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[Dog]

(Edited for my near-anal concern with grammar, and likely to be edited again.)

Lucky me, I get to duck out of GMing for a little while longer. My buddy is putting together a game and has specified that we play a team. I've been putting together some thoughts on what makes a good team that I'd like to share.

First though, a disclaimer: I'm talking about what makes a good team drama-wise, min-maxers may not have much interest in this stuff.
So here goes:

1) A team should have a common thread: This can be a shared history, a common ethnic (or in SR, racial) background, a common profession or professional network, a familial relationship, a common ideology. Obviously what the shared thread is will affect the relationships in the team. A bunch of Humanis goons with a shared ideology of hate will probably agree on goals, but might have a hard time determining method. A team that grew up together as kids may socialize well with one another, but have a difficult time focusing on the job if one of them is hurt.

2) A team should, in some way, care about one another: I need your skills to get the job done. These are my sworn brothers. I've made an oath. I respect what they stand for. My sister will kill me if I let something happen to her husband. These are choices for each individual player to make.

3) A team should have tension: A shared dark secret, basic differences in values, a rivalry, a romance-that-can-never-be. Be careful with this one. Don't focus on it too much or make the tension stronger than the bonds, or your team will fall apart. This is just a technique to provide drama.

4) A team should have variety: A variety of skills, a variety of perspectives on life, a variety of contacts, a variety of personality traits. There's no need to cover all the bases, but diversity will allow the team to try different approaches to problems.

5) A team should complement one another: I don't mean they should say nice things. The team should learn how to use their variety of skills together. If you have a stealth expert and a gun bunny on the job, and the gun bunny starts tossing grenades to clear Stealthy's path, you've probably got a problem. If gun-bunny takes a sniper perch, or provides a distraction elsewhere, then you're playing to each character's strengths and still working together.

6) A team should have foils: Remember high-school English class? Here and there, characters should have directly opposite traits. As with my comments about tension, don't overdo it. I would recommend that on whatever issue you have two characters sharing opposing traits, you should try to keep the other characters neutral. Your team has a shaman that shuns technology, and a mage that's a technophile? The other characters could be tech-savvy but prepared to use the holistic route, too, so no one is excluded from the team.

7) A team should have a leader: This is a little tricky for an RPG, because you don't want one player telling the others what to do. I suggest that the different team members take the lead as the situation calls for it. The detective can make the final decision when it comes to legwork. The samurai can call the shots when the drek hits the fan. The rigger can make the decision when it comes to transportation. Leadership, in my opinion, is one of the trickiest things to deal with in an RPG. However, it's often necessary just to have a decision made, and sometimes, it's the ability of the leader that makes the team. Come to think of it, this'll probably need its own thread, so I'll come back to it in a while....

8. (Damn emoticons...) A team should have its own personality. Make a list of traits that the team embodies. Does everyone on the team need to share the trait? Probably not, but probably most of them should. Here's another technique, take a person who the team can emulate (which could be easy depending on what brings the team together) and list that person's most obvious traits. Then pick a character to encompass each trait.

I'd like to hear what everyone else has to add....