Unified Parties

Combat Parties are the most common unified strategy parties. Everyone wants to be the fighter, or the Jedi knight, or the Glitter boy, or the angel of battle, or the street ronin.

The problem with this is that it often means the character lacks the finesse of a team with a technician and the staying power of the team with a healer. The solution in this case is generally to make certain the NPCs that join the party can fill these roles. Obviously this sort of team will tend to solve every problem with combat. When all you have is a hammer, you tend to view everything as a nail.

Diplomat Parties are only common in games such as world of darkness and In Nomine, where social and political conflict is as prevalent as physical combat. In such cases, there is actually surprisingly little wrong with a unified party. A party like this is unlikely to need a healer, since there aren’t many physical threats on the floor of the UN Assembly. Likewise, a technician is more of a convenience in this case, one that allows the characters to skirt social niceties and gain a hidden advantage on the opposing side. Such a character becomes a luxury rather than an essential.

Stealth Parties are likely to live in a perpetual battle between feast and famine. Such teams are generally good at avoiding combat and generally good at combat on their own terms. As long as the team is successful at forcing other people to play their game, a stealth party is likely to be very effective. But if the enemy manages to force their game upon the stealth party, the team could find themselves very quickly out of their depth. This makes the stealth party a more challenging group to play. As long as the players realize this however, there is no reason to disallow it or supplement it. In fact adding balancing characters is likely to make it less successful, since the balancing characters will make it difficult to force their stealthy approach to conflict upon the enemy.

Good Parties are the classic fantasy campaign party and require no special consideration. They are easy to motivate and easy to reward. A damsel in distress, a thank-you and a decent reward and they are happy. Evil Parties on the other hand are generally motivated by reward and physical advancement. Putting a damsel in distress to ransom her father’s fortune, and maybe even marrying her by force to get her title after words just to add insult to injury is more their style. It is not hard to motivate such parties, but a Game Master has to be ready to speak the villain’s language.