Party Cohesion

The city of [Fantasy] Rome is one of oppression and racial conflict. Humans and servants of Ares rule while elves and dwarves and everything in-between lives in squalor. This is the stage for one of the least cohesive groups of all times. A warlock dedicated to the prospect of immortality, an elf who has made a deal with devils from beyond, a gladiator turned champion of Athena, a sea-elf who just wants to live safely, a floating brain with schemes and plans of its own, and a warforged dedicated to seeing Rome rise to absolute power.

If it can be believed, we never agreed on anything.

Your tabletop party has to work together.

Parties can be good, evil, neutral, chaotic, lawful, or anything that can be imagined. Moral and rebellious, impure and socially oriented, and even solely dedicated to the pursuit of that most noble goal: treasure. What parties cannot be is scattered and self-centered. If each member of the party only ever seeks the completion of their own goals and desires then they want to play Skyrim, not Dungeons and Dragons.

I’ve heard stories of a party run by the tyrannical hand of a lone paladin dedicated to complicated schemes and ruses that he would withhold from the party until they were already sprung. Usually this resulted in unnecessary combat. My point? The paladin was probably having fun being a dictator and controlling the actions of the whole party but the rest of the party probably wasn’t having any fun at all.

We once played as a party of monsters set upon creating a haven for monstrous creatures outside of civilization. The only problem? We had no leader and no direction. We knew vaguely what needed to be done but we could never rally enough to point ourselves at one of the many objectives we had. There may have also been some poorly handled dragon diplomacy.

In order for a tabletop gaming group to remain together and somewhat friendly there has to be a degree of cooperation between each player. And now, in a shocking break from tradition, I have a list for you:

• Having a leader is important. Someone to stand for the party in tense discussions with a hot-tempered noble or to make the hard decision when the rogue and the cleric disagree on how to handle the interrogation of a captive goblin. A leader doesn’t need to be the best fighter or the strongest wizard but they should know something about helping people work together. A leader needs to be able to see the endgame or at the very least make sure everyone understands that sometimes the party wins and sometimes the party loses. Sometimes the cleric convinces everyone to spare the goblin’s life and sometimes the rogue should be able to add their strength modifier to their diplomacy roll.

• Every member deserves to have their say. Your gnome wizard may not have said anything in a while but they cast important spells to help handle giant fights. They deserve to have their voice heard when the group is making a decision that will affect everyone. If you are the leader of your group try very hard to never gloss over a quiet member. Let them share their thoughts. You never know when Fred the Dwarf is going to have a legitimate suggestion rather than simply talking about how camel humps aren’t actually full of water.

• If the group doesn’t follow your advice, relax. They might follow it later or you may get to shove their faces in how right you were in a few minutes. Both are nice. Keep sharing your thoughts. Don’t get discouraged. Your opinion is valid, necromancer, and someday the group will let you build your army of skelemans.

• If the group never follows your advice, there’s a problem. It might be with you or it might be with them. If a group is never following your counsel then you may be in the wrong group. Try a new character to mesh more evenly with their alignments. Speak with your Gamemaster about trying to fix the issue. As a last ditch effort, leave the group. If you aren’t having fun playing a game then stop playing the game. Find a group you sync well with or start running your own game. There are options. Don’t get discouraged.

• Start a campaign by ensuring group cohesion. Character creation is a fun experience and should be done with the party you intend to play with. If you make characters together then it means you can avoid the larger problems. Discovering during character creation that one member wants to play a chaotic evil warlock dedicated to a god of hate and death and one member wants to play a lawful good paladin of butterflies and sunshine is a good time to defuse the inevitable explosion of conflict that your group is going to suffer through. My rule is usually to have parties within one of the alignment spectrums. The party needs to be entirely Lawful, Good, Chaotic, or Evil. Neutral party members can usually fit with any party flavor but there are always exceptions.

• Don’t be that guy. You know who you are.

What’s my one rule? Your tabletop party has to work together.