How different PC motivations support sandbox and campaign play

[Sunseeker]

Interesting points [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION]. I will happily admit that there is something stale about Conan and other characters that have eternal adventures but never seem to change, such as Sherlock Holmes and most superheroes. Could you say a bit more about how you bring out the higher tiers of the hierarchy of needs in play?

They typically come about naturally.
Player start at tier 1. They need food, hence why they're in the job line, 'cause money=food.
Low levels (1-8/10) usually take place entirely within Tier 1. To do this I mostly moderate the flow of gold to keep them around this state. Certain players will move out of it before others based on their particular character needs. But by the end of this, the players should generally have enough money to establish a small base (base), usually as a forward base for whatever nation they are most closely aligned with.
By establishing a base they have achieved tier 2, even if simply. For the next few levels the adventure mostly comes to them. They've started to move into tier 3 with belonging to a certain kingdom (or attempting to start their own), but because they are initially a small outfit they are seen as easy targets. Enemies they have made while "adventuring for cash" now come to reclaim what they have lost.
--It is at this stage where players are most likely to drop back down in tiers. A good attack by an enemy faction can easily achieve this.
The longer their base is established the more they cultivate local connections, people migrate to what they see as a point of saftey and security and as the party connects with their people, they expand more fully into Tier 3.
This portion of the game is not really governed by levels, but is typically 10+

By level 15 though the players individual power is almost forcing them to move into Tier 4. They're individually above the average soldier, the average wizard. But once again, the things they seek can no longer be found here. They have a degree of "Esteem" both confidence in their abilities and the respect and admiration of their followers (if they're doing it right, again, few people ever reach this level IRL, even in my games this is no exception). However, their abilities are not so far beyond others with skill that they are out of range. But generating esteem is not something that can really be measured in game rules. Some characters achieve it, some don't.

To move on to the next tier, if they get that far, they'll need to, to an extent, return to their adventuring roots. The things they seek can once again, no longer be found here. They have wealth, food, security, belonging, esteem, but to "self actualize" they usually have to travel off and discover the "great mysteries of the universe".

These are not things I really structure beyond Tier 3 and really only come about if players express the desire for them. They're very organic elements that require some individual degree of work with players, not something you can really "build an adventure for" way in advance.

I don't expect my players to achieve Tier 5. I expect half of them will be happy with Tier 3. A few of them may want to reach Tier 4 but it's usually obvious who at this point wants to be a simple farmer with a family (Tier 3) and who wants to be a great scholar or a king of men (Tier 4). It's those oddball players who have a goal like "transcendence" as one of their starting goals that make it to Tier 5, or at least desire to. Doesn't mean they'll make it.

 

[Riley37]

There are two main PC motivations in rpgs. Firstly, the pursuit of personal gain, usually money and/or magic items. Secondly the desire to defeat evil.

I'm not so sure about that "desire to defeat evil". Are you perhaps confusing it with the desire to protect one's own?

Example 1: Vecnauron lives far away, on the Island of Evil, doing evil things, such as maintaining sixteen skeletons. No one's in danger; he just likes using the skeletons as chess pieces. You offer the PCs an opportunity to sail to the Island of Evil and attack him, and in the process, you offer the players the opportunity to spend every Wednesday evening, for a month or two, playing that out.

Example 2: Some bandits are hungry. They're not cruel for the sake of cruelty; they were once honorable warriors, but they were on the losing side of a civil war, and they've chosen to survive, however they can. They discover an isolated farming village and decide to attack the village, right around harvest time. PC #1 happens to learn that the village - his home! - is now a target. The village elders offer PC #1 the opportunity to go hire some ronin to defend the village, and in the process, you offer the players the opportunity to spend Wednesday evenings, for the next month or two, playing out the movie "Seven Samurai" (or Magnificent Seven).

Example #1 is all about defeating evil *for the sake of defeating evil*.
Example #2 is about defending the village. If the PCs discover that the bandits could instead get hired as soldiers in the Elf-Dwarf Wars, and the bandits would rather do that then plunder the village, that is an alternate victory; no evil gets defeated, but the village remains safe.

I personally would rather play #2 than #1.

Heck, I would rather play chess with Vecnauron.

 

[Riley37]

Deeper critique: you ask some interesting questions about PC motivations. You say nothing about player motivations.

I don't know why white chess pieces attack black chess pieces. (Unless chess is a very abstract simulation of the Belgian colonization of the Congo.) I do know, however, that if I, the *player*, want to play chess, then coming up with sustainable, compelling, fresh motivations for the *pawn*'s journey from D2 to D4 is not my primary concern.

As a player, I write characters who are already motivated, before their first attack, skill check or saving throw, to become adventurers. Do you DM for players who don't?

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm not so sure about that "desire to defeat evil". Are you perhaps confusing it with the desire to protect one's own?

Loyalty, to one's family, lover, home, nation, liege lord, religion, or cause is certainly a more real world motivation than "desire to defeat evil". The problem is it won't necessarily support typical rpg gameplay - repeatedly travelling to dangerous locations and getting involved in shenanigans. John Carter was, more than once, motivated by Dejah Thoris being kidnapped but it's hard to do it plausibly as many times as a normal rpg campaign requires. It did work as one of the motivations for the hobbits in Lord of the Rings - they knew Sauron's armies would eventually reach the Shire if they weren't stopped. Sauron is a villain with an atypically wide reach however.

As a player, I write characters who are already motivated, before their first attack, skill check or saving throw, to become adventurers. Do you DM for players who don't?

When I've GMed the PCs have always engaged with the content fortunately, though they've rarely had believable motivations imo. I've seen it happen a few times when I've not been GMing. The best rpg I've ever played in, the Dream Game campaign, featured plausibly motivated PCs. We started off trying to help our patients who were being troubled by bad dreams, tried to understand more about what was happening to them, and ended up stopping all dream intrusion because we decided the bad guys were too strong for us and everything we were doing was making things worse. It felt hella real but it's not necessarily desireable for most rpg campaigns.

 

[Sunseeker]

Loyalty, to one's family, lover, home, nation, liege lord, religion, or cause is certainly a more real world motivation than "desire to defeat evil". The problem is it won't necessarily support typical rpg gameplay - repeatedly travelling to dangerous locations and getting involved in shenanigans.

Then, I might suggest, structuring it more "Indiana Jones" style, less "kill the Nazis" and more "discover cool stuff in ancient ruins". You both gain wealth (from what you find and what you find that you sell later) and you go on adventures, and ostensibly you don't need a driving "evil" force. The ruins could be inhabited by ghosts or skeletons or plant monsters. You still maintain that motivation of wealth, but you open up the motivations of "defeating evil".

Maybe the party runs into another adventuring party, with whom they have to compete, and that party is evil, so the Player Party doesn't initially set out to defeat evil (remember the Hobbits only initially set out to get The Ring to Rivendell) but once they encounter the Evil Party and find out from clues or interrogation that the Evil Party means to use the McGuffin in the ruins to start the Thousand Years of Darkness*, now the Player Party has a motivation to fight evil.

*The Thousand Years of Darkness will of course, kill everything they love and so on.

When I've GMed the PCs have always engaged with the content fortunately, though they've rarely had believable motivations imo. I've seen it happen a few times when I've not been GMing. The best rpg I've ever played in, the Dream Game campaign, featured plausibly motivated PCs. We started off trying to help our patients who were being troubled by bad dreams, tried to understand more about what was happening to them, and ended up stopping all dream intrusion because we decided the bad guys were too strong for us and everything we were doing was making things worse. It felt hella real but it's not necessarily desireable for most rpg campaigns.

Usually when players encounter a case of "Everything We Do Makes it Worse!" what you've really encountered is a DM who thinks they're clever, but really just isn't translating their ideas well to the players. It's easy for a DM to think "Why aren't they getting this?" because to the DM, it's all clear as day in the DM's head.

 

[5ekyu]

From the OP
"The second motivation, defeat evil, doesn't work so well because the amount of evil beings within easy reach of the PCs and also actively and obviously causing harm will be far fewer. "

I think here you are describing a problem with the GM side of the campaign.

If a GM is going to rely on player motivations to such an extent **and** has so sandboxy a world that a chosen motivation for a pc is "problematic" rare - that pc motivation should not be approved if no adjustments are possible.

Otherwise the GM is setting up conditions to create problems - in gameplay - player side.

 

[Riley37]

When I've GMed the PCs have always engaged with the content fortunately, though they've rarely had believable motivations imo.

Ah, so it's enough for a pretext, but not enough for deeper satisfaction as a storyteller?

To move on to the next tier, if they get that far, they'll need to, to an extent, return to their adventuring roots. The things they seek can once again, no longer be found here. They have wealth, food, security, belonging, esteem, but to "self actualize" they usually have to travel off and discover the "great mysteries of the universe".

Whoah. You went deep. Is Joseph Campbell one of the players at your table? I see a parallel between the tiers, and Maslov's hierarchy of needs, more or less, in your explanation.

One of the better sources of plausibility, in my experience, is the team sponsor. Charlie's Angels don't have to stumble across every story prompt; the A-plots can come directly from Charlie, while the B-plots emerge from backgrounds, bonds, flaws, etc. The Ghostbusters don't have a consistent sponsor, but their phone line will point them at trouble and they might not know which jobs will go beyond the routine. Gilligan's Island also doesn't have an external sponsor, but the PCs have, at the start of every session, an overall interest in changing their situation, so they'll grasp at whatever straw floats along. (Not that Gilligan's Island is always the paragon of plausible heroics.) Mixed in with "here's the job parameters" can be stories with larger stakes; perhaps the sponsor merely asks them to recover a briefcase, but in the process, the PCs learn what's inside the briefcase, and it's so important that they're not willing to look the other way. In "Shadowrun", it is common for PCs to have mercenary motives, and *also* have other motives. "Firefly" (the TV show) is a story about mercenary opportunists and missions with complications, plus stumbling into other stories along the way. Just as long as they don't ALL play Jayne Cobb.

I am working on a campaign in which the PCs start as a hired team, working for a library, which sends them whenever a particularly valuable or magical book doesn't come back. As with the Jedi Archives and their records about the planet Kamino, sometimes who has what information, will involve higher stakes than *just* turning in a recovered book and calling it a completed mission.

 

[Lanefan]

As with the Jedi Archives and their records about the planet Kamino ...

While AotC is otherwise an awful movie, that Kamino facility did end up inspiring what became a several-adventure against-the-cloners story arc in my game and may yet be good for more in the future.

Lan-"the best part of cloned villains is you never really know when you've killed them all off"-efan

 

[Doug McCrae]

Ah, so it's enough for a pretext, but not enough for deeper satisfaction as a storyteller?

The subjects in the OP reflect my interests as a GM. I approach GMing from a standpoint of utter terror that the worst might happen, and my number one priority is to avoid it. The worst, imo, is that the GM doesn't have enough content to fill a session, or that the players don't engage with the GM's content. Sandbox play helps to avoid both potential problems - I have plenty of content and I increase the chances the players will bite on a hook if I have lots of hooks. Knowing the PCs' motivations helps me avoid the second problem.

The funny thing is it's almost 30 years since I last experienced the 'insufficient content' problem as a GM, and, like I said upthread, I've never, as a GM, had players not bite on my hook though I have occasionally seen it happen. I usually run either pulp/superhero or D&D. In superhero it's usually very clear to the players what the PCs are supposed to do - fight bad guys. In D&D I think it's a little less clear because play is somewhat more diverse.

 

[Sunseeker]

Whoah. You went deep. Is Joseph Campbell one of the players at your table? I see a parallel between the tiers, and Maslov's hierarchy of needs, more or less, in your explanation.

Yup, because I like roleplay. I can go online and mash buttons and kill bosses all day. That's fun, but I want to have a deeper kind of fun while playing D&D, which is one reason I find it hard to find groups, as I don't usually enjoy games of "Kill the Orc." and "Beer and Pretzels" D&D anymore. Adventuring is the core of the game, but if players make well-rounded characters, they should naturally trend towards desiring more than money over time.

One of the better sources of plausibility, in my experience, is the team sponsor. Charlie's Angels don't have to stumble across every story prompt; the A-plots can come directly from Charlie, while the B-plots emerge from backgrounds, bonds, flaws, etc. The Ghostbusters don't have a consistent sponsor, but their phone line will point them at trouble and they might not know which jobs will go beyond the routine. Gilligan's Island also doesn't have an external sponsor, but the PCs have, at the start of every session, an overall interest in changing their situation, so they'll grasp at whatever straw floats along. (Not that Gilligan's Island is always the paragon of plausible heroics.) Mixed in with "here's the job parameters" can be stories with larger stakes; perhaps the sponsor merely asks them to recover a briefcase, but in the process, the PCs learn what's inside the briefcase, and it's so important that they're not willing to look the other way. In "Shadowrun", it is common for PCs to have mercenary motives, and *also* have other motives. "Firefly" (the TV show) is a story about mercenary opportunists and missions with complications, plus stumbling into other stories along the way. Just as long as they don't ALL play Jayne Cobb.

I am working on a campaign in which the PCs start as a hired team, working for a library, which sends them whenever a particularly valuable or magical book doesn't come back. As with the Jedi Archives and their records about the planet Kamino, sometimes who has what information, will involve higher stakes than *just* turning in a recovered book and calling it a completed mission.

This is more or less how my "Job Line" works.

The party needs money, they're assigned a job by the Job Corps, they do it, they come back, they get paid. Strange Things happen along the way. If they're interested, they pursue them, if they're not, they turn in the quest, get paid and the Job Corps offers them a newer, better job. Rinse and repeat this process until the party catches on to a hook they find interesting. Or maybe the Party is okay doing Government Work until they get rich and retire.