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Accomodatin players who are motivated by power fantasies in a heroic fantasy campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5184112" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>If Rob wants to end up playing a wargame or politics/diplomacy boardgame, then I don't have any suggestions.</p><p></p><p>If Rob wants to keep playing fairly standard D&D, then you need adventures that let Rob exercise his PC's power - so adventures where (for example) he is able to send a squadron or army to do XYZ, where XYZ is not actually played out at the table (ie we don't switch from D&D to wargaming) but where the decision to XYZ or not makes a difference to how things at the table <em>do</em> play out (eg if the army is invading the neighbours, then the neighbours' castle has its population depleted, which facilitates Rob's raid).</p><p></p><p>If it becomes important not only to have Rob initiate XYZ, but to randomly resolve the success of XYZ, then use Rob's skills (Diplomacy, Profession (Government), perhaps a skill challenge in 4e) rather than the stats of the army/squadron. In effect, Rob's PC's army becomes part of his equipment/resources (and this needs to be factored into wealth by level or similar reward guidelines).</p><p></p><p>I think the real challenge here is not building adventures for Rob, but building adventures for the whole group of players. In the past I've done this by linking the successful exercise of power to the heroic aspect - for example, the hero is hoping to restore the kingdom's army to its former standard as the greatest and most honourable military force in the world, and this can't happen until Rob ressurects the kingdom from its current decay and inaction.</p><p></p><p>As OnPugetSound suggests, this sort of game has a natural endpoint, where the goals of power and heroism can no longer be reconciled. Playing that out will require maturity and co-operation from the players in question. In D&D 4e terms, I'd try to link it to the Destiny Quest issue - at the climax, unless the players can come up with some pretty clever reconciliation of their PCs' opposed orientations, only the hero or Rob realises his epic destiny.</p><p></p><p>In play, I've found that players will work hard to make a degree of reconciliation possible. And the vicissitudes of play will also make a difference. Some examples from the high level RM game I GMed where this sort of issue was highly relevant: the player more heroically-oriented anti-slavery PC was also keen to achieve political power in his home city, in part so that he could implement his political agenda and in part so he could overcome his own low-status birth - this gave him a reason to cooperate with the power-seeking PC, who could deliver that power. A long run of bad luck, which cost this PC a lot of treasure spent on healing, items etc also left him in debt, which further cemented his reliance on the power-seeing PC. On the other hand, when the power-PC's patron turned out to be a racial supremacist, the power-PC secrety opposed this particular aspect of his patron's policy, thereby keeping faith with the more heroic PC - he was able to reconcile this with his power goals on the basis that (i) racial supremacism is inefficient from the point of view of amassing power, and (ii) he was going to have to turn on his patron eventually anyway, so a little bit of a headstart was a good trial run.</p><p></p><p>If the players won't cooperate together in this sort of way, or if the GM isn't prepared to let the players take the lead in setting the tone and direction of the game (eg the GM wants to use heavily prescripted modules, an adventure path, etc) then I'm not sure that it can work. In that situation you're better off being up front to Rob at the start, I think, and explaining that power fantasies are off the agenda for this campaign.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5184112, member: 42582"] If Rob wants to end up playing a wargame or politics/diplomacy boardgame, then I don't have any suggestions. If Rob wants to keep playing fairly standard D&D, then you need adventures that let Rob exercise his PC's power - so adventures where (for example) he is able to send a squadron or army to do XYZ, where XYZ is not actually played out at the table (ie we don't switch from D&D to wargaming) but where the decision to XYZ or not makes a difference to how things at the table [I]do[/I] play out (eg if the army is invading the neighbours, then the neighbours' castle has its population depleted, which facilitates Rob's raid). If it becomes important not only to have Rob initiate XYZ, but to randomly resolve the success of XYZ, then use Rob's skills (Diplomacy, Profession (Government), perhaps a skill challenge in 4e) rather than the stats of the army/squadron. In effect, Rob's PC's army becomes part of his equipment/resources (and this needs to be factored into wealth by level or similar reward guidelines). I think the real challenge here is not building adventures for Rob, but building adventures for the whole group of players. In the past I've done this by linking the successful exercise of power to the heroic aspect - for example, the hero is hoping to restore the kingdom's army to its former standard as the greatest and most honourable military force in the world, and this can't happen until Rob ressurects the kingdom from its current decay and inaction. As OnPugetSound suggests, this sort of game has a natural endpoint, where the goals of power and heroism can no longer be reconciled. Playing that out will require maturity and co-operation from the players in question. In D&D 4e terms, I'd try to link it to the Destiny Quest issue - at the climax, unless the players can come up with some pretty clever reconciliation of their PCs' opposed orientations, only the hero or Rob realises his epic destiny. In play, I've found that players will work hard to make a degree of reconciliation possible. And the vicissitudes of play will also make a difference. Some examples from the high level RM game I GMed where this sort of issue was highly relevant: the player more heroically-oriented anti-slavery PC was also keen to achieve political power in his home city, in part so that he could implement his political agenda and in part so he could overcome his own low-status birth - this gave him a reason to cooperate with the power-seeking PC, who could deliver that power. A long run of bad luck, which cost this PC a lot of treasure spent on healing, items etc also left him in debt, which further cemented his reliance on the power-seeing PC. On the other hand, when the power-PC's patron turned out to be a racial supremacist, the power-PC secrety opposed this particular aspect of his patron's policy, thereby keeping faith with the more heroic PC - he was able to reconcile this with his power goals on the basis that (i) racial supremacism is inefficient from the point of view of amassing power, and (ii) he was going to have to turn on his patron eventually anyway, so a little bit of a headstart was a good trial run. If the players won't cooperate together in this sort of way, or if the GM isn't prepared to let the players take the lead in setting the tone and direction of the game (eg the GM wants to use heavily prescripted modules, an adventure path, etc) then I'm not sure that it can work. In that situation you're better off being up front to Rob at the start, I think, and explaining that power fantasies are off the agenda for this campaign. [/QUOTE]
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