What is adventuring?

[MGibster]

Re: adventuring, it is as Peep Show put it:

View attachment 412786

If there's no criminal or quasi-criminal element (such as trespassing, tomb robbing, etc.), is it even adventuring? Certainly in the real world virtually every person who has ever been labelled an "adventurer" could easily be labelled a "serious criminal".

I think of adventurers in real life and come up with folks like Guy Fawks, Hernando Cortez, and Blackbeard.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think of adventurers in real life and come up with folks like Guy Fawks, Hernando Cortez, and Blackbeard.

Yeah I wouldn't include Fawkes, he's just a straightforward revolutionary/terrorist (depending on perspective), but the other two certainly, albeit they're at the darker end of things. Some adventurers are just like going around going "WHOA!" a lot like Marco Polo (who I must imagine as Keanu Reeves), a larger proportion are engaging in some dodgy behaviour but not traditional evil like Lewis and Clark or various other colonialist "explorers", but largest section are just thieves, conquerors, invaders, raiders, pirates/legalized pirates, etc. etc. and so on, whether they're Julius Caesar, some random Viking, or whoever.

 

[Corinnguard]

This is not a "D&D" thread. It's in the *TTRPGs General forum, and the question was about RPGs in general.

I am going with the RPG I am familiar with.

 

[Breaking Star Games]

When I think adventure, I think of unusual/novel and thrilling/exciting experiences - it's pretty broad and probably covers many stories. Definitely doesn't require combat, but that is the typical of escalating tensions that come with those thrills.

But I am definitely more interested on what you include in adventuring than defining its limits. I could easily see joining a rebellion as a premise to an adventure. I would say A New Hope has Luke go on a classic Hero's Journey and I'd classify it in an adventure story.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Adventuring is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Adventuring is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.

 

[payn]

Can you go on adventures in games like Vampire the Masquerade modern times?

It depends on what adventure-ers-ing etc.. define as. If its distilled to the base layer, it simply means motivating circumstances for the characters to engage the game. So, under that definition id say yes it can work in any RPG.

Can a rpg feel like an series of adventures if you never level up?

Absolutely, I tend to prefer flat curve progression RPGs such as Traveller.

Can you ever say you went on an adventure in an rpg if you never had a combat?

Yes. Some games are about exploration and/or socialization and combat isnt necessary.

 

[Hriston]

I am going with the RPG I am familiar with.

My point is the one RPG you're familiar with is not a valid basis for making the sweeping generalization that you can never ever ever say an episode of RPGing is an adventure if it doesn't contain combat. I don't think that's even true of D&D in which, as you acknowledged, exploration and social interaction are non-combat activities that also form a basis for adventuring.

 

[Umbran]

I am going with the RPG I am familiar with.

Sure.

Note that you can get through the entirety of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight without engaging in any combat.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

 

[Umbran]

But also.....
Can you go on adventures in games like Vampire the Masquerade modern times?

Why wouldn't you be able to? What does time period have to do with it?
Read a Dresden Files novel - those are chronicles of the character's adventures.

Can a rpg feel like an series of adventures if you never level up?

You better, as "levels" are primarily a D&Dism. Most games don't have levels.

Rephrasing: Can an RPG feel like a series of adventures if there's no character power increase?

Certainly! We've had a quartet of adventurers rambling all over the Venusian jungles of Space: 1889 using Fate Accelerated rules since early in the pandemic. Fate Accelerated has very little in the way of "advancement", and the GM for this game has not applied what little the system does have. We're doing fine, thank you.

Can you ever say you went on an adventure in an rpg if you never had a combat?

See: The Wilds Beyond the Witchlight.