The Life of a Party
GameMastery Guide, page 63
Once a group has its players, the elements of the game are decided upon, and characters are made, it’s time for adventure! The importance of the players doesn’t end when the GM’s story begins. The ways players cooperate, characters play off of each other, and an adventuring party functions together can determine not just the success or failure of an adventure, but also the fortune of a gaming group as a whole. This section focuses on elements of the game GMs—and their players—should consider to improve the quality of their parties, make running the game easier, and generally spend more game time roleplaying and less time squabbling. Keeping in mind some of the issues and sticking points most commonly faced during roleplaying games can help you steer your party away from problems, frustrations, and wasted time.
In this section
- Gathering A Group There’s an important step between creating characters and having that first adventure: forming an adventuring party.
- Party Composition As long as every player is participating and having fun, there’s no right or wrong number of players in a gaming group.
- Handling Treasure Over the course of any adventure, there are treasures to find and rewards to win.
- Death of a Hero Inevitably, whether in a dramatic sacrifice or merely through bad luck with the dice, player characters die.
- Alignment Alignment is easily one of the most debated topics in roleplaying, and straddles the line between descriptive element and rules element.
- Evil Characters Many GMs refuse to allow players to create characters with evil alignments, as is their prerogative if they feel such a character might disrupt the game or hinder the story.