Its a new campaign and your DM offers you the following options

[Grimstaff]

The perfect campaign:

All gnomes, all Barbarians, all named George Foreman.

 

[Grimstaff]

Seriously though, Goodman Games has a module called "Mysteries of the Drow" and all the pregens included are Drow. Looks fun for a one-off, despite my normal aversion to the over-played dark-elves.

 

[Particle_Man]

Under the assumption that the DM would alter the encounters appropriately, I would personally love to play in either an all-Warlock campaign or an all-Paladin campaign. I would really love the former. They just keep going, and going, and going...

For races, I dunno, maybe an all-Dromite campaign would be interesting. Kinda "power rangeresque" since they could all choose a different elemental focus. Failing that, maybe all halfling. It would be an interesting campaign where EVERYONE was small.

 

[SBMC]

And what, exactly, would that be?

I mean, wow, I have played in some great games with DMs that gave me extremely limited criteria in which to build a PC. I have played in some absolutely attrocius games with DMs that had no overall worldview, no plan, and no control over the game.

I often hear the cry that it is all about options. I understand the viewpoint that options are great. I love options. But that doesn't preclude a very good, successful and extremely fun game in which the options have been limited. So what would be ludicrous about such a scenario and why would you advocate trying to derail and break such a game?

Wouldn't it be easier, and much more polite, to turn down the game rather than be disruptive?

Your points are true - and many have offered many options here - mine is more militant and as such perhaps not viable but useable in an extreme circumstance.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Nup, not good enough. When as a player & when a dm I expect a lot more consultation than giving these ultimatums.

For what it is worth I think an all human paladin campaign, something like Camelot, could be pretty good off the cuff.

 

[I'm A Banana]

RACE!

Limiting the class has some problems you might need to work around, because of the Four Pillars of an Adventuring Party. Classes are designed to be used alongside each other. Races are designed to be kind of mix-and-match.

Becuase you CAN play a half-decent dwarven sorcerer. But things get sticky when you have to play a half-decent sorcerous healer....

 

[Agamon]

The more restrictive, the better, I say.

All half-orc sorcerers. All gnome monks. All pixie barbarians. All aasimar assassins. Or maybe all drow duel-scimitar weilding rangers...unless you've done that already.

Seriously, in my homebrew, I allow a maximum of one non-human in the party, just because they are quite uncommon and aren't treated very well my the human populous.

 

[Agback]

Limiting the class has some problems you might need to work around, because of the Four Pillars of an Adventuring Party. Classes are designed to be used alongside each other. Races are designed to be kind of mix-and-match.

You're absolutely right. And that is why it might be best to choose to be all the same class. A party who were all the same race would produce a campaign not striking different from the usual. A party who were all the same class would make for a campaign that was out of the ordinary, and likely to be memorable. Such a party would have to come up with novel solutions to routine problems for which conventional parties have routine solutions. It might be a lot of fun.

 

[just__al]

Nup, not good enough. When as a player & when a dm I expect a lot more consultation than giving these ultimatums.

For what it is worth I think an all human paladin campaign, something like Camelot, could be pretty good off the cuff.

The DM's rotate enough that this amounts to maybe a very long one-shot.

So, you would just not participate?

I personally would love to be given these choices. I'd advocate for all Rogue especially if we'd eventually be able to multiclass.

Way back when (2e) I had a DM present to the group "For this campaign, we're going to try something different, you guys are all going to play the same class, pick one."

We argued amoungst ourselves (the players) and I advocated, heavily, for priest cause I thought it would be cool to all have different spheres but be priests from the same pantheon. I was outvoted 3-1-1 for fighter (the other dissenter wanted rogue)

The DM looked at us and said "Fighter? Ok. Let's get chinese, I'm buying, I'll need 3 weeks to get prepared."

3 weeks later we were presented with the world. Not many magic users at all, I mean very little. The BBEG was a witch who was the consort of a demon but she was only 5th or maybe 6th level. We found a couple of "hedge wizards" in our travels most of their "magic" was little more than non-magical illusion and snake oil. The priests were mostly holy men without any real casting power. The hedge wizards were good at putting together herbal remedies that were very weak potions but that was about it.

It was very different but the campain was well suited (tailored even) to the class we picked. Yes undead were scary as hell when they weren't just skeletons to hack up and yes we had issues with traps, however, the one time we were really expecting a lot of traps we found a theif who came along for a share of the loot (and I'm pretty sure it was more like 3 shares but we never caught him.)

It wasn't as hack-n-slash as you'd think because we didn't have healing to fall back on so we only went into combat if we couldn't talk our way out of it.

So after all this, I'm thinking I may present the following options to the players....

You must all either be the same class or all one of the following races...

Elf
Hafling
Gnome
Dwarf
Golliath
Assimar

If you pick Assimar, I'm going to ask that you all play exaulted characters but I'll give you all a bonus exaulted feat to sweeten the deal

I'll allow multiclassing for the single class game but I'm dropping non-favored class penalty because you can't be closer than 2 levels behind the "single class"

I'm going to start either game at 3rd level so the players can multi-class once they've leveled up so they'll have one level where they are all definately the same class.

They'll probably pick same race. I have ideas for the campaign for each of the race choices. The class choices are a little more tricky, but I have ideas for each "category". I'll present this 1 month before it's my turn to DM so I'll have time to prepare.

If they play golliaths I'm going with Yak Folk as the primary antagonistic force. Yak Folk are devious, evil, and well, they are walking, talking, magic-using yaks.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The group must either all be the same race or the same class.

What would you advocate for?

Assume the DM is capable of providing a game that would work for the groups choice.

Well that last assumption is a very important assumption. While I've played same-class games that were very interesting and perfectly enjoyable they lack the breadth of in-game variety that is offerred by having multiple classes available.

I say same-race is definitely preferrable.