Hand Picked

 

How would you assemble your crack team ? It would depend on their specialties for sure - no point in sending in your computer experts for a first contact situation with empaths - it would rapidly turn into a counselling session for geeks with the ironic conclusion that they should really try to get out more. The classic approach is to field someone on each base to cover all angles, Warrior, Rogue, Healer and Wizard but with specialization comes narrow mindedness and at worst arrogance. Friction and contention is important though in order to create choices and dilemmas are the heart of good drama; being successful at everything would not make for an interesting soap opera.

Perhaps flexibility is the key aka the Bard - if everyone can do a little of anything then what's the problem ? Well, Bards are annoying and a little like two paladins insisting that the other one goes first then either nothing gets done or there are arguments about who did it better. Although the idea that a homogeneous skill set implies perhaps that Captain Picard meant to say "We have engaged the Bard", there are specializations available to both the Bardic colleges as well as the numerous unimatricies. As formidable as a a bunch of Borg can be they will all share the same weaknesses so perhaps variety is the spice of life.

But my original quandary is really about choosing players for a game not characters for players - the meta question for picking a party. Whilst I am thinking about starting a home game I am tempted to fish on line as I enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and this would be considered a more normal social route these days. In fact either through laziness or the tedium scars from rules junkies I would probably go for some newbies - there is the risk they wouldn't enjoy the hobby but its so popular I don't think this would present an issue. Time to break in some new recruits I think.