“We’re all gnome barbarians!”
“Secret agents by night, janitors by day — that’s us.”
“All of our characters are part of the same family.”
Theme parties offer several advantages, including automatic background connections between PCs, a reason to be adventuring together and a memorable approach — and they encourage group character generation, which is always a good thing.
What else is good about theme parties? Are there any downsides? If you’ve played in one or run a game centered around one, how did it go?
“Alas, poor Yorick. He was a good brother.”
“Aye, our family has become smaller this day.”
“So, what’s your new character?”
“Another member of the Hamlet family, of course!”
“That’s the seventeenth, now. Big family.”
I have experience running a game where most of the PC’s are related only by the fact that they are a special WoD being, with the exception of a few players who are interconnected.
Specifically, the connected players are a brother and sister. OOG they are just very close friends, and the sister character started playing months before the brother character did.
There are definitely ups and downs to this scenario. The positive aspect is that there was instantly background personal plot for the two characters, as they had to work through their strained relationship to learn to deal with each other again. They work together on most things, which draws in more PC’s who are friendly with them.
The problem is that this starts to become rather insular. There is a temptation for the players to share everything in and out of game, which can lead to problems of accidental metagaming, since they often forget what knowledge their character has and what knowledge they have. It also has the tendency to form a clique, as these people and thier friends start to pass plot between them and forget to share it with the group at large (and it’s a 35-person game). They do a good job avoiding the problems for the most part, but the potential for the problems is still there, and I think would be with any connected PC’s.
Funnily enough, I know what a hirsute halfling haberdasher would be. And let me tell you, THAT would be an interesting NPC.
On topic, I feel that it’s fun for a while, but then it starts to feel gimmicky. You can only say you’re gnome barbarians so many times before the idea gets old.
T
I think another one of the problems of theme parties is simply that you’re less likely to have a well-rounded party.
In a number of the most well-known systems, not having a well-rounded party is significantly hampering, because it severely limits the encounter variety. A D&D campaign solely focused aroung rogues and bards is going to lack ‘meatshields’ who can absorb damage for the party. It will be the same for all-mage parties, unless there are clerics, or characters who have a number of spells to make them combat tanks at various times. All ‘meatshield’ groups will find it hard to heal, or do a lot of long-distance or area-of-effect damage, generally. Groups defined not by jobs but by races or other limiters can avoid that, but there is still a need for heightened focus.
It’s not fun to have gnome barbarians unless you can manage to play up the fact that they’re gnome barbarians. If the theme isn’t played to, there’s no reason for the theme.
One of the best characters I’ve seen was a Terry Pratchett minor character called Casanunda. What made him great was the fact that he was a dwarf was played up… it was mentioned he carries around a stepladder, so he can kiss beautiful women at their own full height, and that when he fights, he fights using a rapier, and is known for kneecapping his opponents with it, IIRC. The way the character is mentioned plays to the theme and deftly avoids the limitations involved.
Themes can blend into mission type play very quickly. If the whole group is related (one tribe, a mercenary guild, etc.), then you get the advantages of quick pickup play with the drawback of narrowness.
Quick play comes because the GM has a whole new set of motivators in addition to the traditional ones. If you threaten a member, many families will rally around their own. Mercenary companies go where the contract directs, halflings go to foot hair braiding conventions, and so on. It gives you a unique way to kick things off without feeling gimmicky… at least the first time or two you use it.
As far as downsides… the game can feel constrained. In each campaign you don’t get to explore everything in the setting, but that’s twice as true when character concept is also constrained. It leaves a feeling that there’s a lot out there that you just won’t connect with this time.
I generally like to go about half way there with some games. I like to start the group of with “here is the reason your characters will be adventuring under” and let them build their characters together from there. Such as : You will all be crewmen aboard a sailing/pirate ship, or You will all be special forces units in the Belcraft army, etc. Also if we can actually get everyone together for a group creation (as opposed to everyone calling me everyday the week before the game starts, going “ooh oooh ooh, this is my character concept”) then I give them extra EXP for building their characters with some slight intertwining.
I once played in a game that had 3 of us starting as gnomes from the same village. We initiated the adventure… “recruited” the others and it went from there. It worked well as it provided some continuity for us as well as good reasons for us to work together.
So i recently ran what was a fairly successful D20 modern campaign where all the characters were resurected by a mysterious organization as agents… the characters were bound by their common desire to understand and free themselves while being limited by the threat that the organization could take back their gift of new life.
Gareth recently started a D&D 3.5 campaign where all teh characters were metahumans who had arrived at a camp of refugees from a kingdom where a new powerful and racist king had come to power.
I had run several pendragon, twilight 2000, and starwars campaigns over the years where player characters were all parts of a paramilitary unit.
One thing to remember is, that what exactly has to be considered a “theme party” depends on the game.
In a world where there are only gnomish barbarians a party of gnome barbarians is hardly worth mentioning.
Therefore a party can only be considered a theme party if certain choices where taken by all players. That may or may not conflict with niche protection.
The comments made by 1of3 (post 9) resonate with me as a Pendragon GM. In Pendragon generally the whole party are knights. Now to many who are used to the D&D plethora of classes this may sound dull, but in my experience it produces more roleplay as it is the character of the knights that differentiates them, not which class tag they have.
So to sum up, the key advantages seem to be: party unity and a reason to adventure together (bigger than it sounds), easy hooks for the GM and an emphasis on character rather than mechanics.
While the downsides are: can get gimmicky fast, may lead to hamrful metagaming, a less well-rounded party and a feeling that the party’s options are constrained.
Good stuff!