Power and Responsibility

[Reynard]

Reading through this thread and thinking on it, I think one way to encourage powerful PCs to take an interest in issues aside from deeper dungeons, greater enemies and more valuable treasure is to simply not include those things. "Cap" basic adventuring at some arbitrary level and eliminate or greatly reduce the number of locations, adversaries and treasure that encourage continuing the kill-loot-repeat playstyle. Either the players will like the setting and their characters enough to create their own fun out of the other setting elements, or not.

 

[Umbran]

Detect Evil, ping, wail on the bad guy. Let gods sort it out. Rinse. Repeat.

Detect Evil can be beaten by a mere second level spell (Misdirection). Relying on a first-level spell effect to be your moral compass should be a quick way to end up no longer bearing the moniker "Good Guy".

 

[Umbran]

- Lobby governments to overturn unjust laws.
- Create organizations that protect the innocent and watch out for Bad Guys and their schemes.
- Build up fortifications against possible attacks by hordes of Bad Guys.
- Support up-and-coming politicians who would make for better rulers than the current crop.
- Build up and secure a trade network that makes sure outlying communities get the tools and supplies to make it over the next winter and even prosper.

Absolutely none of these options are good for a guy whose basic job-marketable skill is swinging a sword, or casting magic missile. These are mostly business, economics, and social challenges (one of them is perhaps more an engineering challenge). Great if your party is full of bards and Experts with appropriate Profession skills. But not your average adventurer.

So, part of the reason is simple - the activities that typically make these people powerful do not give them the skills these tasks really call for. They are powerful, but powerful as hammers are powerful, and you're asking why they don't act more like screwdrivers Sure, they can try, but it isn't what they got into the business for, and it isn't their forte. It would not be unreasonable for a party to decide these are things best left to the NPC Experts and Nobles, who probably have higher skill mods in the required areas.

It would not be unreasonable for the party to try them, either. But let's not act as if these are the tasks they were trained for since youth, or anything, such that we are surprised they aren't always done.

If they are Good Guys, then they will presumably want to make the world a better place. But doesn't mean that they have to be passive about it.

When the party barbarian comes hauling his scorched tuchus back from the Dread Mountain after killing the local red dragon, you tell him he's being "passive", and experience his (equally passive) reaction first hand.

Which is to say, the opposite of "proactive" is not "passive". It is "reactive".

 

[Raven Crowking]

This thread made me think. Apparently, some people take the stance that the point of really high character levels is that you are going to slay bigger monsters, face bigger threats, and get bigger treasures.

But I can't help but wondering: Can this really be all there is to high levels?

It's a problem with running a game that, by default, scales with the adventurers. If you set a cap on the number of high-level/epic threats in the world, and make even CR 10+ threats somewhat rare, this problem disappears all on its own. First off, facing more low-CR threats slows progression. A lot. Second off, if there isn't some new uber-BBEG, then the PCs have to do something else or retire. You can never become a Big Fish if all the other fish just keep pace with you.

It's also a problem with running a game that, by design, removes the PCs from the world around them. No more training rules, no more needing to seek out other members of your order, no more reliance on gods, no more "buyer beware" in the equipment chapter, no more assumption that the PCs are forced to deal with society. If the PCs are not forced to play Little Fish at lower levels, how can the players possibly be primed to play Big Fish later on? After all, if the earlier Big Fish had no power over them when they were Little Fish, why should they imagine the power they can have as Big Fish?

RC

 

[buzz]

That wasn't my intention, and I apologize if I made that impression.

Oh, no need to apologize. I'm just certain that the thread will implode if we start talking about Alignment.

I think question-the-nature-of-morality play styles are fairly independent of the game system used. I am curious, however - which games do encourage such a style of play in your opinion?

Well, I mentioned Reign above, but I can't speak to how it plays. But some other examples:

The Shadow of Yesterday has a mechanic called Keys (which has been ported to d20) which essentially lets the player define their PC's focus or goals. Pursuing these goals is how the PC earns XP. Ergo, if a PC has "Key of the Revolutionary," they will only earn XP when they act to overthrow the current ruling class.

Burning Wheel has Beliefs, Instincts and Traits (BITs), which are, respectively: core tenets of the PC, predefined reactions of the PC, and general abilities and deficiencies of the PCs. Playing to the PC's BITs is the main way PCs earn Artha (sort of like Drama Points), and Artha is a VERY important resource in the game. Assuming a PC has a Belief about uplifting his home village, the player is going to drive for that pretty hard.

Judd Karlman (from Sons of Kryos) also put together a D&D hack where the PC's hit points were tied to their home community; taking damage would result in both wounds AND the community suffering hardship. I was just reading a thread of his over on Story games where he's talking about assigning Hit Dice to organizations, i.e., to bring down a tyrant, you take actions that do "damage" to his kingdom's total hit points.

Wild Talents has an option where PCs regain Willpower (a resource used to make superpower function) by, say, defending their home city. E.g., the best way for Batman to maintain his abilities is to protect Gotham; acting on behalf of his own interests won't reward him as much.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that you can't do a political campaign with D&D as-written. People do it all the time. I just think that you're kind of swimming against the tide. It's a central conceit of D&D that adventurers are their own social class; they have few ties to the community and exist outside normal social strata. That's why they can traipse around the world risking their lives in dungeons. Their community typically doesn't extend beyond the rest of the party.

 

[kigmatzomat]

IMC, which is now on year 6 I think, I have a politically influenced campaign with apolitical characters.

I added some politics in the beginning. Not a lot, mainly at the level of the local minor nobility. IMO, the minor barons, knights, and thanes are pretty visible and accessible. Counts, Marquis and above not so much. I didn't swat them over the head, but I did make the hobbies, preferences and personalities of the lordlings relevant to the campaign and the PCs. ("Oooh, you found a nifty lute there. Baron Chevis' youngest son styles himself a bard. Bet he'd buy it off ya.")

They irritated one noble, who irritated them back. Nothing huge, no threats, just stuff like waiting as long as he could get away with before dealing with paperwork, or approving construction and the like. It was enough for them to realize that if a minor Baron could make their life more difficult that they should either cultivate noble allies or do their best to avoid being visible to the nobility. (The one noble still dislikes them but realizes that they have such favor with the king that he just avoids them as much as possible. He grudgingly admits that they are good at bringing mayhem to evil-doers, but they still have no standing to criticize his art collection.)

With a bard and a few ambitious players, they had to cultivate allies. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Some allies were good in the short term but proved to be more harm than good. Sometimes they regret the association but others, like the undead paladin, get the party's full support no matter how much easier things would be if they cut him loose.

They routinely have dinner with dukes and have met the sovereigns of half a dozen nations. They count wizards, white and black, in their circle of contacts. (One white wizard finds them too haphazard and generally dislikes them, while the black archmage finds them entertaining but is himself too "pragmatic" for the party to completely trust).

There characters aren't schemers and they really don't have a great desire to take over countries. Mainly they act as Gordian Knot Cutters. Their contacts, many of which who are schemers, help them identify all the existing Gordian Knots and the people entangled in them. Sometimes they decide that leaving the Knot is better than the alternative.

They will, quite soon, be starting an intracontinental war. Possibly intercontinental if they get assistance from some foreign allies. They have avoided doing so until they could be sure they wouldn't just be plunging the entire region into a dark age. Now, well, it's still a likelihood but they've decided that failing to start the war would probably cause a dark age. More appropriately, enough highly knowledgeable sources have all said that a dark age is somewhere between possible and probable under the current path of events that they feel much more comfortable about taking action.

On the flip side, a region currently dominated but a triumvirate of greater undead has been left alone. The region is in a "warped zone" where the wildlife is horribly lethal. The populace is beat down and pretty much unarmed, leaving the undead forces as the only barrier to the fauna. Without some means of protecting the populace, toppling the triumvirate would be a death sentence for several thousand elves. It's one of the party's worst nightmares; creating a forest of horrible monsters filled with the ruins of a once-proud civililzation.

And that's why most adventurers at high level hesitate to get into politics. Screw up a dungeon crawl at low levels and the worst that happens is someone has to finish it for you. Screw up political intrigue and you can turn an entire region into a CR7 dungeon crawl.

 

[Numion]

Detect Evil can be beaten by a mere second level spell (Misdirection). Relying on a first-level spell effect to be your moral compass should be a quick way to end up no longer bearing the moniker "Good Guy".

There's a saving throw involved in Misdirection, so eventually you'd get it right. And most bad guys don't rely on even that in published adventures. Just saying that good dudes aren't limited to reactive actions.

Just detect evil around a town, select the most high-ranking / suspicious / high level / socially important / whatever evil guy you find. Then get proactive on him. If you're quite certain he's bad enough to be killed, just do it and take his stuff, if not, gather some info on him and then kill him.

Proof of evil actions on the targets part is not required, if he really did something evil enough to warrant killing.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I may yoink your attitude as for a group of NPCs in my game. The party has one evil character, a dragon disciple/rogue, that is the linchpin in quite a few plots. Oh, he's motivated by self interest but he's come to the conclusion that his interests are best served by getting the forces of good on his side since they are so much less likely to double cross him.

Of course, this means the assassins would be ticking off a high priest (NG), an arch druid (NG), a fighter that's almost the incarnation of Shiva in combat (NG), two archer/snipers (CG each), an archmage (LN), an epic and a psi-monk (LN). And those are just the PCs.

They would also acquire the enmity of one undead paladin (possibly fallen but not evil), a wizard's guild, a major merchant house that is also a psion clan, his warlock psuedodragon cohort, a couple of rage drakes and wyverns, several nobles, the great dragon that is his father, a demilich, and possibly three gods that enjoy toying with the guy.

Sometimes good people put up with evil people because a) good people don't kill other people without an abject reason and b) as long as they fit the "he may be a bastard, but he's our bastard" mold they are often productive members of society.

 

[Fenes]

While my campaign deals with politics a lot, at home and abroad, the PCs generally are acting for their NPC patron, they are not scheming and moving to take over themselves - mostly because they don't want the hassle of ruling and management.

 

[Drowbane]

What do the non-casters do?

Open up fitness franchises acrossed the Kingdom?