What are the essential elements/characters/archetypes for a well-rounded party...

What are the essential elements/characters/archetypes for a well-rounded party, particularly from the roleplaying and perspective?

Other urls found in this thread:

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand
twitter.com/AnonBabble

To my knowledge, the archetypal party of four consists of:
>The Warrior, a melee combatant that usually wears armor and makes dramatic speeches directed towards the villains
>The Healer, a divine caster who uses magic to heal the party and banish/destroy the evil while espousing the virtues of the deity powering said magic
>The Bowman, a rogue/ranger type that sneaks around, picks off enemies from afar, is usually cocky, possibly has a rivalry with the Warrior, and occasionally makes snide/comedic comments
>The Mage, an arcane caster who uses magic to blast enemies away and pull off incredible feats while being a sage, lecturing the party, and being the most likely to get annoyed by any party shenanigans

In theory, the team is well-rounded, from both a mechanical and roleplaying stance. In practice, this stereotyped team usually lacks Charisma due to it's limited importance in combat. Altercations to the above archetypes fix this, but sacrifice the pure stereotypical nature of them for more diversity.

It depends on what kind of game / genre / narrative you're trying to play.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand

The 5 man band.

Big guy, smart guy, leader, heart, and anti-hero.

While the five-man band is a staple, there are theories of balance for four, three, and even two people parties. Six and above usually seems to be additions to the five-man band concept, though.

What's important isn't so much role, which can vary between genre or game or even style, but that each party member has a specific, non-overlapping niche in terms of social dynamic. They can even cover similar pragmatic functions - think, a modern-day military game, most characters will be some flavor of rifleman.

That's how it can work well in roleplaying specifically. In terms of game design and balance, each PC should have a specific pragmatic function that is uniquely theirs, though I'm of the opinion that each PC should have some secondary utility as well, especially when it comes to healing.

DPS, healer, tank.

Those are the only ones you actually strictly need, though of course, other stuff is quite desirable. Good roleplaying requires each party member to have a niche of their own, redundancy reduces opportunity to roleplay.

There are a number of different roles a perfectly well-rounded party needs, though one character may play more than one role (such as a thief being both the DPS guy with backstabs and also the utility monkey with disarms and lockpicks and shit). To wit, a well-rounded party needs,

>DPS
High damage output. Usually the wizard, but rogues have a DPS role too with backstabs and sneak crits and shit. Ranged characters should be DPS, since positioning is less important for them.
>Tank
Takes damage and protects allies. Usually the heavy armor and shield guy.
>Healer
Needs no further explanation.
>Support caster
Buffs allies, debuffs enemies, generally ensures the battle goes the party's way.

Any other roles are generally mixtures of these niches or different ways of doing them. A larger party might have more than one type of DPS, in my opinion a well-balanced party of five needs two DPS guys - a crowd-control and a sniper. The crowd control guy uses AOE and quick attacks to ensure the party isn't overwhelmed, while the sniper brings down the hammer on the most strategically important target. Classically, the crowd control guy is a mage and the sniper is an archer or, well, sniper, but really most roles can do most jobs if sufficiently narrated and explained.

Now, this is just practical roles - social dynamics are entirely different, and while there are archetypes of social positions that suit each role most traditionally, really any social role can fit any practical role.

When you have less than 5 you can just condense roles down. The big guy may also be the heart or the leader is also the smart guy, for example.

The traditional social dynamic, in order of importance, generally goes as follows:

>Face
No party lacks a leader in some form, and it's usually if not always the face guy. He can be a formal leader or juts the one everyone respects.
>Guy who is opposite the face
If the face guy is uptight, the second guy, usually his right-hand man, is chill. If the face guy is reckless and impulsive, his second is cautious and a stickler for rules. Point is, the face guy needs someone who is his opposite in some form, so that roleplaying can always ensue by having a character differ with another.
>Guy who isn't retarded
The guy who's smart is important so that the party always has guidance that allows them to make smart decisions. This can be either INT or WIS, mind you, but it generally shouldn't be both, or if both exist they should be two characters. The smart guy is usually the tiebreaker between the face and his opposite, able to take either one's side as needed or suggest an obvious third option. This guy is typically the utility monkey.

Note that the above three roles fit neatly into the "fighter, mage, thief" dynamic ubiquitous to fantasy. Those three are the only ones who are actually required, in my opinion; from there it gets more specialized or has roles that can be delegated to one another if necessary. In larger casts, some roles can be delegated. The below roles are important for every party, but they can be folded into one of the above.

>The heart
Taking the tiebreaker role from the smart guy, the heart keeps everyone together and on the same page and provides helpful therapy when shit hits the fan. This is almost always the token female in the cast and when she is, she's usually the face's waifu. She often keeps the next guy from going off the deep end or crossing a line the party absolutely can't follow.
>Morally gray guy
Think the thief or the redeemed-villain or some 'evil'-magic-using wizard like a lich or necromancer, but in a typical heroic party, they need one guy who's willing to break rules, steal things, assassinate, and the like. This introduces a bit of dramatic tension and conflict within the party, which is conducive to roleplaying. If this guy isn't his own category, then he's usually the guy-opposite-the-face, with the face being the hero. But he can also be the smart guy, usually "street smart" rather than book-smart. This works even in less heroic settings; if everyone is morally gray this is the guy who's actually evil.
>Big dumb muscle
Pretty much only useful when violence ensues, this guy could be the guy-opposite-the-face in a smaller party if the leader is your typical charismatic and intelligent hero.
>Diplomancer
Almost always the face, but if the face is more a commander type, this role needs to be filled by someone else, often the heart. This is the one that makes friends with people and convinces NPCs to help the party.

Oh, and of course
>The extra guys
The ones who don't actually fit the dynamic but are important early so it's sufficiently dramatic or motivating when they're horribly killed. Occasionally they stay in the background until one of the above is killed and then step up to the newly-empty role. The mentor is almost always one of these, else he'd throw off the group's power dynamic by being better than everyone else.

The fact that these roles can be delegated into different types of characters, or used in different ways, and that a character may have one or more roles in the party, is where variety comes from. All good parties have all of these roles, but there's almost infinite numbers of combinations of ways they can be expressed and balanced. You can have the smart guy be a nerd, or a streetwise criminal, or double as the heart and be socially and emotionally insightful. It varies a lot.

Too many to make because they can come in all sorts of crazy combinations. The ONLY required archetype I can tell you to have is a murderhobo. Every single party needs one because every party that doesn't have one will eventually spawn one or they'll all pick up the mantle. It just happens like almost always a Face happens if nobody starts off as one.

>Tank
>DPS
>Support
These are the bare necessities you need for any party and depending on the game, you can easily add more variants and sub-classes to the triangle as needed.
>inb4 le vidya gb2vee
Tabletop and RPGs have been taking cues from one another for years. Get over yourselves.

Fighter
Wizard
Cleric
Thief

>for years
Tabletop has been doing this since before video games existed. The original classes in the first D&D were fighting man, cleric, and magic-user. That's tank, support, and DPS. Video games borrowed it from TTRPGs, not the other way around.

The hero
The go-along guy
The really good at what he does asshole
The wise or experienced one who doesn't lead

Basically starfox

Boldness, to pull you forward. Generally should be someone self directed and well matched morally to the rest of the group. Someone to say they should do something and to grab story hooks.

Someone careful, to point out problems with the bold and to keep the party from being dumb.

Someone wicked, to suggest the 'dark side' of things. Note that this doesn't mean the group will do it, and in fact it's most likely the wicked one will often be told 'no'. The rest of the group getting a chance to reject the wickedness hugely helps make the rest of the group look good, rather then amoral or passive. Seeing an evil option, talking it over, then rejecting it.

And.. that's it.

Roles you don't need, but can be helpful..

The Wise Old one. A great place for an NPC, this is someone that knows things and can answer any questions/clear up things for others. They don't direct things or lead the plot, but they can make what is going on clear.

The fool/child. Someone that, In Character, doesn't know things and needs them explained. This is a GREAT role for a PC or NPC and can help with the setting, as explaining things to the fool can convey a huge amount of information. And it's a fun role.

>focusing on mechanics
that's not what the OP is talking about dipshits

But the practical niche a character fills will usually inform the social dynamic, as well. Thus it's important to understand.

Fine, you got a big dude who takes the hits, the little guy offering him moral support from the back, and the sneaky guy smashing the dude's head in with a beer bottle while he's fighting the big dude.

That enough for you?

One for each core form of obstacle
>The Leader - overcomes NPC obstacles
>The Warrior - overcomes combat obstacles
>The Rogue - overcomes environmental obstacles

Anything more than that is just splitting those three into sub-categories.

Instead of "Rogue" I'd call them Rangers. Rogues are generally given connotations related to thievery and shitty players, Rangers are generally seen as the guides who you hire because they have an idea of how to survive the hostile environment you're in.

Otherwise it's a good system.

the leader/all-rounder, the brute, the mage, and the cum dump