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Dealing with Identical PCs
First, an apology for the lack of update Friday. I had thought the server was set to automatically post the article Friday morning, but I made an error saving the post, and thus it was never posted. Here is the post from Friday. Normal posting will resume tomorrow.
No matter how much diversity any game offers, whether class and level based or point based, the problem identical PCs will eventually crop up. There are several circumstances under which people are likely to generate identical PCs, and several degress to which they can be “identical.”
The most common place to see identical PCs is at low level or in low power games, where the characters haven’t had as much time to diversify and “bloom.” The best solution in this case can be to simply wait, and give the characters time to develop, in personality and character development as well as on paper.
Some players come to the table with similar concepts for their characters in mind, which leads to similar character building or execution. If this is the case, try to emphasize the little differences in the characters, especially the ones that don’t make a difference as far as rules and game mechanics. If two characters are wielding two different swords that are near identical, place them in a role-playing situation where the differences are seen as important, either due to a fighting tradition which glamorizes one, or the weapon has some symbolic importance based in religion or myths.
Some players will purposefully build characters which are very similar, often creating a reason for this in their characters backgrounds, such as being siblings, or trained by the same teacher or order. If this is the case, you may wish to offer the players an extra bonus for this, because even if the mechanics don’t suggest it, two duelists/slashers/casters acting as a team or in tandem should be more effective than the two of them separately. Of course, this bonus shouldn’t be offered all the time (unless the mechanics normally call for it.)
Another common place to find identical PCs is among spell casters who are able to learn and teach new spells. PCs who wield magic with this kind of mechanic will often share spells freely with each other, in order to benefit the party. Try offering your players a way to specialize in different ways. If necessary, rule that only a certain number of spells or spells per level may be known by any caster - this will encourage them to learn different abilities in the interests of versatility.
Universally, the best way to deal with identical PCs is through role-playing. No matter how identical PCs may be on paper, they will almost certainly have different personalities, inclinations, mannerisms, and beliefs. Shining a light on this makes characters unique and special, and provides players with a reason not to min/max, another common cause of identical PCs because of bottle necking.
How do you deal with identical PCs?
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