group).

 

[derelictjay]

First off, plain and simple there is no such thing as a poorly designed party. No matter how far opposite the classic fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue is from your own party, good players can tackle any situation. And the DM usually doesn't have to help any more than the classic fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue format.

Besides most of the games I've DMed lacked a cleric, and even if there is a cleric, that character never becomes the guy who waits for the medic call. One reason, I make sure the characters are thoroughly innundated with healing items, to the point that maybe I've given them too much. (nothing worse than a cleric who, all he does is sit around and heal, unless that was the character design).

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

New players should always have to be what the rest of the party thinks is best. They should also be required to supply all the beer and munchies, rub the DMs feet and clean the place up after the game. This will assure that the rest of the group will not have to be bothered by such things. Of course if actually want a player to join, have fun and be a good part of the group, they should let the player play what he wants (within the DM's discretion of course). And has been said before, if the player is not interested in playing a part that the others feel is needed, it is upon the DM to not screw the group for that players choice.

 

[Will]

'we all made new characters except for Bob, who has stuck with his mystic theurge. We need a pure caster, Bob, you should change!'

I would seriously think about kicking people in the groin. That is one of the most obnoxious things I've heard today!

The rest of you changed concepts, and now I have to accomodate you and give up what I'm enjoying? F YOU!

Man.

 

[JesterPoet]

I feel the need to follow my last comment with the addition:

I don't mind being told what class to play if the group is being handed pre-generated characters, however.




Yeah... it was probably assumed, but I thought I'd add it just in case.