As A player, Im a Niche filler. I like to see what others are playing and fill that hole in some way. Usually ends up I play a support type character. but thats fine with me.

There really is nothing like having a connection between the characters, no matter how minor or major. It gives the group motivation and staying power. It also avoids the “polar opposite PCs” effect that can wreck any chance of group cohesion and teamwork.

I would hope that actual-at-the-table-during-the-session-play would be the ultimate player expression with in the game.

For me, I’m most concerned that the players end up with PCs that they enjoy playing and that can play well with others. EG, that we don’t have a reckless Chaotic Evil priest of Tharizdun among Lawful Good devotees Bahamut. In this kind of instance, each player might have a lot of fun playing their particular PC, but in the course acting out their roles, they naturally come to disagree.

In my current group, we’ve seen the latter problem several times. A game of Ghouls I briefly ran had a team including two cops, a high-class escort, and a small-time gangster. The gangster, acting like a gangster would, found it hard to get along with the others.

In a game of Mage, I and the other players all had characters we seemed to really love roleplaying, but occasionaly our… philosophical differences led to arguments. I say “occasionally,” but it was pretty much every session. My reckless-with-vulgar-magic-Free-Council-fighter-pilot would bump heads with the cautious-and-conservative-Guardians-stage-magician, for instance.

There are more examples, but the take-home point from them is simple: Try to engender a party of mostly-compatible personalities.

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As for mechanics, I have never cared much about how the players choose to spend creation points, race/class choices, etc. except to encourage world-appropriate choices (no cyborgs in D&D, for instance). Like Brent, I don’t accept the balance myth that you need to fill slots A, B, C, and D to have a functioning party. Everyone’s a hacker-turned vampire? Awesome. No pilots in the space game? No problem. Nothing but gnome strikers? Sweet.

As a GM, I can make the game wrap to the party in whatever manner makes the PCs shine the most. If I’m running a Star Wars game and no one knows how to fly a ship, I can just throw in an NPC who does. If a game of D&D has nothing but face hitters, the challenges will be appropriate to that.

GM question #1—What is the expected term for this campaign, and what is the ‘replacement level’ (i.e., the Kill rate) of the PCs?

I run long-ass campaigns, and a longer-ass setting. And it has this old-school tendencies, like ‘within-setting logic’ instead of proper Encounter or challenge levels, and minimal roll fudging.

PC death is a growing experience, and I tell myself it is good for the soul of the GM and player both.

So to some degree, I let them go with what they want. Character creation is something of a joy for my people, and I figure there is a good chance of them having to roll up a new one anyways…

There have been some rousing succeses with unexpected choices. The 2 bards in the group of 4? Classic, especially onstage.

Downside? My online group’s tracker got wasted by imitating a scabbard. Too bad tracking is a big part of that group…

Not to mention that my Igbar group has the ‘drummer in SpinalTap’ syndrome with their healers….

The only DM-Directing I do is to request that everyone have a reason to stay in the group, be it loyalty to friends or family, payment or blackmail. It’s frustrating when you have a party of strangers who all decide to go off adventuring together, and at one point someone just throws up her hands and says, “I can’t think of a single reason why my character wouldn’t just say ‘screw you all’ and go home.” So now I like people to keep their motivations for staying with the group in mind when they’re making their characters. What that motivation is is entirely up to them, of course, but I do request that there is one.

The GM has information about the campaign that the players don’t, and may also be the only person who knows what the other players are planning. His or her input can be pretty important to the process, even if it’s just sharing information about the other player’s choices.

Also, they’re just suggestions. If the party insists on playing a bunch of halfling rogues, the GM can still forgo that cool all-skeleton ambush.

I do see the temptation of trying to control the process. Self-control is a very important GM skill.

When we made up characters for Serenity, we discussed general roles, but built characters individually and in secret. It was a great change and really flavored the sessions– there were secrets and hidden capacities that were interesting to experience in character.

As Matthew brought up, I’ve run games with unfettered character creation… which occasionally works, but has been responsible for the worst crash and burns ever. I’ve stricken “Make any character you want, I’ll join you up” from my vocabulary.

1. When I play, I don’t want the DM telling me what I can or can’t play (besides the boundaries of the setting; if we’re in a low-magic setting and I can’t play a powerful wizard, that’s fine). I want the freedom to play something oddball. I want the freedom to play with a bunch of other oddballs.

2. I’m suspicious of theories about “balancing the party.” In my (very limited) experience, GM opinions about which classes/races are “needed” often come from problems with very specific party mixes in the past. In other words, just because one party really needed a heavy-hitter doesn’t mean that this party needs one.

3. I’ve never (in my very limited experience) had all my players show up with characters of the same class.

But that’s probably just me. In future, I plan to use the group technique.