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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5660899" data-attributes="member: 2067">There's quite a few kick-in-the-door, lets-kill-some-goblins, get-me-to-the-next-fight players out there for whom the fluff of their abilities is largely incidental to rolling dice and strategic combat. And there's also quite a few people who would recognize the story reward for vapor, even if they're not all about the numbers. Not everyone's like that, and story rewards can be valuable for the right player, but even the right player would probably feel shafted if they got these rewards instead of another + to their dagger. Now, it would be a different story if there were, say, add-on rules for robust social hierarchy play, where gold and land and hirelings and titles and lineages all added up to you increasing your social standing from 1st level "beggar" through 30th level "Beloved Supreme Ruler of All The Worlds", and you could fight and jockey for societal position in "social events" where you can use powers like "Shun Them At The Party" to hurt your rivals, and where your squire comes in handy since she gives you an equipment bonus to your Charisma rolls for the event, since she is good at polishing your armor and keeping your horse healthy, and that makes you impressive to the arrogant nobles at the event. A squire, or a brothel, or land, or a title -- those story rewards would certainly come in handy!Without anything like that, though, it's story for story's sake. Which can be valuable, but can also be pointless. As a Lazy DM, I try to avoid preparing things which no one will care about, since that's a lot of wasted work. So that's why I don't use story rewards like that. I don't treat them as rewards. If they saved the village from orcs, the villagers are happy to see them and honor and respect them, but that's not a reward, that's just how the story developed, since they saved the town from orcs. They don't get anything from it. It's just fluff. And so I can feel free to also take it away when they fail to save the town from demons later on. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" />That's why I don't use story rewards, really. Though I certainly can see the potential for them, even without a robust social hierarchy system. Something as simple as having a player tell me what their character wants would help me to sprinkle some fluff in with my treasure, and know that it would be useful and wanted. Which certainly beats giving an uninterested paladin a squire that they could care less about.</blockquote>

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