Save the world? No thanks.

[Chairman_Kaga]

Saving the world?! Yer thinkin' way too small son!

My players are about to save the galaxy...they just don't know it yet.

 

[poilbrun]

On of the best campaigns I've played we had to open up a merchant carvan lane. THe lane was veryimportant because that's where the ale came in from.

And that's not what you call saving the world??

 

[danzig138]

I've often wondered... why do so many campaigns have the player characters focused on "saving the world"? Is there really this adolescent need for roleplayers to be the "most powerful" heroes around? And if so... why?

Because most people probably do want to be the best. Most everyone envies the abilities, skills, appearance, ownership of a cabbage patch doll, wealth, or power of someone around them. In most people, it might not be a strong envy, and they might not even realize it, but there it is. So it's not necessarily adolescent (I miss that band), and it's a perfectly acceptable goal.

This is something I've never really understood. I mean sure... it would be fun to play that sort of character once in a while, but it's so cliche and overdone that I find the concept awfully droll at this point. Why not make your DM work a little bit and actually find some kind of *believable* motivation for your campaign?

I'm trying to become rich so I can support my mother in comfort in her old age. I want to be rich so my children don't have to work as hard as I do. Now my mother is dead, but do you see the motivation? You seem to be equating (initially) the "save the world" with become the "most powerful". There are many reasons one might want to be the big dog on the block.

Save the world? No thanks. Save my family? Now there's something I can identify with and get into. It just seems to me like the whole save the world motivation is a lazy attempt for a plot. Come on DMs! If you want your players to really get into roleplaying, give them something they *can* get into.

Easier to save my family if I'm Billy Bad-A$$ than if I'm Willie Weenie. The desire to become powerful (and save the world) and having other character motivations are not mutually exclusive.

Saving the world is easy... it's so huge, ridiculous, and impersonal that there's no real tension. Do some extra work in the beginning and come up with something new. Something that's not necessarily more realistic, but is easier for the human psyche to get invested in. Anyway... just something to think about.

I have to disagree. If it's done right, saving the world is full of tension. Saving the world is ultimately about survival, and that's something the human psyche can get invested in. Like someone else said, it's all in the details. The details about why someone wants to be more powerful, why they want to save (or conquer) the world. Why do they want to go to the corner market and buy a Snickers bar? And dangit, there taint nothin wrong with cliches.

 

[mmadsen]

This very same idea popped up in a recent Salon article on MMORPGs:

"Here's a little thought experiment," says designer Andrew L. Tepper. "Ask yourself which of these stories is more appealing:

"1. A story about saving your family. 2. A story about saving the world."

Tepper continues: "I can relate to a story about saving my family, and so can most casual game players. So why does every game designer insist on writing games about saving the world? MMORPG designers are especially guilty of this, and it's the reason they have trouble moving beyond the hardcore gamer market."

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

I don't have a problem with saving the world per se. I do think it's become somewhat a cliche among one DM I play with, however. I don't like it when dwarven and elven armies have been fighting over a particular artifact for hundreds of years and our party of third level characters gets a dream vision from the gods saying that we have to go get the artifact and save the world. Why us? Don't the gods have better people to do their dirty work?

Granted, it's a low-magic campaign. But still, I like to think that anyone with the ambition, especially an army of such someones, should be able to fight past the low-level monsters guarding such an artifact. I like a campaign world that lives and breathes and has other people in it besides the PCs, not one where a third level character is the most amazing thing in the world.

 

[ForceUser]

*yawn*

It's cliche and I'm done with it. My last campaign was all about that. My new campaign will certainly have epic events, but it's more about choices. That's the best way I can describe it. Of course, players being players, they'll want to save the world anyway, and they'll have opportunities. But a linear storyline about a single epic quest to save life, the universe, and everything? Nah. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

 

[Umbran]

Re: *yawn*

But a linear storyline about a single epic quest to save life, the universe, and everything?

Who said anything about it being a linear storyline?

Again, it is wise not to assume that one aspect of a story (saving the world) needs to be conected to another (the story being linear).

 

[willpax]

Those are some excellent ideas willpax. I particularly like the idea of the journey home. I hope you don't mind if I swipe it for the Neverwinter Nights campaign I'm just getting started on.

Don't ask me, ask Homer.

The Iliad and the Odyssey provide a heap big mountain of material and inspiration for roleplaying. I highly recommend them (I'm partial to the Richard Lattimore translation, but almost any of them are good).

 

[KnowTheToe]

Characters don't have to be the most powerful people in the world to play a part in saving the world. The players just need to be in the right place at the right time.

I personally don't like the registered adventuring party concept, but many others love it. I like large grand plots with memorable villains and a long hard struggle. Parts of that plot should definitely involve small character based adventures and story lines, but I like it to be part of something bigger.

 

[William Ronald]

You can, of course, have saving one's family and saving the world in the same adventure.

The key thing, I think, is to have something that the players see their characters truly caring about enough to risk life, limb, and sanity. Indeed, in one part of my campaign, characters were trying to protect their family members from enemies. Let us say that some of the actions really motivated the player characters.

(Let us also say that some of the villains honestly wished that they had not decided to take up kidnapping.)

I think a character's personal life should be part and parcel of a campaign at any level. After all, PCs have people in their lives who matter to them. Indeed, even an evil overlord is not going to let someone getting away with kidnapping his henchmen. (This tends to encourage one's enemies.)