I’ve used this before in 1st ed Vampire, where people defining them selves by Clan stereotype was common: make all the PCs the get of the same Sire. Same Clan, same Generation, same Mentor. I was routinely amazed how much they’d bend over backwards to differentiate them selves, although I usually had to keep some of the players from trying to create some other Clan within those restrictions.

I find that wedge issues can be just as useful for differentiating NPCs as PCs. In one of my games, I’d introduced this NPC by name of Ruby, who did the young, innocent and rather hyper thing. Cut to a few sessions later, when the fellow who up until then had been my assistant decided he wanted to play a PC, and what he ended up with was…. another character out of the young, innocent and rather hyper girl mold, by name of Lua.

This rather irritated me.

So I started trying to find the differences between Ruby and Lua. Ruby was more combat-oriented, had a bit more of an education, and had been mentored by a socially adept city slicker instead of a wild-lands shapeshifter–so I focused on giving her a bit more of a feel for social situations, an interest in the academics behind her fighting (which blossomed into a full-on love of tactics and military history), and a little bit of grounding in some of the skills that differentiated her mentor. It worked out pretty well.

With the release of 4e, I got to thinking about earlier editions of D&D, when we didn’t have all these “feats” and “powers”. A fighter was a fighter was a fighter, and the only thing to differentiate them was a few ability points, their selection of weapon and armor, and if maybe some nonweapon proficiencies (although those never seemed to actually matter much).

And yet from this sea of clones came some really memorable characters. For example, in the Dragonlance Chronicles, their was a great difference between Sturm and Caramon. Raistlin is one of the most memorable characters from D&D literature, and stat-wise he’s really no different than any other low-Constitution wizard. I’m sure we all have even fonder memories for well-role-played characters from our own gaming tables.

It leads me to wonder if sometimes special abilities and kewl powerz can become a crutch. How would a role playing game be different if everybody had the exact same stats? “You’re an elite special-forces team, with the best training and gear available, and you hunt monsters. You all have the exact same character sheet. Begin!” How hard would it be for the typical group to differentiate based only on personality, and would it be any fun?