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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 4796370" data-attributes="member: 1165">IMO, power without responsibility is a big part of the game.I find fantasy settings easier to run and play in than any other type of setting, especially future. We're all (probably) at least vaguely familiar with medieval western Europe and don't need a lot of hand-holding, tedious explanations or massive books on setting lore, unless you need to do something complicated like ... run a barony. All of a sudden you're not really adventuring. Worse, you can't adventure with your party, since an entire adventuring group being put in charge of a feudal territory is pretty unprecedented. Also, now you're tied down to an area, so leaving isn't really an option (or at least the entire group can't leave at once, not for long).In the Eberron setting, you see more of this. Dragonmarked invididuals are rare; not only are the feats often seen as weak, but you're seen as being under the thumb of the House. Without a clear idea of what your responsibilities are, players often assume the worst (eg you'll get orders that prevent you from adventuring with the rest of the party) and so the players avoid having D'marked characters.Also, adventuring is fun. There was a thread several months back about mid-level PCs being defeated by a dragon, then being told to divest themselves of magic items, and it'll let them live. They attacked it anyway (and died). Of course they did; if they gave up their items, they'd no longer be adventurers and would have to retire. (This was back in 3.x where items were crucially important, and weren't even "balanced" (they gave a much higher required defensive boost) so you couldn't just adventure as if you were a few levels lower.)As for higher level NPCs "giving orders" I don't think that's a problem in of itself. I had big problems with old FR with the ridiculously high level good-aligned NPCs, but the problem wasn't them showing up and giving orders. That's a problem with the campaign, not the setting. Those high level NPCs give quests, hopefully respectfully. (They do that in World of Warcraft, and I don't hear complaints about it.) The problem was the NPCs would deal with the real important parts of the setting by themselves, not just due to their high levels, but also due to the abilities they demonstrated in the backbone novels (sometimes raw power, but sometimes just the kind of incredible intelligence that having several months to write a book can give you, extremely esoteric knowledge like knowing how to move portals, and having deities act as bodyguards, etc).Of course you can't. The game doesn't give you those tools. The game suddenly takes a lot longer to run just due to all those extra characters (extra die-rolling, figuring out where they are at various times, etc) and it doesn't help the players any since said soldiers are going to be a lot weaker, don't have 1/4th of them being healers, etc. Before you know it, they're killed the moment you look away, or right in front of you (by something that can't distinguish between an adventurer and an ordinary soldier ... or maybe by something that doesn't want to fight the big dogs) or they get turned into shadows and then turned against you.Red shirts really shouldn't be adventuring, and if the adventurers are, say, 9th-level, their 3rd-level retainers are red shirts. And I say the exact same thing towards 1e-style followers (eg the noncombatants who carry your baggage and what not... who wants those mooks tagged on when they your fun?).Obviously that's all my opinion. I hear there were fun 1e games with retainers, but I can only see the negatives to that.The wider perspective can help, but someone with formal training in administravia (the son of any lord, one would hope) who also did some part-time adventuring is probably presenting a superior package.Being badass won't save you from court intrigue. A powerful adventurer can be "driven out of office" by being set up in some kind of scandal; it doesn't matter if assassinating them is enormously difficult.Those are valuable qualities in a warrior leader. Otherwise, you can use ex-adventurers as bodyguards. Their skills and inclinations probably lean more in that direction (except for the wanderlust, of course).Generally these people were successful military leaders, not just because they could fight. (Sometimes, they were pretty lame at it; Toyotomi Hideyoshi, I'm looking at you.) The warlord class is one of the first classes in DnD I've seen that can maybe handle that (they're still missing a lot of off-the-battlefield tools) and that still does little for the high priest, spymaster (ex-adventuring high level rogue) etc.And maybe most DMs aren't capable of that. It's a game, not a sport.Many of these things don't involve the tools available to the players. Arranged marriages are something I'd find boring; either I accept a loveless marriage (and so accept the first person presented to me, regardless of their appearance, intellect or general personality, while having one or more affairs) or go unmarried. (If I'm the king, I get to pick my own heir.) Or be absurdly lucky and find the right political and romantic choice, but then that's not under my character's control.Espionage is, again, something the lord himself can't deal with directly (people know what he looks like, he probably doesn't have the skills for it, etc), and warfare generally isn't constant, plus involves lots of mooks doing some of the fighting for you, people beg the king not to fight at the front of his armies (and the king says "screw you, I was killing dragons only a decade ago!") and, of course, there's a lack of mass combat tools anyway.Some players do. I don't think the game supports this though. A very skilled DM can handle this, but for most of us, DnD is just a hobby.I'd rather put power in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.I've been reading a book about Frederick (the "Great") of Prussia/Brandenburg; I'm about 40% of the way through it. (It's a very long book.) He was the eldest son and got all the training, even though his father thought he was a wimp. Frederick turned out to be a more-than-competent ruler, and his lifestyle was nothing like an adventurer's would have been. I don't see ruling a kingdom, or other such high responsibilities, as being a "beginner's" project. Taking an experienced, wise adventurer and putting them into a completely different circumstance that they don't have the skills for can easily end in disaster.</blockquote>

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