Justifying adventuring when you're the Boss

[Rechan]

Or, you could say right back: "The campaign is about the adventurers in this kingdom. If your character isn't an adventurer any longer, it's time to retire him and bring in a new character." Make the character's motivations the player's responsibility. It is their character, after all.

Actually this is exactly what happened and part of my motivation for AVOIDING that from happening. The player couldn't rationalize it, made his PC an NPC - and then was sad because he missed his old PC.

And with his PC an NPC, the player is no longer In Charge, hence sort of defeating the purpose of putting the PCs in charge in the first place.

 

[Ourph]

The basic thing to fix this might be:

The characters aren't actually the tippy-top bosses. It is assumed that the day-to-day operation rests instead with some Governor. The PCs are part of a ruling council with the Governor, and are there to deal with things a basic mundane administrator cannot.

This is exactly what I was thinking. The PCs are not Charlie, they are the Angels. The PCs are not Oscar Goldman, they are Colonel Steve Austin. They are important to the organization and can even be involved in policy decisions, but there is an older, wiser person who shoulders the mundane details of day to day operations while the PCs are involved in high level planning and kicking ass.

 

[Haltherrion]

If he's king because he's the highest-level guy around, then it may well be the case that there isn't anyone else who can deal with these problems.

Also, in a feudal system, the various nobles received taxes from the peasantry in return for protection from the various threats. Under such a system, it may well be that dealing with those outisde threats are the PC's duties.

The highest level guy probably gets to be the king's fix-it man, sent out on more adventures, not necessarily the king unless he uses his power to seize the throne. From a campaign point of view, using him as the king's right hand man has obvious benefits as he can get rewards from the king and stature but still has a reason to be out there adventuring.

You can apply this to people with lesser holdings- their lesser holdings are part of their rewards but their purpose is doing the kings dirty work.

Put another way, this whole problem can be avoided by not letting them take the surpreme position, or at least warning them, that if they do take the crown, that will affect how much they can adventure (at least if they want to keep the crown).

 

[Hereticus]

This is far from FR canon, just our campaign.

When our evil group of six hit epic level each took over a nation or part of one in faerun. We named our evil empire SWAPP, aka the South West Alliance for Peace and Prosperity.

With four role playing sessions plus lots of emails on the side we were able to take over our areas, then federate together.

After our power was secure with our henchmen in charge, we went back out adventuring, because we were not content to retire. I could not see going back out unless we were secure in our power.

 

[Xris Robin]

This sounds like an interesting campaign idea. Let me think...

Well, sticking with what you said about running a colony, and expanding on what people said about being high level...

Assuming 4e, one of the game's conceits is that PCs are special. Everyone not a PC is an NPC and maybe even a minion. If one of the PCs for instance, plays a Wizard, he's likely the only Wizard even IN the colony. In any situation calling for a Wizard, it's up to him.

A gang of goblins causing trouble? The town turns to the party's Fighter, the strongest guy there is. Besides the party the only group who can even fight are the town guards, and they're only level one Human Rabble or something, only good for keeping the minion common folk from killing each other in bar fights. Not good enough to send out to slay a band of level five goblins or whatever.

In fact, let me expand on this another way. Let's say 4 PCs, semi-typical party... Fighter, Cleric, Ranger, Wizard. Not only are they likely the only ones in the colony above level one, as PCs something just makes them stand out more than normal people. In a crisis, people just naturally look to them for leadership.

The Fighter is head of whatever passes for a town militia or whatever, the military leader. When it comes to defending the peace or the town, he's in charge. Nobody in town fights better than him, since he likely taught them everything they know.

The Cleric? He's likely the head of whatever the town has for a church, the town's religious leader. Everyone else is just a laypriest, without any divine power. If undead show up or something, he's the only one who can smite them, and he's the only one with healing powers.

The Ranger (sorry, I was short on Rogue ideas) is say, the head woodsman and hunter. In fact, maybe he leads a group of rangers who prowl the woods hunting and scout around. (Aragorn for the win). He knows all the local dangers, and his men warn of when a band of gnolls move into the neighborhood. But his men are hunters and scouts, not good for more than killing deer. Only he can lead the party to the gnolls hideout safely, and help you slay them.

And as mentioned, the Wizard is likely the only guy in town who knows any magic. Maybe he's trying to take on apprentices or run the local school, but the party needs him to deal with any arcane troubles... heck it likely needs him anyway, having a Wizard along never hurt. If the party has to slay a dragon, you certainly don't want to leave him behind, do you?

 

[roguerouge]

I don't know: ask King Richard the Lion-hearted. Or William the Conqueror. Or Henry V. Charlemagne.

But the probable answer from Robert Bruce would be "BECAUSE I'M BAD-ASS."

 

[Henry]

Just looking throughout history, leaders were traipsing off all the time for military or exploratory duty -- the Consuls of Rome were one example, they were the commanders-in-chief; the actual work of day-to-day affairs of state were the senate's and tribunes' job.

 

[Haltherrion]

I don't know: ask King Richard the Lion-hearted. Or William the Conqueror. Or Henry V. Charlemagne.

But the probable answer from Robert Bruce would be "BECAUSE I'M BAD-ASS."

Leading an army on campaign generally isn't very close to anything like most D&D adventuring.

Leading a guerilla war like William Wallace did at times is pretty close to standard adventuring although, at those times, he was hardly in charge of much.

 

[buddhafrog]

One adventure I'm running right now involved a similar problem. My PC's set the story where one of the PC's in an elven prince. His father is dying of a magical sickness and many of the people surrounding the King hope to become the next leader.

I developed the story to also mean that thees people would be well served if the prince were killed and could not claim the thrown. They are out to get him so he set out to go into hiding until he can come and claim the thrown. However, he must also win over the people, and to do this, he plans to return with a trophy kill (dragon head or some other ridiculous trophy item). So that is the immediate adventure hook.

This is slightly off from the main question, however. If the leader is in good standing with his people, why would he adventure? I'm already trying to figure out the next adventure after he returns to the kingdom.... I can imagine wars that he leads, and during which he might take side adventures for particular reasons, but that doesn't set too well with me either.

 

[S'mon]

I find this weird. Isn't the PC an adventurer? Doesn't he like adventuring?

In the normal D&D/Conan model, the ruler is the highest level guy anyway, so he constantly needs to deal with threats.

In the actual feudal medieval model, the King and his Party - I mean his Court - spent most of their time travelling the land, looking in on subordinate nobles and dealing with threats before they got big. Many kings didn't even have much of a royal castle, not the kind of place you'd want to spend much time in.

I guess the WotC 30-encounter-dungeon style adventures aren't very suitable for rulers. But look at the old BECMI Companion & Masters adventures, several of them are either about rulership - CM 1 Test of the Warlords - or for ruler PCs - CM 3 Death's River et al. Most of the higher level single session 4e Dungeon Delves are eminently suitable for ruler PCs, involving imminent threats to the realm that need swift vanquishing.

If the player resolutely refuses to adventure, then they can start a secondary retainer PC who goes out doing stuff, they can still play their ruler when 'suitable' stuff comes up.