Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 iserith Dec 29, 2014 8:19:22	On the heels of our Session Zero, the players in our upcoming campaign and I had a discussion about their characters and the party. A lot of groups will just put together the Travelling Freak Show without much time spent on figuring out why the group is together. Or they'll have the player characters meet up on the road or at the inn and play through those first awkward interactions as the metagame assumption that they're stuck together no matter how weird the party is hangs overhead. And for many, this works just fine.   Me, I prefer going in with the idea that the characters know each other, have history with each other, and trust each other enough to go adventuring together. (They don't have to be best friends or trust each other with everything - just enough to adventure together.) Then I ask the players to work out the how's and why's. I request that back stories be kept brief and flexible and for specific ties to be established between the characters. The players are also given broad discretion to add details to the setting to make everything fit in an interesting fashion. This has the added effect of creating a world collaboratively. When we're done, we have a lot of context to build on and explore during play.   I'm posting this discussion here as an example that might be useful for other DMs and groups.   So here's the party:   Casei Vax (human fighter 1/cleric 9), a soldier who struggles with inner demons and is loathe to take command again Kanati Uwohali (human barbarian 10), the hunting eagle Marshal Haldon Tharaksson (human fighter 4/wizard 6), a highly-decorated battle commander now in retirement Bagdolin "the Badger" Gimpley (halfing fighter 5/rogue 5), a halfling ne'er-do-well who's most dangerous when cornered And here is the discussion that was had to put this party together: Character Discussion. Notice the players building on the offers of others rather than denying or negating. As you can see, there are some interesting dynamics between the characters that will likely come into the foreground during play, unresolved issues that need resolving as the events of the adventure unfold. This will make for excellent drama.   What was the most interesting party in your campaigns? Was it set up that way or did it come together during play? What methods do you use to build the adventuring party? What was a time that an adventuring party just didn't work?   (Our first session is on January 8th. Following that, I will post the actual play transcript so you can read about this group's exploits!)
#2 pukunui Aug 18, 2015 6:56:46	How come this never got any comments? I'd love to hear about other people's methods of getting the PCs started as a group.   Also, iserith: could you please point me in the direction of the list of "ties" you gave your players to choose from? I'd like to see that.
#3 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 18, 2015 7:39:03	The two most interesting groups I’ve DMed for were both gelled in opposite ways. The first one, was a group that deliberately was just made up of the shorter races. In retrospect, I feel a bit bad about convincing the guy that always played tanks to play a gnome illusionist, but maybe it built character.The group ended up running a bar in Waterdeep that catered to the short folk as well.   The other group evolved over time. They were all a bunch of greedy scoundrels. The one player described them as “A bunch of adventurers that adventure with each other because no other group would have them. They sometimes do the right things, but for the wrong reasons.” They lied, cheated, and stole throughout the land. The group slowly evolved into this, though. At first, there were some PCs of noble intent, but they slowly changed/were replaced with rapscallions as the tone of the game changed. In the end, they helped set an NPC up as dictator over a vast empire.
#4 iserith Aug 18, 2015 7:44:01	pukunui wrote:
#5 Regin_Vargtass Aug 18, 2015 8:34:09	For a very long time, I have advocated parties where everyone know each other beforehand, and want to adventure together. Often, however, this has been limited to a simple acknowledgement of the fact (these two are sisters, the others are childhood friends, etc). Taking a cue from The Summer at the Lake, for our upcoming campaign, we tried out Ties. So far (only past session zero) we are very satisfied with how the party turned out. Basically, it feels as if we have already adventured together, and several pivotal scenes from the backstory were fleshed out really well.   Looking forward to first session on August 31.
#6 Artifact Aug 18, 2015 12:46:39	In our 4e homebrew setting (inspired by the TV show SG-1), the PCs were all assumed to belong to Avandra's Path, a worlds-hopping organization that used magical Runegates to travel from world-to-world (actually a collection of 'mini-settings').  Other backrounds (such as a pair of PCs being childhood friends) were still possible, but this was the norm.   = = = In another group, each PC had an element of 'time' as part of their make-up.  One fellow was a wandering knight who had been locked away in a 'labyrinth' (an otherworldly prison) for centuries by a sect of Fharlanghn.  For them, as followers of the god of travelers, imprisonment was a sorta 'living hell' (nothing new to discover,  retracing your own footsteps, over-and-over).  The idea for 'labyrinths' was swiped from Planescape lore (the Lady of Pain used 'mazes' as a form of punishement).   Another character played host to the spirit of a dying god (and as a result, could see the many lifetimes of the deity, just like a deva had its own ' memory of a thousand lifetimes').     Then there was the desert sorcerer (a reflavored firesoul genasi), who was awakened after centuries asleep, deep inside a sarcophagus.  Inspired by the Djinn from the Clash of the Titans remake.
#7 pukunui Aug 18, 2015 16:05:07	Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
#8 Greenstone.Walker Aug 18, 2015 16:32:51	What do you do when (as a GM) you ask the player "Why is your character with this party?" and they go "I dunno."?   I am placing the reposnsibility on my players to tell me why the party is a team, and one player just isn't taking the responsibility.
#9 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 19, 2015 7:39:37	Heh, yeah, somehow, they didn’t. I almost expected the last adventure would consist of them finally having it out with each other in a scrabble to become the emperor instead of the NPC. I think it helped that the group stole from the rest of the world, but never from each other. There were a few close moments, but I think everyone realized the type of game they had chosen to play, and took it in stride.   pukunui wrote:
#10 iserith Aug 19, 2015 7:48:24	Greenstone.Walker wrote:
#11 MrHotter Aug 19, 2015 10:00:27	I like the idea of ties. I try to have a reason for why the players are working together and staying together after the current quest is done, but some guidance sure helps flesh it out.   I once asked the player to come up with a reason why they were all in a quiet town just before the Spring Festival. While two of the players came up with stories about growing up nearby and fleshed out their family histories, the other three just wandered into town and walked into the inn to find their new BFFs.
#12 pukunui Aug 19, 2015 14:19:52	Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
#13 Razintarr Aug 19, 2015 16:12:12	I always start with a theme, mostly derived from the wishes of the players, and ask for characters that will fit that theme. And then a cornerstone that they can tie their character to, be it an organisation, a village, a noble house, depending on the theme. It helps that I have a great bunch of players that will come up with good characters with both ties to the cornerstone and to eachother.   Examples include a group of holy warriors (clerics, paladins, etc) belonging to the same church, barbarians belonging to the same tribe, and in the current campaign advisors to the same lord.   Most interesting campaign was the Thieves Guild campaign, where all the players were part of a group under a semi-retired guildleader that was making it's claim to a neighbourhood in a a big planar city. What made this memorable is that these thieves turned out to be very social, although for all the wrong reasons. They protected local businesses against competing gangs, of course for some protection money, but they did make the neighbourhood safer. One of the players started an orphanace, to have a steady supply of street urchins to train as pickpockets, but that still meant these kids got a roof over their heads and meals in their stomachs. They even started to organize social events like neighbourhood tournaments to tighten the community spirit.