I fucking hate the DnD party trope where every member needs to be different to fit a niche
parties are objectively better when everyone is the same or at least adjacent and assissts each other.
>A party of all martials that bring their own method of murder to a fight
>an entire party of rogues and hunters that plan heists and assassinations together
>an entire party of magic users but with their own study of magic so that they fill a niche in different areas to solve a complex magical conundrum
and making homogenous groups of 1 race is inherently pleasing. All dwarves, or all orcs, or all drow.
You can't convince me that having a team of rag tag misfits who clash conceptually and visually could ever fit better than a solid team that's cohesive in skill.
dnd has its roots in wargaming where diversiciation is very important
really just stop playing dnd
What dnd does, affects every facet of every other fuckin thing. It's the default, the norm so to speak. Dnd has too much influence.
to an extent, but you can move away from it anon, as
said some games like shadowrun are heavily affected by it, but others don't give a fuck about balance or care, You can play all gangrel in a vtm game
>parties are objectively better when everyone is the same
Yeah, and then they face a challenge that none of them can overcome, because everyone is the same overlapping character. And it's not just DnD, it's any fucking game that has any sort of resolution system that has to check more than a single thing.
>t. never-game larping to fit in
You will never be a real player
>What dnd does, affects every facet of every other fuckin thing. It's the default, the norm so to speak.
Funny, I don't see modern D&D affecting my table too much. Maybe because I don't play with online randoms.
>Dnd has too much flatulence.
FTFY. It's high on its own farts.
>dnd has its roots in wargaming where diversiciation is very important
O I am laffin
>You can't convince me that having a team of rag tag misfits who clash conceptually and visually could ever fit better than a solid team that's cohesive in skill.
You have to deal with a wide range of problems. Only the last of your examples really works, and only because the spellcasters in D&D are completely fucked.
Shadowrun does it to an even harder extent, resulting in a recurrent problem of total non-interaction between entirely separated areas of competence so the "party" is just vaguely in the same area rather than meaningfully cooperating.
It remained important until WotC ripped out all the shit that had the Wizard very interested in a skilled fighter-type to keep things from just running up and smacking him.
You're arguing balance and fucking optimization. I'm arguing aesthetics and logic.
In real life you don't put a demolition expert and a sniper together. You put teams of specialists together to handle a specific mission.
Likewise, it's better to have a game that requires a team of specialists where everyone fits into that specialization.
You're completely whiterooming a scenario where the PCs are specialists taken from a pool of readily available candidates for a specific mission. If it's a modern military game, sure - but most PC parties are independent, lack readily available guarantee of reinforcements, resupply and recruits and have to deal with any number of theoretical situations that a single-skill party would be incapable of performing.
It entirely depends on the scenario.
>and recruits and have to deal with any number of theoretical situations that a single-skill party would be incapable of performing.
That's just DnD's logic at the end of the day. There's no reason that every situation and every party requires every person to fill a wildly different niche for every possible problem.
Because I've already listed examples of places that could only ever fit 1 type of specialization.
You guys are just retarded lol. I argue my point by saying single skill parties are better aesthetically and logically, and you just say "it's fantasy" and "that couldn't work"
Get bent and fuck off.
>That's just DnD's logic at the end of the day
It's the logic of almost every single RPG out there; Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, 40k and Dungeons and Dragons to name four big ones. Because it's the logical conclusion of the same 5-6 people having to consistently perform varied operations without easy access to other specialists to step in for them. Could you run a game where everyone is a FIghter and they hire a Wizard to deal with the magic barrier? Sure. But RPGs, video games and otherwise, focus on the idea of the party being the primary actors - making it so the party cannot do anything outside of a specific field either forces the GM/author to contrive every scenario to bend to their specific specialization or take away from them being the primary actors.
>Because I've already listed examples of places that could only ever fit 1 type of specialization.
Yes, and now you have to build entire, possibly year long campaigns around that niche. Which you can, but now the system itself has to also be designed around it, at which point it's an entirely different game from what most people are playing - or want to play.
I don't know what point you're trying to make. Or if you're making a point at all because all you're saying is just an endless variation on
>That can't ever work because it's currently done this way and if you could it would be difficult and if you did nobody would want to play anyway so why bother
Are you saying that party specialization is wrong? Because that's fucking stupid to say.
Are you saying it's not marketable? Because you'd also be wrong and you wouldn't know.
Are you saying it would be difficult? That's also fucking wrong because making a campaign appeal to every possible class combination takes more work than only having to think about what a party of rogues could do. Not only does the limitation make it easier to write, it's also more creative. Because you won't find a Druid in a bank robbery. But you can think of many situations for a player to work with their diverse skillset alone
Don't accuse the current market of being wrong by calling specialized parties objectively better design then turn the burden of proof on me without data you absolute disingenuous fuck, you've completely obliterated any respect I have for this argument.
Go and try your idea and then come back once you have something to say beyond baseless opinion pieces, until then I have no interest in feeding your ego.
I didn't't accuse the market of being retard.
You're not in marketing, I can base my argument that my idea is good without needing to verify with market test groups you autist.
And if this is what you call "respecting the argument", then I don't give a shit. You're just appealing to popularity.
I'm allowed to say and like things without needing sources or to back it up with market research. Likewise you don't HAVE to argue. But if you do, you aren't going to prove me wrong by saying "this is popular therefore you're wrong". Single class focused groups are objectively cooler. Try arguing without appealing to the rules.
>Single class focused groups are objectively cooler. Try arguing without appealing to the rules.
Multiple class groups are objectively better because each character can contribute to situation in their way without stepping on each other's toes.
Maybe groups should step on each other's toes more. Maybe groups should get more disfunctional, maybe that would be more funny.
>That's just DnD's logic at the end of the day.
It's also Shadowrun's, Exalted's, Cyberpunk's, to a small degree Call of Cthulhu's, and so on. Again, pretty much every major system is some degree of oriented for groups of PCs across a variety of challenges, so mono-specialty parties just don't hold up for more than a handful of sessions.
>There's no reason that every situation and every party requires every person to fill a wildly different niche for every possible problem.
...Again, the games expect the SAME party to face a variety of problems. Have you played more than a single fucking session? Because sometimes you need sneaky-stabby guy to send a message by chopping little Timmy up in the dead of night, and sometimes you need Thog to beat through the guards to rip the asshole-in-chief's head off. A campaign neatly sticking inside the lines of a single specialty is a ridiculous unicorn case outside systems designed for that one specialty from the ground up.
>No it isn't.
It is normal, because in special forces operations there tends to be issues with having single-purpose personnel. The sniper and demolitions expert are both also perfectly fine joining the breeching squad, with the latter being the guy who makes the breech.
>Sometimes magic problem don't need a thief or fighter and could be a party of all wizards. Or a heist that shouldn't invite non stealth classes.
People use PCs in more than one session, covering more than one mission. Are you seriously expecting players to bring a separate character of every specialty so that they can switch between them to fulfil the different missions? That doesn't work for a campaign covering any meaningful causal relationship, unless it is constructed ENTIRELY around doing exactly one thing for YEARS of meatspace time. At which point, get the fuck out of our generalist systems and play a specialized one like Ars Magica.
Stop trying to reference the sniper and demolition example. You aren't in the army. That's not how it works. And you're just reiterating WHY table tops at large are fantasy.
Tables tops don't HAVE to make every situation a multi vectored approach intended for diverse groups of specializations. They do it because most groups will mostly always be a diverse group of classes. So they arbitrarily add problems for every class to solve. That doesn't mean the logic of the universe cannot allow it to be any other way.
Again, you're just appealing to status quo. You're not approaching idea, you're just arguing that because it's done 1 way you can't do it any other.
>Stop trying to reference the sniper and demolition example. You aren't in the army. That's not how it works.
Maybe for the ultra-hardcore sniper-MOS-specifically, but when you're talking about actual special forces they're all trained to do a sizable Ballistics Georg who can call out the exact windspeed at 50 meter intervals based on the grass swaying in the breeze for your sniping, you need a sniper who can do some other things to get into and out of the sniping position.
>Tables tops don't HAVE to make every situation a multi vectored approach intended for diverse groups of specializations.
Just. Play. A. Specialist. Game. You. Dense. Motherfucker.
What you are talking about already exists.
You don't hear much of them because they only do one thing.
Having only one thing to do sets a pathetic playtime ceiling for most players.
Limited playtime means they get no word of mouth.
No word of mouth causes pathetic sales in this hellscape of an industry.
>to do a sizable Ballistics Georg
to do a sizable *variety of things.", no idea how the end of that sentence got eaten.
this is mainly just the status quo in games with class systems. This is because class systems, beyond helping players make faster character creation decisions without having to hunt down all the stats, skills and abilities that make them a sneaky thief type by offering a 'sneaky thief' package in games where people whose premise and tone attracts sneaky thief archetypes, serve the design function of niche protection. Players are less likely to sit around as everyone who is second best at something becomes pointless, because picking a class communicates to the gm and players the thing you expect to be doing
Games without classes will usually not demand every specialist to be around in their intrinsic gameplay loop at the risk of invalidating someone's entire class choice by deviating.
Each of the class/soft class/classless approach have their relative merits and a lot of games fuck up by trying have it all.
Dnd was hard coded to have ragtag groups just out of convenience.
It does not mean that you can't do the opposite and make campaigns where the focus is on 1 class's specialization.
in some ways, D&D is a game where the focus is on one classes specialisation, but that class is the adventurer (this is why the wizard who had to spend 10 years on a magic degree somehow keeps getting better at using his weapons, because he is not a scholar-wizard but a field-wizard - well the reason is more that everyone needs to scale to some extent to meaningfully participate in the core mechanic of attacking whilst still being differentiated in efficacy)
>oops, looks like your entire team was too specialized and instantly failed against a situation they weren't designed to deal with coming up
It's a game you fucking retard not a realism simulator.
>In real life you don't put a demolition expert and a sniper together. You put teams of specialists together to handle a specific mission.
Putting a demolitions expert and sniper next to eachother, at least in the plane or helicopter taking them to the mission, is in fact normal. Because they do different things. In the level of specialization that these games offer, the natural tendency is dividing the tasks for the mission between personnel. Unless you are constructing the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN around a single specialist's mission profile, this increases as the degree of specialization does.
That is why parties have eclectic aesthetics. Because each aesthetic is a different area of expertise to handle a different chunk of the systems' covered challenges to actually need a fucking party and keep that party moving. Because the major RPG systems are mostly group-oriented and for broad use.
>Putting a demolitions expert and sniper next to eachother, at least in the plane or helicopter taking them to the mission, is in fact normal.
No it isn't. Don't try to flip my example back at me if you don't know what you're talking about.
>Unless you are constructing the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN around a single specialist's mission profile,
That's what I've been fucking saying since the beginning. M8
>Because the major RPG systems are mostly group-oriented and for broad use.
You're basically reiterating my point, I'm not sure you understand what I'm trying to say still. I'm saying
>constructing the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN around a single specialist's mission profile,
Is better, and having a group of 1 niche with different variations in sub classes within the role would be more compelling and logical. Sometimes magic problem don't need a thief or fighter and could be a party of all wizards. Or a heist that shouldn't invite non stealth classes.
>1 niche with different variations in sub classes
Then it's not the same niche, you niggest fucking moron.
Shh sweety the adults are talking.
This is Ganker, there's no adults, we're all manchildren here.
>nooo I am a big adult game- and sexhaver with 14 inch dick
Then you wouldn't have been posting here
You absolutely could, but I don't know if it would actually be compelling as I've yet to see any RPG in action for more than a oneshot where that is the case. Even more oriented games like Call of Cthulhu have completely eclectic skillsets - do we have any examples of games that are like this with actual anecdotes so we know how it felt, or has any GM ran a game like this that we can take experience from? Because otherwise I feel like we're basing everything off presumptions and feels here.
Watch your post get no answer because OP doesn't want to admit he didn't actually experienced what he's preaching
Ok so you're asking me for an example, but you yourself already know examples that work.
Why do I need an example? I'm just arguing about an experimental idea.
And you? What the fuck are you posting for. Do you have a personal grudge against me? Why? For posting an experimental idea that goes against the status quo? Now you're just talking shit for no reason. Get the fuck back to discord you little cunt. You're underage or severally autistic.
Maybe it goes against status quo because it's retarded and you're a pseudointellectual midwit who can't present RPG (no not real life, not "aesthetic") examples of what you're preaching.
Proof of the game or fuck off.
Maybe you're an autist who doesn't like new ideas. Don't you have a general to perpetually post in as a surrogate for real conversations with people?
Maybe your ideas are shit.
You're the weirdest person in this thread. You're not trying to argue or make a point. But you found a thread where I, the op, have made myself a target for 15 different anons to argue against me. But you have no actual reason for being here. You have no argument, you don't even disagree with me. You just want to throw insults while people are trying to discuss shit. But I don't even know why. It's not like this argument is even important or says anything about anyone. Why the fuck are you here?
My reason is I'm in transit and bored, so I just post on /tg/ to kill time. There's already been enough arguments made in this thread, including ones made by me, at this point I'm just milking the lolcow.
You're still retarded, btw.
>slaps 3 Wraithknights on table
>also bring 3 Fire Prisms
diversification is very important.
>i have a contrarian opinion, look at me, I'm smart
nagger.
You're just outright mathematically wrong. A level 1 wiz+ fighter kills more wolves than either other combination
D&D parties are already cohesive and adjacent in that every class is combat and exploration oriented though? Like do you just think everyone even remotely knows how to crawl through a dungeon or even kill people?
I can list scenarios where a mage or barbarian or fighter have no place in the party. And vice versa. Why are you saying that crawling through dungeons is the only thing?
Let's see, what do people like about D&D?
>Huge kitchen sink fantasy worlds
>Semi-adequately models a wide variety of fantasy situations
>Finding synergy within a build and between characters
Sounds like OP is a gay autist who should play other games. One gimmick campaigns like all dwarf chad miners and We Be Goblins are only appealing because they're stupid and dysfunctional.
Sounds like you're a meta gaming autist who'd get mad if someone made a class for fun instead of optimizing the build. You can stay in your discord and jerk off alone.
Okay nogames.
Just play a point buy rather than skill based game. Then you can have guys who are broadly similar with slightly different talents.
>parties are objectively better when everyone is the same or at least adjacent and assissts each other.
Except they aren't, they have huge gaping flaws and also ape each other's shit. There's never a point where an individual character can get a focus or show off their abilities because everyone else can do the same shit.
>and making homogenous groups of 1 race is inherently pleasing.
Only if you're a sub -brick retard who drank the id/misc/ kool-aid.
>You can't convince me that having a team of rag tag misfits who clash conceptually and visually could ever fit better than a solid team that's cohesive in skill.
They can unite behind ideals and concepts. It's called a call to action. And sure they might struggle at first but that's a part of the adventure, they grow to trust and care about each other. You won't have that with a bunch of clones.
This is the first post to actually make me question my stance, not because you argued fucking marketing or whatever weird point these other idiots were trying to make. But because you boiled down the entire appeal of diverse groups by saying "people just want to show off what they can do"
I agree, I can't deny that it would be tricky to have a group make every member feel unique if they're off doing their own thing accomplishing a goal. At the same time I still find it more appealing when there's a homogenous group, but mostly for aesthetics.
Will say that having all dwarf parties is still cool.
>OP didn't make this thread just to throw a shitfit at everyone who rightfully calls him a retard but is in fact serious
Holy shit, I thought you were a fag OP but this is grim. Your wrangler needs to keep you off the internet.
Oh fuck,Lock me up, I think having a group of all rogues do a heist is cool, I must be crazy. Sorry for letting my opinion on the internet ruin your fucking day.
>a heist
This is where "fuck off from D&D and find a game that does JUST that" kicks in. *A* heist. One. How many sessions of that do you think people are going to go through? How, exactly, are DMs to be expected to structure events entirely around heists? How does this scale to the CAMPAIGNS of play the party dynamic in question arose from?
The "weird point" about "fucking marketing" is to illuminate why (You) do not see it: Because (You) are a filthy fucking normie who cannot be assed to go looking for appropriate systems, where people do in fact do whole parties within very narrow constraints, because the system literally only ALLOWS that narrow band of characters. (You) are insisting on crowbarring your desired play into a system quite extensively designed to do otherwise.
If you want an all-wizards game, Ars Magica exists. Fuck off from my generalist systems and go find the specialist ones that already do what you talk about.
Alright but you sound upset.
>I fucking hate the varied parties and think single-class ones are always better
>i-i just think all rogue heists are cool
I can guarantee if you started the thread with the second you would have had a decent thread without outing yourself as a retard. But you chose homosexualry and got it repaid tenfold.
Do you think if someone disagrees with you on Ganker you get some type of physical discomfort unless you "win" the argument? Because 10 anons can disagree with me and I wouldn't give a shit. You and the other anons can get fucked for all I care, I still think uniform parties kick ass. Your arguments have not made any sense, just sounded like incomprehensible shit flinging from angry dnd 5e autists.
At least I don't hold onto arguments online as if my life depended on it. You sound miserable
>I think having a group of all rogues do a heist is cool
Sure you can do that, but why can't your heist team include a thieving wizard or barbarian thug if needed?
Just because they're not the same class doesn't mean they don't fit together thematically.
The problem is that a D&D party doesn't get to just do "a" heist. They have a lot of things that need doing, and only some of them can be a heist where strict stealth is helpful. And you won't always know what you're dealing with until you get there, nor will you always have time to bail and find a whole replacement party.
One party member should be an adventurers guild independent auditor who at first represents the Man but goes rogue with stockholm syndrome,
So you don't like it when people have to be different to fill different niches...
But you want a party of martials with different methods... Or a gaggle of magicians who practice magic differently, to fill different niches...
Sounds like you basically just want to decide the uniform the rest of the players have to wear.
>Sounds like you basically just want to decide the uniform the rest of the players have to wear.
Yes
That's fun and all but what I like more is when there's some kind of theme to it. So they have similar knowledge, skills, and abilities but also somewhat different. Even if you were all martials you wouldn't all be the same.
>And entire party of circus performers and either a bard or a bard multiclass or something else where their abilities lend to circus acts
>the party are all from a wizard college doing research on something in the field, they might not all be from the same department and some might outrank others and one might just be a student or assistant
>The party are all conscripts in a war. A low level game where most are not experienced in combat but their original professions before the war might reflect their abilities
>party are all aristocrats or the children of royals from different kingdoms, attending a ball together when an invasion begins. Some might have military training, some may have had sword or magic training from a young age, they might have servants to boss around,
>the party are all goblins working in the dark lands for the dark lord but when one of you kills the big lizard foreman in self-defense you're labeled revolutionary leaders and it's up to you to break the chains of your oppressor and create a free goblin state.
>the party are dwarves working for a mining company.
>the party are all rangers in charge of patrolling the kingdom's mountain border
>the party are survivors of a shipwreck.
YES, you fucking get it. 10/10 post.
These are all sick fucking ideas btw.
This is what table top should be at the end of the day. Roleplaying unique scenarios with friends and allowing free flow of ideas to change the game.
What op and many other anons bitch about is how DND is just the default, and you can see why it gets so much shit. Because it's so restrictive, try and suggest a slight tweak on a campaign and you get 60 autists jump down your throat over how it's not compatible.
If DND wasn't the default, or if allowed for more freedom, Then these ideas could work.
>If DND wasn't the default, or if allowed for more freedom, Then these ideas could work.
How about instead you stop obsessing about DnD and simply play different games?
It's not even an issue in DnD, normally. I get that OP is complaining about the trope itself, rightly associating it as a "DnD trope", but at the end of the day, there is absolutely nothing preventing themed parties, and there never was, mechanically or otherwise.
I personally hate when players obsess over "fitting in" or "what do we need?!" instead of just making good characters, regardless of the system.
I'm gonna make characters based on what we need.
I have a number of inspirations and potential characters, all of which I want to play, so please tell me what roles I need to fill so I can assign one to this or generate a new one.
This guy gets it.
Everyone who acts like this is a binary choice is either retarded or never played any games other than that one time in highschool.
This whole thread feels very "vibes" based.
Like, I can see the whole 'uniform aesthetic party' but then I remember DMing and how you can pretty much wipe bad composition parties with the right enemy choice and placement. Not even intentionally either, or just with the right trap.
You're already trying to have a decent parity with your players, and this shit just makes it... Not fun to GM? You're going to need to hold back on things that will become very obvious if you know what you're doing. And if your party acts up it gets real tempting to give them the Adam Smasher treatment.
>OP is complaining about the trope
It's not a trope, either. OP is just a bitching homosexual in general.
I've played in an all evil student wizards game before. Between our like 40 spells per day and bag stuffed full of scrolls it was by far the easiest time I've ever had. Shit was pretty cash.
Also played in an all goblins game. It was pretty funny failing at everything and trying to add explosives to every plan.
There's potential for a good, honest thread buried in here beneath OP's turbo autism
I'm going to cap this post because these ideas are actually really solid
This guy is a PLAYER and it shows. Good fucking ideas all over, your games are good and fun, I can tell.
I always enforce a common theme for any campaign. It speeds ups introductions a lot and gives PCs a reason to work together, first professionally or by need, then willingly.
The campaigns I run are:
>Elite soldiers in an empire trying to rank up, PCs background needed to mention at least 1 year in the military to explain the enpire noticing their skill and putting them on the same squad
>Goons in a pirate crew, the campaign started with them joining the crew after they all reached a low point and needed to dissappear for a while
By fair my favourite ones are heist/bandit bands, but they work better for oneshots or short campaigns.
Man I hate 5e flaws as much as everyone but I'm getting a bit tired of how much you blame the system for stuff that has nothing to do with it. Bad as the wording my be, grow a pair and Hispanice it up yourself. You don't need the book to tell you this for you to do it.
Hell, if anything, this is one of the few things the modules actually do, you can use any of the hooks to create a common theme.
Why blame DnD on this?
>and create a free goblin state
You mean our own hegemony where WE get the riches and the power and our own slaves.
No more slaves in the free goblin state. All are welcome and all are goblin. Even if they're not green and have scales or are reanimated bones. we are all equally green in the new free state comrade.
>No-game shouts at clouds
It's neither DnD-specific nor a problem. You would know, if you ever played any.
Ah yes the The Fellowship of the Ring party vs the The Hobbit party.
Then find a group of people and do that. Why did you make this thread?
I feel like I'm looking at the original Final Fantasy manual, 'Try a party of all Fighters, all White Mages, a mix of White/Red/Black mages' and so forth. Any group combination is possible in games and real life. You can have all fighters or you can have all mages or all Barbarian Gnomes... As long as they are doing missions suited for them, then everything will work out.
A mixed party has a better chance of 'I have the right tool for the job' than 'Every problem is a nail' type of smash my way through. Special forces, criminals, etc show this. Sure, they're generally aligned by their 'overall title' of military or criminal, but a sniper and a medic and a CQC specialist are different same as hacker, hitter, grifter, thief.