Usurping the party spokesman role

[BSF]

Why does it have to be seen that way?

I disagree with the philosophy that I need to studiously avoid having my PCs excel in areas where others dominate. This doesn't mean I'm "competing" with them at all, nor do I see it as such when others match my skills.

<Snip for Brevity>
Again, it's not competition, it's not selfishly defending my small pile of turf. It's about cooperation to reach goals.

Hey, I play a Bard that is all about buffering up everyone else's weaknesses. He is good at an awful lot of things but excels at very few things. That is actually the role I chose from the outset. Bards do a good job filling in the cracks within a party.

Cooperation to reach goals is great. But which goals? In the game I play in, the group has several goals. As well the PCs have a variety of personal goals. One of the dynamics of the game is trying to reach all of our goals. If my fellow player has a goal of being the best at X in the world and I know that, should I intentionally set my sights on the same thing? By X, I don't mean the best Druid or best Rogue. I mean a specific niche or speciality. In your case, perhaps one of the rogues becomes the trap specialist and the other becomes the lock specialist. Both of you are still skilled at the other task, but you agree that one person will be the best in the group at one task.

Of course, I DM as well as play in a game. My perspective might be a little different. Not better, not worse, just different. Each PC having a spotlight is a good thing because it helps encourage more players to be involved in the game. I always have fun, as a DM, when I recognize that a certain PC has a strength that hasn't come up in the game. When I turn that strength into a story point, and the player realizes his (or her) PC is the go-to guy for this situation, it can have fun results. Both in terms of success of failure. I don't mind overlap in party strengths but the key is that I want each PC to have the potential for that spotlight. So I prefer that each PC have one area that they are "best" at.

But back to the original post, I see no reason why the rogue should be upset. He didn't evidence any real committment to being the best diplomat. There is absolutely no reason why both PCs can't work together and bring greater benefit to the party. As you said, cooperation to reach goals. There can also be a lot of cool RP from this.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If a fighter can overtake a rogue him in a skill-based arena, then it was never the rogue's niche in the first place.

And frankly - I'm all for a fighter having something to do other than hit monsters with a big stick. If, for some reason, I end up playing the party tank, you can bet your britches that I'm going to have a secondary focus so I can contribute when we're not fighting. And if that secondary focus happens to be something that noone else can be bothered putting effort into, then I'll be better than them at it. And that's thier fault, not mine.

Finally - I doubt that a cohort cleric could possibly be better than a regular cleric, especially when he's an archer too. Unless of course the party cleric is just not interested in clericing, and has taken other classes. At which point, he's probably glad to have another cleric to share the healing load with - healing is generally a thankless job.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Being talky has nothing to do with being a fighter or a rogue. It's not a class based job.

It is. And the class in question is the bard. Some other classes such as paladins, rogues, sorcerers and clerics can be good at it too.

 

[Stalker0]

In my mind, most everyone wants to be in the spotlight. And there are two main ways to do that:

1) Be the best at sometimes (sometimes that means being the only one)

2) Roleplay.

Instead of the player being angry about his role being taken I would prefer he deal with it in character. Act jealous, try to hog the spotlight in character. If confronted about it, let the character voice his frustrations. That's the stuff that makes cool characters imo, and those are the ones my group remembers.

What i hate about the dnd skill system, is instead of the rogue trying to compete with the fighter and slowly raise his ranks...he could easiliy just dump a bunch of skill points and probably blow away all the fighter's hard work in 1 level. Now that's sad imo

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

It is. And the class in question is the bard. Some other classes such as paladins, rogues, sorcerers and clerics can be good at it too.

Our al Qadim group has three potential Face People:

The water shugenja/hakima with a 30-something Charisma
The warmage/paladin/spellblade with a (sigh) 23 Charisma
The sha'ir with a high Charisma

We have something of a working relationship; the Hakima's the party leader, and negotiates on our behalf the vast majority of the time. The warmage thinks of himself as the party XO and is good at being scary and keeping an ear to the ground. The sha'ir theoretically talks to genies for us, except we have to prod the player to do so.

As you may've guessed, I play the warmage. I have some skills in the same vein as the hakima*, but I wasn't trying to eclipse her role; more, serve as a backup and complement to the Hakima. If necessary, we can tag-team negotiations, or split up and have someone who can talk in both squads.

One of the advantages of this is that we can do a LOT of talking and making nice with people, so we don't have to rely on brute force.

Brad

* DM added more skills in class, like Bluff, Gather Information, etc.

 

[BSF]

Stalker0,
that is definitely true. Not every group will be happy with a house rule that you can only increase a skill x points/level either.