D&D 5E (2014) Wait... why are we adventuring together?

[Denalz]

I have a paladin and a wizard who, despite being totally different, travel together because the paladin's family was murdered by the fiend that the wizard had been tracking down for years. They have a common enemy now.

 

[abirdcall]

The onus is on each player to create a character who will be part of an ensemble.

If the player designs a character to be the star of the show then there will be problems.

 

[Kurotowa]

My best experiences have been when the DM supplies a campaign concept before character creation that helps guide the players. Either in the form of "The campaign has this starting premise, make characters that fit it" or "The campaign has this theme, make characters who care about it".

Like, one was set in Eberron with the starting premise, "An experimental international diplomatic initiative is going to assemble a strike team of adventurers to cooperatively tackle shared problems, and your character is one of the nationally sponsored heroes on the team." So my Warlock was part of the Karrnathi military, and we had a Paladin from Thrane, and a Warforged Cleric from Breland, and so on. Thus despite our various personal and national conflicts none of us wanted to be the one to sink the team, because it would be a major diplomatic incident that reflected badly on our home country.

Basically, having some reason to stick together beyond "You all met in a tavern and agreed you liked loot" helps smooth over the rough spots and prevent random petty treachery.

 

[Ymdar]

If you don't have a rule saying no evil characters and no jerks like someone mentioned earlier and which I enforce myself when GMing then you should have something that binds the opposed characters together, like inheriting something together: A pub, a castle, farm etc which they are not allowed to sell, can make money and they will lose it if either of them dies. Working for an organization that enforces some rigidness might also do the trick.

 

[Oofta]

I guess my thoughts stray to great groupings of characters in books, TV shows, and movies that I love. Rarely are the characters thrown together simply because they're all there at the right time. And often when that is the motivation, the narrative lacks because of it.

One word of caution here is that what works for fiction may not be the best for a D&D group. Fiction often amps up the dramatic tension by throwing people together that would not otherwise associate with each other. A common trope Jerkass works because you don't actually have to deal with that character. Unfortunately people that like to play that kind of character never seem to realize just how annoying it can be for the other players and will justify their actions as being "realistic".

 

[jasper]

...and the problem we had of the characters being so different in their motivations that there was no real good reason for them to travel together.Any other ideas? ....
Morrus , "I playing an CE thief I don't want to play with the goody goody turn shoe paladin!"
Krussell, " Why should I let Morrus thief live, he just steal most of the loot?
Jasper the Dm, " Ok you shouldn't. Good night!." Jasper gets up packs his stuff and starts cutting out the lights.

We are here to play a GAME. You don't want to game together, you don't play.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Recently, we decided to run a few sessions where we cut all pretense of constructing an organic, 'natural' narrative and gunned for something simple and direct. It's worked really well - while serving to free up the players to focus on 'getting stuff done' (killing things, rescuing folks, retrieving shiny things) its simplicity has become a boon, providing a framework for the players to build upon creatively as and when they wish.

The setup is as follows:

- The characters are ADVENTURERS
- They are members of the ADVENTURER'S GUILD
- They are given QUESTS by QUEST GIVER (A npc who's name has never been asked and is referred to within the guild as quite literally, 'Quest Giver'.)
- Players agree to have their characters work together because of their shared affiliation with the Adventurer's Guild. They are free to create new characters before each Quest is started.



The players have made a social contract to accept a given quest, with the caveat that each quest is relatively loose in structure, typically with a single goal and a few optional objectives that they can go for if they wish to do so.

Each Quest is built to last around 2 sessions, though each has taken 3 due to roleplaying and a few encounters that escalated in complexity.

 

[Wulffolk]

That is a perfectly simple and workable solution. It is what my earlier groups based most of our character's on when we were cutting our teeth in the 80's. It still works now, though we have all drifted away from that in our attempts to "evolve" in our hobby. I have recently been considering going back to that premise to start a group at my FLGS. While it doesn't scratch my itch for depth and complexity, it does get back to the simple good-natured fun that hooked me into this hobby in the first place.

THANKS for reminding me of the good old days [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION]


EDIT - for spelling

 

[iserith]

Recently, we decided to run a few sessions where we cut all pretense of constructing an organic, 'natural' narrative and gunned for something simple and direct. It's worked really well - while serving to free up the players to focus on 'getting stuff done' (killing things, rescuing folks, retrieving shiny things) its simplicity has become a boon, providing a framework for the players to build upon creatively as and when they wish.

The setup is as follows:

- The characters are ADVENTURERS
- They are members of the ADVENTURER'S GUILD
- They are given QUESTS by QUEST GIVER (A npc who's name has never been asked and is referred to within the guild as quite literally, 'Quest Giver'.)
- Players agree to have their characters work together because of their shared affiliation with the Adventurer's Guild. They are free to create new characters before each Quest is started.



The players have made a social contract to accept a given quest, with the caveat that each quest is relatively loose in structure, typically with a single goal and a few optional objectives that they can go for if they wish to do so.

Each Quest is built to last around 2 sessions, though each has taken 3 due to roleplaying and a few encounters that escalated in complexity.

I did something like his during the D&D Next playtest. The campaign setting was called Next World and the action took place in a post-apocalyptic place called Startertown ruled by Quest Giver. The overarching villain was known as the Four Evils which wanted to imprison the world in a grid and force all within to fight each other to the death but very slowly. The PCs were part of a guild tasked with exploring the Ruins of Old School (an ancient wizard academy lost to a cataclysm) in order to find an arcane machine covered in mechanical dials that could be tuned to keep the Four Evils at bay.

If I could make a pun from some gaming element, it found its way into Next World.

 

[Inchoroi]

My group and I are about to start a new 5e campaign. We were talking about our old 4e game, and the problem we had of the characters being so different in their motivations that there was no real good reason for them to travel together. Why, exactly, is the dwarf paladin still traveling with the gnome sorcerer who sold his soul to a literal devil? (Other than the fact that their players really like their characters, and really like playing together!)

How have you solved this problem in your games?

Some ideas we've had:

• Shared group background. In addition to each characters' background, the group picks a background for the entire party. So for example, your paladin has the background of Noble, but the group picks Urchin. So despite your paladin coming from a noble heritage, they start the game as a gang of street urchins.
• Related characters. We've had this in a couple campaigns already, but being related is a great reason to adventure together. Already for our 5e game, we have three dwarf cousins (a fighter, a cleric, and a... wizard, the black sheep)
• FATE-style backgrounds. When coming up with your character's background, incorporate at least one other character.

Any other ideas?

I solve it by, as a DM, putting a series of "Character Hooks" available for them to choose from and build characters around. They're usually very open ended, but often tie into the big things happening in the setting, in one way or another.

For example, my current campaign begins with the death of an NPC that all the PCs know through some mostly-good means. The PCs all connect to this NPC in some fashion, either as an employee, a relative, a pen pal or friend, an old adventuring buddy, or a student. Each of those options comes with a series of bits of information, little hints that lead to further things about this NPC and his plans and dreams and flaws, etc. In addition, after the game began, I provided secret hooks and hints to each PC, based on the Character Hook they chose; these secret hooks often have clues that allow another PC's hook to be furthered, but it's up to the character whether or not they share that secret information!

The above won't work for all groups; my group is super RP oriented while still being min-maxing murderhoboes, so they go out of their way to stay in characters while being OP as crap (god, I love my players). They eat the setting detail I put in and all the little clues up, and I could not be happier about that. If your group doesn't have that same drive for mystery that mine does, you might have to readdress the Character Hook thing, but the idea behind it is sound: provide ways for the characters to work together in a party.

A few things I do to further that, outside of Setting-Information stuff, is the following:

1. No evil characters, of any kind.

2. No lone-wolf types, nor dickhead characters.

3. Do a Session Zero, for the love of god, do a Session Zero. Even do a couple one-shots in the same setting to get to know your players before beginning into your big huge campaign that you spend hours prepping.

[*]Related characters. We've had this in a couple campaigns already, but being related is a great reason to adventure together. Already for our 5e game, we have three dwarf cousins (a fighter, a cleric, and a... wizard, the black sheep)

If the wizard's player has a few bucks to blow, get this PDF. It's got a dwarf-only wizard tradition which is pretty bloody bad-ass! I really want to play one, someday, but I am, alas, a ForeverDM.