Challenges: Hard/Easy enough for you?

[Duck One]

Boom’s observation is a valid one, and one that could be significantly expanded. In my experience you can find player-characters that should not be adventuring together based upon:

Race: certain races would walk across the street to help rival race, let alone risk their lives in a party together.

Alignment: this is too often ignored. One of the biggest drivers a plot can have is the forces of law versus the forces of chaos, or good versus evil.

Religion: going with alignment above, certain character’s beliefs should preclude them from cooperating with certain others.

Social class / affiliation: certain guilds and social groups don’t work with certain others, an d certain people of a certain social standing would simply refuse to work with certain others.

Player class: assassins and paladins for starters, but there are plenty of scenarios where some players wouldn’t be working with others simply by their methods not being acceptable.

Level: this is an entirely out-of-character distinction, but as Boom correctly points out, it has a number of practical considerations that make it a necessary point of discussion.

Bottom line, there are a lot of in-character reasons why some player-characters simply should not be paired with some others, and practical considerations beyond that. This is at odds with a small community that wants to give its players freedom to define PC’s to their own suiting, restrict them to just 1 PC, then ask them to carefully observe the in-character motives and actions that such a character would have. This leaves certain players locked out from gaming with certain others, and many more being precluded from involvement in certain plots. In a community suffering from population density issues, it is yet another wedge dividing gamers who simply want to play.

I understand the notion behind the single PC rule, and don’t begrudge those who romantically hold to the ideal that it represents. However such an ideal is one whereby you need hundreds if not thousands of gamers and DM’s who come together and make adventure come to life, making it possible for any individual to find a group with whom to play no matter how their current PC is presently defined by those characteristics listed above. That simply isn’t the reality for ALFA, and a compromise should be struck in the name of the game.

[Galadorn]

I hope to one day add something worthwhile to the list in my signature, maybe a beholder or a dragon or something.

*will happily lend support to adding "Druid of Grumbar" to that list anytime*