Team Players

[Ahnehnois]

I prefer that each pc be made independently, but with a general understanding that everyone will work to be tolerably compatible, e.g. no evil pcs running with paladins in 1e.

Yes, the distinctive thing about the first option is that you can and likely will get situations where clashing personalities emerge (depending on the players, of course). This can work, but presents a challenge that many groups want to avoid.

We use option 3 so much that for the first campaign of 5e I'm insisting on no "table talk" about character creation. I want people to play what interests them most in the new edition without worrying about what works best for the party. We're months away from that point, and the players are already nervous about it.

Interesting. I've never heard that one before. Good for you for trying something new.

I do tend to think that one of the negatives of option 3 or maybe even 2 is people feeling this pressure and stress to play the "right" thing. And this is a nuanced issue. A party designed to collaborate effectively is likely going to be a bit better than a bunch of strangers thrown together, so depending on what kinds of challenges you're facing, that pressure may be a legitimate part of the game.

Conversely, I think it also tends to place undue pressure in some cases. I see a lot of posts on these boards that assume that you have to have a healer (or some other class/role), which I don't think is accurate, and I suspect arises from people who are so ingrained in the collective mentality that they simply have never tried a nonstandard party, or don't know how to think about playing without the traditional archetypes being adequately represented.

IMXP there is usually always 1-2 people who want to play only one thing and get upset otherwise, but the majority of players interact with each other when making characters.

I kind of dislike that, and for a while I mandated that players try a new character type each game to avoid this kind of behavior.

And then there is me, who wants to try almost every possible character in the game and goes last in the class choice to fill the missing gap

This is me too. Of course, I DM more often than I play, but when I play I do like to spread it around, and often, I'd let others do the independent thing and then fill in whatever gap I perceived. So it is possible for different players in the same group to answer this poll differently.

 

[Umbran]

Your poll is phrased so to ask the general case. I don't know the answer, there.

In games I run, we use the second or third option.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Your poll is phrased so to ask the general case. I don't know the answer, there.

I sure wish the software would let us edit polls. It's awful hard to write a poll question and answer choices without either some typo or misunderstanding. The intent was to ask what you do, not what people in general do when playing the game that you play.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Interesting. I've never heard that one before. Good for you for trying something new.

We'll see how it works.

I do tend to think that one of the negatives of option 3 or maybe even 2 is people feeling this pressure and stress to play the "right" thing.

That has definitely been our experience.

I see a lot of posts on these boards that assume that you have to have a healer (or some other class/role), which I don't think is accurate, and I suspect arises from people who are so ingrained in the collective mentality that they simply have never tried a nonstandard party, or don't know how to think about playing without the traditional archetypes being adequately represented.

This is one of the reasons for my no "table talk" for character creation. No one in the group is a huge fan of healing classes, so I hope we don't end up with a healer. My expectation is we'll have a couple of healers because people won't be able to stand the fear of no healers.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Savage Wombat]

In my game I always had a couple of players who were the team players. They'd find out what other people wanted to play and then fill in the gaps.

To my mind, this meant they got stuck with the same roles a lot. I had to encourage them to speak up if they wanted to do something different.

 

[Ahnehnois]

This is one of the reasons for my no "table talk" for character creation. No one in the group is a huge fan of healing classes, so I hope we don't end up with a healer. My expectation is we'll have a couple of healers because people won't be able to stand the fear of no healers.

Playing with no healers is definitely an educational experience. D&D rulesets dramatically differ in how healing and access to accelerated healing work, so it depends what you're playing.

My experience through 2e and 3e has been that the difference between having a true healer (a cleric built to be one), a hack (say, a druid or a bard) or no healer is noticeable, but not a big deal. Particularly in 3e, there are so many tertiary casters, and wands of CLW and Healing Belts are so cost-effective, that healing originating from character abilities is not all that important.

What the clerics bring is mostly in-combat healing, but the reality is that having another combatant can obviate the need for healing.

But it'll vary depending on a variety of factors. The important thing I think is to play around with the parameters of the game, both on the player side and the DM side, and see what happens.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Mixed. We use a character stable approach; each person creates 4-6 characters for the campaign. Characters are created without consideration for what already exists in the collective. Each game session, a player chooses one of their characters to run. At this point there may be some discussion about fulfilling roles; but, more often than not, we run whichever character we think is most interested in the campaign thread we're pursuing.

 

[Umbran]

I sure wish the software would let us edit polls. It's awful hard to write a poll question and answer choices without either some typo or misunderstanding. The intent was to ask what you do, not what people in general do when playing the game that you play.

I don't know if there's a technical issue preventing editing, but I can see that allowing editing means that you can make up the poll, ask the question, and then change it to say *anything you wanted*. In terms of human relations, that's asking for trouble

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't know if there's a technical issue preventing editing, but I can see that allowing editing means that you can make up the poll, ask the question, and then change it to say *anything you wanted*. In terms of human relations, that's asking for trouble

I get that. I can see the impetus as to why jerking people around with changing poll questions is bad. I just would like to fix the typo at the end of the question, and change the phrasing to "your players".

 

[Umbran]

I do tend to think that one of the negatives of option 3 or maybe even 2 is people feeling this pressure and stress to play the "right" thing. And this is a nuanced issue.

On the flip side, it can also be an asset. Believe it or not, not everyone likes the "you can play *anything* you want!" form of character creation.

I, personally, find I am more creative and interesting in my character concepts when I am given restrictions. I want to know the party needs a fighter, for example, because I am personally better at answering, "How do I make a fighter interesting?" than I am at answering, "What one concept do I want to play right now?"