awesomeocalypse
First Post
I play and DM a lot of D&D, mostly 4e these days, but I've played pretty much every edition from 1st onward. Regardless, this isn't an edition specific complaint.
I would say that the most common type of player I play with is one primarily interested in acting out some sort of heroic fantasy. The guys who want to save the world/princess/kingdom or whatever. These are the easiest players to keep satisfied, especially in 4e.
However, after the "heroic fantasy" types, I would say the second most common type of player I play with is one who is interested in a different kind of fantasy, one I'll call "power fantasy".
This type of player doesn't want to save the kingdom so much as take it over. If they defeat some monsters and take captives, they are invariably the ones who begin getting "creative" about what will be done with those captives. They're the players who read a list of high level spells and start thinking up, not what monsters they could beat or even what a powerful build might look like, but instead of all the awesome power this will enable them to assert over the people around them.
Its not that they're stupid evil or chaotic. They don't want to walk into every random inn and burn it down, or betray the party for the hell of it. At low levels, it is generally pretty easy to keep them on the same path as their less-megalomaniacal peers.
But what I've found is that, while these sorts of ambitions can make a decent "carrot" to keep the player on the same page as everyone, they are incredibly difficult to actually *satisfy* without breaking the game apart.
That is, lets take a level 1 party, with Jim the heroic cleric, Dave the standard-adventurer fighter, and Rob the power hungry wizard. At level 1, motivating this party to work together and stay "in line" is not hard. Even in 4e, 1st level characters aren't going to have anyone who matters shaking in their boots, so Rob isn't likely to have many opportunities to grab power in destructive ways without being suicidal. It is fairly easy to say to a group like this "the baron's daughter has been captured. there is a reward for her return, and also rumors that the goblin shaman who captured her has been using a staff, a relic with dark powers." Jim gets psyched for the rescuing, Dave for the reward, and Rob for the staff, and they all go tramping off together.
Now, lets say this group continues this way for some time, until they reach a much higher level, say, 20.
At level 20, motivating Jim is still easy--he does good because its good. Motivating Dave is also pretty easy--high level magic items/gold, and the promise of a better build.
But Rob...at this point, Rob isn't exactly hurting for magic staffs and the like, and while there are better ones out there, he doesn't really care, because he's never been motivated by bigger numbers like Dave, the sort of largely abstracted individual power level which D&D does a good job at rewarding. Nor does he give a damn about doing good for its own sake. Rather, Rob is and has been looking to wield power *over others*. When he was a chump, acquiring that power matters. But now that he's one of the more powerful beings in his world, he wants to stop acting like a"rich, murderous hobo" (as I've heard D&D adventurers described), and start acting the way a megalomanical wizard with godlike power would actually act.
Suddenly, keeping Rob on the same page as Dave and Jim is difficult, if not impossible. There are a few "solutions" I've attempted in these situations, and one of them have been particularly effective or satisfying.
Solution 1 - The character never becomes one of the most powerful beings in the kingdom, or if he does, it is at the end of the campaign. He can go build himself a nice house, eventually, if he likes. But he is simply never ever going to become the sort of force that can make a realistic run at taking his own kingdom or something, until the campaign ends. "You take over the kingdom of Moldania and become a legendary Dark Lord! Congrats, the end, lets rerolls level 1s".
My problem with this is that, essentially, Rob is never ever going to get to play the type of game he's looking for. Jim will eventually get to be "JIm, hero of the kingdom and princess savior extraordinaire." Everyone he interacts with will know him as such, and he can expect to adventure for a while as a full-blown hero. And Dave will eventually realize his dream build. But no npcs will ever bow down before the Dark Lord Rob in-game. In effect, I've sucked him into an entire campaign in pursuit of a playstyle I know I won't accomodate.
Solution 2 - The character *does* become one of the most powerful beings in the kingdom, but the campaign leaves the kingdom behind almost immediately. "Sure, you become the dark lord of Moldania, but you guys are sucked through a portal to Sigil, where Moldania is considered a laughable backwater and real power resides with godlike extraplanar entities". This is more or less what the 4e DMG suggests doing as the players move up tiers.
To my mind, this isn't really any better than the 1st solution. The player isn't after a nominal title of Dark Lord, he's after the feeling of actually being, you know, a Dark Lord. Putting him somewhere where nobody is impressed by his power isn't going to satisfy that, even if he's got a note on his character sheet that somewhere offscreen there's a kingdom full of subjects in awe of his power.
Solution 3 - The player achieves the power they crave, but that power is threatened by something which just so happens to hook them into the next adventure. "You've taken over Moldania, but the entire kingdom is now threatened by the ancient destroyer of worlds. To stop him you must reclaim the macguffin found across the world, and none of your minions are remotely strong enough to do it for you."
This seems to me to be the best solution in some ways, but its also pretty unwieldy. For all that one can finagle a way to get the player onboard with the adventure, when he's not on that adventure, he's going to be completely disconnected from everyone else, and probably eager to spend time fleshing out and RPing his newfound power in a way that can easily be time consuming for the DM, and mind-numbingly boring for everyone else.
In short, none of the solutions I've hit upon seem to really do the trick.
I realize that, from a certain point of view, an even better solution might be to simply nix the player's desire to play that sort of character from the get-go if I'm not interested in constructing an entire campaign around catering to it. But, while I might do this if I saw no other way, if possible I'd like to figure out some other way to accomodate their concept without breaking the campaign.
Among other reasons, I have a number of good gaming friends who are "roots for the villain even n Disney movies" types who don't really seem to like any fictional characters who are more morally upright than, say, Raistlin. Playing straightforward heroes isn't something they're going to enjoy. However, most of my other gaming friends are, as I said, pretty straightforward heroic fantasy types who probably won't enjoy a villainous campaign or something otherwise built around catering to the ambitions of a would-be despot. Simply put, it'd be a lot better for all involved if we could figure out a way to satisfy everyone, somehow accomodating both power mad Rob and heroic Jim in the same campaign.
Any ideas for how one would do this?
I would say that the most common type of player I play with is one primarily interested in acting out some sort of heroic fantasy. The guys who want to save the world/princess/kingdom or whatever. These are the easiest players to keep satisfied, especially in 4e.
However, after the "heroic fantasy" types, I would say the second most common type of player I play with is one who is interested in a different kind of fantasy, one I'll call "power fantasy".
This type of player doesn't want to save the kingdom so much as take it over. If they defeat some monsters and take captives, they are invariably the ones who begin getting "creative" about what will be done with those captives. They're the players who read a list of high level spells and start thinking up, not what monsters they could beat or even what a powerful build might look like, but instead of all the awesome power this will enable them to assert over the people around them.
Its not that they're stupid evil or chaotic. They don't want to walk into every random inn and burn it down, or betray the party for the hell of it. At low levels, it is generally pretty easy to keep them on the same path as their less-megalomaniacal peers.
But what I've found is that, while these sorts of ambitions can make a decent "carrot" to keep the player on the same page as everyone, they are incredibly difficult to actually *satisfy* without breaking the game apart.
That is, lets take a level 1 party, with Jim the heroic cleric, Dave the standard-adventurer fighter, and Rob the power hungry wizard. At level 1, motivating this party to work together and stay "in line" is not hard. Even in 4e, 1st level characters aren't going to have anyone who matters shaking in their boots, so Rob isn't likely to have many opportunities to grab power in destructive ways without being suicidal. It is fairly easy to say to a group like this "the baron's daughter has been captured. there is a reward for her return, and also rumors that the goblin shaman who captured her has been using a staff, a relic with dark powers." Jim gets psyched for the rescuing, Dave for the reward, and Rob for the staff, and they all go tramping off together.
Now, lets say this group continues this way for some time, until they reach a much higher level, say, 20.
At level 20, motivating Jim is still easy--he does good because its good. Motivating Dave is also pretty easy--high level magic items/gold, and the promise of a better build.
But Rob...at this point, Rob isn't exactly hurting for magic staffs and the like, and while there are better ones out there, he doesn't really care, because he's never been motivated by bigger numbers like Dave, the sort of largely abstracted individual power level which D&D does a good job at rewarding. Nor does he give a damn about doing good for its own sake. Rather, Rob is and has been looking to wield power *over others*. When he was a chump, acquiring that power matters. But now that he's one of the more powerful beings in his world, he wants to stop acting like a"rich, murderous hobo" (as I've heard D&D adventurers described), and start acting the way a megalomanical wizard with godlike power would actually act.
Suddenly, keeping Rob on the same page as Dave and Jim is difficult, if not impossible. There are a few "solutions" I've attempted in these situations, and one of them have been particularly effective or satisfying.
Solution 1 - The character never becomes one of the most powerful beings in the kingdom, or if he does, it is at the end of the campaign. He can go build himself a nice house, eventually, if he likes. But he is simply never ever going to become the sort of force that can make a realistic run at taking his own kingdom or something, until the campaign ends. "You take over the kingdom of Moldania and become a legendary Dark Lord! Congrats, the end, lets rerolls level 1s".
My problem with this is that, essentially, Rob is never ever going to get to play the type of game he's looking for. Jim will eventually get to be "JIm, hero of the kingdom and princess savior extraordinaire." Everyone he interacts with will know him as such, and he can expect to adventure for a while as a full-blown hero. And Dave will eventually realize his dream build. But no npcs will ever bow down before the Dark Lord Rob in-game. In effect, I've sucked him into an entire campaign in pursuit of a playstyle I know I won't accomodate.
Solution 2 - The character *does* become one of the most powerful beings in the kingdom, but the campaign leaves the kingdom behind almost immediately. "Sure, you become the dark lord of Moldania, but you guys are sucked through a portal to Sigil, where Moldania is considered a laughable backwater and real power resides with godlike extraplanar entities". This is more or less what the 4e DMG suggests doing as the players move up tiers.
To my mind, this isn't really any better than the 1st solution. The player isn't after a nominal title of Dark Lord, he's after the feeling of actually being, you know, a Dark Lord. Putting him somewhere where nobody is impressed by his power isn't going to satisfy that, even if he's got a note on his character sheet that somewhere offscreen there's a kingdom full of subjects in awe of his power.
Solution 3 - The player achieves the power they crave, but that power is threatened by something which just so happens to hook them into the next adventure. "You've taken over Moldania, but the entire kingdom is now threatened by the ancient destroyer of worlds. To stop him you must reclaim the macguffin found across the world, and none of your minions are remotely strong enough to do it for you."
This seems to me to be the best solution in some ways, but its also pretty unwieldy. For all that one can finagle a way to get the player onboard with the adventure, when he's not on that adventure, he's going to be completely disconnected from everyone else, and probably eager to spend time fleshing out and RPing his newfound power in a way that can easily be time consuming for the DM, and mind-numbingly boring for everyone else.
In short, none of the solutions I've hit upon seem to really do the trick.
I realize that, from a certain point of view, an even better solution might be to simply nix the player's desire to play that sort of character from the get-go if I'm not interested in constructing an entire campaign around catering to it. But, while I might do this if I saw no other way, if possible I'd like to figure out some other way to accomodate their concept without breaking the campaign.
Among other reasons, I have a number of good gaming friends who are "roots for the villain even n Disney movies" types who don't really seem to like any fictional characters who are more morally upright than, say, Raistlin. Playing straightforward heroes isn't something they're going to enjoy. However, most of my other gaming friends are, as I said, pretty straightforward heroic fantasy types who probably won't enjoy a villainous campaign or something otherwise built around catering to the ambitions of a would-be despot. Simply put, it'd be a lot better for all involved if we could figure out a way to satisfy everyone, somehow accomodating both power mad Rob and heroic Jim in the same campaign.
Any ideas for how one would do this?