Kill Monsters, Take Stuff, THEN WHAT?

[Hussar]

/snip

2. Tavern: PCs spend a lot of time in the tavern. What if they stopped dropping coppers for beers and set up their own place. They decorate it with trophies of their own victories and their clientèle comes to bask in the glory of real life adventurers. Of course, NPCs adventuring parties will come to the tavern to find rumors, or while the PCs are on an adventure the place could be robbed of those trophies. Thieves guids and other organized crime might try and get a cut of the PC owners' action and rivals and villains might seed the establishment with spies.
/snip

Funnily enough, in campaigns I've played in that don't feature a great deal of travel, this has been pretty common. Then again, I'm usually the one instigating, so that might be the cause.

I remember some years back, we played in a campaign where the party liberated a semi-destroyed castle (it was one of the free adventures from WOTC, can't remember which one). We decided to squat on the castle and begin fixing it up. After a bit, we applied to the local baron to let us take actual title to the land and begin pacifying the area. That castle turned into one of the central elements of the campaign.

2e D&D had some rather detailed spell research rules that could soak up a great deal of time. The problem with it was it was a solo-game for the wizard only. Trying to convince the rest of the group to sit on their hands for six months while the wizard crafts a new spell is not very easy.

I think that if you want activities outside of the standard kill and loot cycle, you need to work together as a group to come up with something everyone wants to participate in and then work out a way that everyone gets to play at the same time. Five players lone wolfing around the table is no fun for any extended time.

 

[Reynard]

I think that if you want activities outside of the standard kill and loot cycle, you need to work together as a group to come up with something everyone wants to participate in and then work out a way that everyone gets to play at the same time. Five players lone wolfing around the table is no fun for any extended time.

I disagree. Weeks, months or years can be resolved in a few sentences and a couple die rolls, so it doesn't matter if during down time each character is doing their own thing. Granted, I think it is more fun if they PCs have a coomon non-killing and looting goal, but itisn't strictly necessary. The real issue is if one player has a super involved down time activity that eats up a lot of the DM's time/resources moreso than the other players. Then it becomes an issue. But so much can be handled via email, away from the table, that even then it isn't really that big an issue.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree. Weeks, months or years can be resolved in a few sentences and a couple die rolls, so it doesn't matter if during down time each character is doing their own thing. Granted, I think it is more fun if they PCs have a coomon non-killing and looting goal, but itisn't strictly necessary. The real issue is if one player has a super involved down time activity that eats up a lot of the DM's time/resources moreso than the other players. Then it becomes an issue. But so much can be handled via email, away from the table, that even then it isn't really that big an issue.

But that presumes that all players are groovy with advancing the time line by weeks, months or years. I've seen all sorts of players absolutely balk at this. There's just no way that they'd sit on their hands for six months while the wizard researches his new spell.

So, you're faced with the choice of either advancing the timeline anyway and pissing off players, or forcing the wizard player to either give up his goals or play another character for the duration.

All three of those options are a pretty hard sell in my experience.

 

[Reynard]

But that presumes that all players are groovy with advancing the time line by weeks, months or years. I've seen all sorts of players absolutely balk at this. There's just no way that they'd sit on their hands for six months while the wizard researches his new spell.

So, you're faced with the choice of either advancing the timeline anyway and pissing off players, or forcing the wizard player to either give up his goals or play another character for the duration.

All three of those options are a pretty hard sell in my experience.

It also presumes that all the players are grown ups. Seriously, I can't imagine a group of players that would allow themselves to get all bent out of shape over such a thing. If Bob's wizard needs X weeks to research a spell, and there's no in game pressing need for immediate action, why would this piss off the other players. It's not like your asking the *players* to sit on their hands for X weeks, you're just asking the characters to do whatever down time thing they do for X weeks.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Seriously, I can't imagine a group of players that would allow themselves to get all bent out of shape over such a thing.

Eh. They exist, they're adults, and some player somewhere needs to deal with 'em.

I think just having goals that the fighter could puruse while the wizard is reasearching the spell (or whatever) cna go a long way towards making the problem mitigated. And the goal should be concrete in some way. If the wizard spends a month making a brand new tool for the adventurers, and the fighter spends a month with ale and whores, but doesn't have anything to show for the time, then the fighter's kind of left out of the fun.

Which was part of the impetus for the thread: what do your characters want to accomplish, aside from normal adventuring?

 

[Doug McCrae]

This goes back to KM's other thread regarding time as a resource. In OD&D, time is supposed to be a significant resource. If a character spends six months making a magic item, that's six months less adventuring time. Time is intended to be part of the cost of the item, like xp in 3e. Travelling is the other big time sink.

A different play model from that of today is assumed. Each player has a stable of characters, of varying levels, so if your wizard is out of action for a long time and you still want to play, you use a different PC. It also assumes frequent sessions, several times a week, and around twenty players per DM, but, I think, not all playing at the same time. Players #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 might schedule an expedition to the Black Reservoir on Tuesday night, then players #2, #3, and #6 go to level 10 of the Tower of War on Thursday, using their higher level PCs.

This works both because of the frequent play schedules and because in OD&D a PC is a minor, throwaway thing. Easy come, easy go. It's in many ways still a wargame, rather than a rpg. Today people generally want much more detailed PCs, with personalities and names and stuff like that. They don't play as frequently. So if you only game once every two weeks, and your PC is a real character, important to the ongoing story, with goals and relationships and so forth, then it's not acceptable for that character to be out of play for six months real time.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Huh. I find that this works right now, without requiring throw-away PCs. Funny that.


RC

 

[ashockney]

Aspects

So, as a fan of podcasting, I've heard a lot about using indepedent RPG publisher ideas to improve the storytelling components of rpgs for several years. Further, I've purchased several and been impressed by their concept, and I was a huge fan when 4e introduced the concept of skill challenges that complemented this thinking. I've been expanding this thinking recently to include aspects and quirks, which work similiar to the fate game system. I've grouped this up significantly to simplify for my D&D players.

Examples of aspects include:
Profession
Skill, Expertise, Mastery
Training, Tactics, Strategies

Relationship
Favor, Contact, Partnership
Hireling, Henchmen, Follower
Treaty, Alliance, Allegiance

Resource
Armor, Weapon, Mount
Trade Goods, Supplies, Supply Networks

Players have the ABILITY to develop aspects that will enhance their influence, however, they must be wise, disciplined, and fortunate in the use of their limited income and resources.

Aspects from the profession category will demonstrate a character’s ability to accomplish strategic tasks through the use of education, skills, or training in a campaign. Examples of profession aspects in a typical medieval campaign include: Merchant, Sage, Mason, Surgeon, Sailor, Craftsman, Miner, Farmer, Hunter, and Spy.

Aspects with the relationship category represent the player's influence on the campaign through the use of their family, relationships, association, membership, royalty, title, friendships, colleagues, affiliation, allies, hirelings, henchmen, and followers.

Aspects with the resource category represent the players ability to influence the campaign through their resources including their wealth, equipment, tools, possessions, keeps, castles, manors, property, livestock, cattle, supplies, goods, inventory, grants, notes, and ownership.

 

[rgard]

What does your character do, aside from killing things and taking their stuff?

Rinse, repeat.

 

[jmucchiello]

See, someone gets it. After you kill the monsters and take their stuff, you blow it on ale and whores! Then when you're out of gp, you go back and get more, it's a limitless supply, because the DM will just roll up more. That's how you keep the campaign's economy, such as it is, going. Why are we discussing this? I thought everyone knew it.

The problem with this is wealth guidelines. When you start hauling in millions of gp worth of treasure, handing the young lass a 5000 gp emerald means nothing to you. And when you do it more than once the DM's eye twitches as he thinks about the local economy going to pot. (Unless the lady is a high leveled courtesan and will only use all that loot to buy magic items, too.)