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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pukunui" data-source="post: 5325305" data-attributes="member: 54629">Hi folks,I'm currently GMing a Star Wars Saga Edition Dawn of Defiance campaign. We're partway through the second of ten modules, which run the full gamut of playstyles, from straight-up combat to subtle intrigue to shmoozing with celebrities. There's a lot more to the campaign than just killing things. For a group to succeed, they need to have a broad range of skills and abilities. A group that focuses too much on one extreme or another (combat, social skills, etc) is going to have a hard time.My group's original PC line-up included a pretty good spread of characters and roles: a melee-oriented Kel Dor Jedi, two ranged combatants (a rifle-wielding, armored clone soldier and a stealthy pistol-wielding Sullustan scout), a Force-sensitive Jawa techie (trained in Use Computer and Mechanics), and a Human noble medic/frontman (trained in Deception, Gather Info, and Persuasion, with Skill Focus in the latter).However, last session we had a pretty tough combat and the PCs were going up and down like yo-yos. By the end of it, two PCs were dead (the Jedi and the medic/frontman), but only because their players had chosen not to spend a Force Point to keep them alive. The player of the medic/frontman claimed this was because he was just bored with his character (about which I already had my suspicions), while the player of the Jedi stated that he was frustrated with Saga Edition's approach to melee combat and didn't want to play a melee character anymore.Now both players have indicated that they wish to play fairly straightforward, one-dimensional "I just want to kill things without getting killed myself" soldiers. With three such characters in the group (what with the pre-existing clone trooper being cut from the same cloth), I'm worried that the party composition will be too one-dimensional with too great an emphasis on combat ability.The party can do fine without a dedicated healer, but they'll really struggle without having anyone who's at least trained in the social skills (Deception, Gather Info, and Persuasion).I guess what I'm getting at here is that while I firmly believe a successful group of PCs needs to have characters filling all the important roles, I do not want to tell people what to play. But at the same time, I'm tired of the neverending mis-adventures that my group always seems so happy to embark upon (it was the same for both my D&D 3.5 and 4e campaigns). For once, I'd like them to succeed instead of stumble blindly through everything. But that requires good teamwork, and that's something that my group has never had. The players in my group all prefer to just do their own thing, both when it comes to making their characters and when it comes to actually playing.Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Is it OK for me to tell the players making new characters that they can't both make a one-dimensional soldier character? I don't want to tell the one player that he needs to make another party spokesman because that's what he was just playing and it's obvious he wasn't enjoying it. But I don't want to tell the other guy that he has to play that kind of character either. I know that as the GM, I make the rules, but I don't want to come across as an amateur dictator. My group already gives me a hard time for not allowing anyone to play a Gamorrean or a Gungan. I don't want them to start accusing me of telling them what to play as well as what not to play. I'm sure I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but I just want them to succeed for once -- and have fun doing so, of course -- and I'm just not sure that's going to happen if I let the group end up being overloaded with one-dimensional combat-oriented characters. I guess I'm also just not too sure when it's OK for me as the GM to put my foot down and when I should just suck it up and go with the flow.Any advice you can give me will be very much appreciated.Thanks in advance,Jonathan</blockquote>

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