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

[beaver1024]

All teh same class. I already have that without even specifying it. Everyone went cleric.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Same class would be lame.

If I wanted a game like that, I would play Pendragon or Ars Magica or The Riddle of Steel. D&D's forte is it supports bizarre class diversity within the same party, and if you play in a vanilla game strong diversity is practically required.

Play to the games strengths.

From a powergamer perspective, it would be an educational experience to see an all Cleric party. I have my doubts it would be fun after the completed first adventure.

 

[Von Ether]

I'd vote for same race. I'd probably go with which ever race the class picked, expecting the vote to go either all elf or human. Though some of my player would vote for minatour.

As a GM, I'd like a sole race option simply to do a campaign that one doesn't get to do often, such as elves or dwarves vs. humans. That would be awesome ... and ugly.

 

[Conaill]

The more I think about this I think I'll ask them to all pick the same non-human race. Either that or maybe I'll ask them to all be part of the same religious order (which means mostly same race, definately close alignment, and a very common tie.

Just to avoid disgruntled players, you could also ask each of them to pick one race or class they would *not* want to play. If most of them pick a race, then play all-one-class, and vice versa.

 

[DonTadow]

Same class would be lame.

If I wanted a game like that, I would play Pendragon or Ars Magica or The Riddle of Steel. D&D's forte is it supports bizarre class diversity within the same party, and if you play in a vanilla game strong diversity is practically required.

Play to the games strengths.

From a powergamer perspective, it would be an educational experience to see an all Cleric party. I have my doubts it would be fun after the completed first adventure.

I have power gamers in my group, and they have all expressed a huge range of possiblities even limited to a same class party. Anyone can play the normal way. Some might find same old same old (warrior, priest, thief and wizard) boring. :: seen it before.

Your opinion is a really closed minded way of limiting your creativity. There are dozens of dozens of prestige classes they can branch out into. I pitched this idea to my players a few months ago and everyones pretty much gunho for my next campaign. It's a true test to the creativity of the players and the dm.

Because of the basic archetypes of the base classes, there are dozens of ways you can take the class. For the cleric campaign, i already have backgrounds from players wanting to play a warpriest, pacifists and evangelist. All the same class and different takes. Theres even two players aiming at a warpriest type character with different ways of going about it.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

Back in the days of 2E, there was a round robin campaign where everyone involved had to be a short race (halfling, gnome or dwarf). Other stipulations were no prepackaged adventures and I think we had to go with a 'core' class so we had a halfling thief, a halfling cleric, a dwarven fighter and a gnome illusionist. At times, it was like some bizarre Monty Python skit but we was kickin' names and riding our donkey.

That being said, what about an all halfling campaign? However they'd all have to be luchadors, their masks giving them abilities above and beyond those of normal men, er, halflings! That'd suggest multiclassing with monks or a gestalt but with the masks, the polyglot could have everyone's speech appear as subtitles for example. For inspiration, have the players watch some wrasslin' so Luchador Uno could attempt a chokeslam on an opponent while some NPC (a gnome?) could do the on the spot interviews with say a chatty zombie ("After that slobberknocker, are you afraid?" "Braaaaaaains..." "There you have it. Back to you, Gene.") or start with the trash talking.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

All bards!

<Ducks...runs out of thread>

I love it. a party of all bards;

1 focuses on skills,
1 focuses on offensive spells
1 focuses on defensive spells
And the drummer handles combat.

We could call it the "Band from Argo"

<Ducks...runs out of thread>

 

[Herobizkit]

I would also add my vote to "same race". I've DMd an all-elf campaign before, which was really great IMO, especially when you have various sub-species of elvs to choose from.

A same-class campaign could work if there were enough additional options to differentiate Joe Fighter from Fred Fighter. For example, you could cheat and allow PC's to pick prestige classes from 1st level and run a gestalt-style adventure with the single same class... this would allow enough variety to differentiate the characters. Or, start them at the minimum level they need to be for their PrC's of choice.

If it's unity you're seeking from the characters/players, you could also try "same country/king" (and have thm be soldiers/spies/etc), "same mercenary company" (with some kind of patron as their boss), "same village" (and have them have an active role/job in said village), "same situation" (all prisoners/slaves/pirates/merchants), or even "same goal" (they're all trying to find the Grand Wishing Maguffin for their own personal use, or perhaps a quest for divinity by all becoming God/desses at once!)

 

[Gorilla726]

I'd go with all Halflings or Dwarves. Though I think it would be more fun to have a group of all short people, but mixed types. In fact, I'm working on making an NPC party to rival my players that consists of a Dwarf and two Halflings (this is in Basic, otherwise I'd have a Gnome too). It should be pretty cool.

Gorilla

 

[The_Universe]

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.

All the same race is easier on the players. All the same class is easier on the DM, as long as they're cognizant of the fact that the game is designed around a "balanced" party of 4 that assumes some class variance. Undead, for instance, become vastly more deadly to a party of rogues than (say) to a party of clerics. That being said, as long as he or she is capable of making the adjustments, or just knows how and when to put difficult monsters/foes in the path of the party, all would be well in either option.

Nonetheless, if I were playing, I'd choose "all the same race" any day. It's hard to find your own niche if everyone else is trying to fill the same one.