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Being Canadian myself, I approve wholeheartedly. That being said, the group I'm in kind of sidesteps _this_ issue by being a completely ungainly seven players (+1 GM); so there's almost always a player or two with character ideas to act as seeds for the less prepared to coalesce around. Also, it helps that those who GM for us are generally pretty good at finding buy-ins/ plot-hooks for the almost completely random characters we tend to come up with. For example: we just finished a short but very fun game of 'Dungeons the Dragoning' where our party included an Eldarin student-mage; his partner/ bodyguard/ protector the tundra-planet warrior giant; an Elven warrior from a racially homogeneous planet that's never heard of "Elves"; an Ork who runs a detective agency as if he was written by a cheap noir paperback novelist [my personal favourite quote: "Gurk's headbutt was like a book of Kierkegaardian philosophy: it gave me a headache and didn't help me get any girls..."] ; an immortal Dog-man face-man/ pilot; myself, the experimental medi-droid equipped on/ running the med bay of the ship they all stole in episode 1; and an enormous necrotic/ necromantic cupcake. [Yes, you did just read that. That's what it really said. All hail Rylygh "Mr. Sprinkles" the Destroyer]
"Canadian Standoff" is the perfect phrase to describe a situation I run into literally every day with my roommates. It could be planning dinner, picking a TV show, deciding what game to play... it doesn't really matter. I didn't know there was a phrase to capture that weird passive showdown before now.
The best party we had The Mighty Punching Dragon Monks, we were all Dragonborn monks each a different color and each a different archetype, there was only three of us but it made the game slightly better if not a bit more comedic.
Thank you SO much for answering my question especially with a video! My last name is pronounced Proo-see. But it is from the German Prussia, so your "pro-sa" pronunciation is historically correct. For whatever reason my great grandfather decided on the former pronunciation when he emigrated from Germany 1908. Love that you addressed this to the players to think about. This helps quite a bit. I think my take away from this is 1. Communicate with your players. Ask them what they WANT to do. And encourage them to speak with the other players. Show how creating pre-existing relationships and harmonious expertise can make the group as a whole feel more powerful and effective. 2. In areas where a player wants to play something that isn't going to work, as a DM work with them on helping them identify what it is about the character they are drawn to, and see if you can keep those things and change the pieces that are getting in the way. I shared this video with my entire group. We're gaming this Saturday. Thanks for everything your channel has done. It has been an incredible resource and made preparation for our sessions incredibly enjoyable as a DM.
Mr. Proo-see I'm glad it help! :) Let us know how the gaming went! And you are spot on - we work as a team because it's a team sport. We encourage and help shape, not change or rewrite!
Glad to see you bringing up the diverse skill set. I still find that more important than the actual class selection. With the inclusion of "Backgrounds" in 5E, it seems even more important and helps everyone to stand out in a variety of situations.
The way we played, they always were. I was more surprised in '85 when I went to a Con in San Diego and no one worried about their skills. Even in a "One Shot," I want to know what my character's abilities are in order to survive.
Depends on the play-style really. Though I do agree with you - skills and abilities are really the blocks around which you need to be creative. Without it, it feels a little meaningless...
This is great. I played in a Lovecraft Horror campaign a while back as a bard, with five rogues. Starting out it was a hot mess but the rogues all developed into their own character that had their own skills and weaknesses to make a balanced party. The GM was wonderful in helping to balance everything out to make us feel challenged and engaged, without feeling overwhelmed. So great.
For the first adventure, our GM just required us to build characters that had a reason to be in a particular time and place. Then the adventure happened. The common threat we all faced provided plenty of reason to cooperate. At least, until that common threat was no longer an issue. Then things got... interesting. For the sequel adventure, our GM created a situation in the first session where each character had to choose a side. All but one of us chose to ally ourselves with one side. The player of the one character is creating a new character, one who has a reason to ally with the side the rest of us chose. (It works for us.)
The last time I played The Star Wars RPG I played a Jedi Guardian with a lot of acrobatic skills and the other two players were low Intelligence brawlers. We could kick the crap out of anything but the moment we "acquired" our spaceship we had no idea how to fly it. After that game I made a vow that in any of my games the players had to at least talk to each other about their builds before the game started.
Especially in settings that require a vast array of skills - modern and scifi settings tend to require multiple specialists to cover different aspects of the game setting.
Love the videos. I feel like I have stumbled onto a gold mine of information. Surprised I hadn't found you earlier, but glad I have now! 6:47 Many people, myself included, believe that IRL, certain churches did not "sell" indulgences, but certain villains acting on their own accord, independent of official church teachings, did defraud people with the false belief that indulgences could be sold. The selling of indulgences has never been accepted by the Church and the Church has not claimed that indulgences can absolve a person from sin. The Church has maintained that absolution is free to all those who ask for forgiveness. Still works for a D&D campaign, though. Cheers! Keep up the great videos.
Sometimes I play a character that dictates party direction. Its my turn to be in charge of the party... follow my Pally! Sometimes I play a character that could follow any party leader...
I usually start with a character concept and ask the group if they are okay with it. Then, I create the character mechanically and finally, I create a fitting backstory. The general idea is that the group and the rules are the foundation I can't change.
Currently watching this while building a back up character. Our GM likes to run games with a lot of drama, and that means there's a chance my character is gonna die a heroic death next game session. Our party has been tasked to travel to another dimension to recruit another pc. The problem is that she is an evil queen. I'm playing the only good character in the party (we've got one chaotic neural and one lawful evil character), and this dimensions version of me is fighting the pc for oppressing his ppl. Both me and the other me are gestalt brawlers/bloodragers/raging hulks. I've convinced the other me not to fight the lawful evil pc by screaming, "Don't punch him! I'm trying to teach him the power of friendship!" But I'm pretty sure the evil queen is gonna kill me. Hopefully everyone learns the power of friendship in the process. That's what the GM wants tho. It can be fun to have a game where the players are pitted against each other. Terrifying, but fun.
This kind of communication is essential for the game Shadowrun. You won't come far without a Decker who hacks into the security systems or a Rigger who has a escape vehicle nearby. It's all about building a small tasak force of highly specialized individuals.
I wish I'd seen this video sooner. I had this issue in a campaign I was in that just ended, it would have helped so much if I'd thought to make sure that this campaign was going to be relatively good-aligned before making a character who was sort of intended to be, at least to some degree, the moral compass of the party. My first character had died abruptly, so I had to come up with him as quickly as possible and although he fit very well in terms of his skills and effectiveness in combat (he was a rogue designed to deal and increase damage to one target at a time while the three warriors would distract it and chip away at it's health) I had gotten the impression that the party was comprised of a mix of very moral characters who sometimes indulged minor vices and one mercenary who would take any job for the right price. I brought in a character with a strict code of honor about killing, who had no problem with drinking and vices. Situations occurred after I brought him in that revealed that the rest of the party, despite moral talk and some degree of a code of honor in combat, greatly enjoyed killing, torturing, and executing our enemies, sometimes in rather brutal ways. I was left kind of at a loss on many occasions where my character was outvoted and ended up watching helplessly as the above acts were carried out. I really wasn't sure how to handle the situation, the most I could think to do was make him accept that he'd been outvoted and avoid seeing these actions himself (and certainly refuse to commit them). Was there a better way this could have been handled, aside from sorting this out upon character creation? Do you have any advice if someone were to end up in a situation like this with their own character?
I think a lot of issues are solved by having a Session Zero. In this case, for example, you're going to want to sit down with everyone and go "Okay, we're going to hopefully be playing together for a long time, what sort of story and what sort of group should we make?" And yes, a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits can work very well as an adventuring party if the story expects one - a lot of Adventurers League D&D games expect just that, which is why you can show up with just about anything rules-legal and it'll work. Even then, though, you'll want to coördinate backstories at the bare minimum, so you can all point your noses in the same direction story-wise even if you each bring a vastly different skill set to the table. And if you do all play a similar role, make sure that there's some difference, some opportunity for each character to shine so you don't end up with 3 superfluous characters.
i like the intro, and you really did hit it on the head - you have ppl who want to play their character their way, and what i refer to as "fill" players. they dont care what they play, so they fill in the gaps left by others, hence the name. if i interpreted your statement correctly, my group isnt far off of what you were saying - go around the table and see what one or two positions any given player wants to be in, and build your comp from there. this both A) allows players to do what they want and B) the group to have a balanced comp. we had one person, like you mentioned, be extremely indecisive, and eventually he just asked what we needed for the group, though if memory serves, he ended up going a gnome multiclassed bard/barbarian.
I'm glad to hear you bring up that a GM can (and should) adapt a story to the party makeup. I see where it can be fun for players to get into party synergy in the literal gaming sense. In the roleplay sense, I'd like it if people stuck to the classes and backgrounds which they're most comfortable playing. Whenever I finally pull together a group for the campaign I wrote 2 years ago, there's going to be a lot of emphasis on that. No wizards or mystics? Fine, there will still be magic stuff, but it won't be as important to identify it. No healers? Fine, I'll make it easier to find healing potions and items. No melee? I'll direct everyone to better vantage points and have sniper battles. It'll need a monkey wrench here and there to make it interesting, but overall I don't want my players to feel confined to, "What should I play for everyone else." Unless they want to.
So, my only DnD game that I was able to play was a high magic game. The only person in the game who could not do magic was a barbarian. The GM decided to have him learn by try to levitate a pebble by rolling a natural 20. One time it hit my character in the head and woke him up.
The greater challenge I've found is the "second generation" team. When a team sits down for the first time, all your advice is (as always) useful. It's later on and there's been a character death. The Player says "I played a fighter for the last year. I want a change. I want to try this magic stuff." "But we already have a sorcerer and a wizard." "I wanna be a magician!!" This happened in the extreme once. One by one, the other players changed to spell slingers. I was the lone warrior-martial artist saddled with the "Magical Mystery Tour". It didn't last long.
What about a merchant character? I've only recently seriously thought about roleplaying games and one character I would love to try would be a dealmaking/debating character. This would be a support character that can probably be paired with any group because he aids in interactions with intelligent NPCs and I think almost every party meets human NPCs and makes deals with them
I'm playing that ATM: A Inquisitorial Cleric who spared witches and criminals from the gallows to serve in his personal 'Last-Chancer' Force. Despite being part of the heretic-hunting Inquisition, he pulled some strings and called in some favors to spare powerful witches and skilled criminals to form a 'Last-chancer'/black-ops team. The Inquisitor (cleric with inquisitions instead of domains in pathfinder) is built around being perceptive of other people's POV, and using wisdom instead of charisma for persuasion and bluff, as he makes deals and agreements with NPC's. Hell, he made individual agreements with each of the party to get them employed in his squad; He spared a murderer (Dwarven Brawler) from execution, an Orc refugee and rapist (another brawler) from deportation. He spared both a refugee witch (sorceress) and a vampire (rogue) from the stake, in exchange for employment, and finally freed a birdfolk sword-master from losing it's talons for theft. When the Inquisition isn't keeping the Lawful-neutral party out of trouble, he's the party-healer and party-balance works out really well for the rest of the party. The DM is awesome in that they have the Inquisitor's superior paying the party via 'requisition,' which means the Inquisitor IC has that illusion of Authority. OOC the party tell the DM what magic items/gear they want, like they would tell the Inquisitor IC to request. The approval needs certain requisition thresholds, which means the party gets their leveled gear at plot-relevant or as payment for riskier missions, and means the party can blow their gold on IC carousing and creating sub-plot threads. Cheaper/consumables/ammo are always granted/cost little, but the more potent gear requires multiple operations, and the shadier/less-legal, the more the party can afford. As a RP-er, I love being given enough room to build on, and the party dragging the inquisitor to grow from a wet-blanket boy-scout into a grim anti-hero.
Another excellent video. I would add that once you are within the campaign, a player should always think of ways to create natural bonds with the other party members, even if they have a large amount of differences. It can make for very interesting dynamics if to opposed ideologies begin to think of one another as pseudo-family through shared trials.
I think something else you could do is to adapt the way you portray a character. As an example (because Rogues were mentioned) while a group of all Rogues would certainly compliment each other nicely, if you're willing to adapt how you portray your Rogue, adapt your understanding of the various mechanics of the class, you could still work well within a mixed group; the character who always stays near the healers and casters to keep them from getting attacked while casting, the hidden threat where you use characters in clunkier armor to draw attention, thus allowing you to use stealth to come up behind and flank targets, the sneaky scout type character who ranges a little ahead of the party to get the lay of the land as it were. Most, if not all, classes have the capability to be adapted in such a way where only if you're at dynamic, polar opposites with everyone else you should still be able to be a functioning, productive member of the party even if feels like your character is the odd man out, as the saying goes.
In the campaign im setting up im currently having it set up where the characters have been apprenticing their jobs in the same town for the last few years and have become friends over time. Now that theyve all finished their training, they all dream of adventure. We have a Half Orc Barbarian who is a massive simpleton with all negative mental stats and high physical stats (were trying out point buy) with the theme similar to Lenny of Mice and Men. He's a sweet gentle soul who wants to escape the stereotype of his Orcish blood, but he just cant help himself. We have a Human Gunslinger who focuses mostly on his technique, having negative strength and charisma, but a high dexterity and evened out stats elsewhere. We have a Female Human Bard who is weak of body, but quite cunning and smart, with the tongue and body of a goddess. Incidentally, she(he, male player) is the only person in the entire party who doesnt have negative charisma. And she makes sure to use that to her advantage to spread her presence and influence across the land. Then we have 2 Magus disciples, one Elf and the other Human, who follow the same master to the ends of studying the arcane arts. Their master went missing (quest), leaving behind a set of cursed artifacts for them to look after. Theyre Blackblades, leading into the fact that they also both decided to be the same archetype. They literally did this without my knowledge, so I have two Bladebound Magus now. However, interesting enough, they both have drastically different ways of approaching their studies. They are both weak of body, but quick, both in mind and reflexes, and use that to their advantage. Theyve both sacrificed one prospect over the other to further their talents. The Elf sought to harness the martial potential that magic has to offer, honing his technique and skill with his curved blade, while letting his studies fall to the wayside. The other sought the utility and secrets that magic could hold, focusing almost entirely to secluding himself in his masters study, sparing very little time to practice with his twin daggers. So while despite being the same class, even the same archetype, one is very much focused in his ability to kill and his martial prowess, while the other focuses on being subtle and his ability to process vast amounts of information. It was quite interesting setting up their character sheets and looking them over afterwards. Im hoping it all goes well, and i have a feeling it will. I still intend for them to do a bit more fleshing out for their characters, but so far it looks good. I did have to remind my Female Bard guy several times, though: you are 20Cha female Human of the Celebrity archetype who plays the Violin. You will be hit on. Relentlessly. Even by the enemy, hoping to get you to switch sides. I expect you to stay in character at least a lil lol.
Well, that situation with the Starfleet captain, the Romulan, and the rebel could work out if there were a reason like they got stranded on this strange planet which caused their ships to crash land, and the group needs to work together to find out what caused this, and to figure out the best way off-world, as they are going to need more than a single person to navigate a ship off the planet. They are going to have some trouble negotiating amongst themselves how for each to return back to base, given that each member of the group would be unwelcome in the others' sectors, and it may end up with them becoming some sort of mercenary crew as they may grow to liking each other while being stuck on the planet, and that it may be one of the only ways for the group to decide what to do when they get off planet.
We got a small group of three who all want to find somewhere they belong. There's a dwarf fighter who wants to make his own clan after getting kicked out of his. A tiefling warlock of good who wants to be around people who don't judge his heritage. And me, a half Orc ranger who wants to settle down in a village that doesn't make fun of his looks. (Lots of racism towards teiflings and orcs in our game)
The party I'm going to be GMing for is kind of similar. Three outcasts more or less, A kobold gunner striving for fame and glory, a Gohran (not sure if that's the spelling) looking for scientific experiments to help his own species and another that has gone extinct and a Reaper (or some sort of half death person. hard to explain) Following along his natural born fascination with death
In a D&D campaign I recently started in, we're former mercenaries living in the slums of a large city taking odd jobs to pay off the debts of our former leader, who was killed under mysterious circumstances. One guys a goblin rogue, one's a goblin artificer (gunsmith), one's an elf bladesinger, and I'm a kenku monk. The missions will mostly involve stealth. In fact, the DM just gave everyone the stealth skill for free. He pitched this as a Shadowrun-like game but with D&D. The problem I'm facing is figuring out how my character can be useful to the party. My worry may be premature since we've only had one session so far, but my character just didn't seem to have that much to do until we eventually had to fight something at the end. The rogue, having the highest stealth, has been primarily doing the stealthy stuff. He sneaked into a house with the gunsmith but could have easily done it himself. The bladesinger is also an investigator, the most intelligent of our party, so he helped out with figuring out where we needed to go. Meanwhile, my monk has just been a lookout and nothing much has happened. We tried to keep our skillsets from overlapping too much. The guy who plays the bladesinger was going to play a different type of artificer, but he felt the skills the artificers bring to the table would still overlap alot. When we play, we try to have our skills not overlap much so we don't run into situations where one character can do the same thing as another, just maybe a little better. We don't want too many cooks in the kitchen, basically. And at this point, it seems like my monk character can't really do anything that one of the other party members can't do better. I really wanted to play a monk, but right now, I'm wondering if that's what the party needs.
Not always must we achieve skill checks to be of value my son... must the moss grow as big as the oak in order to point north? A badger need not meet a Drow to have a safe home? It seems to me like your monk may be able to fill a very vital role - Party Cohesion. Instead of looking for skills to do, why not look for conversations to have? Seek to find harmony in the party (and hopefully you'll find chaos and discord that you can begin to work through). Monks are a fun class to play - you've got Shadowstep which is way better than breaking a door - just step through the key-hole etc. but I'd focus on being the voice of unity in the party. Just a thought.
Bacon Battalion RPG I'll see what happens this session. Sometimes it takes me a few sessions before I actually get a feel for the character. And it'll be a while before I get shadow step. Thanks for the advice.
Bacon Battalion RPG Took a while to reply because we didn't have a session last week. This week, my character did do more. Each of our characters has a contact (someone to provide info) and my character's contact happened to be in the area we were in. My character also lured out the ogre we were trying to collect a bounty on. By unexpectedly angering him and running away, not according to plan, but it still worked out. I'm not sure if the party really needs a voice of unity. So far, our goals seem similarly aligned. I think my character needs to serve a particular role in whatever operation we're doing.
Hi there. Recent Subscriber here, but I find your view on roleplaying an interesting one. it has given me loads to think about so far. I agree with most of your points, but I think I would honestly have jumped at the chance to play that "lawful good cleric stuck with a bunch of chaotic neutral and lawful evil characters" without a second thought. Of course I would play him as the comic relief and make him try and "convert the heathens" into upstanding citizens and fail miserably in doing so. I would be the guy naming the righteous path and flapping my arms uselessly trying to heard to party into doing good through being bad... sure they would rob the target blind, but MAYBE I could try and steer the targets to be bad individuals who robbing might end up helping people.I think that would be a blast to try and role play. just a thought. and thanks for the inspirational videos!
That's a great approach to the problem, but one that requires buy-in from your fellow players too. Thank you for sharing, and for your comments! Always good to have more perspectives!
omg Canadian standoff is funny as fuck XD Im Canadian and one of my groups of friends I played Destiny with was like this, who wants to do sword? (the most fun role for a part of a raid) "oh I want to, but if you want to go for it" was literally all 6 of us, we ended up just taking turns but its funny I never heard it called that :)
I find that characters gelling in a group can also be dependent on the players. An unfortunate thing that happens is that people don't separate character and player, and this can be with knowledge and relationships in and out of game. Just from my experience (and this might just be because of the people I naturally associate with when it comes to games) if the players get along well enough you can work through pretty much any in-game issues within reason. That doesn't mean all your characters have to be friends...in fact, they can hate each other's guts. But you can make it work to a point where it means something to the characters without ruining the game for the players.
A classic example is the game on my other channel. Sean the player's character gets such grief from the party. But we love Sean who makes excellent coffee and is a total awesome dude in real life. But the players respect one another and that makes for a great story. When players don't work - it is my experience to just split the group and run two games on different days ;)
As soon as you got to the idea of a lawful good religious type in a party of CN/CE types, I got the idea for a relatively dumb yet well meaning priest who's decided its his mission to redeem these people he's found himself with. Meanwhile, the other party members just keep him around because magical healing is worth his annoying preaching.
I've got at least 5 spare characters with written backstories at any given time, so when I need to introduce a new character I let the group choose whom they they rather travel with
Great Video Guy! Thanks! I very much agree with what you've laid out here. I generally recommend to my players that they make the character they feel strongly about playing and I remind them that I as the DM can always adjust for any deficits as long as there aren't significant inter-party conflict because of them, such as you have mentioned. As far as things we would like to see you discuss, I am involved in two different Online Play-by-Post games (including yours), and I have run a few in the past. Would you be able to do a video involving how you believe a person/group ought to run a game in this format? Thanks! -Brock a.k.a. Sir Darius (Bacon Battalion)
As a Canadian just getting into role playing. I literally told the guy who will be gming (yay not me for once) that while I’d prefer to play a bronco rider I’m open to playing whatever the party needs if the group needs something else. Hopefully the rest don’t say the same thing but if they do I know what to play.
My most recent game due to weird scheduling some of us made characters separate from the rest of the group and it worked weirdly well ( that might also be because we are all friends) but we all filled in roles we needed with the exception of a proper healer we did have a bard and Druid but we still had some problems
me and another friend joined a campaign of friends a few months in and he decided to make a dwarf who was racist towards elves and half-elves. 2 of the original players were playing half-elves and this created conflict, not the good kind of conflict either. originally the dwarf was planning on easing up on the racism granted the half-elves gave him reason to (help him out or save his life for example) the racism was however only worsened by the fact that the main villain of the arc, a warlock creating an army of undead to purge a city was an elf. now he is actually considering retiring his character or if a good enough reason to retire doesn't present himself have the DM kill him off so he can roll his Dragonborn Cleric. long story short: try to avoid creating a racist character, you will not work well in a party consisting of both the targets of your racism (half-elves in this case) or character who might take offense to the general idea of racism (Tieflings for example)
Right now I'm playing in a 7-8 session, short -break- campaign from our main one. We have two partially civilized goblin brothers PCs in a group with 3 noble snooty warrior-esque PCs. Getting the nobles to listen to anything the goblins have to say is very very rough. I'm not sure what I can tweak as the goblin side, maybe we can prove ourselves as having courageous and noble morals. It's a short session so killing/subbing-in isn't a very viable option. I wasn't there for the beginning character creation and gave them a blank check for creating my character before I got in later that night, and this is the "synergy" that was created...lol
Ask the GM for a hero moment for the goblins. let them prove their skill by negotiating the a tribe of cannibal orcs or goblins who will eat the nobles. That would be top of my head. Otherwise tweak the goblin that he aspires to be like the noble - as he is in fact the son of a goblin king, but wishes to be better than his father and raise his people up. Just two ideas. But talk to the players and the GM. See what they think?
I don't think I agree that a modern day or a sci-fi setting encourages more homogeneity within the party. What about games like World of Darkness' Vampire where inter-party intrigue and sometimes outright conflict are themes built into the setting? Or in Call of Cthulhu (though not perhaps Delta Green) where the party aren't seasoned adventurers or special forces team but rather a group of dilettantes and occultists thrown together by desperate or mysterious circumstances? Or, if we consider something sci-fi like Firefly, the strength of the party (so to speak) comes from their differences and friction between them.
You are right in that sense - there are setting where the conflict works. In Firefly it works because Mal keeps everyone together because they all need one another - and the 'GM' made sure there was no one else they could turn to. What I meant was that because rolls are usually so specific - pilot, doctor, hacker, shooter - unlike fantasy where there are overlapping abilities a modern party has to work together to get anywhere. Not sure if that makes sense? thank you for raising your comment though - I don't consider my videos totally correct and we need to explore all interpretations to get the best picture!
Hmm, I take your point that in modern day settings the people are more likely to be specialized. That is an angle I didn't consider. In a way I'm blinded by my own GM experience where in fantasy games I've ran the party displayed a lot of cohesion through clearly defined roles and goals, whereas in modern day and sci-fi settings I've ran the roles and goals were often much more loosely defined. I wonder if that might also have something to do with the systems I've used since many systems for modern/sci-fi settings are often classless or at least allow for a much great customization of the character's "role" than say D&D.
Found your videos as a new player trying to learn and loving them - thanks for making them! How would you handle a situation in a game where your character’s motivation goes against the team’s best interest? For instance while the party is sneaking into the goblin camp to steal the spell book and escape, your character sees his nemesis. The orc who killed his family is standing *just there*. Clearly attacking the nemesis is what he wants to do, but the party really will struggle to escape with the spell book if they have to fight hundreds of foes. As a player you don’t want to mess things up for your party by charging in, but it’s going to be hard to take your character’s motivations seriously in the future if he doesn’t react strongly in the moment. Any advice?
hmmmm I was really confronted with that question not too long ago. We started a new type of Fantasy RPG and we had a grouop were everyone just played whatever they wanted, and no one changed anything, so I played a Miko type character then we had a character of her race who saw her fur (it's an anthropomorphic wolf race) which was white as 'untouchable' so thos two were immediatly not playable together, then there was a magic fighter dwarf who for some reason robbed graves infornt of my characters eyes, got cursed and still never listened to her... oh and he almost killed her pet raven. didn't help. And then there was the rogue who frankly didn't give a shit.... I then had my character wander off as this really didn't work out that had a medic join the team but somehow they really never connected, everyone was just ""this is what my characvter would do" without thinking at all about the other characters. In the end we created a new group from scratxch and this time talked before hand, so now we have two siblings and a mage with his bodyguard and that works quiet well. AlsO I recently started a new Fantasy group with very inexperienced players, (meaning their first time playing) all 4 of them.... So I kinda of course tried to fugure out what they wanted to play but also kind of directed them towards a balanced group ads I had a campaign I wanted to play with them and a balanced skill set woukld greatly improve the playbility of said campaign.... I think it worked out rather nicely, I didn't force anyone iinto a role they didn't want or anything ^^*
Sometime i have a character idea, i want to play. Most of the time i will have a few ideas and then make a character that can fill in the holes while using the character ideas that i have.
So my group that I'm playing in consists of a Rogue, two Wizards and a Cleric. This group is 3rd level started at 2nd and the game we're embarking on is the second adventure. The game I'm gming consists of a Paladin, a Shadow Sorceror, an Arcane Trickster Rogue and a Cleric. They've just reached 4th level after about 6 sessions starting at 2nd level.
i dont understand why people ask this type of question : "why would my character go along with this group?"Because its a game your playing with friends! is throwing all of that away worth it to stay true to your cheasy and cliche chaotic neutral rogue or evil drow necromancer/assassin. creating an evil / neutral character when the party is good aligned or viceversa is always a bad idea unless you want and can make it work. if your imagination cant handle finding reasons to do things DONT make a necromancer/assassin. whats more important to you? your character or playing with friends? by all means play an evil character in a good party but dont be a jerk about it. its quite easy to behave and play nice despite being bug fuck evil if its about the game and not your character. example: your evil character allies himself with the group of adventurers because he sees the power/potential/talent in them and finds common ground in the fact that they are after this BigBadEvilGuy which you also hate/fear/envy or has stuff you want for your own evil scheme (discuss with DM about that last one).
theres always 100 reasons to do things and always another 100 reasons not to do things. A character thats oposite to the group on the alignment axis can still ally himself with it for many other reasons: a dept/oath/curse, the promise of reward, the long arm of the law finally caught up with your nefarious ways and makes you "an offer you cant refuse" (use your lockpickingwallclimbingtrapevadingbackstabingpickpocketing ass in service of the king or its gibbets and crows for you!); you can even be in the group against your will: they captured you and using you as a guide or they need you for some ritual or whatever: in time the badguys turn on you asuming you betrayed them and now the party of players is your only hope of survival, etc. If you really want a reason why a villain would join heroes or a hero would join villains you wll find it and once your in their camp theres no reason to backstab them or steal from them or antagonize them(its just counter productive for anyone with a brain) if your Dm is worth his salt there will be plenty oportunities to act in character without pissing off your friends playing at the table
This is why you should discuss your character with your GM; so if a potential conflict does arise, the GM can tell you ahead of time. "I know you told me about making a Lawful Good Paladin, but the rest of the group have been making a gang of Chaotic Neutral Street Thugs." Or conversely, "So you guys are making Street Thugs? Why did you not tell "so and so"? He is making a Paladin." Now this is not a complete disaster; the Paladin's backstory could be that he/she was once part of this street gang, and joined the "Holy Order of Whatever" to turn his/her life around. Now the Paladin is back, because the street tough, Matron of a brothel, that took them all in, has been murdered, and he/she wants to know who did it. And so in order to run the investigation, he/she needs to join up with the old gang again, who may, or may not, be happy to see him/her again, because he/she left/abandoned the group.
Is my character likable? Minus the Bard and the Dragonborn... I'm a Kobold. Everyone wants me dead. But the Dragonborn is absolutely terrifying so nobody will actually do s*** and instead just hope some random enemy kills me.
Making all the same related characters is a bit of an easy way out. Finding a way for your character to work with other characters because they have motivations that cross over is probably a better way to have more diverse group. I.e everyone is desperate to make gold. And the ends justify the means to do so.Now suddenly the group is forced to stay together because they uncovered something they weren’t suppose to and some one is after them and their best bet is to stay together to survive. Obviously mixing good and evil aliment characters make it difficult and probably won’t make for a long lasting group.
Hi and welcome to our channels :) Our other channel might be more helpful for these questions as a GM/DM. That channel is How To Be A Great Game Master: ua-cam.com/users/Bon3zmann We haven't dealt specifically with that question yet and will definitely add it to our list. But in the meantime you can check out this video which gives 6 Tips on starting your campaign. ua-cam.com/video/uYUzOdHTfVI/v-deo.html Hope this helps :) Thanks for your support.
You are in a group with a dwarf fighter, a human paladin, and a human cleric. All three have gone lawful good, but you, the wizard, decide to be chaotic neutral. Bordering on chaotic evil, well because you are stuck with that image of Emerikol the chaotic from way back, burning and killing across the lands. How in hell do you expect the other players to tolerate your character? They don't. This is a group game, and in this day of antisocial behaviors just don't play with people who won't fit in. Life is too short.
Want more tips, guides and insight into being a great game master or role player character? check out our channel. How to be a Great Game Master: ua-cam.com/users/HowtobeaGreatGameMasterChannel
"Canadian standoff" wins phrase of the day.
I love that expression because it happens all the time here :)
loved that one :D
Nunya Bees' Wax And yet the frequency it happens in Canada is absurd.
Being Canadian myself, I approve wholeheartedly.
That being said, the group I'm in kind of sidesteps _this_ issue by being a completely ungainly seven players (+1 GM); so there's almost always a player or two with character ideas to act as seeds for the less prepared to coalesce around.
Also, it helps that those who GM for us are generally pretty good at finding buy-ins/ plot-hooks for the almost completely random characters we tend to come up with. For example: we just finished a short but very fun game of 'Dungeons the Dragoning' where our party included an Eldarin student-mage; his partner/ bodyguard/ protector the tundra-planet warrior giant; an Elven warrior from a racially homogeneous planet that's never heard of "Elves"; an Ork who runs a detective agency as if he was written by a cheap noir paperback novelist [my personal favourite quote: "Gurk's headbutt was like a book of Kierkegaardian philosophy: it gave me a headache and didn't help me get any girls..."] ; an immortal Dog-man face-man/ pilot; myself, the experimental medi-droid equipped on/ running the med bay of the ship they all stole in episode 1; and an enormous necrotic/ necromantic cupcake. [Yes, you did just read that. That's what it really said. All hail Rylygh "Mr. Sprinkles" the Destroyer]
How was that not already a thing!
"Canadian Standoff" is the perfect phrase to describe a situation I run into literally every day with my roommates. It could be planning dinner, picking a TV show, deciding what game to play... it doesn't really matter. I didn't know there was a phrase to capture that weird passive showdown before now.
The best party we had The Mighty Punching Dragon Monks, we were all Dragonborn monks each a different color and each a different archetype, there was only three of us but it made the game slightly better if not a bit more comedic.
The three Monkateers? Sorry bad joke but that does sound like an epic game. Did you each have a different breath weapon?
Thank you SO much for answering my question especially with a video! My last name is pronounced Proo-see. But it is from the German Prussia, so your "pro-sa" pronunciation is historically correct. For whatever reason my great grandfather decided on the former pronunciation when he emigrated from Germany 1908.
Love that you addressed this to the players to think about. This helps quite a bit. I think my take away from this is 1. Communicate with your players. Ask them what they WANT to do. And encourage them to speak with the other players. Show how creating pre-existing relationships and harmonious expertise can make the group as a whole feel more powerful and effective.
2. In areas where a player wants to play something that isn't going to work, as a DM work with them on helping them identify what it is about the character they are drawn to, and see if you can keep those things and change the pieces that are getting in the way.
I shared this video with my entire group. We're gaming this Saturday. Thanks for everything your channel has done. It has been an incredible resource and made preparation for our sessions incredibly enjoyable as a DM.
Mr. Proo-see I'm glad it help! :) Let us know how the gaming went! And you are spot on - we work as a team because it's a team sport. We encourage and help shape, not change or rewrite!
Glad to see you bringing up the diverse skill set.
I still find that more important than the actual class selection. With the inclusion of "Backgrounds" in 5E, it seems even more important and helps everyone to stand out in a variety of situations.
One trick ponies seem to be swiftly being pushed aside.
The way we played, they always were.
I was more surprised in '85 when I went to a Con in San Diego and no one worried about their skills. Even in a "One Shot," I want to know what my character's abilities are in order to survive.
Depends on the play-style really. Though I do agree with you - skills and abilities are really the blocks around which you need to be creative. Without it, it feels a little meaningless...
This is great. I played in a Lovecraft Horror campaign a while back as a bard, with five rogues. Starting out it was a hot mess but the rogues all developed into their own character that had their own skills and weaknesses to make a balanced party. The GM was wonderful in helping to balance everything out to make us feel challenged and engaged, without feeling overwhelmed. So great.
Bonus point for "Canadian Standoff"
For the first adventure, our GM just required us to build characters that had a reason to be in a particular time and place. Then the adventure happened. The common threat we all faced provided plenty of reason to cooperate. At least, until that common threat was no longer an issue. Then things got... interesting.
For the sequel adventure, our GM created a situation in the first session where each character had to choose a side. All but one of us chose to ally ourselves with one side. The player of the one character is creating a new character, one who has a reason to ally with the side the rest of us chose. (It works for us.)
The last time I played The Star Wars RPG I played a Jedi Guardian with a lot of acrobatic skills and the other two players were low Intelligence brawlers. We could kick the crap out of anything but the moment we "acquired" our spaceship we had no idea how to fly it. After that game I made a vow that in any of my games the players had to at least talk to each other about their builds before the game started.
Especially in settings that require a vast array of skills - modern and scifi settings tend to require multiple specialists to cover different aspects of the game setting.
Can we just take a moment and appreciate that he low-key implied that the Catholic Church is lawful evil? XD
"Do I flith?" That thumbnail really threw me for a loop.
Love the videos. I feel like I have stumbled onto a gold mine of information. Surprised I hadn't found you earlier, but glad I have now!
6:47
Many people, myself included, believe that IRL, certain churches did not "sell" indulgences, but certain villains acting on their own accord, independent of official church teachings, did defraud people with the false belief that indulgences could be sold. The selling of indulgences has never been accepted by the Church and the Church has not claimed that indulgences can absolve a person from sin. The Church has maintained that absolution is free to all those who ask for forgiveness. Still works for a D&D campaign, though.
Cheers! Keep up the great videos.
Sometimes I play a character that dictates party direction.
Its my turn to be in charge of the party... follow my Pally!
Sometimes I play a character that could follow any party leader...
I usually start with a character concept and ask the group if they are okay with it. Then, I create the character mechanically and finally, I create a fitting backstory.
The general idea is that the group and the rules are the foundation I can't change.
Currently watching this while building a back up character. Our GM likes to run games with a lot of drama, and that means there's a chance my character is gonna die a heroic death next game session. Our party has been tasked to travel to another dimension to recruit another pc. The problem is that she is an evil queen. I'm playing the only good character in the party (we've got one chaotic neural and one lawful evil character), and this dimensions version of me is fighting the pc for oppressing his ppl. Both me and the other me are gestalt brawlers/bloodragers/raging hulks. I've convinced the other me not to fight the lawful evil pc by screaming, "Don't punch him! I'm trying to teach him the power of friendship!" But I'm pretty sure the evil queen is gonna kill me. Hopefully everyone learns the power of friendship in the process.
That's what the GM wants tho. It can be fun to have a game where the players are pitted against each other. Terrifying, but fun.
This kind of communication is essential for the game Shadowrun. You won't come far without a Decker who hacks into the security systems or a Rigger who has a escape vehicle nearby. It's all about building a small tasak force of highly specialized individuals.
I wish I'd seen this video sooner. I had this issue in a campaign I was in that just ended, it would have helped so much if I'd thought to make sure that this campaign was going to be relatively good-aligned before making a character who was sort of intended to be, at least to some degree, the moral compass of the party.
My first character had died abruptly, so I had to come up with him as quickly as possible and although he fit very well in terms of his skills and effectiveness in combat (he was a rogue designed to deal and increase damage to one target at a time while the three warriors would distract it and chip away at it's health) I had gotten the impression that the party was comprised of a mix of very moral characters who sometimes indulged minor vices and one mercenary who would take any job for the right price. I brought in a character with a strict code of honor about killing, who had no problem with drinking and vices. Situations occurred after I brought him in that revealed that the rest of the party, despite moral talk and some degree of a code of honor in combat, greatly enjoyed killing, torturing, and executing our enemies, sometimes in rather brutal ways. I was left kind of at a loss on many occasions where my character was outvoted and ended up watching helplessly as the above acts were carried out. I really wasn't sure how to handle the situation, the most I could think to do was make him accept that he'd been outvoted and avoid seeing these actions himself (and certainly refuse to commit them).
Was there a better way this could have been handled, aside from sorting this out upon character creation? Do you have any advice if someone were to end up in a situation like this with their own character?
I think a lot of issues are solved by having a Session Zero. In this case, for example, you're going to want to sit down with everyone and go "Okay, we're going to hopefully be playing together for a long time, what sort of story and what sort of group should we make?"
And yes, a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits can work very well as an adventuring party if the story expects one - a lot of Adventurers League D&D games expect just that, which is why you can show up with just about anything rules-legal and it'll work. Even then, though, you'll want to coördinate backstories at the bare minimum, so you can all point your noses in the same direction story-wise even if you each bring a vastly different skill set to the table.
And if you do all play a similar role, make sure that there's some difference, some opportunity for each character to shine so you don't end up with 3 superfluous characters.
i like the intro, and you really did hit it on the head - you have ppl who want to play their character their way, and what i refer to as "fill" players. they dont care what they play, so they fill in the gaps left by others, hence the name. if i interpreted your statement correctly, my group isnt far off of what you were saying - go around the table and see what one or two positions any given player wants to be in, and build your comp from there. this both A) allows players to do what they want and B) the group to have a balanced comp. we had one person, like you mentioned, be extremely indecisive, and eventually he just asked what we needed for the group, though if memory serves, he ended up going a gnome multiclassed bard/barbarian.
Love that mix - gnomish barbarian bard. So much fun. It's really about having fun and seeing there the party goes!
I'm glad to hear you bring up that a GM can (and should) adapt a story to the party makeup. I see where it can be fun for players to get into party synergy in the literal gaming sense. In the roleplay sense, I'd like it if people stuck to the classes and backgrounds which they're most comfortable playing.
Whenever I finally pull together a group for the campaign I wrote 2 years ago, there's going to be a lot of emphasis on that. No wizards or mystics? Fine, there will still be magic stuff, but it won't be as important to identify it. No healers? Fine, I'll make it easier to find healing potions and items. No melee? I'll direct everyone to better vantage points and have sniper battles.
It'll need a monkey wrench here and there to make it interesting, but overall I don't want my players to feel confined to, "What should I play for everyone else." Unless they want to.
Those often lead to more interesting stories and the narrative isn't often so obvious. Here's hoping you get your game going!
So, my only DnD game that I was able to play was a high magic game. The only person in the game who could not do magic was a barbarian.
The GM decided to have him learn by try to levitate a pebble by rolling a natural 20. One time it hit my character in the head and woke him up.
The greater challenge I've found is the "second generation" team. When a team sits down for the first time, all your advice is (as always) useful. It's later on and there's been a character death. The Player says "I played a fighter for the last year. I want a change. I want to try this magic stuff." "But we already have a sorcerer and a wizard." "I wanna be a magician!!"
This happened in the extreme once. One by one, the other players changed to spell slingers. I was the lone warrior-martial artist saddled with the "Magical Mystery Tour". It didn't last long.
And it happens! It really does and it's sad. Thanks for sharing - it's a good warning! Second Gen. party is hard to keep alive.
A canadian standoff...
That happens way to often when we're deciding on food...
What about a merchant character? I've only recently seriously thought about roleplaying games and one character I would love to try would be a dealmaking/debating character. This would be a support character that can probably be paired with any group because he aids in interactions with intelligent NPCs and I think almost every party meets human NPCs and makes deals with them
I'm playing that ATM: A Inquisitorial Cleric who spared witches and criminals from the gallows to serve in his personal 'Last-Chancer' Force.
Despite being part of the heretic-hunting Inquisition, he pulled some strings and called in some favors to spare powerful witches and skilled criminals to form a 'Last-chancer'/black-ops team.
The Inquisitor (cleric with inquisitions instead of domains in pathfinder) is built around being perceptive of other people's POV, and using wisdom instead of charisma for persuasion and bluff, as he makes deals and agreements with NPC's.
Hell, he made individual agreements with each of the party to get them employed in his squad; He spared a murderer (Dwarven Brawler) from execution, an Orc refugee and rapist (another brawler) from deportation. He spared both a refugee witch (sorceress) and a vampire (rogue) from the stake, in exchange for employment, and finally freed a birdfolk sword-master from losing it's talons for theft. When the Inquisition isn't keeping the Lawful-neutral party out of trouble, he's the party-healer and party-balance works out really well for the rest of the party.
The DM is awesome in that they have the Inquisitor's superior paying the party via 'requisition,' which means the Inquisitor IC has that illusion of Authority. OOC the party tell the DM what magic items/gear they want, like they would tell the Inquisitor IC to request.
The approval needs certain requisition thresholds, which means the party gets their leveled gear at plot-relevant or as payment for riskier missions, and means the party can blow their gold on IC carousing and creating sub-plot threads.
Cheaper/consumables/ammo are always granted/cost little, but the more potent gear requires multiple operations, and the shadier/less-legal, the more the party can afford. As a RP-er, I love being given enough room to build on, and the party dragging the inquisitor to grow from a wet-blanket boy-scout into a grim anti-hero.
Another excellent video. I would add that once you are within the campaign, a player should always think of ways to create natural bonds with the other party members, even if they have a large amount of differences.
It can make for very interesting dynamics if to opposed ideologies begin to think of one another as pseudo-family through shared trials.
Exactly! I really helps create a sense of story and a sense of growth too over time!
I think something else you could do is to adapt the way you portray a character. As an example (because Rogues were mentioned) while a group of all Rogues would certainly compliment each other nicely, if you're willing to adapt how you portray your Rogue, adapt your understanding of the various mechanics of the class, you could still work well within a mixed group; the character who always stays near the healers and casters to keep them from getting attacked while casting, the hidden threat where you use characters in clunkier armor to draw attention, thus allowing you to use stealth to come up behind and flank targets, the sneaky scout type character who ranges a little ahead of the party to get the lay of the land as it were. Most, if not all, classes have the capability to be adapted in such a way where only if you're at dynamic, polar opposites with everyone else you should still be able to be a functioning, productive member of the party even if feels like your character is the odd man out, as the saying goes.
We always have a session 0 where each one of us says what he wants to play.
In the campaign im setting up im currently having it set up where the characters have been apprenticing their jobs in the same town for the last few years and have become friends over time. Now that theyve all finished their training, they all dream of adventure. We have a Half Orc Barbarian who is a massive simpleton with all negative mental stats and high physical stats (were trying out point buy) with the theme similar to Lenny of Mice and Men. He's a sweet gentle soul who wants to escape the stereotype of his Orcish blood, but he just cant help himself. We have a Human Gunslinger who focuses mostly on his technique, having negative strength and charisma, but a high dexterity and evened out stats elsewhere. We have a Female Human Bard who is weak of body, but quite cunning and smart, with the tongue and body of a goddess. Incidentally, she(he, male player) is the only person in the entire party who doesnt have negative charisma. And she makes sure to use that to her advantage to spread her presence and influence across the land. Then we have 2 Magus disciples, one Elf and the other Human, who follow the same master to the ends of studying the arcane arts. Their master went missing (quest), leaving behind a set of cursed artifacts for them to look after. Theyre Blackblades, leading into the fact that they also both decided to be the same archetype. They literally did this without my knowledge, so I have two Bladebound Magus now. However, interesting enough, they both have drastically different ways of approaching their studies. They are both weak of body, but quick, both in mind and reflexes, and use that to their advantage. Theyve both sacrificed one prospect over the other to further their talents. The Elf sought to harness the martial potential that magic has to offer, honing his technique and skill with his curved blade, while letting his studies fall to the wayside. The other sought the utility and secrets that magic could hold, focusing almost entirely to secluding himself in his masters study, sparing very little time to practice with his twin daggers. So while despite being the same class, even the same archetype, one is very much focused in his ability to kill and his martial prowess, while the other focuses on being subtle and his ability to process vast amounts of information. It was quite interesting setting up their character sheets and looking them over afterwards. Im hoping it all goes well, and i have a feeling it will. I still intend for them to do a bit more fleshing out for their characters, but so far it looks good. I did have to remind my Female Bard guy several times, though: you are 20Cha female Human of the Celebrity archetype who plays the Violin. You will be hit on. Relentlessly. Even by the enemy, hoping to get you to switch sides. I expect you to stay in character at least a lil lol.
Well, that situation with the Starfleet captain, the Romulan, and the rebel could work out if there were a reason like they got stranded on this strange planet which caused their ships to crash land, and the group needs to work together to find out what caused this, and to figure out the best way off-world, as they are going to need more than a single person to navigate a ship off the planet. They are going to have some trouble negotiating amongst themselves how for each to return back to base, given that each member of the group would be unwelcome in the others' sectors, and it may end up with them becoming some sort of mercenary crew as they may grow to liking each other while being stuck on the planet, and that it may be one of the only ways for the group to decide what to do when they get off planet.
We got a small group of three who all want to find somewhere they belong.
There's a dwarf fighter who wants to make his own clan after getting kicked out of his.
A tiefling warlock of good who wants to be around people who don't judge his heritage.
And me, a half Orc ranger who wants to settle down in a village that doesn't make fun of his looks.
(Lots of racism towards teiflings and orcs in our game)
That sounds like one awesome party, and I truly hope you find that village - it seems all three are aligned. Do they have a plan on how to get there?
The party I'm going to be GMing for is kind of similar. Three outcasts more or less, A kobold gunner striving for fame and glory, a Gohran (not sure if that's the spelling) looking for scientific experiments to help his own species and another that has gone extinct and a Reaper (or some sort of half death person. hard to explain) Following along his natural born fascination with death
In a D&D campaign I recently started in, we're former mercenaries living in the slums of a large city taking odd jobs to pay off the debts of our former leader, who was killed under mysterious circumstances. One guys a goblin rogue, one's a goblin artificer (gunsmith), one's an elf bladesinger, and I'm a kenku monk. The missions will mostly involve stealth. In fact, the DM just gave everyone the stealth skill for free. He pitched this as a Shadowrun-like game but with D&D.
The problem I'm facing is figuring out how my character can be useful to the party. My worry may be premature since we've only had one session so far, but my character just didn't seem to have that much to do until we eventually had to fight something at the end. The rogue, having the highest stealth, has been primarily doing the stealthy stuff. He sneaked into a house with the gunsmith but could have easily done it himself. The bladesinger is also an investigator, the most intelligent of our party, so he helped out with figuring out where we needed to go. Meanwhile, my monk has just been a lookout and nothing much has happened.
We tried to keep our skillsets from overlapping too much. The guy who plays the bladesinger was going to play a different type of artificer, but he felt the skills the artificers bring to the table would still overlap alot. When we play, we try to have our skills not overlap much so we don't run into situations where one character can do the same thing as another, just maybe a little better. We don't want too many cooks in the kitchen, basically. And at this point, it seems like my monk character can't really do anything that one of the other party members can't do better. I really wanted to play a monk, but right now, I'm wondering if that's what the party needs.
Not always must we achieve skill checks to be of value my son... must the moss grow as big as the oak in order to point north? A badger need not meet a Drow to have a safe home? It seems to me like your monk may be able to fill a very vital role - Party Cohesion. Instead of looking for skills to do, why not look for conversations to have? Seek to find harmony in the party (and hopefully you'll find chaos and discord that you can begin to work through). Monks are a fun class to play - you've got Shadowstep which is way better than breaking a door - just step through the key-hole etc. but I'd focus on being the voice of unity in the party. Just a thought.
Bacon Battalion RPG
I'll see what happens this session. Sometimes it takes me a few sessions before I actually get a feel for the character. And it'll be a while before I get shadow step.
Thanks for the advice.
Hope you find him sir. Let us know how it goes?
Bacon Battalion RPG
Took a while to reply because we didn't have a session last week. This week, my character did do more. Each of our characters has a contact (someone to provide info) and my character's contact happened to be in the area we were in.
My character also lured out the ogre we were trying to collect a bounty on. By unexpectedly angering him and running away, not according to plan, but it still worked out.
I'm not sure if the party really needs a voice of unity. So far, our goals seem similarly aligned. I think my character needs to serve a particular role in whatever operation we're doing.
Hi there. Recent Subscriber here, but I find your view on roleplaying an interesting one. it has given me loads to think about so far.
I agree with most of your points, but I think I would honestly have jumped at the chance to play that "lawful good cleric stuck with a bunch of chaotic neutral and lawful evil characters" without a second thought. Of course I would play him as the comic relief and make him try and "convert the heathens" into upstanding citizens and fail miserably in doing so. I would be the guy naming the righteous path and flapping my arms uselessly trying to heard to party into doing good through being bad... sure they would rob the target blind, but MAYBE I could try and steer the targets to be bad individuals who robbing might end up helping people.I think that would be a blast to try and role play.
just a thought. and thanks for the inspirational videos!
That's a great approach to the problem, but one that requires buy-in from your fellow players too. Thank you for sharing, and for your comments! Always good to have more perspectives!
omg Canadian standoff is funny as fuck XD Im Canadian and one of my groups of friends I played Destiny with was like this, who wants to do sword? (the most fun role for a part of a raid) "oh I want to, but if you want to go for it" was literally all 6 of us, we ended up just taking turns but its funny I never heard it called that :)
We South African's love labeling things... :)
I find that characters gelling in a group can also be dependent on the players. An unfortunate thing that happens is that people don't separate character and player, and this can be with knowledge and relationships in and out of game. Just from my experience (and this might just be because of the people I naturally associate with when it comes to games) if the players get along well enough you can work through pretty much any in-game issues within reason. That doesn't mean all your characters have to be friends...in fact, they can hate each other's guts. But you can make it work to a point where it means something to the characters without ruining the game for the players.
A classic example is the game on my other channel. Sean the player's character gets such grief from the party. But we love Sean who makes excellent coffee and is a total awesome dude in real life. But the players respect one another and that makes for a great story. When players don't work - it is my experience to just split the group and run two games on different days ;)
As soon as you got to the idea of a lawful good religious type in a party of CN/CE types, I got the idea for a relatively dumb yet well meaning priest who's decided its his mission to redeem these people he's found himself with. Meanwhile, the other party members just keep him around because magical healing is worth his annoying preaching.
Did you guys notice that the choth colours he choose and even the type of light fits in perfectly with the background of the video?
I've got at least 5 spare characters with written backstories at any given time, so when I need to introduce a new character I let the group choose whom they they rather travel with
Great Video Guy! Thanks! I very much agree with what you've laid out here. I generally recommend to my players that they make the character they feel strongly about playing and I remind them that I as the DM can always adjust for any deficits as long as there aren't significant inter-party conflict because of them, such as you have mentioned.
As far as things we would like to see you discuss, I am involved in two different Online Play-by-Post games (including yours), and I have run a few in the past. Would you be able to do a video involving how you believe a person/group ought to run a game in this format? Thanks!
-Brock a.k.a. Sir Darius (Bacon Battalion)
Thanks for the input! I'll add it to the list! Oh and I'm back from touring the country so our online game can carry on! Yay!
As a Canadian just getting into role playing. I literally told the guy who will be gming (yay not me for once) that while I’d prefer to play a bronco rider I’m open to playing whatever the party needs if the group needs something else. Hopefully the rest don’t say the same thing but if they do I know what to play.
My most recent game due to weird scheduling some of us made characters separate from the rest of the group and it worked weirdly well ( that might also be because we are all friends) but we all filled in roles we needed with the exception of a proper healer we did have a bard and Druid but we still had some problems
me and another friend joined a campaign of friends a few months in and he decided to make a dwarf who was racist towards elves and half-elves.
2 of the original players were playing half-elves and this created conflict, not the good kind of conflict either.
originally the dwarf was planning on easing up on the racism granted the half-elves gave him reason to (help him out or save his life for example)
the racism was however only worsened by the fact that the main villain of the arc, a warlock creating an army of undead to purge a city was an elf.
now he is actually considering retiring his character or if a good enough reason to retire doesn't present himself have the DM kill him off so he can roll his Dragonborn Cleric.
long story short: try to avoid creating a racist character, you will not work well in a party consisting of both the targets of your racism (half-elves in this case) or character who might take offense to the general idea of racism (Tieflings for example)
Canadian standoff. That is the best thing that came from you.
Right now I'm playing in a 7-8 session, short -break- campaign from our main one. We have two partially civilized goblin brothers PCs in a group with 3 noble snooty warrior-esque PCs. Getting the nobles to listen to anything the goblins have to say is very very rough. I'm not sure what I can tweak as the goblin side, maybe we can prove ourselves as having courageous and noble morals. It's a short session so killing/subbing-in isn't a very viable option. I wasn't there for the beginning character creation and gave them a blank check for creating my character before I got in later that night, and this is the "synergy" that was created...lol
Ask the GM for a hero moment for the goblins. let them prove their skill by negotiating the a tribe of cannibal orcs or goblins who will eat the nobles. That would be top of my head. Otherwise tweak the goblin that he aspires to be like the noble - as he is in fact the son of a goblin king, but wishes to be better than his father and raise his people up. Just two ideas. But talk to the players and the GM. See what they think?
That's sad but at least there was a discovery that will hopefully lead to the game improving!
Dues Vult to that helmet in the background
I don't think I agree that a modern day or a sci-fi setting encourages more homogeneity within the party. What about games like World of Darkness' Vampire where inter-party intrigue and sometimes outright conflict are themes built into the setting? Or in Call of Cthulhu (though not perhaps Delta Green) where the party aren't seasoned adventurers or special forces team but rather a group of dilettantes and occultists thrown together by desperate or mysterious circumstances? Or, if we consider something sci-fi like Firefly, the strength of the party (so to speak) comes from their differences and friction between them.
You are right in that sense - there are setting where the conflict works. In Firefly it works because Mal keeps everyone together because they all need one another - and the 'GM' made sure there was no one else they could turn to. What I meant was that because rolls are usually so specific - pilot, doctor, hacker, shooter - unlike fantasy where there are overlapping abilities a modern party has to work together to get anywhere. Not sure if that makes sense? thank you for raising your comment though - I don't consider my videos totally correct and we need to explore all interpretations to get the best picture!
Hmm, I take your point that in modern day settings the people are more likely to be specialized. That is an angle I didn't consider. In a way I'm blinded by my own GM experience where in fantasy games I've ran the party displayed a lot of cohesion through clearly defined roles and goals, whereas in modern day and sci-fi settings I've ran the roles and goals were often much more loosely defined. I wonder if that might also have something to do with the systems I've used since many systems for modern/sci-fi settings are often classless or at least allow for a much great customization of the character's "role" than say D&D.
All interesting questions, and I think one of the reasons we keep coming back to these games! So much to learn and grow on right?
Found your videos as a new player trying to learn and loving them - thanks for making them! How would you handle a situation in a game where your character’s motivation goes against the team’s best interest? For instance while the party is sneaking into the goblin camp to steal the spell book and escape, your character sees his nemesis. The orc who killed his family is standing *just there*. Clearly attacking the nemesis is what he wants to do, but the party really will struggle to escape with the spell book if they have to fight hundreds of foes. As a player you don’t want to mess things up for your party by charging in, but it’s going to be hard to take your character’s motivations seriously in the future if he doesn’t react strongly in the moment. Any advice?
Great discourse, very helpful and clear.
This is great advice. Good work!
Gratitude and glad you are finding it useful.
6:40 So the actual Church of Not-Giving-A-****. XD
hmmmm I was really confronted with that question not too long ago. We started a new type of Fantasy RPG and we had a grouop were everyone just played whatever they wanted, and no one changed anything, so I played a Miko type character then we had a character of her race who saw her fur (it's an anthropomorphic wolf race) which was white as 'untouchable' so thos two were immediatly not playable together, then there was a magic fighter dwarf who for some reason robbed graves infornt of my characters eyes, got cursed and still never listened to her... oh and he almost killed her pet raven. didn't help. And then there was the rogue who frankly didn't give a shit....
I then had my character wander off as this really didn't work out that had a medic join the team but somehow they really never connected, everyone was just ""this is what my characvter would do" without thinking at all about the other characters. In the end we created a new group from scratxch and this time talked before hand, so now we have two siblings and a mage with his bodyguard and that works quiet well.
AlsO I recently started a new Fantasy group with very inexperienced players, (meaning their first time playing) all 4 of them.... So I kinda of course tried to fugure out what they wanted to play but also kind of directed them towards a balanced group ads I had a campaign I wanted to play with them and a balanced skill set woukld greatly improve the playbility of said campaign.... I think it worked out rather nicely, I didn't force anyone iinto a role they didn't want or anything ^^*
Sometime i have a character idea, i want to play. Most of the time i will have a few ideas and then make a character that can fill in the holes while using the character ideas that i have.
There is nothing wrong with filling in the blanks as you go, but a good base is always a good place to start.
GM: "It's a high magic game"
Party: "We discussed among ourselves and we want to play a party of stoners."
So my group that I'm playing in consists of a Rogue, two Wizards and a Cleric.
This group is 3rd level started at 2nd and the game we're embarking on is the second adventure.
The game I'm gming consists of a Paladin, a Shadow Sorceror, an Arcane Trickster Rogue and a Cleric.
They've just reached 4th level after about 6 sessions starting at 2nd level.
i dont understand why people ask this type of question : "why would my character go along with this group?"Because its a game your playing with friends! is throwing all of that away worth it to stay true to your cheasy and cliche chaotic neutral rogue or evil drow necromancer/assassin. creating an evil / neutral character when the party is good aligned or viceversa is always a bad idea unless you want and can make it work. if your imagination cant handle finding reasons to do things DONT make a necromancer/assassin. whats more important to you? your character or playing with friends? by all means play an evil character in a good party but dont be a jerk about it. its quite easy to behave and play nice despite being bug fuck evil if its about the game and not your character. example: your evil character allies himself with the group of adventurers because he sees the power/potential/talent in them and finds common ground in the fact that they are after this BigBadEvilGuy which you also hate/fear/envy or has stuff you want for your own evil scheme (discuss with DM about that last one).
theres always 100 reasons to do things and always another 100 reasons not to do things. A character thats oposite to the group on the alignment axis can still ally himself with it for many other reasons: a dept/oath/curse, the promise of reward, the long arm of the law finally caught up with your nefarious ways and makes you "an offer you cant refuse" (use your lockpickingwallclimbingtrapevadingbackstabingpickpocketing ass in service of the king or its gibbets and crows for you!); you can even be in the group against your will: they captured you and using you as a guide or they need you for some ritual or whatever: in time the badguys turn on you asuming you betrayed them and now the party of players is your only hope of survival, etc. If you really want a reason why a villain would join heroes or a hero would join villains you wll find it and once your in their camp theres no reason to backstab them or steal from them or antagonize them(its just counter productive for anyone with a brain) if your Dm is worth his salt there will be plenty oportunities to act in character without pissing off your friends playing at the table
PC: "I'm a flight instructor" GM: "Lolwut?" PC: "I'm a winged Tiefling." GM: "Ok" PC2: "So am I, I'm a Goblin with a helicopter".
Canadian Stand-off, that's hilarious, Guy!
My next ship is going to be the USS Doohickey.
As a Canadian, I can say with certainty that Canadian Standoff's do exist.
All aboard the Starship Doohickey 😁
This is why you should discuss your character with your GM; so if a potential conflict does arise, the GM can tell you ahead of time. "I know you told me about making a Lawful Good Paladin, but the rest of the group have been making a gang of Chaotic Neutral Street Thugs." Or conversely, "So you guys are making Street Thugs? Why did you not tell "so and so"? He is making a Paladin." Now this is not a complete disaster; the Paladin's backstory could be that he/she was once part of this street gang, and joined the "Holy Order of Whatever" to turn his/her life around. Now the Paladin is back, because the street tough, Matron of a brothel, that took them all in, has been murdered, and he/she wants to know who did it. And so in order to run the investigation, he/she needs to join up with the old gang again, who may, or may not, be happy to see him/her again, because he/she left/abandoned the group.
Totally pointless nitpick: Indulgences were a thing as late as the 1500s, which is more high middle ages or renaissance than "Dark Ages."
I was in group where it was done from the other side. Everyone said what they do not want to play and we sort of splitted roles to avoid it.
Hi, I would like to try RPing but I have zero experience in it. Any advice on how to start and what should I look into? Thanks
Is my character likable?
Minus the Bard and the Dragonborn... I'm a Kobold. Everyone wants me dead.
But the Dragonborn is absolutely terrifying so nobody will actually do s*** and instead just hope some random enemy kills me.
Making all the same related characters is a bit of an easy way out. Finding a way for your character to work with other characters because they have motivations that cross over is probably a better way to have more diverse group. I.e everyone is desperate to make gold. And the ends justify the means to do so.Now suddenly the group is forced to stay together because they uncovered something they weren’t suppose to and some one is after them and their best bet is to stay together to survive. Obviously mixing good and evil aliment characters make it difficult and probably won’t make for a long lasting group.
Question i'm a new DM and i was wondering what should I avoid doing in my campaign?
Hi and welcome to our channels :) Our other channel might be more helpful for these questions as a GM/DM. That channel is How To Be A Great Game Master: ua-cam.com/users/Bon3zmann
We haven't dealt specifically with that question yet and will definitely add it to our list. But in the meantime you can check out this video which gives 6 Tips on starting your campaign.
ua-cam.com/video/uYUzOdHTfVI/v-deo.html
Hope this helps :) Thanks for your support.
thanks that really helps XD
Rogues don’t work with armored knights ? Knights don’t need reconnaissance ?
“A Canadian stand off” hahaha
4:08 deus vult
early 9th viewer
You were indeed :) Thanks for being early and commenting :)
9th viewer is the strongest viewer!
No. but in all reality this video will help me a lot, Thanks man keep up the good work.
Awesome! Glad it helps!
How do you manage to say 'use fucking common sense' and sound profound and insightful?
You are in a group with a dwarf fighter, a human paladin, and a human cleric. All three have gone lawful good, but you, the wizard, decide to be chaotic neutral. Bordering on chaotic evil, well because you are stuck with that image of Emerikol the chaotic from way back, burning and killing across the lands. How in hell do you expect the other players to tolerate your character? They don't. This is a group game, and in this day of antisocial behaviors just don't play with people who won't fit in. Life is too short.