D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Thomas Shey]

To be fair, I tend to make subtractions mostly to keep my own sanity. I have trouble with 5e and how incredibly high magic it is, so, my ban list tends to be in the service of reining in the massive amount of magic in the setting.

I understand there can be all kinds of reasons for doing that, but I do have to suggest if that's your view there's a certain element of using a wrench for a hammer, then.

 

[Thomas Shey]

People with decent family lives generally aren't taking up the adventure of risking life and limb to delve into dungeons and ancient ruins to grab treasure. They're living with the decent family and loving home.

There were probably a pretty fair number of ancient and medieval mercenaries who had, by the standards of the time, decent family lives when they could go back to live it. It just happened to be their skill set was mostly about fighting (probably from having been in a military during a time when it was more in demand) and that was how they were going to make a living. That at least would keep them away from home and in some danger a pretty fair bit, and that doesn't seem conceptually that far off from being an adventurer.

 

[Mind of tempest]

People with decent family lives generally aren't taking up the adventure of risking life and limb to delve into dungeons and ancient ruins to grab treasure. They're living with the decent family and loving home.

Adventuring, by its nature, draws a very specific crowd, and a lot of the question of why someone is adventuring is just that: what set them on that road to adventure?

where is just someone fundamentally restless and has no clear inheritance the perfect set of well-adjusted person to go adventuring

 

[Thomas Shey]

depends on if they can only ever work there or are just front and centre there.
every block of rules should still be gameable in any homebrew would with minimal effort.

I'd suggest that's not been true with something as structurally specific as D&D is in spots for a long time if ever.

 

[Kurotowa]

There were probably a pretty fair number of ancient and medieval mercenaries who had, by the standards of the time, decent family lives when they could go back to live it. It just happened to be their skill set was mostly about fighting (probably from having been in a military during a time when it was more in demand) and that was how they were going to make a living. That at least would keep them away from home and in some danger a pretty fair bit, and that doesn't seem conceptually that far off from being an adventurer.

"Military veteran with a specific skill set and a touch of PTSD looking for purpose in peace time" is a major archetype for a reason. That's everyone from Dr. Watson to John Rambo, because it comes up in real life all the time.

It's why I think one of the under appreciated elements of Eberron is the Last War. Being just a couple years out from a major long running war means you have a ton of war vets dumped into the job market, and of course some of them are going to take up adventuring. It's great for backgrounds and story hooks.

 

[Thomas Shey]

"Military veteran with a specific skill set and a touch of PTSD looking for purpose in peace time" is a major archetype for a reason. That's everyone from Dr. Watson to John Rambo, because it comes up in real life all the time.

It's why I think one of the under appreciated elements of Eberron is the Last War. Being just a couple years out from a major long running war means you have a ton of war vets dumped into the job market, and of course some of them are going to take up adventuring. It's great for backgrounds and story hooks.

Of course the usual problem regarding that concept in D&D is the resistance to starting characters above first level. You can potentially make it work in systems or varients with slow and compressed advancement, but in most D&D-alikes it looks odd that those veterans would all still be first level.

 

[Umbran]

Of course the usual problem regarding that concept in D&D is the resistance to starting characters above first level. You can potentially make it work in systems or varients with slow and compressed advancement, but in most D&D-alikes it looks odd that those veterans would all still be first level.

Well, the issue there is as much a matter of expectations. Rambo is not a starting character - if you want a "veteran" to automatically be a high-end Hollywood action hero, you're going to have an issue.

But one can play D&D such that anyone with a PC class has notable stats and skills compared to the bulk of the population.

 

[Incenjucar]

Adventuring comes with all kinds of motives, including protecting your idyllic home life, tourism, curiosity, research, preaching, greed, wanting to be where the people are, persecution, a desire to taste all the things, barding it up with boss monsters, etc. There is not a Platonic ideal of correct adventure tropes.

 

[RainOnTheSun]

I think a lot of settings could benefit from just a short sidebar about what a 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc. level character means in that setting.