From another threads sidetrack...

The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

Has anyone had players do this out of the blue? Or run a group where the focus was not adventuring and was more geared to a settled life of a farmer, merchant, etc? And gow did it pan out? Or not? Was everyone game for it or did a schism form between the farmer player and the rest of the players? Or did you end up with something like some of the PCs are town guard and such and the campaign revolved around threats to the little town with the non-com PCs likely not doing much?

And have any ever tried to set up businesses? Howd that go?

I have had players want to become merchants before. In fact one of the players I showed 5e D&D to the first thing he asked was "Can you run a business?" I also as a player in Mechwarrior did a fair amount of trade circuit across systems. Was pretty profitable. In Star Frontiers the players all wanted to make enough money to buy and outfit their own cargo ship and set up a trade route.

Quote from: Omega;927746From another threads sidetrack...

The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

Has anyone had players do this out of the blue? Or run a group where the focus was not adventuring and was more geared to a settled life of a farmer, merchant, etc? And gow did it pan out? Or not? Was everyone game for it or did a schism form between the farmer player and the rest of the players? Or did you end up with something like some of the PCs are town guard and such and the campaign revolved around threats to the little town with the non-com PCs likely not doing much?

And have any ever tried to set up businesses? Howd that go?

I have had players want to become merchants before. In fact one of the players I showed 5e D&D to the first thing he asked was "Can you run a business?" I also as a player in Mechwarrior did a fair amount of trade circuit across systems. Was pretty profitable. In Star Frontiers the players all wanted to make enough money to buy and outfit their own cargo ship and set up a trade route.

The Free Trader campaign is one of the old standbys for Traveller, the adventures happen while trying to make a credit or two plying the subsector. Not really avoiding the adventures, just making sure that they are profitable. I've done a few Pocket Empire games (also with Traveller)  where the players are nobles whose job is to lead and manage their world through good times and bad - a lot of role-playing and political intrigue in those.

For D&D, I've only ever had one player who just did not want to go adventuring. It turned out that he had joined the group to be social with his friends, but wasn't interested in tabletop RPGs at all.

Quote from: Omega;927746From another threads sidetrack...

The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

Never seen it being about farmers or peasants, no:).

QuoteHas anyone had players do this out of the blue? Or run a group where the focus was not adventuring and was more geared to a settled life of a farmer, merchant, etc?

...merchants count? Well, yes, I've played Traveller, of course! Did you have to ask:p?
Depending on the "etc", I might have seen it quite a few times outside of Traveller, too. Politicians, criminals of the not-shadowrunner-kind, rock musicians, wizards more interested in research, priests and the like are all characters I've been running games for and playing. And let's not even mention merchants;).
"Professional adventurers" are actually something I almost haven't played in the last decade.

QuoteAnd gow did it pan out?

Extremely well.

QuoteWas everyone game for it or did a schism form between the farmer player and the rest of the players?

Never seen a schism. Usually the players either join, or ignore it.

QuoteOr did you end up with something like some of the PCs are town guard and such and the campaign revolved around threats to the little town with the non-com PCs likely not doing much?

Something like this, yeah, I've seen that, but not the part about "not doing much".

QuoteAnd have any ever tried to set up businesses? Howd that go?

Quite a few PCs, including my own as a player. It went well, generally, when the GM was up for it (and didn't, if that wasn't the case).

Well, last time we tried it in an OD&D game, we actually met and fought the Thieves' Guild that was ruling the city, and we had to go running...but that business was a side venture for us, so I don't think it counts:D!
Besides, we ran after we lost our hirelings, and decimated the forces of the Guild. I'm still sorry about the hydra skeleton and the owlbear skull we had cleaned, though. Yes, the plan was to call our in "Owlbear's Head", and to keep it over the door, why are you asking;)?

QuoteI have had players want to become merchants before. In fact one of the players I showed 5e D&D to the first thing he asked was "Can you run a business?" I also as a player in Mechwarrior did a fair amount of trade circuit across systems. Was pretty profitable. In Star Frontiers the players all wanted to make enough money to buy and outfit their own cargo ship and set up a trade route.

Sounds pretty normal to me, indeed;).

I once had an Elven Fighter/Magic-User who wanted to be a dentist.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;927754I once had an Elven Fighter/Magic-User who wanted to be a dentist.

JG

I had a Toreador vampire who was a dentist, specialising in artistic decorations of teeth with artificial diamonds;).

I was guilty of this in a Mage: The Ascension game set in 1680s America. My character was a Restoration actor-Ecstatic who really just wanted to run his own patent company and not get involved in any of the occult shenanigans. He in fact ended up compelled on the voyage from London through a powerful geas that he resisted with all of his willpower--not a great precedent for campaign longevity on his part. I ended up retiring him a few sessions in and switched to a Verbena botanist.

No. If someone wanted me to referee his "adventures" as a peasant or farmer, I'd politely decline, telling them I have no interest in it and wouldn't do it well. Sorry!

I play Ars Magica. A settled lifestyle is part of the assumption.

Quote from: Omega;927746...Has anyone had players do this out of the blue?

Yes. ITL suggests as an example of a character goal be to earn enough adventuring to buy his own farm. More often they've been farmers wanting to escape the farming lifestyle, but working up to it. Usually it means the player wants a break from playing, or from playing that character, or they want (or feel their character wants) the PC to do spend some time doing some non-adventuring stuff, such as research or a romance or helping their PC's family or something.

Or...

QuoteOr run a group where the focus was not adventuring and was more geared to a settled life of a farmer, merchant, etc? And gow did it pan out? Or not?

It worked best when there was only one PC. Then there was no big split group or time-continuity issue, so the PC could spend months doing a job or studying new skills or whatever.

Once a player decided that their PC wanted to become a law enforcement officer so they could get in a position to take bribes (TFT ITL has rules/guidelines for bribery situations), which look months of game time to achieve. We played it out and his PC outgrew his bribery fascination and moved on to other (mis)adventures.

Once a PC who had recently acquired a magic flying carpet decided he wanted to try running a business with it, offering flying tours of the city he was in. Then he wanted to branch out into taking wealthy customers and then flying them someplace secluded and looting them. I was a young GM for that one and struggled with it in a couple of ways, but it helped me learn to be more flexible in indulging players' interests and responding to them in logical rather than controlling ways. However at the time I wasn't so good at that, and the player picked up that his GM was bothered by it, and so decided to do other things.

QuoteWas everyone game for it or did a schism form between the farmer player and the rest of the players?

Well, it's often worked out that the players in a group have agreed to all take some down-time, although it's rarely/never "hey guys I'd really like to plant some good carrots - wanna have a carrot-growing contest for a few months? Other Players: Ya!!" Usually it results in each player coming up with things they want to do (even places they want to go and solo mini-adventures they want to have) in the time before they re-group. It's also a handy time for people to switch which characters they want to be active in group play, retire/replace a PC, etc.

QuoteOr did you end up with something like some of the PCs are town guard and such and the campaign revolved around threats to the little town with the non-com PCs likely not doing much?

I've seen both of these. I've switched play mode to meta-games about certain jobs, especially military/police/investigator ones where the group is part of the same unit. I've also had some players do that while "non-coms" research or do split-party downtime stuff. What has often helped is to let the players whose characters won't be involved with the players doing such things, to play probably-temporary characters who _are_ with the active players, either co-workers or bosses or adversaries or relevant NPCs or just interesting bystand something.

QuoteAnd have any ever tried to set up businesses? Howd that go?

Ya, usually traders. Worked ok but can be strained between different rolls in a group, and making it interesting without being artificial, and can involve a lot of figuring out economic stuff... I haven't had many players who wanted to play incidental characters in a game revolving around another player's PC's business, unless it was something cool like a ship and they got to do fun adventures as well. More often, the game is mostly about the adventures and the merchanting is part of the context & background. Also some PCs have set up business sidelines, using artifacts or magic or inventions or loot to have a sideline that operates mostly in the background. A couple have wanted to own taverns, which led to a split party issue since the other players didn't want to spend their lives stuck near the bar, and the owner didn't want to go far from it.

And of course in Traveller, the little I played, the players wanted to get a ship and then how to figure out how to keep it running.

But it's interesting to me in general the ways this ends up being such a big conflict for some players. Mainly it seems to be about the conflict between adventuring in a group of PCs and staying put and spending in-world time doing non-adventure stuff, and about the group agreement about what the game should be about and what it spend its time on.

For example, if we can agree (or the GM rule) that the game is about adventuring, and one PC wants to farm, my natural reaction tends to be that that will tend to lead to that PC becoming not part of the group once the group moves on, and that that's fine - it's just a way to deactivate that PC, and/or make them a "peripheral PC". The player can continue to give some input and get some GM feedback about how the farming is going, or not, and they can play other characters, or not. If the player wants an equal share of time while that adventurers go off somewhere else, then I am clear the answer is no - if they want to roleplay farming, or do anything else with their PC going another place than the party, we can do a solo session when the other players aren't there. Or if that's not a game I want to run, that PC just becomes an NPC. If that makes some player sad, unless they can provide a workable alternative, that's their problem.

I actually welcome, prefer and enjoy it when players' roleplaying leads them to have their PCs do unconventional things that take them out of normal expected conventional "we are a band of adventurers who always do things together" play, even if it gets the PCs retired or killed or at each others' throats.

In the case of the player who didn't want the group to leave so he wanted to blow up their ship's hyperdrive, I'd talk to the player to determine where they were coming from and if it made any sense in-character/world. If they are just being a crazy meta player and their idea makes no sense in-game/character, then they get told they're failing to roleplay reasonably, and I probably NPC-ize their character according to their last in-character nature (Boobo goes off and farms while you guys warp away to Rigel III). But it could be fun/interesting if their character does have some in-character reason to do that, to have a PC become and adversary. I've seen many adversary player situations be quite fun and interesting, whether it was a PC turning against the party, or certain party members, or just a player role-playing adversaries.

Quote from: Omega;927746From another threads sidetrack...

The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

Has anyone had players do this out of the blue? Or run a group where the focus was not adventuring and was more geared to a settled life of a farmer, merchant, etc? And gow did it pan out? Or not? Was everyone game for it or did a schism form between the farmer player and the rest of the players? Or did you end up with something like some of the PCs are town guard and such and the campaign revolved around threats to the little town with the non-com PCs likely not doing much?

And have any ever tried to set up businesses? Howd that go?

I have had players want to become merchants before. In fact one of the players I showed 5e D&D to the first thing he asked was "Can you run a business?" I also as a player in Mechwarrior did a fair amount of trade circuit across systems. Was pretty profitable. In Star Frontiers the players all wanted to make enough money to buy and outfit their own cargo ship and set up a trade route.

a few times, though normally after some adventuring.  And a few politicians, as well.

I have one in Igbar that is on the lower House of the Unicorn (the local government), who owns a restaurant and speculates in the merchant guilds on various caravans.  He lost a ton once, swore he'd never take the chance again, and then starting backing new caravan and ship ventures within a month.  

Drono Biddlbee is another favorite, he decided to take a farming Commune as his primary guild.  Some adventuring, some work at the commune, later he also started working with Church of the Autumn Harvest, and he's an old PC, started in 1994.  The last time he was played, it was 3 sessions, and he was moving into the management side of the commune.

Quote from: Chainsaw;927762No. If someone wanted me to referee his "adventures" as a peasant or farmer, I'd politely decline, telling them I have no interest in it and wouldn't do it well. Sorry!

That's perfectly reasonably, BTW. It should be fun for players and the GM alike, or it ain't going to work, we all know that:).

Just out of curiosity, would you react the same way to mob members trying to take over their city's underground, someone trying to become the next Great Vizier, or merchants explorers seeking new markets in unexplored territories;)?

Quote from: Omega;927746From another threads sidetrack...

The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

Has anyone had players do this out of the blue? Or run a group where the focus was not adventuring and was more geared to a settled life of a farmer, merchant, etc? And gow did it pan out? Or not? Was everyone game for it or did a schism form between the farmer player and the rest of the players? Or did you end up with something like some of the PCs are town guard and such and the campaign revolved around threats to the little town with the non-com PCs likely not doing much?

And have any ever tried to set up businesses? Howd that go?

I have had players want to become merchants before. In fact one of the players I showed 5e D&D to the first thing he asked was "Can you run a business?" I also as a player in Mechwarrior did a fair amount of trade circuit across systems. Was pretty profitable. In Star Frontiers the players all wanted to make enough money to buy and outfit their own cargo ship and set up a trade route.

Did that come up as a different theme for a campaign, or as a way to stop playing a weak character from some random generation method? I've not seen the former but have seen the latter; back when I first played D&D, one guy insisted you had to play every character you rolled, in the order you rolled them, but he cleared through the chaff in the spiral notebooks full of characters he rolled by having a crowd of twenty go into a dungeon, meet one monster and retire if they survived.

A schism between the farmers and the adventurers just seems like a dysfunctional group.

Since I always say "This is a game about adventuring so make characters who want to adventure," no.

I've had them retire to farming on occasion.  After all, people attack castles and towers.  Farming rules for The Arcane Confabulation are actually on my to do list.

But with my current players they mostly want to be petty bandits and rebels who attack those who are weaker than them rather than daring the dungeons and perilous quests.  Captain Cully from The Last Unicorn would fit in (you know, for a classic of romantic fantasy it's a remarkably cynical book), he could write their ballads too.

No. I've GM'd for player characters whose background was as farmers, or beggars, or whatever. But they've left that life behind to become adventurers, not returned to them.