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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KRussellB" data-source="post: 7292411" data-attributes="member: 6864429">Well yeah, obviously there's certain aspects of D&D as a game that will pressure players to keep their characters together. And yes, you can always just throw the responsibility on the players. But I'm trying to think more structurally here.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.On the other hand, the best group narratives seem to come up with all sorts of great reasons to keep the characters together. They have a common enemy, or one of the characters wants to turn in another for a bounty, or they're rivals going after the same goal. As the plot shifts, it provides more reasons to keep the characters together, even as those characters change and develop and may gain new motivations.The 4th Edition game I referenced was a pretty roleplay-heavy, story-heavy game. All the players were very invested in their characters. However, many of the characters started drifting in different directions (towards evil, toward ruling nations, towards being an immortal warrior), and it felt sometimes that, were this anything other than a D&D game, there would be very little reason for these characters to adventure together anymore.With my 5th Edition games, my players and I have always started with a Group Background. For example, in my most recent game, the players picked Noble as a group background. We decided that meant everyone belonged to the same noble household, and was invested in the betterment of that household. So throughout the game, the characters have been helping the rulers of the household, have been holding negotiations, have been seeking treasures for the household. Even though in this game, another character has now sold their soul to a demon (kind of a running theme, I guess?), they are still all firmly tied into the same narrative.I remember reading back about a D&D group who decided they would all play members of a family of halflings. I loved that! It provides so many seeds for healthy inter-party conflicts, characters development, bonds... while keeping the core idea of a unified group.Any other ideas?</blockquote>

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