How do you deal with the problem where the party has 2 characters that fill the same role? Like 2 characters that are both "the diplomacy guys," and that makes one of them feel irrelevant?

Do you make one player change theirs? Redo their sheet? In this case, both are attached to their current characters. Is there a way to thread this needle without forcing the two to get rid of their characters?

This can be tricky in games where things are not nuanced enough to make the characters feel distinct. I have certainly experienced this in play myself.

Other aspects of the character can make a huge difference. For example, using DnD 5e, if one character with Diplomacy had the 'noble' background whilst the other had the 'street urchin' background you could easily see how one character should get different results in many situations even if they are numerically identical. You can do this through just characterisation, of course, too.

Other possibilities include gender making a difference, knowledge skills giving an edge on different topics and splitting up the party so you can either cover ground faster or come back with a different line of questioning later.

This is actually worse with knowledge skills in my experience. There is is very little benefit in knowing only a little less than another PC in most games.

Hilariously that was my exact first reaction too. What if they're in some wilderness, or another plane, or something like that? Then they deal with strange creatures, not a local establishment or peasants that you can make a distinction between.

What happened in the game where it happened to you?

In the instance I'm thinking of specifically I appealed to my fellow player not to steal my niche!

The really weird thing was that my character was a con artist, with skill in deception, and his character was a noble with skill in diplomacy. The first talkie scene we had needed lying over persuading and he suddenly decided Diplomacy was useless and he needed to re-make his character as an expert liar.

It was really weird. He's a highly experienced role player of 30 years. Very out of character for him.

He remade his character as a gun bunny instead? :confused:

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;865631How do you deal with the problem where the party has 2 characters that fill the same role? Like 2 characters that are both "the diplomacy guys," and that makes one of them feel irrelevant

1) Split Up the Party.

• We don't treat the party as one indivisible unit. Sometimes it makes a lot more sense for the streetwise urchin to go talk to the Beggar Queen or the King of Thieves without bringing along the expensively dressed, exquisitely mannered noble ditto for talking to the Duke de Bellegarde, much less King Louis.
• You see this on ensemble TV shows all the time. The writers split up the characters to highlight specific characters. Either allow that to happen naturally or if you prefer a more plotted or narratively driven style, make it happen.

2) Don't worry about it.

• Most skills should have opportunities for multiple users (see Split Up the Party).
• Mature players can often work these things out themselves without requiring the GM to do anything in particular.

3) Expand the Scene.

• Instead of meeting the King in the throne room where a single diplomat is all you need, set the encounter at a ball, hunting party, opera, game of pall mall, etc. That way different characters can have different tasks or targets to focus on. The diplomat might target the Duke or the King, but the urchin might first need to learn rumors about the Duke or King by first talking with the servants.
• For wilderness skills, have one character set up the camp site while another hunts for food or scouts the perimeter to look for signs of hostile forces.
• Note that this is much like how combat plays out. Most fights aren't single duels between the best fighters on each side (though some may be).

4) Grow in Different Directions

• This can be a better option for characters that are already in play.
• This doesn't always work well in a class system, but many systems facilitate characters changing the direction or focus of skills to grow into an empty niche.

5) Create Characters as a Group

• This allows the group to catch most of these issues before play. I list it last not because it is the least useful - it is one of the most useful - but because you have already created and played the characters.
• One option is to use niche protection to avoid the issue (the usual solution in a class system).
• Another is to allow or even facilitate the players discussing how their characters will interact so as to share the spotlight.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;865631How do you deal with the problem where the party has 2 characters that fill the same role? Like 2 characters that are both "the diplomacy guys," and that makes one of them feel irrelevant?

Do you make one player change theirs? Redo their sheet? In this case, both are attached to their current characters. Is there a way to thread this needle without forcing the two to get rid of their characters?

I don't really worry about that. If you have two people who are good at diplomacy, then you just have two people who are good at diplomacy. Not everyone has to have one area carved out just for themselves. I think as players the way to look at that is an opportunity for an interesting relationship within the party (are they rivals? Pals? Is one more suited for a particular kind of diplomacy? ).

Can you have two fighters in the party? Two magic users, clerics or whatever? Of course you can, so why not two diplomacy guys?

In my experience, players make their place in the party by providing a use for their PCs. If two people have very similar skills, then split up the responsibilities.

Have them speak different languages, so they can interact with different races. Have them specialise in different areas, although that is easier to do in a skill-based system such as RQ than in D&D.

If there is a rivalry, then play on that in the game. Keep score, have some NPCs naturally take to one PC and others to the other PC, keep track of relationships and bonds that the PCs have forged and use them.

Overlapping skill sets and "roles" are not necessarily a bad thing. I've read several of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt books. Dirk and his constant companion Al are almost identical characters in terms of skills, there has to be about 90% overlap there. This is useful to the writer since they can go anywhere and do anything together, from diving under the sea to fist fighting bad guys on a cruise ship. Each knows how to use all the equipment and tools and weapons that they encounter.

This is rather quite common. "Birds of a feather flock together" and all that. All soldiers can do most tasks equally with just a bit of difference on the side. On a sailing ship most of the crew can do most of the tasks on it. Both airline pilots can fly a jet equally. When a group is in the jungle or the arctic everyone should have some survival skills there. One guy really can't do it all for a group, and what if he is incapacitated? In "Last of the Mohicans" the three Indian characters are identical in skills and ability. I ran a campaign where all the PCs were military mecha pilots and were very much alike.

It's these games that are the anomaly, where people of wildly different professions and skill sets go "adventuring" together. Do Navy Seal teams cart around a lawyer, a priest and a professional plumber with them?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;865667I don't really worry about that. If you have two people who are good at diplomacy, then you just have two people who are good at diplomacy. Not everyone has to have one area carved out just for themselves. I think as players the way to look at that is an opportunity for an interesting relationship within the party (are they rivals? Pals? Is one more suited for a particular kind of diplomacy? ).

Quote from: soltakss;865670Can you have two fighters in the party? Two magic users, clerics or whatever? Of course you can, so why not two diplomacy guys?

In my experience, players make their place in the party by providing a use for their PCs. If two people have very similar skills, then split up the responsibilities.

Have them speak different languages, so they can interact with different races. Have them specialise in different areas, although that is easier to do in a skill-based system such as RQ than in D&D.

If there is a rivalry, then play on that in the game. Keep score, have some NPCs naturally take to one PC and others to the other PC, keep track of relationships and bonds that the PCs have forged and use them.

Quote from: Doughdee222;865684Overlapping skill sets and "roles" are not necessarily a bad thing. I've read several of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt books. Dirk and his constant companion Al are almost identical characters in terms of skills, there has to be about 90% overlap there. This is useful to the writer since they can go anywhere and do anything together, from diving under the sea to fist fighting bad guys on a cruise ship. Each knows how to use all the equipment and tools and weapons that they encounter.

This is rather quite common. "Birds of a feather flock together" and all that. All soldiers can do most tasks equally with just a bit of difference on the side. On a sailing ship most of the crew and do most of the tasks on it. Both airline pilots can fly a jet equally. When a group is in the jungle or the arctic everyone should have some survival skills there. One guy really can't do it all for a group, and what if he is incapacitated? In "Last of the Mohicans" the three Indian characters are identical in skills and ability. I ran a campaign where all the PCs were military mecha pilots and were very much alike.

It's these games that are the anomaly, where people of wildly different professions and skill sets go "adventuring" together. Do Navy Seal teams cart around a lawyer, a priest and a professional plumber with them?

All of these.  It has never, ever been a problem in 43 years.  Of course, I've never seen a character that was good ONLY at one thing, either.

Surely cooperation and Aid Another is the obvious solution?

I mean, if you have two diplomancers in the party, you should obviously use the Two Man Con for all your conflict solving needs.

Quote from: Bren;8656605) Create Characters as a Group

• This allows the group to catch most of these issues before play. I list it last not because it is the least useful - it is one of the most useful - but because you have already created and played the characters.
• One option is to use niche protection to avoid the issue (the usual solution in a class system).
• Another is to allow or even facilitate the players discussing how their characters will interact so as to share the spotlight.

This. Head off any potential problem before it can arise.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;865631How do you deal with the problem where the party has 2 characters that fill the same role? Like 2 characters that are both "the diplomacy guys," and that makes one of them feel irrelevant?

Do you make one player change theirs? Redo their sheet? In this case, both are attached to their current characters. Is there a way to thread this needle without forcing the two to get rid of their characters?

For my part, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, I have sworn upon the altar of heaven eternal hostility against every form of niche protection, to the point where it's #2 on my list of Gaming Geek Fallacies.  With the sole exception of alignment, it's the stupidest concept ever to come out of D&D play, and it's not as if you can blame it on the rules either.  There's no such thing as "Amanda's problem" or "Doug's problem" or "Christine's problem," but the party's problem.

Beyond the comments others have made, are you really setting up your sessions so that people call dibs on "niches," and if situations come up for those "niches," everyone sits on his or her hands while the Appropriate Person steps to the plate?  If so, that's cracked.

Let's take my own lead party.  Superficially, Holly is the best go-to person for diplomacy.  She has the Attractive and Charisma Advantages, she's of elven blood, she's a major guild official in one of the largest College of Mages chantries in the world, she's a Master-class wizard, a former university professor, and from provincial gentry.

But.  Arkis is an acknowledged war hero with a lot of military and underworld contacts, and he's a Master of a feared combat wizardly order.  Torin has Charisma himself, and he's a known philanthropist in the slum areas of the city.  Kana is Attractive and holds an award of honor from the Mercenaries' Guild.  There are circumstances where each might be a more productive speaker, even if you leave aside that Holly's a former amnesiac who's sometimes a bit dippy, that Torin's only 15 years old, that Arkis is often short tempered and obnoxiously abrasive, and Kana's not terribly articulate or imaginative.

Not that any of that's an ironclad determinant, because if Torin's the only one in the room dealing with the ganglord, Torin's the one doing the talking.

Quote from: Axiomatic;865703Surely cooperation and Aid Another is the obvious solution?

I mean, if you have two diplomancers in the party, you should obviously use the Two Man Con for all your conflict solving needs.

This. Get the players to be a team. What's better than a single conman? Two who can work together to be unstoppable (just watch out for Kingpin situations where one of them is an asshole like Bill Murray's character).

The figures should be characters, not just pawns. Personalities, not stats, make it a role-playing game.

The game should not be about what means character X is better at using; it should be about what ends he/she will pursue with those means.

Obviously if you misplace the focus then it's going to be a lot more significant in a "monolithic party" form than in the original campaign form. However, the misplacement itself is the fundamental problem.

In the old days in D&D, we typically had a lot of Fighting Men, about twice as many as the other figure types combined. Nobody cried because they were all good at the same specialty of doing unto the enemy before they do unto you.

Diplomacy depends on situation, on the incentives presented. In one case, Abbess Nastya might have the strong position, in another Ganof the Master Thief, in another Lord Valerian. Being known as a slick talker might sometimes be a handicap. Generally, a high opinion of one's own charm counts for a lot less than holding the goods that someone most wants. The one who holds that card holds the trump!