Power and Responsibility

This thread made me think. Apparently, some people take the stance that the point of really high character levels is that you are going to slay bigger monsters, face bigger threats, and get bigger treasures.

But I can't help but wondering: Can this really be all there is to high levels?


After all, at some point - depending on the setting, but usually arriving at 20th level at the latest - the typical party has the power to topple entire nations all by themselves. That means that they have massive political power - if they choose to use it.

And in the typical D&D world there are quite a few nations ruled by obvious tyrants. So why don't they topple those nations and strive to make them a better place - or rule them as tyrants themselves, if they are so inclined?

Even if they don't try to rule a nation, it will still be seen as a political decision that the PCs need to explain and defend. "You are so powerful that you could easily get rid of Dark Lord Elmer, so why don't you do something about him?" is a question they will probably get asked frequently if they have a known code of ethics. And if so, are they really content with letting innocents suffer under tyrants?

And once they got rid of the tyrant, what then? He might been the only thing holding his nation together - so if they don't take charge of it, it will dissolve and start an ugly civil war that will cause even more deaths. So what are they going to do about it - other than ruling the nation themselves?



My point is that once the PCs become powerful enough to defeat whole armies by themselves, they should think in grander terms than just slaying bigger monsters. They have the power to shape the world for good or ill - so at the very least they need to come up with good explanations for why they aren't doing just that.

Because neither DM nor the other players want to go in that direction with their game?

Jürgen Hubert said:

My point is that once the PCs become powerful enough to defeat whole armies by themselves, they should think in grander terms than just slaying bigger monsters.

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That rather depends on the world, though. In some worlds there are plenty enough bigger monsters that they aren't upsetting any major ecology or political issues by going out and slaying monsters.

Basically, PCs should consider the Big Picture if and only if the GM is going to make the Bigger Picture an issue.

Umbran said:

Basically, PCs should consider the Big Picture if and only if the GM is going to make the Bigger Picture an issue.

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What if the PCs themselves are going to make it an issue?

And why shouldn't they, if they have any personal ambitions at all?

Doesn't this kind of assume the PCs' complacency? Or rather, their freedom to be complacent?

After all, if 'standard' challanges keep scaling up with party level, wouldn't that be enough to keep them busy? IOW, 'standard' adventuring, even if that happens to be across the planes or whatever.

I mean, what you're saying would make perfect sense to me, disregarding the default D&D assumptions (as I think I understand them,) but with them in mind. . . I'm not so sure.

Aus_Snow said:

Doesn't this kind of assume the PCs' complacency? Or rather, their freedom to be complacent?

After all, if 'standard' challanges keep scaling up with party level, wouldn't that be enough to keep them busy? IOW, 'standard' adventuring, even if that happens to be across the planes or whatever.

I mean, what you're saying would make perfect sense to me, disregarding the default D&D assumptions, but with them in mind. . . I'm not so sure.

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How often keep those ever-higher scaling challenges appearing, though?

I mean, it is possible to come up with in-setting explanations for such escalating challenges (Ptolus does so nicely, with its Ancient Elder Evils threatening to get free from their prison Real Soon Now) - but it requires some work. And if there isn't, it will require some suspension of disbelief on the part of the players. Granted, a certain level of suspension of disbelief is always necessary (this being a fantasy game and so forth), but all other things being equal I'd rather not handwave this away.


A good measure of such things would be the history of the campaign setting. Presumably, the PCs aren't the first people to reach really high level (though they might - but then their choices about what to do with their powers matter even more). What did their precedessors do? Establish cities? Rule over nations? Or did they all just ride into the sunset?

If the answer is one of the first two, then the GM should expect the PCs to attempt something similar...

Jürgen Hubert said:

My point is that once the PCs become powerful enough to defeat whole armies by themselves, they should think in grander terms than just slaying bigger monsters. They have the power to shape the world for good or ill - so at the very least they need to come up with good explanations for why they aren't doing just that.

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First off, some people just have no desire to do things like this. Just because somebody has the power to topple a government does not mean they have the desire or ability to replace it with something better.

Second, in some games the idea of the heroes toppling and replacing governments would be thinking in smaller terms rather than grander ones. These campaigns are usually focused more on saving the world from some incredibly destructive power or force. What is a puny tyrant compared with the power of the Abyss?

Third, its just a game. Why shouldn't the PCs just want to keep doing what they have been doing if that is what their players enjoy?

Jürgen Hubert said:

What if the PCs themselves are going to make it an issue?
And why shouldn't they, if they have any personal ambitions at all?

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I've been in games where we've toppled the evil government or two, or at least cut the dark heart out of it and told the survivors 'here's what was happening, here's the proof, now make sure it doesn't happen again or you're on the list'.

Annnd I've been in a couple games where we attempted to do the right thing but the GM was all set to be as 'morally ambiguous' as possible, which was really just a codeword for 'screw the PC's so they can't actually win'. Something like 'Well, you succeed in wiping out the evil child molesting devil worshippers that were the head of the Empire of Xor. The Empire falls apart and people celebrate their freedom. Of course, how could you know that the strength and power of Xor was the only thing keeping the Black Waste Barbarians in check? The next spring they stream out of the mountains like a river and kill everyone in the Empire. Hahaha. Of course they would have all starved anyway because you killed the people that also made the weather moderate enough to actually live in this region."

Thornir Alekeg said:

First off, some people just have no desire to do things like this. Just because somebody has the power to topple a government does not mean they have the desire or ability to replace it with something better.

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Well, if they are of good alignment, then how can they justify leaving obvious tyrants in place?

In such cases, it might not be a case of "desiring to" for the PCs, but a case of "Someone has to do something about this guy - and who else but us could pull it off?"

Second, in some games the idea of the heroes toppling and replacing governments would be thinking in smaller terms rather than grander ones. These campaigns are usually focused more on saving the world from some incredibly destructive power or force. What is a puny tyrant compared with the power of the Abyss?

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Sure, that's a valid concern as well. But what are you going to do after you have beaten the Abyss?

Just beating up bigger threats is an essentially reactive approach to campaigns. Why shouldn't the PCs try out something proactive instead - building something up instead of destroying something?

Third, its just a game. Why shouldn't the PCs just want to keep doing what they have been doing if that is what their players enjoy?

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Well, I'm not going to tell them that what they are doing is BadWrongFun and they ought to stop it.

But still, if they have never done a political/proactive campaign before, I would nevertheless suggest that they should try it out. I've been involved in two campaigns that featured a lot of politics - one as a GM (an Exalted campaign where the PCs took over a city fairly early) and one as a player (an SF campaign where the PCs were revolutionaries-turned-smugglers and who are turning into revolutionaries again) - and they were among the most fun gaming experiences I've ever had.

Jürgen Hubert said:

What if the PCs themselves are going to make it an issue?

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The PCs will find it impossible to make it an issue without the DM's collusion. The DM represents the entire non-PC universe, after all. There is no such thing as a repercussion or a broad-ranging effect without the DM's say-so.

And why shouldn't they, if they have any personal ambitions at all?

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There are personal ambitions, and entire campaigns, that have nothing to do with politics. Some folks just like high-level "kick in the door, kill things, and take their stuff" games, where, "I wanna kill the biggest dragon ever!" is a perfectly good personal ambition.

So, it comes down to being one of those things players and DMs need to talk about. If the players and DM agree that they want to see the types of stuff you describe, then by all means, they should take them into account. If they don't agree, they have to hash out what the high-level game should be like.

Or not. There is somthing to be said for the idea that the players of low-wisdom characters wouldn't worry about such things, or wouldn't be able to effectively plan ahead if they did care to try. And some characters (typically Chaotics where I come from, but YMMV) simply don't choose to worry about consequences so much. And that can be fun to play through, too.