Adventurers, Campaign Worlds! What's Wrong? What's Missing?

[Belen]

I have placed a lot of thought into the hobby recently. As time passes, more of the little things tend to bug me. I started to wonder what was missing from most games I have ran, and played in. Then, while I was in the first stages of writing my new campaign world, it hit me. What's missing from everything else seems to be...why.

The published campaign worlds never seem to answer that question. Why does it work that way? Why do Gods grant divine power? Why does arcane magic work? Once it hit me, I answered those questions with regards to my campaign world. The richness and clarity that information brought was astounding. It seemed that was a piece of what was missing when I GMed. I never knew the 'whys,' so I just relied on the rulebook and said "that's the way it works." Even though the rules never answered, why.

It is the same with adventurers and I have not answered this yet. Adventuring really has no historical basis. For most of history, you're economic condition and that of society as a whole determined your roles. Even in fantasy, people who had adventures were either doing their job or were sucked into events against their will.

So why do we adventure? I know of no historical society that had as much gold or even as many "dungeons." And I think answering the why will lead to a more mature game, which I really want to play.

So what's missing? In my opinion, it is the background on how the universe works. I wonder what you all think.

Sorry to wax philosophical.

Dave

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

What's typically missing, for me at any rate, is a reason why all these kings and barons are hiring a small group of adventurers when for the same ammount of money they could levy an army.

 

[diaglo]

what's missing?

imagination. don't be afraid to experiment and come up with really off the wall stuff. why? b/c it is fun. b/c you can't explain it and it is still fun. b/c everyone agrees it is fun in your group.

 

[LuYangShih]

Perhaps because in the D&D world, adventurers are far more effective than most armies. A group of 10th level characters could destroy a sizable force of men with little trouble, and once you get to 15+ entire legions can be eliminated with almost no risk to the adventurers.

I doubt you will find historical correlation with adventurers in our own worlds history, for the most part. The average D&D world is filled with vicious monsters, undead, Dragons, and more. Combating and eliminating these threats is the prime purpose of most adventuring parties.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Hmmm.

I could buy that. The D&D power scale means that a 1st level fighter has absolutely no chance against a 5th level fighter. Hiring a small party would acknowledge that scale.

Of course, that would put a bit of a weird spin on what it would be like to live in such a world, but that's a different topic.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Why small groups of adventures vs a standing army. Pissed off dragons and deniability. Adventures are free agents as such they are then taxable and responsible and allow kingdoms/city states/empires the option to say 'hey, they were on their own.'

Why to gods grant powers? Hey it may look like power to the masses but its just a trick, what they get is devine mojo! Who says you are the most powerful being, why 2.5 billion souls!

I don't know if I would say adventures do not have a place in history, Marko Polo, Columbus, Lewis and Clark. All were small group of men (and women) out for a bit of adventure.

The problem is the real world does not have monsters, which are equal to man as the top killer, rules change, you have to face the foe differently. Those monsters become effective population control. Historical before Roman there were few standing armies, in a fantasy game men power would be used for protection, with the vast areas and number of monsters you would be limited to size of troops to send out without opening yourself up to another attack.

 

[Henry]

Let's not forget the other set of famous adventurers - 17th century pirates and privateers!

Men (and even women!) who engaged governments armed with letters of Marque who pillaged and plundered, and avoided authorities hoping for the one big score that would allow them to retire into anonymity and self-sufficiency! Many of these people did it for money, but some even did it because it had morphed into the raison d'etres of their existance.

Fun stuff!

 

[Trickstergod]

The published campaign worlds never seem to answer that question. Why does it work that way? Why do Gods grant divine power? Why does arcane magic work? Once it hit me, I answered those questions with regards to my campaign world. The richness and clarity that information brought was astounding. It seemed that was a piece of what was missing when I GMed. I never knew the 'whys,' so I just relied on the rulebook and said "that's the way it works." Even though the rules never answered, why.

It is the same with adventurers and I have not answered this yet. Adventuring really has no historical basis. For most of history, you're economic condition and that of society as a whole determined your roles. Even in fantasy, people who had adventures were either doing their job or were sucked into events against their will.

So why do we adventure? I know of no historical society that had as much gold or even as many "dungeons." And I think answering the why will lead to a more mature game, which I really want to play.

So what's missing? In my opinion, it is the background on how the universe works. I wonder what you all think.

Sorry to wax philosophical.

Dave

Oh, it's something that's come up to my mind, and it's the reason that, when a couple sessions ago when two of the characters had just died, and those living were looking for equivalent, NPC replacements to help finish their quest (as the two players didn't have a new character ready to whip out right away), and one asked, "Well, we look for other adventurers," to which I promptly replied, "There are none, at least that are helpful to you. Most people out 'adventuring' are doing it for a purpose. They're on a pilgrimage for their holy order, or doing research, or on duty, or etc, etc." It came down to the fact that there's really no such thing as adventurers in my games. Sure, skilled, talented folk are in the world, but most of them have some form of employment, or motivation. Adventuring is not a career.

Which is also why I usually require some form of motivation from my players characters. In one case, one's simply a rogue currently being hired to help obtain a few hard to find items, another, a bard on a quest for answers and vengeance after a demon attacked his village. They're not adventuring because they're adventurers, they're adventuring because something motivated them to.

I also run gold light, dungeon light games. Abandoned temples, run down villages, sewers, and other dungeon-similar such locales exist, but they're not too, too common, and more often have actual real world equivalents than your average dungeon does.

In regards to Arcane magic, my general take is that it's the building blocks of the universe. Which is why I grind my teeth at gods of magic. I prefer fireballs and chain lightning to be emulating the powers the god of fire or lightning use, as opposed to any floofy god of magic (which, to a degree, just makes mages a bit more like clerics, in my opinion). Those who study arcane magic are unlocking the keys to the universe (another reason why clerics and gods don't always look so kindly upon arcane spellcasters; they're infringing on the secrets of the gods).

Why do the gods grant divine spells? I've always taken it as a matter of just what the god represented. A god of healing wants to help people, to aid the suffering. However, if the god of healing just tried healing everybody, all the time, the god of, say, suffering, would just do the same. So the compromise is that the gods reward their most devout worshippers with their powers, so that the gods don't resort to ripping out one anothers throats and destroying the world in the process (which, some may want, but they realize that might not happen if they actually get killed trying to). It also helps to increase their worship. "Praise me, and be granted succor and healing." "Praise me, or I'm going to drop an inflict wounds on your heathen butt!" Most of the gods don't want to see their creation destroyed, and those who don't care, usually have enough self-interest to not want to end up dead-like, so, since acting personally isn't the question, they act through intermediaries; i.e, their priests. And while some deities might not have the largest of followings, thus finding this system to be a poor one, they're usually weak enough that direct action still isn't an answer, so they have to suffer through it, or just be destroyed outright for trying to change it by the more popular gods.

While it doesn't answer the adventuring question, the Scarred Lands setting does, to a degree, answer the "Why do gods grant their worshippers spells?" question, in the form of the Divine Truce (which essentially boils down to my own answer to the question). Still, I see your point, and hopefully, my own response has done some good. If not, I'm enamored enough by my own words to not care...

oooo....so pretty...heh.

Anyway...

 

[Tonguez]

What's typically missing, for me at any rate, is a reason why all these kings and barons are hiring a small group of adventurers when for the same ammount of money they could levy an army.

For exactly the same reason they hired Mecernaries and (as mentioned above) issued letters of Marque.

The Typical group of DnD Adventurers is a Band of Mercenaries fitting perfectly with the historic model of Mecernaries with the added impetus of Dragons and similar nasties to contend with.

As to giving reasons for everything I had considered that standard (eg suggetions that the gods gain power from worship) and I suppose that published material leaves it out to allow DM creativity.

Personally I take a variation on Tolkiens "Universe created by Song" notion and explain Magic working by creating tones and vibrations with the song (hence vocal and somatic components of spells, bard spells and Fae love of music)

 

[Keith]

I agree with the God of thieves, and play the same way. That is, the current PCs are always highly unusual. While related to historical pirates ,mercenaries, and “adventurers” In the very limited sense in which that term was used historically, they are not part of some sort of profession.
I think the game handles this approach perfectly well. The very bland campaign worlds that are littered with the imaginary “adventurer” profession definitely become hackneyed and ludicrous pretty fast. Not that there is anything wrong with using the imagination in this game (doh), but to keep perpetuating such a particularly UN-imaginative notion really hurts a lot of campaigns, I think. Along with stores that sell magical items and institutions that routinely revive the dead for a fee, the “adventuring profession” is a cliché that is best avoided if you want a creative campaign, in my view. Which admittedly sounds a bit harsh. People should certainly play the way they enjoy. I just think trying to shake out of some of those fairly tired conventions is at least worth a trial.

Cheers