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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8941027" data-attributes="member: 6988941">To me the lesson is that for a typical ttrpg centered around loot and levels, it's perhaps best to gear the characters (either through plot or character backgrounds) towards having goals that actually require loot and levels to achieve, if you need their character motivations to actually make sense. One benefit of save the world plots have is that they frame everything into terms of needing to become strong enough defeat X enemy, and easily create stakes for every character. The "braving dangers leads to wealth and greater abilities" thing is still a game conceit, but at least character motivation can be framed as "we need to brave dangers to improve our wealth and abilites because of X", rather than doing it because it's just what adventurers do.I remember when my group completed Waterdeep Dragon Heist and managed to get out with a little over 50,000 gold, and decided to continue the campaign into further homebrew adventures I struggled a little bit with why my bard character would bother. She had gotten into this whole adventurer racket because she was broke and musical fame hadn't quite worked out. Broke and in a bad place is great motivation for a 1st level D&D character, and actually fine to carry her through that entire adventure as we played it. But now she had 13,000 gold stashed away, and co-owned a tavern where she was the star attraction and that produced enough income to cover all ordinary expenses for the foreseeable future. Why brave dangers for loot and levels when you have all the loot and levels you need?Fortunately her idiot friends squandered their cash and went charging off to further adventure, so peer pressure could explain what rational self-interest could not.</blockquote>

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