Kill Monsters, Take Stuff, THEN WHAT?

[I'm A Banana]

So FireLance's thread on Making Things Different, and, related, Ari's blog about changing the play experience over levels, connect, in a weird way, to an old thread that contained some wisdom, and I had an idea once upon a time about Aspirations, but I think they're all getting at more or less the same idea:

What does your character do, aside from killing things and taking their stuff?

And how would you like to see that played out over the course of a campaign?

And what rules/guidelines/aids might we make to help DMs pay attention to this aspect of your character?

The floor is now open!

 

[Crothian]

We rarely kill things to take thier stuff. Right now the PCs are ivestigating something bad and trying to find people to listen to them. All the characters have their own little plots that go on and the campaign arcs from plot to plot.

 

[IronWolf]

We rarely kill things to take thier stuff. Right now the PCs are ivestigating something bad and trying to find people to listen to them. All the characters have their own little plots that go on and the campaign arcs from plot to plot.

Isn't that the truth!

Let's see - we've had party members start up health centers in the poor part of town, buy out a hired assassin's contract to free her from her obligations to the local thieves guild, turned over weapon sets that were blessed by certain gods back to their own temples (on multiple occasions), retrieved dwarven treasure from a dragon and returned all of it to the dwarves and then subsequently actually retrieved more treasure that was stolen from the dwarves and returned it to them.

Our campaigns are full of little plots that each character has running in the background that far transcend killing things and taking their stuff.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

So FireLance's thread on Making Things Different, and, related, Ari's blog about changing the play experience over levels, connect, in a weird way, to an old thread that contained some wisdom, and I had an idea once upon a time about Aspirations, but I think they're all getting at more or less the same idea:

What does your character do, aside from killing things and taking their stuff?

And how would you like to see that played out over the course of a campaign?

And what rules/guidelines/aids might we make to help DMs pay attention to this aspect of your character?

The floor is now open!

Follow a plot arc. I like a little mystery and confusion. I'd rather kill things and take their stuff while taking on a big bad's organization. Otherwise the players just mill around. Like in a recent Pathfinder game we were in. We had killed a bunch of goblin invaders.

We found another goblin city and, without knowing what was up, exterminated it. Why? We'd had bad experiences with goblins, and simply assumed goblins = bad. There was no plot. That wasn't a whole lot of fun for me.

Generally I'd rather have the DM set things, eg what we'll do, or maybe a few more creative players. I don't mind following other players' plotlines.

For instance, in a recent Warhammer campaign, the DM kept presenting us with plot, and I followed. Two players introduced new plotlines though. One, a mysterious nobleman, wanted us to rescue his kidnapped sisters. Another, an ex-soldier/doctor/nobleman, decided to gain a lot of influence over the city of Marienburg with us as his loyal meatshields allies. We were successful in both, although in the former case, only my character joined the other PC in pursuing that plotline.

I don't get why a lot of DMs demand plot hooks from every player. Some are personally fine with just following the leader.

 

[Zaran]

I would buy a mule to carry the stuff I took. Then I would buy a tavern. Then I would set up a mercantile company to keep my tavern in the best ale. Once I'm rich I'll build a castle and set up a mercenary company and then I will carve out my own little kingdom. Does page 42 tell you how much all that would cost?

 

[Storminator]

Repeat!

(what? I'm the only guy thinking it?)

 

[FireLance]

After a bit of introspection, I have to admit that I'm very much a passive gamer. That is, I usually want to do something more than the regular cycle of fighting monsters, winning treasure and getting more powerful, but - and this is key - I am perfectly happy for the DM to define what that "more" is for me, whether it's overthrowing a tyrant, defeating some extraplanar evil, freeing some powerful good-aligned creature from imprisonment, and so on.

Perhaps a more interesting question is why I do this, and I think it probably stems from an unconscious desire not to rock the DM's boat and give him more things to think about and adjudicate. In other words, I feel bad when what I want to do gives the DM more work.

I'm not sure how common this mindset is among gamers, though. I believe that gamers who come from a more sandbox-style gaming background would definitely be more active and think nothing of coming up will all kinds of objectives and motivations for their PCs.

Of course, the other side of the coin is DM capacity. I consider myself pretty good at running puzzles, fights and other challenges, but I doubt I will be able to handle political intrigue or an in-game relationship with an NPC in a way that would be satisfying to a player who wants to engage in these. I don't think that I will be able to come up with a sufficiently interesting web of alliances, motivations, schemes and betrayals, for example, nor would I be able to portray a PC's love interest convincingly enough.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Depends upon the PC. Some of mine simply retired from adventuring.

Others, as others mentioned, enjoy the kill & loot & repeat cycle.

Some have other agendas that continued adventuring- plus politics and other activities- forward.

 

[pawsplay]

Die gloriously in battle against monsters or tax collectors.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It is all up to the players and what they are looking for in the game but see the DM advice thread in my sig for lots of stuff. My players do some monster hunting but then set up an adventuring/bank/trade lodge guild company, they then expand that business as they see fit.

As posted in the Plots forum and another thread -- my players own an Inn/Bank/Adventure Guild Lodge:

• Dealing with the local mob - is it a fair mob, payments weekly and use of the tavern or demand a take as they see fit. -- In my players case, this was a "bad" mob that kept making demands on the players. Started out as a protection racket, then moved into fence hangout, the the party had enough.
• Dealing with corrupt tax men - you just can't kill him...well you could but...-- The party did.
• Finding a cook and a brew master - create a few NPCs with personality issues for the staff and let the players pick from them - its fun to see who gets hired.
• Helping an employee - you got a good employee and now they need help with something like old employer or something darker. -- Party had to free family members from the control of the old employer (a PIMP), yep, the party was running that kind of place.
• Getting a seat on the City Council - once you start the tavern and adventures are good it is a way to be a mover and shaker. -- Single party member who was quiting the game (deployment to Iraq), had him run and get elected, this way I could keep him in the game and pass info to him on laws and such for his interaction.
• What to do with the body in your bathroom - is is going to happen, what will happen to the tavern if a body is found, does the city close you down for a couple of days, do you care, do you dump the body somewhere else? -- My game, they dumped the body to frame a "evil" NPC.

As you can see no monster and no taking of stuff.