TTRPG Party Dynamics: How We Want Players to Work Together and What We Do When They Don’t

3 Wise DMs

The biggest variable in any TTRPG campaign isn’t the dice, the monsters, or even the unbalanced psyche of an exasperated DM. It’s the players themselves and the party dynamic they create both in the game with their characters and around the table as the people they are.

How do you want the party in your campaign to work? Are you OK with a little role/skill overlap? Are the players? How well do the players themselves need to get along? Are you approaching the game as a bunch of friends hanging out, or as people with a shared hobby just coming together to do the thing and may not have to get along great to make a great campaign?

In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about what they want in the parties they’re playing with, what they care about, and what they let slide. Along the way, they discuss some of their trickier party dynamics challenges, and how they try to keep the games fun for everyone playing.

2:00 What we want to see in our PC parties

7:00 Character class/role/skill overlap and a listener who’s feeling squeezed out

14:00 Some tricks we use to deal with skill overlap

22:00 How the numbers work themselves out at higher levels

26:00 Should you intervene to prevent overlapping characters as the DM or let the players work it out?

32:00 How mechanics have been spread around D&D 5E classes to help with unbalanced parties

37:00 Party roles we enjoy and hate playing

44:00 Can’t we all just get along? Handling player personality dynamics

48:00 Intra-party conflict: When the party fights each other (and a digression into the D&D fiction we have and haven’t read)

52:00 What we want players to do to help bring the party together

59:00 How do you reign in a player who’s hogging the spotlight without squashing their enthusiasm?

66:00 Should you push wallflower players into the spotlight?

73:00 Final Thoughts: Is the way we think we’re playing the way the other players experience us?