Pre-game Charcater Selection

[tennyson]

I was just reading a thread on these boards about a group that had a rather odd selection of PCs in their campaign. Since I've been playing D&D, I've always liked the "blind" character selection method, it always made for an interesting campaign. However, I can also see it's pitfalls. Let me explain:

In my first campaign (as a PC) we did a "blind" selection where the PCs did not know what the others were until they met them in-game. We ended up with 2 rogues and an illusionist, and it was a blast! Obviously, that's not an orthodox group and we were screwed if the DM wasn't kind enough on certain occasions to drop healing potions along the way.

Then, there is the conventional way of forming the party with the "required" characters to help the group. I can't argue with the efficiency of this, but I don't like it for two reasons. 1) Sometimes it comes down to a PC choosing a different race/class because the group doesn't "need" it or someone else had already chosen it. 2) It type-casts certain classes.

The last reason is obviously my opinion, but I was wondering, which way to you prefer to choose characters? Blind or open? Any interesting stories? Thanks in advance!

 

[Wild Karrde]

We always go with the "open" character method. The DM figures that if it's gonna be a long campaign you might as well play something you want to play. For one-shots and things of that nature then "blind" characters are sometimes used.

Right now we have a group of five players in the RttToEE. And not a one cleric. Thankfully the DM was nice enough to let one of our players take on a second character which of course is a cleric. If not for this our adventure would have been short lived, to say the least.

 

[kengar]

I prefer to let the players make the kind of character they want to play. Sometimes I may ban a class altogether (i.e. "no Monks" or something like that), but leave it open otherwise. In my current campaign, the players all knew what kind of PC the others were making and -among the 5 of them- they STILL ended up with no cleric/druid for healing! Go figure. As rough as that can make it for them when it comes to healing (I try to make CLW potions easy to buy even if they aren't lying around the dungeons), I would have felt worse if someone had been "boxed" into being the cleric/druid.

On a different take, I have sometimes run 1-day "module crawls" for my friends. Then I will predesign a party and hand out the characters randomly. These aren't long term characters, though, so no one really feels "stuck". It's a lot of fun, though. Interesting things can happen when the fighter-jock player draws the gnome illusionist!

 

[Tiberius]

I've always used the "blind" method. I find it makes for more interesting games, although it is easier to gather everyone together and have them make a party, rather than individual characters. At the beginning of my current campaign in the fall of '01, we ended up with a paladin, a NE necromancer, a druid, a barbarian, and a monk. While this is a suboptimal configuration for a party, they got by, and two of the original party members are still around as PCs. Fortunately for group cohesion, the paladin didn't last long.

The next game I play, though, I'm going to try to talk the DM into having us create a party rather than a group of individuals.

-Tiberius

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

I was starting up a family gaming group (siblings and spouces), because the game was my idea, I decided that the others would choose blind, then I would have to fill out to party's other needs, (I'm not the DM), so I decided to play a Bard.

In the end, it turned out the party needed me to be "The Tank".

 

[Frostmarrow]

I've tried many times to have a troupe-style character creation. Where everybody gets together and make a troupe of diverse characters who can support each other for the common good. However, my fellow gamers won't hear of this. Sure, they like to discuss the possibility but when it comes down to character creation everyone goes by their own mind anyway.

For example at one time we selected the prettiest minis in the collection and decided to model each character around a mini. This is a neat idea and I don't mind if you steal it. Sadly, some old version of Tooth and Claw had just been released so we ended up with characters so far from the original minis you can possibly imagine; centaurs, satyrs, bugbears and so on.

The moral of the story is when you put the dice in the hand of the player there is nothing stopping him from following the whims of his latest mind ghosts. At least in my group. And we care not if we have a cleric or not.

 

[Ruined]

My secondary Planescape campaign was done using the 'blind' method. I ensured that no one played the same Faction, but I allowed them to play what they wanted where classes were concerned. Here's the mix:

Wizard
Bard
Monk
Monk

Yeah, pretty odd mixing, but it's working out fine. I started off the campaign with a monk plot that encompassed the other two characters and we are rolling fine now. Plus, we had just ended a long-term campaign where everyone was rogue or a former-rogue. I wasn't expecting anyone to want to play one this time around.

 

[jollyninja]

in my group, me all create whatever character we feel like playing and hope like heck the dm can come up with something for them to do. we usually have exaustive back stories so it's usually fairly easy to get rolling. the only time it becomes difficult is when two characters have serious personality conflicts ie wizard casts spell in forest that kills several furry little animals and some trees, druid is murderously unhappy.

 

[Desdichado]

We usually play where we each make our own characters -- within the guidelines established by the DM, of course -- then take it from there. We usually don't know what anyone else is going to play until shortly before we show up. Now, with multiclassing, if the party feels like it needs a certain niche, someone can learn a little bit about it (take a few levels) and move on. For a medium to long-term campaign, it just doesn't pay to box someone into a role they don't want.