I like the table balance mantra. My instinct is to allow something that plays to everyone's strengths, so that even if someone has a non-optimized build they can be just as important, but I worry that this would make the more optimized players think they are wasting their time. I still intend to do that to keep everyone interested, but I can do that as roleplaying encounters, while allowing the optimized characters to shine in the action scenes. I think that Mal will still go with roleplaying his person, and GB has a fairly optimized character already. Mal has a full backstory of how he saved and then had to leave his village where he was a goatherd, including a ballad about his deeds.
And I must have done something right the first game, because MM and GB both asked if they could bring another player to the game. Five was the most I had planned for, and I was hoping to pick up one or two more on the way, so this is good.
And I remembered that a few years back, DrivethruRPG had a bundle they were selling to raise money for a charity (I think it was relief for Hurricane Katrina), and I bought it just to donate. There are some tile maps for dungeons I can print out and use to quickly build the rooms.