Has anyone else done this?

[Railak]

So my group for the next campaign is trying something that's meant to be entertaining, and get people out of their comfort zones. So we're each drawing a name of another player from a hat, and for that person we get to decide one thing, their race, class, or basic character concept (tank, healer, mage, etc.) Everything else about the character is completely up to the person.

What do you think of the idea? Is it something you'd consider doing to spice things up at the table?

[JNAProductions]

So my group for the next campaign is trying something that's meant to be entertaining, and get people out of their comfort zones. So we're each drawing a name of another player from a hat, and for that person we get to decide one thing, their race, class, or basic character concept (tank, healer, mage, etc.) Everything else about the character is completely up to the person.

What do you think of the idea? Is it something you'd consider doing to spice things up at the table?

Seems reasonable to me. Obviously you know your group better than we do, and even more apparently you should make sure everyone is having fun, but that can be a good way to shake things up a bit if everyone is too settled.

So long as your group enjoys it, go nuts!

[Maat Mons]

If trolling your fellow players, and in turn being trolled by your fellow players, sounds like fun, go for it.

If you don't think you could manage to have fun being forced to play a straight-classed Commoner, abandon ship.

[SangoProduction]

Sounds like fun.
FATE is especially fun and meaningful to trolling your party. But the party does at least choose how they are trolled.
But in general, if you guys aren't intending to be mean to each other, and no one absolutely must play particular builds, then I see little to no way for this to really be "bad." Could end in a bit of a cluster **** as the party of aquatic elves need to climb a tower.

[Maat Mons]

But if you're not going to be mean to each other, what's the point?

If the goal were for everybody to wind up with characters they want to play, you could've just done things the normal way. If the goal were for each player to maybe/maybe not wind up with characters they want to play, you could have rolled dice for classes.

The only thing that picking for each other can do that can't be done otherwise is guarantee that no one winds up with characters they want to play. So it doesn't make any sense to go that route unless that's what you're aiming for. If you had any other goal, there are other, simpler ways to accomplish it.

And anyway, the OP already said they were trying "get people out of their comfort zones" because they expect it will be "entertaining." Deliberately generating discomfort in others for your own entertainment is trolling.

And mutual trolling can be fun for some people. There's nothing wrong with a group trying that out. Just, you know, go in prepared for that. Don't design the campaign around a troll-y mechanic and then cry foul when people actually troll with it.

[SangoProduction]

There's a difference between being "mean," as in, intentionally making someone have a bad time, and simply light hearted trolling.
I guess the misunderstanding comes to a difference between our definitions of "mean." Natural language be whack yo.

[Maat Mons]

Hmm, that's a good point. I guess it comes down to making sure everyone in the group has the same idea of where the line is.

[Biggus]

But if you're not going to be mean to each other, what's the point?

If the goal were for everybody to wind up with characters they want to play, you could've just done things the normal way. If the goal were for each player to maybe/maybe not wind up with characters they want to play, you could have rolled dice for classes.

The only thing that picking for each other can do that can't be done otherwise is guarantee that no one winds up with characters they want to play. So it doesn't make any sense to go that route unless that's what you're aiming for. If you had any other goal, there are other, simpler ways to accomplish it.

And anyway, the OP already said they were trying "get people out of their comfort zones" because they expect it will be "entertaining." Deliberately generating discomfort in others for your own entertainment is trolling.

And mutual trolling can be fun for some people. There's nothing wrong with a group trying that out. Just, you know, go in prepared for that. Don't design the campaign around a troll-y mechanic and then cry foul when people actually troll with it.

I think there's quite a big difference between "pick a class/race/concept for a player they don't normally choose to get them try something different" and "deliberately wind them up by forcing them to play a commoner"...

[Batcathat]

I think there's quite a big difference between "pick a class/race/concept for a player they don't normally choose to get them try something different" and "deliberately wind them up by forcing them to play a commoner"...

Agreed. The feeling I get from the OP is more along the lines "Bob always play heavily armored fighters so lets make him play a sneaky rogue" than "Let's make Bob play something he's gonna hate".

(Not that the two can't be the same thing. Some people are very particular about what they play as...)

[Railak]

Yeah, there's no picking completely useless things, like having to play a commoner. And if someone absolutely doesn't want to do something, then they have to choose something else. The idea is to get people to play things they normally don't, and try new things. Like we have a player who does nothing but elven fighters. But we also have a couple newer people who are building the same characters over and over because they only know those characters. Really I think me and Diazo might be the only ones that get the more comical or less useful character things. Mostly cause there really isn't anything I haven't built and played, and Diazo tends to build pretty powerful, so I could see someone trying to limit him. I know if I get him I'm definitely going to pick something more entertaining, still useful but entertaining.

[rel]

I feel like 3.x is, for a lot of reasons, the wrong system for that sort of gaming. You can make it work but the rules will be against you.
You will probably have a better experience playing Fiasco or some other roleplay that is straight up designed for those kind of shenanigans.

[Biggus]

I feel like 3.x is, for a lot of reasons, the wrong system for that sort of gaming. You can make it work but the rules will be against you.


I have literally no idea what you mean here, could you expand on that a bit?

[SangoProduction]

I have literally no idea what you mean here, could you expand on that a bit?

He's exaggerating. But I think his general point was that "There are other systems where your friends have substantial impact on your character, without killing it."
Which doesn't seem like it's what you're even really wanting anyway.

[Particle_Man]

“Basic character concept” is vague enough that it could lead to disagreements. If I play tanks but Joe says I should play a Healer, is a Crusader with the right devoted spirit maneuvers and stances a healer (albeit a tank too)?

Also is this level one or can one mandate prestige classes?

Also is a class requirement only binding for one character level or for all the character levels (or maxing out levels in the prestige class)?

[Railak]

“Basic character concept” is vague enough that it could lead to disagreements. If I play tanks but Joe says I should play a Healer, is a Crusader with the right devoted spirit maneuvers and stances a healer (albeit a tank too)?

Also is this level one or can one mandate prestige classes?

Also is a class requirement only binding for one character level or for all the character levels (or maxing out levels in the prestige class)?

The crusader would actually work for that role by our standards. I understand that character concept is VERY vague, but I can't really think of another term that encompasses enough. A character concept could be giant sword weilder, dual weilder, shape shifter, etc. There's too many possibilities to really make a list.

The campaign is starting at level 1, and it would depend on the prestige class if it's something that can be gotten into fairly quickly then sure, but if it's something that won't be until considerably late than it's a no, and the class restriction is most of your levels has to be of the class, so multiclassing is an option, prestige classes and some levels in something else are fine.

[Particle_Man]

Note that mandating prestige classes can in effect also mandate its prerequisites, including feats, skill point allocations, alignment, race, or domains (the latter can in turn mandate a class - if I mandate Sapphire Hierarch, and that requires the law domain, it is pretty hard to avoid cleric to get there).

[rel]

I have literally no idea what you mean here, could you expand on that a bit?

In my experience, other players having input into the creation of your character becomes interesting when the players are in a somewhat adversarial relationship (having different goals, competing to define the narrative, etc), when a character can be simply and cleanly defined (the word 'thief' is a significant part of the characters build mechanically speaking) and when the process of making a character is by design a collaborative endeavor (defining backgrounds or relationships as a group, multiplayer char gen minigames built into the play experience, etc).

Without these moving parts, the exercise can easily fall flat because even if everyone is entirely on board with the idea, the results can easily be minor or not play a big role in the game to come. Effectively becoming a footnote on your character sheet like the 10 days of rations you bought but never ended up using.

D&D 3.x is a system that doesn't help any part of the process along.
The players are generally assumed to be working together so they are incentivised to help each other out with their meddling.
Character creation is labyrinthine, time consuming and fundamentally a very singleplayer experience.
The influence of a single feature like race or class on the final character can be quite minor.
Characters change significantly over their lives, the level 1 farmer has little in common with the level 12 demigod.

Again, a competent group can work around all of these issues and have a fun and interesting play experience. But their are many games actually built to facilitate this sort of concept, playing one of those will almost certainly produce better results. And in the event that your gaming group happens to exclusively play D&D and its ilk, playing a vastly different system will much more effectively get people out of their comfort zones and experiencing more of what roleplay has to offer than a minor adjustment to char gen.

[aglondier]

If you're trying to get everyone to branch out a little, perhaps rather than each person picking one aspect of another player's character, each player gets to veto one aspect of another player's character. If one person always plays a mage or an elf or the tank, make them choose another role.

[gijoemike]

This sounds like a fun idea to try.

Also hard disagree with rel. While D&D isn't the cooperative world building/city building/partying building that say FATE is, a mage and a heavily armored tank are very different, especially starting out. Race plays a much larger role in the building process as racial feats, prestige classes locked by race are a thing, as are racial enemies.

This exercise places the control of the starting point into other players hands. At the end of the exercise, all the bases and requirements for a functioning party will still be there. But the guy who normally plays fighters will now be a halfling rogue. The girl who always plays sorc will be a ranger, the sneaky rogue expert will be the heavily armored tank type. It forces the player out of the routine comfort zone and they look at prestige classes and feats they never considered, or never even had access to.

I would add that the player must stick with that exact theme/class for at least 3 full levels before trying to multiclass out. We don't want the guy who normally plays mage to jump ship and build a gish right out of the gate. Delay the shift.

If I were there, I would tell the guy who normally does big melee combatants (barbarian, armored tank, ubercharger) to play a physic rogue.

[Zanos]

Seems like a perfectly fine idea to me, but probably more suited to a brief campaign. Getting people to try new stuff is good, but sometimes there's reasons they don't frequently play certain types of characters, even if that reason is just preference. Locking people into concepts that they might not enjoy for a long campaign seems like a bad idea to me, but probably a good time for a short term game.