The Unbalanced Party



One of the keys to good role-playing is the balanced party. A party can be low powered, with everyone having loads of flaws and low attributes, and the game can be managed and things can be great fun. A party can also be composed of power-houses and as long as the GM keeps a firm hand on the plot and in careful about how the challenges are presented, the game can be a blast. But there need to be balance. Once of the problems that the comic “The Justice Leagure” has, is that only the core team is balanced. Superman, Wonderwoman and Green Lantern are several categories of power above everyone else. Flash and Martian Manhunter are powerful but more balanced. Batman is the only normal human and makes up for it by being both insanely smart and incredibly rich. Green Arrow, and Blue Beetle, and the Elongated Man, and all the other low powered super-heroes that have been members of the league at one time or another simply aren't in the league of the core the core team.

The same can be true of role-playing parties if you aren't careful. If you have a character that seems a lot like Darth Vader leading a party that looks more at home on with the cast of Serenity, then you have issues. A GM should not feel obligated to make certain every player's character is exactly the same in power level, but every character should have something to do that makes the player feel important and useful during the course of the game. This is why the traditional party consists of a short range combat specialist (the fighter, the space knight, brawler super-hero), a long range combat specialist (wizard, archer, sniper, super-hero with heat vision), a healer (cleric, medic, psychic healer), and a skill specialist (thief, occult expert, star pilot, language expert, mechanic, etc...). Each of these roles gives the player something to do. It is the job of the GM to make certain that there is enough of each character's job to give each player a sense of fulfillment.

If the party instead breaks down into good combat specialist, and not so good combat specialist and really bad combat specialist, plus healer and skill specialist, then the GM has to take some action. The first way is to make certain that the strongest character is legal. If it isn't then deal with that. If the strongest character is legal, then the GM should look at how to help maximize the potential of the remaining lower powered characters. This should be done in the least intrusive way possible. recommendations on different ways of allotting skills and purchasing gear can often make a lot of difference, and often the GM knows best how to min-max a mediocre character into a decent character. Also remember that the characters don't have be be of equal power, it is only necessary to be certain that you aren't guilty of the Goku Syndrome.

Always remember that the less the GM interferes with character creation the better. It is better to lay down guidelines at the beginning than to interfere with the process itself. If players ask for guidance or assistance or special permision then the GM should certainly provide the necessary assistance, but otherwise the players should be in charge during character creation.