D&D General Adventurers a distasteful necessity

[sevenbastard]

People dont like adventures because of there boorish anti social behavior. Its a stereotype passed down from the previous generation.

In the old days Charisma was the universal dump stat and it soiled the reputation of adventures as crude rude and full of attitude.

Seriously though if the last set of mercenaries who came to town turned out to be the Redbrands the locals aren't going to trust the next bunch.

 

[TheSword]

I'm reminded of the drunk Marl in the village of Beregost (BG1) who accosts the adventurers to tell them to get out of town. There's a dialogue - where you can get him onside and find out his dead son was lured into adventure against kobalds by a previous group. Its a cool dialogue chain.

 

[TheSword]

In RL, people often have a love/hate with law enforcement and governments. You know you need them but don't really want to have to interact with them. I would imagine that Adventuring Parties would invoke the same response. Nice to have around when the big bad threatens but not always someone you want to risk interacting with on a daily basis.

I can also imagine that most local governments have a party on retainer that can be contacted if a band of adventurers become too troublesome. Think the type of group that years ago decided to mostly put away the armor and combat spell books but can still make most adventuring parties feel like Wiley Coyote after the anvil. The retired party might well be thought of as local celebrities due to having settled in and keeping the place safe from roving bands of trouble makers. And also teaching in the local guild halls.

Bounties would be the answer. Fight fire with fire.

 

[bsss]

"Local celebrities" might be overstating my take/taste on the matter, but I, like some others in the thread, think that in the milieu of the common D&D world, yes, these bizarre outsiders come with a bunch of potential downsides as mentioned in the OP, but also the potential upside of solving the local problem du jour. I'm not familiar with The Witcher (despite being a life-long video gamer as well, I have never been interested in the game or the books) to contextualize the overall grimdarkness of that world, but specifically in D&D and similar, the world seems beset with threats to the locals, immediate and existential, so I interpret the average response as something a bit more like reserved acceptance than outright antagonistic distrust. Of course, if the adventuring parties of the world are all roaming through the countryside, bringing chaos and leaving it in their wake as they follow only their id, communities may catch wise over the generations and come to outright distrust any outsider that looks capable of something more than farming and trading, but I think that in the commonly presented world, the myriad threats --- wolves, goblins, plague, evil sorcerers, necromancers, greedy lords, demigods with a bee in their bonnet, yada, yada, yada --- often overwhelm the mundane responses available to a community other than "hope a lord or adventuring party who is heroically capable comes around, or we get lucky and can make our own". I also think that the patternistic progression of random adventurer to notable problem-solver to storytelling inspiration to perhaps even probably-benovelent lord is a common chute, even if their capabilities and methods are alien to the rest of the society.

In short I think the world we are commonly presented with to run adventures in suggest that the world would be worse off without them, and that they are somewhat normal --- certainly there's enough world meta-infrastructure to support the idea that this need exists in many places. And again, if those adventurers cause too much trouble? Adventuring parties beget adventuring parties.

 

[Corinnguard]

I like this.

Here is a link to all of the destinies your character in Level could be destined to have:

Destinies | Level Up

a5e.tools

These destinies come with game mechanics for following a destiny and achieving it.

 

[Minigiant]

I think there are two (or maybe more) types of adventurers in the context of this question.
The first type are your classic adventurer trope: rough, hard-bitten mercenary types who don’t fit in with normal village society, and are challenging or even dangerous to have around. They might not be mercenaries just for money, magic and power; they could be “mercenaries” who get “paid” by achieving a cause, such as destroying ancient evil, but they are tough to have around regardless.
The second type may not, at least initially, see themselves as adventurers at all. They are simply people who fall into that life: perhaps their home village is attacked by something wicked, or a friend is killed/taken. One thing leads to another and, without realising it, their life has changed and they no longer feel able to go back to their “old life”, regardless of whether that old life will accept them or not.

There is a 3rd type which is a coordinated squad of members of allied and known factions brought together by a known entity or alliance. Lord Soandso gets a knight, a priest, a thief, and a mage to slay whomever.

So people I understand why the group exist but resent it, their trouble it brings, and the resources tied up into them.

 

[Remathilis]

I can also imagine that most local governments have a party on retainer that can be contacted if a band of adventurers become too troublesome. Think the type of group that years ago decided to mostly put away the armor and combat spell books but can still make most adventuring parties feel like Wiley Coyote after the anvil. The retired party might well be thought of as local celebrities due to having settled in and keeping the place safe from roving bands of trouble makers. And also teaching in the local guild halls.

This works for a while, the "always a bigger fish" scenario, but if the fish gets too big you get the Forgotten Realms "well, why aren't THEY saving the world?!" Problem. Its one thing to be intimidated by a high level adventure when your third level, but that breaks down when your ninth and you need a party of archmages to challenge them.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

I'm reminded of the article on The Alexandrian about "Calibrating Your Expectations". I think that, in Session 0, there ought to be a discussion about what the Players are expecting to get out of the adventures and what they want to see. If you want a world where things are more "realistic" then consideration to how Classes have, and do, play a part in the world as a whole needs to be there.

The PCs can never be the only people with Classes; this isn't just bad world building it makes literally no sense. Wizard Academies tend to exist. There are surely other Clerics out there (not to mention Fighters, Rogues, Bards, and so on). With the realities of magic and the Classes, societies would have adapted around them. There could be a lot of expectations--but there are also likely contingency plans.

 

[Mind of tempest]

There are two problems scenario in game that I've seen play out.

Protecting a World that Hates and Fears Them: In such a scenario where the locals find adventurer's a threat, players tend to respond in kind. That is, a merchant who overcharges becomes the target for the group's thief. The sheriff who sends guards to watch them might those guards beat up in an alley. A cruel world makes men cruel. Its one of the hardest issues I had with Ravenloft. How do you balance a game where the characters are supposed to be heroes with a world who hates and fears them? It only works if you are running a game where the PCs have either an unflappable sense of morality (willing to do what's right no matter what the cost) or eventually decide to use the infamy they have earned (You think I'm a problem, I'll SHOW you a problem!)

Pariahs and Outsiders. Until They're Not: The "wandering adventurer with no roots" model works well at low levels. But famously, D&D has asked for PCs to settle down somewhere eventually and has mechanics to support that. AD&D assumed name-level PCs gained followers and strongholds. 3e had the leadership feat. 5e now has Bastions. Many 5e (2014) backgrounds assumed some manner of support from certain groups (folk hero and locals, acolyte and churches, soldiers and former army buddies). Even the notion of groups of classed characters (wizard orders, ranger lodges, bard colleges) assumes enough mutual stability that PCs could find shelter amongst their groups. (Nobody would be stupid enough to offend an adventurer who can call on a whole group of powerful wizards to help them.)

All that to say you would have to really start reworking D&D society to make this work and make sure your players are fine with playing pariahs from society.

if everyone hates them and never changes to the players who act reasonably towards them then there is a problem and it just makes people apathetic. Better to mix it up as realistically, not everyone is terminally unpleasant to be near.

 

[Corinnguard]

Protecting a World that Hates and Fears Them: In such a scenario where the locals find adventurer's a threat, players tend to respond in kind. That is, a merchant who overcharges becomes the target for the group's thief. The sheriff who sends guards to watch them might those guards beat up in an alley. A cruel world makes men cruel. Its one of the hardest issues I had with Ravenloft. How do you balance a game where the characters are supposed to be heroes with a world who hates and fears them? It only works if you are running a game where the PCs have either an unflappable sense of morality (willing to do what's right no matter what the cost) or eventually decide to use the infamy they have earned (You think I'm a problem, I'll SHOW you a problem!)

I doubt that all of the locals are going to see an adventurer as a threat to their wellbeing. Some of them might look up at their adventurer and see them as an inspiration or as a source of information about the world beyond their point of light.

Besides, if everyone hated and feared them, why would some individuals become an adventurer in the first place?