Why keep adventuring?

[maddman75]

So what are they? What do you do instead?

I prefer them to have a place in the world - friends, family, careers, concerns beyond graverobbing. But then I don't go much for dungeons and exploration much at all.

 

[Aeric]

I figure that adventurers do what they do because they enjoy doing it. They're adrenalin junkies. Most adventurers aren't going to fit in well with polite society, so even if they did try and settle down, they would feel alienated and bored with their situation. After all, can Bob the blacksmith, who's never even left his home town in 48 years of life, relate to someone who's traversed the world (and maybe beyond) and is half his age? So they leave, and gravitate towards the only people with whom they can relate--other adventurers.

 

[krissbeth]

They haven't quite achieved fame and fortune yet, but my three characters have rather different reasons for the adventuring thing.

-- To solve (at least) two murders. Oh, and loot. (She's semi-retired now, though, having gone deep undercover.)
-- These bad people have no respect. Smack them around.
-- It's way better than going back to the sheep farm. And she promised her dead friend's widow that she'd take down the folks who murdered her husband.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

My two current characters' motivations are, in a way, quite similar:

Wulgar Rhymesmith, dwarven Cleric/Hierophant of Moradin: His adventuring career started when he (and others) got a plea for help from someone imprisoned somewhere. That someone helped seal away a powerful foe some time ago, and got imprisoned himself.

When we finally freed him, we found out to our chagrin that he was, in fact, that powerful foe. Now, of course, we have to defeat that guy before he can finish what he started last time. In fact, the last session ended with us finally hunting him down and next time, the big final fight will occur.


The other Character, JadeDragon, Samurai (gestalt Kineticist/Warblade) has travelled from Kara-Tur to Faerûn to avert an ancient prophecy about the end of the world, involving defeating an ancient Blood Sorcerer who has now been resurrected and is, apparently, on his way to goodhood, if he's not ascended yet.


I guess we like our campaigns to have an overarching plot.

 

[Numion]

Bloodlust.
Loot.
Experience*.






* while this might sound like a metagame argument, surely anyone living in the D&D world would realize they get immensely more powerful just in a couple of months of adventure. I bet some adventurers would continue doing it just to see how powerful they might get.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I wouldn't say that it's unique to D&D. There's many stories where someone experiences an "adventure" and coming out of it stronger and tougher.

 

[Slife]

Because they're heroes.

 

[painandgreed]

Why does your PC, or the PCs if you mainly GM, keep adventuring after they have acheived fame and fortune?

Life is an adventure and there is no real "settling down". Say they get riches, power, and fame, even if they buy a plot fo land and try not to adventure, the world is a dangerous place and things will be going on around them and they will be involved in those things whether they want to or not due to those riches, power, and fame. Why is it that it's a trope for great heroes to be hiding as hermits or other nobodies in fantasy literature? Wandering mosters, theives, assassins, fame seekers, etc will all keep a character's life interesting.

However, realisitcally, the money that adventurers pull in is trivial compared to that of actual noble landowners, and most of it will be tied up in a collection of items only usuable for adventuring that the PCs probably aren't willing to part with. Unless they get land and title in the course of adventuring, they probably don't have enough to buy much of one. Even if they do, they'd be "new money" and not truely accepted into the established power structure except for their usefulness as "adventurers". Maintaining any type of extravegant or even rich lifestyle will drain their funds fairly quickly or at least over a few years. Unless they're willing to aquire an inn, and set up shope and live a comfrotable working lifestyle, there really is no retirement, especially if they don't have kids to take care of them once they get old.

 

[LostSoul]

In D&D, strictly for "metagame" purposes.

edit: ah, fusangite has inspired me to put scare quotes around metagame.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Adventurers usually start out as young adults, and they gain levels, fast. They're usually not ready to retire.

Often adventurers can't retire, as they lack the skills. Or they might leave adventuring for a while to start their own business or some such, then find they aren't as good at it as they thought they were, or they miss the old days, or what not. It's one reason why, in real life, ex-soldiers sometimes become mercenaries once they reach age thirty-six and are considered "too old" for soldiering.

Bilbo is not a good example, IMO. He was not a professional adventurer. He didn't even want to go on the adventure; Gandalf basically forced him into it.