Themed Parties in D&D and Pathfinder?

[StoryKeeper]

Regardless of system, I'm a fan of having the group discuss their characters as they make them so that we don't wind up with redundant personality types, classes, backgrounds, etc. How does having everyone follow a predetermined theme during character creation work out though?

Let me clarify. I'm asking how having, for instance, an all-arcanists group works out. Is it too hard to balance the party? Is it too difficult to avoid stepping on eachother's toes in terms of theme or backstory? What about an all psionics party or a party dedicated to a fantasy church?

Regardless of what the theme is, do you find that this is a fun way to tie characters together and force yourself to fill certain roles in a different way, or is it just an annoyance?

[Amphetryon]

One way my groups tend to do this is to work out the distribution of different Knowledges. If one person is in charge of K:Religion and another person has K:Local covered, the areas of expertise out of combat, as well as within, will show some differentiation.

Couple the above with different people choosing to take on different defined 'roles' in the party (Robin's in charge of BFC, Kelly's our big damage dealer, Carol's the party Face, and Jean deals with the Undead, for example) then how they go about filling those roles becomes secondary, as there's automatically going to be some balance amongst the duties.

[Chronos]

My group did an all-dwarf party earlier this year. It was a bit awkward for me, because of all the vast number of character concepts I have in mind, none of them happened to be dwarves. I came up with something that seemed to work, though.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder makes this easy due to archetypes and modular advancement - you can have a party of all one class (e.g. Bard, Alchemist, Druid, Psychic Warrior, Occultist etc.) and have all of them play differently from one another.

Races are similar - PF does subraces by letting you mix and match various racial traits (or you can use the race builder to, say, make a charismatic Dwarf.) Thus you can have a party that is all one race and still have them all play differently.

Combine the two and it's very easy to make a themed party while avoiding redundancy.

[BWR]

We're playing an all dwarf campaign now. There are several sub-races of dwarf to choose from so you can play just about any class and have a racial bonus to a useful ability score, as well as different racial abilities. This was the DM's decision, though. Off hand, I can't recall that we've rarely sat down and worked out what sort of classes or abilities we should have in the group.

[Faily]

I've been highly in favor of running an all-Cleric party, or all-Bard party, or all-Wizard party for some time now... :D Several classes allow you to fill various roles, depending on the choice of feats, spells and PrCs (3.5)/Arctypes (PF). :smallbiggrin:

While I want people to build the character they want to play, I at least personally try to consider the party balance most of the time. If a group is full of non-casters, I opt for a caster. If they have no arcane/divine, I'll make that, etc...

I've found that campaigns where everyone plays the same race (elf, dwarf, human, etc) lends itself to more stronger ties in the party, but it might also have something to do with the racial-aligned campaigns I have played. I mean, when you're playing a campaign that is all about retaking the Elven lands for the Elven people, it feels more of an "us vs them" when everyone is also playing elf.

[JaronK]

I've been running some themed parties, but the themes are a bit more loose... all D&D racial stereotypes in one (so a drunken armored dwarf with a dwarf war axe, a kobold obssessed with dragons, etc), paladin like in another (including a VoP Monk, a Cleric, a Crusader, and so on), and other basic themes. I find it helps party cohesion, and is pretty fun.

JaronK

[EugeneVoid]

We've done an all caster party before for a school of magic like Hogwarts.
It's usually pretty fun to roleplay as students for a magic college, like what spells we're learning and how spells can be applied for learning.

[Lord Vukodlak]

My pathfinder E6 campaign ended up being all Dwarves featuring a

One Wizard, A rogue, a gunslinger and a cleric(who was adopted by halflings and doesn't speak dwarven).

There first mission was to clear out the mines of a kobold infestation. It wasn't that the town guards were incapable of handling kobolds. But the kobolds had their own tunnels which were no more the four and a half feet tall. A little short for a human to fight in but not a problem for a dwarf.

[Flickerdart]

All-arcanist is ridiculously simple to assemble, as is all-divine or basically anything with T1s and T2s involved. You have to crank up encounter difficulty, but other than that there's nothing to worry about.

[Spore]

Theming parties is a great idea if you can all agree on a certain topic. It enhances the group feeling and reduces the murderhoboing (except when you play a group of murderhobos obviously).