The Shadow
Hero
Also, let's face it, adventurers tend to be restless folks anyway, even if the occasional one does take an arrow to the knee.
A "Why Oh Why" RPG Thread [+]
That reminds me of the board game Gloomhaven (and not only because my copy of the sequel Frosthaven is languishing in some warehouse in Germany, awaiting a final add-on before it can be shipped). In Gloomhaven, retirement is a very important mechanic. When you create a character, you draw a "Personal Quest" which tells you when you get to retire. It can be something like "Play two scenarios in the Swamp" or "Get 200 gold" or "Kill 20 different types of elite monsters". Once you're done with that, some personal quests let you retire immediately and others send you on a final quest or two before retirement.
If you do retire, your next character starts with a little bit of a boost, but more importantly you also unlock a new cool character you or someone else can play. That's a major motivation for wanting to push your character toward retirement. In Frosthaven, my understanding is that new characters come from story developments, and retirement instead unlocks new buildings, which is also pretty cool.
I have no idea how to translate that into D&D though.
So here's the thing. What would a retirement goal be? Unless it's something really insane like "I'm going to be the next Hokage!" or "I'm going to be the greatest swordsman in the world!" or "I'm going to be the Pirate King!"; basically, unrealistic end game goals, most things a person would want to do could be achieved long before endgame.
You want to save your country from an evil king? That's easily done by Tier 3 (using 5e as an example). Recover your family's lost wealth? Second verse, same as the first.
Most likely, the campaign itself is going to present goals that will override or even obsolete your personal goals. So having a defined "end goal" might not serve you very well.
Plus, let's be honest. How many real people do you know have a specific goal in life? Even if someone says "well, I'm going to be a Doctor or a Lawyer" that's just earning their character class!
There are adventures (saving lives, winning court cases) after that, and those can lead to different opportunities. Life is always throwing us curve balls too, so no matter how well you plan, the RNG Gods of the universe could completely derail your goals.
Most people I know are just trying to get by, muddling through life as best they can, and have no idea where they are going to end up when/if they reach retirement age.
Plus, well, in a fantasy RPG, you might find some way to live longer or obviate the limitations of an aging body, so who needs to retire?
You want to save your country from an evil king? That's easily done by Tier 3 (using 5e as an example). Recover your family's lost wealth? Second verse, same as the first.
Most likely, the campaign itself is going to present goals that will override or even obsolete your personal goals. So having a defined "end goal" might not serve you very well.
Plus, let's be honest. How many real people do you know have a specific goal in life? Even if someone says "well, I'm going to be a Doctor or a Lawyer" that's just earning their character class!
There are adventures (saving lives, winning court cases) after that, and those can lead to different opportunities. Life is always throwing us curve balls too, so no matter how well you plan, the RNG Gods of the universe could completely derail your goals.
Most people I know are just trying to get by, muddling through life as best they can, and have no idea where they are going to end up when/if they reach retirement age.
Plus, well, in a fantasy RPG, you might find some way to live longer or obviate the limitations of an aging body, so who needs to retire?
Willie the Duck
Hero
The RPG Neon City Overdrive has a similar mechanic, although the goals are less individualized. In effect, it's not unlike a level cap. Gloomhaven works well for what it is, but part of that is that you tend not to immerse yourself in your token as much as a PC, and as such a randomly determined, pre-emptive goal works okay. For an RPG, the issue is that your goal for your character can easily shift over the course of gameplay. Also, there's a fine line between getting to retire your character and having to retire your character in RPGs.
Davies
Legend
But once you've achieved that, you find goals that rely on those skills. The Doctor might have a goal like "I'm going to cure [disease]", or "I'm going to develop [surgical process]" or "I'm going to bring adequate healthcare to [region]". The Lawyer could have a goal like "I'm going to argue before the Supreme Court and win my case", or "I'm going to run for public office."
By declaring a retirement goal like this, you are telling the GM what you want to feature in the campaign. Events may or may not allow that, but it gives the GM help in deciding what to add, just like a GM having an endgame gives them something to aim for even if that goal is never reached.
Maybe? But not necessarily; a young person conscripted into the army who becomes a Fighter might not have had any particular motives beyond "survive being in a war", and after the war found themselves with dangerous skills and no ability to return to their own life, so they become a mercenary to make ends meet.
I guess I should clarify; I don't think having goals is a bad thing, but having goals that can be easily achieved could be counter productive; imagine hitting level 10 and looking at 7 thousand gold saying "well hell, I can totally do [thing that I wanted to do], why continue to adventure?".
And having goals that, in of themselves, require one to reach very high levels are a bit unrealistic. So it might be better to be constantly setting shorter term goals for yourself, adding new ones as the game progresses, rather than create your character with a driving goal; especially if circumstances occur that would run counter to this goal.
Think of Inigo Montoya. He spend most of his life becoming a great swordsmen, all to gain revenge on Count Ruthven. Afterwards, he realized he never considered what he would do afterwards.* Though you know, maybe he will make a great Dread Pirate Roberts.
*You could argue that this was the end of the campaign, but for the purposes of the example, we'll assume there were further adventures ahead.
Some characters have driving goals that are impossible to achieve; Batman wants to rid Gotham of all crime, but he can be convinced to go fight crime elsewhere.
You just need to put some thought into this and realize that, while your goals can be a useful tool to the GM, they aren't necessarily going to be, and there is the possibility it might derail some of their future plans.
John Desmarais
Explorer
who says they aren’t? Traveller is basically a game about spacers living out their retirement.
I would say ALL they had was affect.
Willie the Duck
Hero
What are you, my editor or a comedian?I would say ALL they had was affect.
The Shadow
Hero
"Yes."
Similar Threads
