When PCs go against the "archetype"

[Remathilis]

We've all been there before...

We set up expectations for a campaign: rough-n-tumble explorers, daring swashbucklers, epic heroes out for Queen and country, grim anti-heroes out for vengeance, gritty mercenaries adventuring for gold and glory (and ale and whores). We're seeking a tone, a theme, a certain feel to the campaign...

...and it doesn't survive char-gen.

Sure, your PCs may be rolled-up according to a specific list of choices, with a books-worth of campaign background to go off of. But once the adventure is afoot, the tone changes. Those noble crusaders search every last corpse for gold fillings and prefer to shoot first (at ambush, if possible) and ask questions later. Or those gold-and-glory PCs who should be dirt poor by next session carousing and wasseling have instead opted to pool their resources into buying magical items, a keep, or some other long-term investment. Or those explorers who spend 20 minutes "taking 20" on every. single. door. Or those anti-heroes are WORSE than the villains they face!

In short, what happens when the PCs abandon the tropes of their world and play according to "smart" play; using tactics like overwhelming force and guerrilla strikes; budgeting every gold piece, killing prisoners, or triple searching every 10' square for traps. Such tactics are smart AND effective in normal play, they're just the anathema to the genre of fantasy your seeking!

(and that doesn't even touch the wrong-genre adventurer; IE d'Artagnan on Hyborea).

Interested in hearing some stories.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is like the classic D&D problem of "Edward The Great, Eldritch Wizard of Waterdeep, wants to start a small farm, raise a family, and maybe grow turnips."

There's three main ways I handle this.

The one I usually choose is roll with it. Okay, fine, the tone changes. Not a big deal, we can have fun with the new tone, too. I'm not too attached to a certain style myself.

But if I really want to get a feel, I go for the second way. The second way I like is to start futzing with the rules.

I'm a big believer in using rules to achieve a feel, so this might not be for everyone, but I like it.

Things like adding an Honor system for your noble crusaders (with bonii that go away when they start doing things like looting corpses), or not allowing wealth to carry over between sessions for your "forever broke mercenaries" feel, or giving rewards for exploration that are worth the risks of not taking 20 at the door, or giving anti-heroes bigger bonuses for fighting villains then for burning down orphanages, etc., etc.

Usually, a few broad genre rules can help you massage your players into the behavior you expect out of them, the kind of actions they'd be doing anyway if they weren't kind of stuck in some other genre unintentionally. It can be enough just to introduce an extra bit of thought to their process: would crusaders really do this?

Games are psychological tools in my mind, they reward you with points and smiles and big numbers and accolades and XP for performing certain things, and they penalize you with penalties and lost lives and frowns and no levels for doing other things. Just figure out what you want to reward, and reward that, and figure out what you want to avoid, and penalize that.

That can be as simple as changing the XP system from "killin' stuff gives you XP" to "going broke gives you XP" (if you're for that forever broke campaign), though I like to get into it a little deeper.

This is essentially what D&D does already -- it encourages behavior with rules.

The third major way is to just futz with adventures. I use this as a kicker to the second way, usually not on its own, but it can work OK on its own, too. I don't like it because it can kind of seem like your penalizing PC's for doing things that they aren't even thinking are out of genre. If you have classic knightly quests (slay the dragon, get an apprentice, save the princess, woo the queen without her husband finding out...er...seek the grail...), it can be easier for the players to get into the vibe. If your game of knights and lords essentially involves going into the nearest dungeon and killing some goblins, it's not really much of a different game, despite your glossy coat of paint over the top of it.

Again, that can be a little frustrating without rules to back it up, especially if the players aren't used to the genre.

 

[Lanefan]

If you're talking about the first group of characters starting off as raw rookies, worry not - they will (or should) die off eventually and be replaced, which gives you time enough while they're alive to at least try and set the tone you want such that said later replacements might be better suited. After that, your players are either going to follow the tone or they're not; and if not you might have to simply roll with it and move on.

Lan-"I wanted Greek Humanocentric. I got Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits, oh my"-efan

 

[Nagol]

First, I try to choose a game where smart play fits the genre and conventions for the campaign I want to run or at least doesn't support the opposite play well.

Second, I try to set up the initial game circumstance to reinforce the genre and conventions -- particularly if the players are new to me or unused to the game system.

Lastly, I try to communicate the campaign expectations as best I can as part of the initial player package and during the pre-play campaign negotiation phase.

Of course, it still happens. The players take the it in their teeth and head off at their whim.

So what happens? I run with it. The group usually ends up in a more challenging / less optimal situation (loss of campaign resources, prestige, allies, whatever) because their actions take those resources from them. The group ends up making hard decisions and discovering the consequences. The consequences usually lead to further challenges and adventures -- either an effort to reverse a previous course or to pursue their current course successfully.

One example that sticks out to me was an Ars Magica campaign set just prior to the Danish invasion of England. The players had started to get intimations of the invasion (one companion was a precognitive and had received a couple of visions; the local lords had rumours of Danish mercenaries and raiders, some early scouts had cut through the covenant area looking for defences, etc.) About a week before the invasion force strikes, the players are discussing recent activities in the covenant and were determining their actions for the next season. So what did the players decide to do? Why every mage decided to travel to Wales to seek out a lost magical item that had been mentioned once in passing a few session before as colour! At no other time had more than two magi of the six left the covenant at a time.

By the time the magi got to Wales and back, the invasion was complete, the covenant had been overrun, and the survivors were refugees spread over the countryside. It was interesting to run the mages for a few sessions, tell the players that this session, we're running the companions and grogs at the covenant to catch up on activity at the covenant and see their reactions to the attack by forces expecting substantial magical defence.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I usually go with nagging. "You do what!?! Oh fer krissakes, guys!" Then I let 'em hang for their stupid decisions. That being said, I am clear in advance about the style of game I want to run. Be nice if players would go along with it, or make suggestions about what they'd prefer to play so as not to waste my sodding time prepping a campaign they don't want.

But that Pavlovian conditioning idea of Kamikaze Midget's sounds good. XP for following the expected tropes. Just thinking about the swashbuckling highwayman campaign I'd like to run: XP for cuckolding a fat merchant. More for cuckolding a noble. XP for duelling. XP for spending all your money on fine clothes and love tokens. XP for a particularly fine insult. XP for letting a lady redeem her jewels with a kiss.

BTW: I think D'artagnan would work just fine in Hyborea. Seriously: low magic, swash and buckle, constantly poor and looking for some sort of quick advancement, getting caught up in adventures to protect beautiful ladies. Sure, D'art never faced off against a 50' long serpent of Set but Conan never faced MiLady.

 

[LostSoul]

Well, system matters.

If you don't want people cutting gold teeth out of defeated enemies, don't make money a valuable character resource in the game. If you want to see what lengths the players will have their characters go to in order to get gold, make gold a valuable character resource and limit the amount of easy coin.

I've always wanted to see PCs attain "name level" and build their own keeps on the borderlands. In my 4E hack I messed around with extended rests, making it so the PCs are going to be hard-pressed to do much of anything unless they establish ties with a community. I want PCs to interact with communities, I want them to change the setting and see the consequences, so I tied that "fluff" into "mechanics".

(In this case fluff and mechanics both feed off of and into each other, so I wouldn't say that a +6 modifier in some skill has any more relevance than the fact that you spent the night drinking in the pub with the local farmers.)

I also made sure that the rules don't specify what kind of relationship the PCs have with the community. That leaves a lacuna for the players to fill during play. Are they tyrants or benevolent guardians? Do they get their hands dirty with the peasants or do they lord on high in isolated towers? Who knows?

Anyway. Long story short: If you want the game to respect and deal with genre tropes, the system should support that.

 

[Desdichado]

Do you remember SHARK? Used to post here; had a big oo-rah, macho, vaguely Roman military fantasy vibe going on with all these essays about his homebrew that he used to post.

Anyway, he decided to run a Pbp, that I was in. We start making our characters and posting them. Some bozo creates some bizarre cross-dresser character class and decides that's a great idea for his game.

:|

 

[Jack7]

Do you remember SHARK?

Yeah, what happened with Shark?
Wasn't he a Marine? Did he get cycled back into an active theater or something?
Is he okay?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It depends upon what kind of game I'm running.

Some games, that kind of change is what I'd expect as the world shapes the PCs who shape the world which shapes the PCs...

Other games, I use the PC's stated alignment (if the system has that mechanic) and whatever ethical compass the PC may have to reinforce in character play or punish out of character play. Sometimes, this is still going to end up with a radical PC change, as a Paladin's worldview becomes grittier and grittier until he finally loses his faith...or a blackhearted Rogue finds a selfless cause worth his dying for.

But I never lay the hammer down and just bar a kind of behavior. Any negative repercussion for PC actions will fit in with the world in which the PCs operate.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If you don't want people cutting gold teeth out of defeated enemies, don't make money a valuable character resource in the game.

Easier said than done. It's a strange world where money isn't useful.