PCs and the gimmie gimmie's

[baradtgnome]

You have a lot of good advice on these posts, I'd summarize it as:

Handle the player problem (unsocial & destructive player behavior) out of the game with a friendly & mature conversation, and ultimately removing his game invitation if that won't work. I have yet to see game rules that solve people problems.

Handle the high aspirations of the character in game. If he wants to achieve big things, encourage it! Just show him they are achieved one small step at a time.

Don't confuse the two. Good luck!

 

[Numlock]

IMO there is one big hole in your summary, being the relation and tasks of players and GM's

Bold words are important.


GM:
-Come up with a story that your players could follow.
-Cope with player imagination in a logical, realistic, correct and fun way

Player:
-Determine what their character would do in the present situation



To a quite large extent, the GM is the servant of the players. If you want to tell a story, go write a book. You are the GM because you are trying to give your player a fun time, so do it!


If one of my players would come up with the idea of building a village and managing it, I'd say: "Good luck, make it happen." This is a very hard task, indeed, but possible and lots of fun to do.

 

[Saeviomagy]

First it sounds like there's something up with your treasure division - why is a useful magic item being sold if one player wants it? That's just a net loss of loot!

that and I decided to refine my treasure stuffs, like less stuff to sell, more stuff to find that interesting use for, so a lot more wonderous items (since who doesnt like those??) and im going to try to introduce the 'roll for it' doctorine my other group uses in which if you want something and another person wants it, roll for it, whoever gets higher keeps it.

This isn't a great system. Apart from anything else, it 'rewards' (in quotes, because what's bad for the party is bad for the PC, just not as obvious) rolling on absolutely everything. After all, there's only a 50% chance you'll end up the items you actually want, and there's a decent chance that one person ends up with a heap more than everyone else.

If everyone is getting upset over division of treasure, you're best switching to a method whereby gold and treasure get divided evenly amongst the party without any gameable mechanics involved. Just treat each magic item as if it were a chunk of cash equal to it's sell value. If two people want an item, they can enter a bidding war: the person willing to pay the most wins.

I'd also suggest reaching a compromise with your buddy over his town building ideas. Tell him that in the interests of game balance, you're not going to need him to spend his personal resources on town building. However in exchange, it's never going to make him money except in the form of any rewards for quests related to the town. he still gets a town, he still gets roleplaying kudos, but cash is a game mechanic.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I (as would the rest of the group) would prefer to spend our gaming sessions delving into dungeons and slaying beasts rather than managing a village, and if I tell him just "have fun with it" there is a good chance that he'll..not cheat, but not follow the rules either, what I mean is this, there are really no charts or anything for managing villages in any D&D book (at least that I own) and, as much as I am for capitalism, fear that trade, comerce and all that fun real world stuff will either complicate the game or be inacurate landing him more gold than he should be getting...

It's more of a fear of unbalancing the game, I don't want to see work wasted you know?

 

[Numlock]

Alright, I see, your point is taken and I agree with you that managing a village is not compatible with Dungeon Delving.

However, your last sentence bothers me. As a GM, I'm not only used to, but also fully expecting that players will totally screw up my planned work. If this is a fundamental problem for you, maybe you should let somebody else GM (for instance, the overly creative player who is the subject of this thread.). Not saying that you are a crappy GM, I can't determine that from my position, but maybe playing is more your thing.

(If this seems too harsh or condemning, it isn't meant that way.)

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, with that kind of player, I would make manging the village a thing of months, or even years, while adventuring is a thing of days. A lot of adventuring can be done while the village is developing. If the player asks, tell them, the crops are growing well, but nothing much else is happening. Roll on some kind of random table 3-4 times a year to see what is going on. BUt put it firmly in the background.

 

[Hussar]

I (as would the rest of the group) would prefer to spend our gaming sessions delving into dungeons and slaying beasts rather than managing a village, and if I tell him just "have fun with it" there is a good chance that he'll..not cheat, but not follow the rules either, what I mean is this, there are really no charts or anything for managing villages in any D&D book (at least that I own) and, as much as I am for capitalism, fear that trade, comerce and all that fun real world stuff will either complicate the game or be inacurate landing him more gold than he should be getting...

It's more of a fear of unbalancing the game, I don't want to see work wasted you know?

As a suggestion - do you have access to the PHB 2 (3.5 edition)? In there, they have an excellent mechanic called Associations (I think. I might be misremembering the name). Anyway, you join this association and as you go up levels, and achieve certain goals, your association score increases and you gain access to benefits - possibly wealth, but also things like skill bonuses, information sources, that sort of thing.

This would be right up your alley for doing a town ownership thing.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I think by the time he WOULD get the land grant (roughly 14th-17th level) he will have forgotten. but if it persists and he does want to still make a town/village it will be incredibly in the background, not to where it doesnt feel important to him, but enough to where I dont have to really do anything with it...at the start of every adventure I'll roll to see how crops are doing and weather and that stuff and at the end of the adventure I'll roll again

I realized this can also make not just another group of PCs (those who defend the town while the other PCs are away) but it can create an "encounters" type adventure setting, which is great for starting new charaters AND new players....so if it does last that long, it'll all work out

and I think when people decided it would be nice to get mad at me for saying "it goes against his character" they missed the elven CLERIC part...the religion he is part of is very strict, I failed to bring that up, so doing something akin to this would be almost heresy UNLESS he could find a way to make it benefit his religon (which wished to benefit his homeland)
so yeah...thats what I meant

 

[Saeviomagy]

I (as would the rest of the group) would prefer to spend our gaming sessions delving into dungeons and slaying beasts rather than managing a village

So don't play out managing the village. Like I said - just tell your player "after investing 10,000 gp into your village, you get a 10,000gp reward!". He spends 15,000gp building a nice smithy. In return, the blacksmith forges him a magical weapon worth.... 15,000gp. Take all the cash he invests and replace it with items and money on a 1-for-1 basis.

The next time you have an adventure hook that says "the mayor of tinytown asks the adventurers for aid against the big bad evilthing which threatens tinytown" simply replace "tinytown" with your players town. Whatever reward the mayor would originally give the players, give as profit from the town (encourage your other players to seek a reward from their comrade, and if he refuses, you can always have a disaster strike which takes the reward away from him and gives out treasure that's appropriate to everyone else).

Don't bother with the day-to-day humdrum of managing a town. Make owning a town an adventure.

 

[Hussar]

^ wut he sed.

Honestly, this is a golden opportunity for you as a DM. The player is invested enough in the setting that he actually wants to ground his character IN the setting. He doesn't want to aimlessly wander around looting stuff but actually wants to engage the setting. For God's sake, don't discourage that.

Saev's ideas are pretty spot on. If you need inspiration, the Paizo AP, Savage Tide Adventure Path has a module that talks about how the party can improve their home base town (mostly to defend against an incoming attack) but also lots of ideas on how to make that town come to life.

Here you have the opportunty to have:

1. Recurring NPC's that actually matter.
2. A way to feed setting information to the party easily.
3. An easy way to replace fallen PC's if needed.
4. Very quick and easy adventure hooks.

Roll with it. Get the other players on board with the idea. Let them take parts of the town to work with too. The fighter types can work with the militia, the cleric and paladins with the churchy types, the woodsy folk can deal with the farmers and whatnot outside the town.

Dude, this player just handed you an entire campign on a platter. Don't worry about all the accounting. Totally not important. If it really bothers you, say that the PC draws 1500 gp a year in taxes over and above what gets spent on improving the town. Done.

If everyone else just wants to go delving into dungeons, well, the dungeons can come to the town just as easily. A two week ride around town gives you LOTS of space to play with. Everyone's happy.