The Campaign Builder's Guild

Week 7 (September 18th, 2009)
[note=Got and FFP Idea?]Send me a PM. Remember, we are discussing any topic relating to world design (but not system design), so fire away.[/note]
[ic=Philosophy Archive]
Week 1 - The Cost of Magic
Week 2 - Villains
Week 3 - Genre Conventions
Week 4 - Design Method
Week 5 - Characters
Week 6 - Theme
Week 7 - PCs in the World
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PCs in the World
For some, designing a world is about gaming. And if it's about gaming, it's about the Player Characters, as the lens through which the world is perceived. What's the most actualized PC you've ever had, and how did he, she, or it develop?

What role does adventuring play in your setting? Or are PCs even adventurers? Does it serve as a means to an end, or the end itself?

What else might PCs gain from adventuring, beyond adventure? If they gain wealth, what do PCs in your games spend it on?

The PCs in my game have all their own goals. For example, the Wizard wants to eventually multi-class into a Swordmage and after gaining lots of wealth, reknown and followers, build a tower and become arch-mage of a town.

   The rogue is searching for a place in the world. Pretty simple. I might build a plotline around him to help with that so he doesn't get nowhere with that...

  The fighter is good friends with the Warlord, and both of them plan on creating a Guild hall where warriors from all around can come to.

  These are goals that I helped the PCs set, because their goal at the time was to have fun. But once they decided they wanted to roleplay, they needed some sort of goal. As for designing the world...it is indirectly about the players characters. So I design the way it would seem most fun and interesting for them, but it is not directly about THEM. In a way i'm just setting an atmosphere for them they I think they would find enjoyable.

The topic-link archive at the top of this thread is a good idea.

Hmm, I try to make sure that the characters are involved personally in the plot somehow. This is made difficult by the fact that most of my players jump a bit between characters in-game before they settle on something. So I try to build side-plots for all of them.
Other than than I have adopted a version of tRoS' Spiritual Attribute System to replace XP in my game (I use UnMet mechanics). So each player has an ambition, and if he does anything in accordance with that ambition (be it wealth, power, knowledge, heroics etc etc) he gets experience points. He is also in possession of two passions; if he tries to do something involving his passion he can either earn points to fill the passion pool up or spend points to boost his skill check. So each character has to make some personal choices on how he wants to progress and develop and towards what.
My current campaign see most of the PC's as released prisoners who are trying to stay low on an unexplored continent. Because of several happenings, they've had to flee the colony and have been hired as hirelings for an expedition into the wild.  

Most of the PCs in the games I play/run aren't the usual "adventuring" types, at least in the sense of exploring a dungeon or the like. Though there is a decent amount of combat, it tends to be more the result of the political maneuvering (or when that maneuvering fails to accomplish its goal) and other plotting and scheming that is the usual fare for my games.

So the reward tends to be influence and power, as well as wealth. I don't like a game setting that feels so vast that the players don't have any control-- PCs use this influence, money, and whatnot in order to change things in order to be more the way they like them.

I played in a rather long-running game where the end result was one of the PCs ended up being the emperor of a fairly large nation, with the others in high positions as well. The game took on a pretty different character at that point, but it was still very interesting to roleplay the interactions with all of the different staff and all of the negotiation and whatnot.

While I've had many types of PCs.  And all sorts of motivations.  But there is a theme of adventuring purely as a means to gain wealth with great risk.
Masi (also known as Geos, Colnago, and a host of other names) adventured in some groups as a ascetic monk, but was really an out-and-out assassin.  He took high profile contracts and played them to the hilt.  His more trad adventuring was to gain items of power to help in his real avocation, killing for money.

Phidipidies adventured for wealth to fund his island colony.  While somewhat traditional early on, he found an island that was supposedly haunted that he started a colony on.  

I have had many religeous zealots.   Players who took on the trappings of their faith, and lived through it.

Probably the most recent ultra-actualized PC is Drono Biddlebee, a hobyt from the Turnipers Commune.  He wielded a pitchfork and was mainly a porter and cook for the Miston group.  He survived as a commoner, learning skills and slowly becoming a decent combatant.  He has ben very involved in the politcs of the commune as well as the town of miston.  
He has, in the last few years, become very involved with the local Parish of the Church of the Autumn Harvest.  He has learned the basci priest skill, and is working on spirit spell points.  

I've always had a problem with idea of "adventuring" being a career path. To me, this removes all the adventure from it! The PCs should be heroes, remarkable individuals because they do what no one else does.

Sure, in the game I'm currently running, the PCs are currently low-level, so they're not really quite "heroes" as such yet, but they're still involved in out-of-the-ordinary goings on, so that, for example, the barbarian swordmaster is a step removed from any other warrior of his tribe, purely because of the unique deeds he has done and the bizarre events he has become involved with.

I think this feeling of uniqueness is important. Even if the characters are low-level, or if they're "normals," their actions should be far from normal. Sure, those zombies may only have been CR 1/4 or whatever, but to most folk they're the WALKING DEAD and absolutely TERRIFYING!

Quote from: KindlingI've always had a problem with idea of "adventuring" being a career path. To me, this removes all the adventure from it! The PCs should be heroes, remarkable individuals because they do what no one else does.

Heh I quite agree. A lot of games I've played in seem to treat adventuring as just another career which has always been a little strange to me. Even if there was such a concept as an adventurer that's widely known, it should be regarded as the domain of the insane if done for personal wealth or fun (you'd have to be the most extreme kind of adrenaline junkie to fight a dragon for enjoyment), and adventurers should be godly heroes if they're the types who go out and do something like clear a dungeon for the safety of the people living in the area.

I think why at least some people like to treat Adventurer as a mundane career is because they don't want to stand out.  There are plenty of good reasons for this, from the struggle to prove yourself worth something despite being in an odd/lowly career to enjoying the idea that the world must be insane if it sees you as normal.

There is no "should", not all fiction is based on realistic logic.

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawThere is no "should", not all fiction is based on realistic logic.

No, but many of us try for internal consistency, a measure of matching correlations.  In gaming circles, this internal consistency is consided extremely useful for immersive role play.

But there is no 'Shoud'.  

Quote from: LordVreeg....many of us try for internal consistency, a measure of matching correlations.

Wouldn't a world that reliably treats Adventurer as a mundane career be internally consistent?

Depends on the setting. Certainly a world where it's common to have powerful characters an adventurer might be the source of some awe but not otherwise out of the ordinary. I can see Forgotten Realms being this way, but I don't think the standard medieval fantasy world archetype supports that too well.

But yeah there is no should, that's a good point.

Okay, I used the word "should"... I did this because I get annoyed by being expected to preface things with the phrase "in my opinion"... unless stated otherwise, everything I say, ever, is my opinion. I think that should be obvious. Just a pet peeve of mine. So yes, you're right, there is no real "should" and "shouldn't", just what works for you and your group, but the meaning behind what I said was "in order for it to work for me, it should be like this..." rather than "in order for this not to be WRONG, it should be like this..."

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawI think why at least some people like to treat Adventurer as a mundane career is because they don't want to stand out.

As my granddad used to say, "there's nowt queer as folk"

I find it hard to imagine not wanting to stand out in REAL life, let alone in my escapist fantasies. I think it's fantastic that some people could exist with such a contrasting mindset to my own :)

Quote from: KindlingI find it hard to imagine not wanting to stand out in REAL life, let alone in my escapist fantasies. I think it's fantastic that some people could exist with such a contrasting mindset to my own :)

It's not always a contrast, it's one of a couple points of view about what that standing out means.

Consider the age-old Aesop of the ruler/celebrity who wants to find a friend/love who will care for them despite their position/fame.  "Am I being noticed for who I am, or merely what I am?"  In the same way some people may wish to play a character who gains fame for their individual deeds, not for becoming part of an awe-inspiring profession.

If you're playing a struggle for recognition making adventurers "common/beneath notice" provides a greater challenge.

And yes, occasionally some people just don't like attention.  Yes, they want to be big damn action heroes, but the character treats it as a private matter or only cares about measuring their achievements against themselves and hates outside attention, or maybe they the player's shy in Real Life and their avoidance of attention is part of how they want to escape.