“You are in a tavern.”
“Who else is in the tavern?”
“Well, there’s the bartender. There’s four other people here. Can everyone else introduce their characters?”
That’s a fairly common opener to a session of Dungeons & Dragons (or any tabletop roleplaying game, for that matter). Your Dungeon Master (or Game Master) sits you down into the scene they want to start in and lays out what’s around you. Then, everyone who is playing will introduce the character that they have created to play in the game.
There’s a fine line between a party that will fail in a D&D campaign, though, and one that will succeed. And it’s all a matter of what classes are being played.
If the Dungeon Master is leading a party of five Fighters for example, they may struggle. Oh, sure, they’re going to hit hard and survive a lot of damage, but they aren’t going to have the healing magic from a Cleric or a Paladin to help in that fight against the boss in a particular dungeon. Nor might they have the investigative skills of a Bard or Rogue to solve the mystery of why that one town is having an epidemic of people disappearing every night. Similarly, a party of five Wizards aren’t going to have the health to stand up in a physical fight.
Good party dynamics are not just relegated to the question of “do the players synergize with each other”. It’s also dependent upon class.
⚔️ CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER (MAGE, OR ROGUE)
There are many niches to fill in a D&D party in order for it to succeed well, but here are the basics that you need:
You need a tank. Whether Paladin, Fighter, or Barbarian, you need the people who are going to take the damage. They are the one who is going to hold aggro (ie: the hostility of whatever you are fighting) and protect the rest of the party.
You need a damage dealer. This can be a Rogue, Warlock, Sorcerer, Monk, Ranger, or Wizard, and even a Bard or Druid. They are the one who is going to not only do the many damage in the party, they’re also going to be some of your most technical and skilled party members. Whether their skills are broadly versatile or very niche, you are going to need them to succeed.
You need a healer. While Paladin can fill this spot, it usually goes to Bard, Cleric, or Druid. They are the one who are going to keep you alive. The one who is going to inspire the party. And the one who is going to give the tank or damage that last boost they need to survive the final boss of the campaign.
These are the base roles that you need to fill in an adventuring party in any tabletop roleplaying game. Turns out, a marketing agency isn’t that much different at its baseline.
🖥️ FROM DUNGEONS TO DESKS
Having versatility in what roles people can fill will expand the things that your party (or company) is capable of doing. While the same skill set repeatedly will allow you to do a lot of the same thing, it doesn’t have a lot of other ways that it can move, expand, or grow. Like a D&D party, you don’t need a party of all Fighters or Wizards. While having a team that consists of artists will get you some dazzling works, it isn’t going to make that one extremely technical piece of coding that a web design needs to function any easier to complete.
To succeed, you need a versatile marketing team. Here’s the setup:
You have been given a “quest” aka a project. What do you need to complete the project?
First, you are going to need your tank. This is your manager. Essentially the face of your party. They are the one who do the organizing and run defense between client side and the designer side.
Second, you need your damage. These are your designers and your technical experts – sometimes both. They are the ones who craft your web designs, build out your code, and add some artistic flare to things.
Third, you need your healer. Unlike an adventuring party, this doesn’t necessarily fall to one person. The healer in a team IS the team itself; working together to support and uplift each other through the good and the bad.
With these elements, the “quest” will be completed and the party gains experience to move them towards the next level (ie: the next project). Of course, your marketing team may end up having some of each role in every person – essentially having a multi-classing team that covers multiple roles depending on where the needs of the team fall.
✅ THE CAMPAIGN WRAP-UP
While a D&D party can absolutely just be a fun little party of only Wizards just to see how long they’ll last, that isn’t a good way to run a marketing team. The team needs all of its parts to function properly and to keep moving forward. After all, a D&D party is just a break from the reality of the world. While many real ideas and emotions go into tabletop roleplaying, it is – at the end of the day – just playing pretend. There are no real downsides to the party dying to the boss because you can just make new characters and play again.
Success in a marketing team is much more real. Not only does it affect the client, it also affects the team that is doing the work. If your team doesn’t have all of the proper parts that will work within it, then it cannot function as well as it could to get the job done. While they may end up completing the “quest” at the end of the journey, would it have been easier to do another way?
The goal of both a Dungeons & Dragons party and a marketing team is to finish the quest or project. To reach the end of the campaign. How easily you get there is all up to you.
