Player Characters are the rock stars of their world!

[JacktheRabbit]

Great book. Does a wonderful job of showing the hypocrisy of the pacifist.

The city is nearly beseiged by gangs of fire giants. Farms outside the city are regularly destroyed.

What does the most powerful cleric in the city do? Not a damn thing he is a dwarven cleric of the god of peace and his only contribution to this situation is a continued effort to convince the dwarven soldiers of the guard to lay down their arms and not fight.

Pretty convenient since the temple is located in the heart of the city and is protected by soldiers provided by the city 24-7.

Try City State of Geanuvue: The stones of peace if you want to run a whole city where adventurers are considered second class citizens and the leading religion is total pacifism.

 

[the Jester]

This spawns an idea for me, set up a foil for the "PC's as Hero's" tradition. Put a fundamental conservative NPC in the players nation who always speaks out against the "dangerous and life threatening example" the PC's are setting as adventures.

"Before you know it, our kids will be leaving home and trying to slay dragons! They are a threat to the stability of society I tell you! Pelor needs your silver to fund our movement against these adventurers! Visit your local temple or shrine and give until it hurts, for Pelor, and for the kids sake. Those adventurer's must be stopped!"

That just oozes fun. Nothing like an NPC that you don't like who is bad to just kill.

I've actually been using an npc like this imc lately... the pcs got to an island (they'd been shipwrecked- this all takes place about five games from where my story hour's presently at [blatant plug]) and found that adventurers were very unpopular, having killed the town's last governor, and that an election would be held in just 12 days for governor. One of the candidates was a LG cleric of Galador, god of the Light, who was campaigning on a "keep adventurers out of Poppin" campaign.

 

[Psion]

"...but then, seemingly at the height of their success, tragedy struck. Regdar's drinking grew worse as he felt increasingly hedged out by Tordek, and he and Kerwyn spiraled into the seamy underworld of drug abuse."

LIDDA: They showed up at my door in the middle of the night...they were drunk, and high, and they threw rocks at my windows, but they were so high they kept missing...I think it really was a cry for help, you know?

"Meanwhile, Krusk's controversial relationship with a half-dragon medusa alienist pulled him farther from the group. His friends became the target of his berserker rages on more than one occasion. It was after one of these occasions that the world was stunned when an unidentified man produced a repeating crossbow and fired five bolts into the half-orc's back, killing him."

MIALEE: I can still remember, I was in my tower when I got the sending from Jozan, and all he could say was "My God, they shot him. They shot him. Krusk is dead. Krusk is dead." (she begins to tear up} And I didn't know what to say, I just kept saying, "He can't be dead, he can't be dead, he's got too many hit points..."

"Krusk was resurrected in short order, but the Iconics would never be the same again."

OMG! LOL!

 

[ichabod]

I gave one of my PCs groupies.

They were in the low double digits in levels, and the cleric/barbarian in the group (Yurgo) got leadership so he could get a legendary badger cohort. Now, the group already had some fame as "The Storm Crew." The were banned from several countries because trouble seemed to follow them around. Although they did not know it, they were also wanted for negligent homocide due to a kaiju they let loose and then ran away from.

So I had these two first level clerics show up at there inn. When some of the PCs came out, the clerics came up to them. "Excuse me sirs, but we have heard that the Great Yurgo and his Storm Crew are staying at this inn. Can you tell us if you have seen the Great Yurgo?"

It was a good bit of comic relief.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Please remember that there are still laws in a fantasy game, a lot of things rock stars today would have them thrown into a pit in a game! And this is not a nice re-hab type of pit either!

Fame does have a price, and think about all those people lining up to ask for the 'heros' help. Who will they say no to? Which will they take knowing there is no reward?

 

[Evil Josef]

There is one big difference.

When a 20th level druid is a guest on Jay Leno talking about saving the rainforest you know he actually knows what the hell he is talking about.

If he's a 20th level druid, nevermind saving the rainforest. It's people that would need saving FROM the rainforest.

 

[derverdammte]

<snipped: awesome send-up>

Dude!!

You totally rule. That was the coolest thing I've read this month.

 

[thundershot]

Man, that gave me a great idea for my campaign... The group I DM has saved the towns and villages of the area more than once, and I never once thought of trying to turn them into celebrities... They'll ham it up, too. This could be fun...


Chris

 

[derverdammte]

I had quite a bit of fun when the PCs were in a town where there was a joust going on. There were booths selling dolls of some of the players' old PCs. It really tripped them out.