Pre-Campaign Strategeoryizing

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Before you started your last campaign, how much talking did you do with other players before you chose your race and class?

A somewhat related-to-my-interests question:

Have you played an ongoing game in a party that was all or almost all one role (controller/defender/leader/striker)?

How'd that all work out for y'all?

 

[Stumblewyk]

Before you started your last campaign, how much talking did you do with other players before you chose your race and class?

Not that much - my weekly group is starting Dark Sun (with me at the helm) this Sunday, and the extent of the discussion was pretty much "What do you want to play?" and "Do we have all the roles covered?" We're sitting down to make characters before we play Sunday night, but classes are 3/5ths selected already. Races are pretty much nailed down as well. We're just doing the "if you're a/n [race], you can expect life to be like this on Athas" talk.

Have you played an ongoing game in a party that was all or almost all one role (controller/defender/leader/striker)?

Can't say I have. My wife and I have joked about doing an all Ranged Striker party and just seeing how long we can get by trying to cut people to ribbons before they get up to us, but never had the opportunity to put the thought exercise into pratice.

 

[Riastlin]

The last campaign I played in, I joined part way through and was not sure what the other players were playing at the time, so I brought a couple of characters figuring one ought to fit -- thus was my bard born.

In the two games I'm running currently, the players picked individually in one and talked a bit more in the other. Where they talked though, it was more a matter of just saying what class they were leaning toward rather than getting into specifics.

I've never seen a party that was pretty much all one role, however I have run a game with a party that was for the most part, leaderless. Not quite the same issue obviously, but similar. It largely worked, though I eventually ended up house ruling healing potions to give allow the recipient to recover either 10HPs or a full HS, whichever is greater. They were just having to rest too often given the lack of healing.

 

[eamon]

Not that much - my weekly group is starting Dark Sun (with me at the helm) this Sunday, and the extent of the discussion was pretty much "What do you want to play?" and "Do we have all the roles covered?" We're sitting down to make characters before we play Sunday night, but classes are 3/5ths selected already. Races are pretty much nailed down as well. We're just doing the "if you're a/n [race], you can expect life to be like this on Athas" talk.

Same here. Usually there's some attempt at covering at least the leader and defender roles, but we've had games without (real) strikers, controllers and leaders.

Usually more time is spent getting the backstory to mesh (not required or even encouraged in any way, but people like that).

You really should have at least a hybrid leader though, to help mitigate an bit of unexpected bad luck... so that does take a very little bit of organization.

 

[twilsemail]

Before you started your last campaign, how much talking did you do with other players before you chose your race and class?

We spent about 6 hours last Sunday sorting out our upcoming Dark Sun party. I'm finding that we spend more and more time on party composition every time we start up a new campaign.

A somewhat related-to-my-interests question:

Have you played an ongoing game in a party that was all or almost all one role (controller/defender/leader/striker)?

How'd that all work out for y'all?

I've not played in a game that was Role-centric and really don't think I'd enjoy it. Diversity in roles makes combat run much much smoother.

That said, I have played in a leaderless party of all one race (Longtooth Shifters).

 

[Mengu]

Before you started your last campaign, how much talking did you do with other players before you chose your race and class?

We sent some emails back and forth. Conversation went something like this:

[sblock]
Me: New guy gets first pick, so what do you want to play?
PC1 (New guy): Rogue.
Me: Cool, anyone have ideas for what they want to play?
PC2: I got a dwarf bear shaman ready to go.
Me: Awesome we have a leader and a striker. Any takers for defender?
PC3: Ya, I have a few fighter ideas, just have to pick which one I like better.
Me: Okay, I'm going to play a charisma guy not sure what yet, probably some sort of striker.
PC4: I have a couple barbarian ideas and a strength paladin idea, not sure yet.
Me: Either should be fine. Sounds like we may need artillery and minion clearing, I think I'll do halfling sorcerer. Let's get a skill list going.
<insert some emails where people indicate their skills>
PC3: I'll be an Eladrin greatspear fighter. Doesn't look like anyone has intelligence so far, and since I have a racial bonus I'll pick up History.
PC1 - New guy: I'm playing a halfling brawny rogue, so I'll have strength.
Me: Hmm, don't need two halflings in the party, switching to gnome cosmic sorcerer. Hey Shaman, are you picking up Claws of the Eagle?
PC2 (shaman): Ya.
Me: Okay, going with a good basic ranged attack then.
PC4 (after lots of back and forth between different barbarian builds): I'm going with ardent paladin longtooth shifter. Will play part time defender part time striker. Not much skill support from me other than Insight and Heal. I have religion but it's pathetic.
PC3: It's still probably better than the rest of us. Anyone covering Dungeoneering?
Me: Shaman is a dwarf, wisdom based, and has Speak with Spirits, he can fake it.
PC3: K, going with perception then.
[/sblock]

So yes, we coordinated roles, made sure we had some range, some melee, and made a few skill choices to cover a weakness here and there. But we still ended up with some overlap (4 characters with primary or secondary strength), and some weaknesses (no intelligence based characters). It's just the way of things, we'll deal with it.

Have you played an ongoing game in a party that was all or almost all one role (controller/defender/leader/striker)?

How'd that all work out for y'all?

Did some one shots, one with all striker party, another with all defender party. All striker can be pretty swingy, but combat is over quick for sure. There were some close moments with people making death saves. All defender turns out to be a pretty safe fight, but it can get grindy, and lack of range can be painful. Had a 3 leader and 1 of everything else party in an LFR game, and that too turns out to be a pretty safe game with more healing than we knew what to do with. My runepriest was not even bloodied when I was healing myself just to get the extra damage going.

 

[Rel]

We started a new 4e campaign last night and made a conscious choice to make whatever characters we wanted without consulting with each other at all.

The party that emerged:

Dwarf Warden (me)
Dwarf Invoker
Dwarf Runepriest
Githzerai Monk

Pretty amazing that we ended up with one of each role without talking about it beforehand. Also pretty amazing that three of us picked Dwarves. Maybe Dwarves are OP.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

Before you started your last campaign, how much talking did you do with other players before you chose your race and class?

My group tends to chat about a campaign before it starts. We have a private forum for our games, so when a GM posts "I'd like to run X game, who's in?" we tend to brainstorm some ideas and start posting what classes and races we want to play. So far it's worked out really nicely. Doesn't hurt that we all play 4e and there are a lot of options.

We haven't run into a situation yet where all of us wanted to play the same class. I think it'd be an interesting experiment, but I don't think I'd want a same-class group for a longer game, unless the GM was willing to tailor the encounters to our specific class.

 

[Quickleaf]

Well, we've got 7 players, so we just choose whatever classes we wanted. We covered all 4 roles, but interestingly ended up with 3 controllers! Druid, Seeker, Wizard. Should be really fun for us, but a nightmare for the DM.

However, once we choose our classes we did have a conversation about builds and power synergy. For example, my Seeker took powers to help our Avenger isolate enemies, and the Avenger was built on a "forced movement" polearm concept to keep enemies away from our many squishy controllers.

 

[Aegeri]

I always talk to my players extensively about what they might play and see how the party is shaping up. If I feel there are gaps, I try to prod certain people - usually those who have played another role like striker for example - into the gap (like defender). Ultimately I never force my players into something, because I am not dictating what they do as the DM - it's their character (not mine). I do like to make sure I have at least a leader in the party and a defender. After that I'm not so worried what the party composition is.

The only game I will not allow to start is one that lacks a leader. I'm murderous at the best of time, a party lacking a leader is just a race for a TPK/repeated deaths.