I've done this accidentally as a player.  For a couple of years I had a regular GM who was notorious for keeping the scope of the game razor tight.  We did a doomstones campaign (Warhammer Fantasy), where between two of the modules the party was stuck tromping the woods like we were playing "Survivor:Empire" or some crazy shit for two months of weekly games, unable to even find a village to procure provisions, much less the fancy equipment you needed to buy to change careers (a necessity in that system).

By the time he let us at least put the adventure back on track, by allowing us to find the monastery (or whatever) that was the starting point of the next part of the adventure we were done!


The next campaign proved more promising, in that we very early wound up based out of a local village of some decent size, with paid excursions etc. Still couldn't get some gear for levelling (There was the player trying to become a Judicial Champion,which meant having EVERY WEAPON... no dice...).

My character, a humble rake (damned random class rolls...) eventually bought the local tavern, some chicken coops and part of the local brewery, and was making far more money... and having far more fun... running the local night life/eatery than I was on the adventures.  


Good guy, lots of good points on GMing abilities, but for that one rather odd flaw.  Hell, I think it irritated him to no end that I was able to expand my character's scope in the game despite his attempts to keep us "Down".  Fight the power, yo.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;928002I don't understand the "I refuse to engage" types, though, and I know we've both seen them discussed many times.  Now, I ** ALWAYS ** have the "expectations" discussion before the campaign starts, so this has just never happened to me.  But if it did, and the person was genuinely refusing to play, I'd stop the game and say "Why are you here at the table?  What do you want?  What do you expect?"

Having been an offender of the "refusing to engage" variety myself, the main issue would come down the character having too narrow a focus. You end up in a situation where none of the hooks on offer or the things the other characters what do have any relevance to your characters' skills of motivations. So for instance, if I created a witch hunter character I'd be the first in line to go after any lead where witchery was involved. Rumours about a troll? We'll that'd be something for troll hunters, surely?

So shame on me for being so literal-minded but all can be avoided by the GM being explicit about his game expectations (which is what you are saying).

Note, these days I know better. My witch hunter will go on the troll hunt if that is what everyone else wants to do.
But that will mostly likely be out of respect for the GM other players rather than genuine in-character reasons I believe and it probably won't make for a satisfying game for me.

One thing to remember about character motivation is that...
1. Allies
2. Money
3. Magic
4. Contacts
...help anyone in their ability to do anything.  Those are things that adventurers can get in spades while they're doing their thing.  

"How is this adventure going to help me hunt witches, retake the throne, eliminate the threat to MyTown/MyPeople".  Well, it isn't directly, except for making you richer, more powerful, uncovering resources you don't even know exist yet, possibly gaining the gratitude of those with juice in the setting, not to mention befriending expendable assets whose job description is "getting shit done".

Sometimes I think players get so caught up in the immediate, obvious goals of their characters, they forget that their characters have other dimensions and can play the long game, and like most people who do, tend to be better off for it.  There also might be a little bit of worrying about roleplaying true to the character, meaning the player might be more sensitive to joining the party or following a particular course of action than the character would really be.

Sure, Green one, but can you tell me what would be the Long Game for a character like Black Vulmea's?

Also, you can get allies, money, magic and contacts without going to specific adventures in far away places. As a bonus, you're more likely to gain allies that are already entrenched in the local power structures.

Quote from: AsenRG;928021Sure, Green one, but can you tell me what would be the Long Game for a character like Black Vulmea's?

Also, you can get allies, money, magic and contacts without going to specific adventures in far away places. As a bonus, you're more likely to gain allies that are already entrenched in the local power structures.

Yeah but you're not likely to uncover a +5 Vorpal or the missing Scrolls of Skelos, somewhere near your farm, or gain the favor of the Invincible Overlord.  Of course, if you want to be a greengrocer in Lankhmar, your life might be more dangerous and rewarding than some mercenaries.

Black Vulmea's playing a completely different type of game.  In some westerns like Aces & Eights, the conceit of the game is players doing their own things, making their own way in the area around a town setting.  BV going on a cattle drive isn't an anomaly, it's Working as Intended, same as the player who wants to run a saloon, the player who wants to find a gold strike, and the player who wants to be a lawman.  If BV gets sidetracked to help a US Marshall track down some fugitives crossing his land, well, I'm sure BV could find some reason why a US Marshall owing you one is a good thing.

I've seen a lot of people metagame the decision - "Why would my character do this?", when RPing the character asking themselves "What's the upside?", you usually can find a good reason.

Quote from: CRKrueger;928024Yeah but you're not likely to uncover a +5 Vorpal or the missing Scrolls of Skelos, somewhere near your farm, or gain the favor of the Invincible Overlord.  Of course, if you want to be a greengrocer in Lankhmar, your life might be more dangerous and rewarding than some mercenaries.

The Lankhmar example is the point of it all:).

QuoteBlack Vulmea's playing a completely different type of game.  In some westerns like Aces & Eights, the conceit of the game is players doing their own things, making their own way in the area around a town setting.

Never played a western for long, but the same works just as well in fantasy, cyberpunk and a few other genres, I've found;).

QuoteI've seen a lot of people metagame the decision - "Why would my character do this?", when RPing the character asking themselves "What's the upside?", you usually can find a good reason.

Agreed on the IC/OOC thing, but to me, the question is always whether I should do that.

On thought, this is really another aspect of the Unique Special Snowflake syndrome. That guy who wants to be a farmer? If the rest of the party wanted to farm, too - he'd want to adventure.

Yes dear, you're special, just like mother told you. Now shut the fuck up and roll the dice.

Quote from: David Johansen;927963Really, what DM doesn't have something they could do to a PC who's dumb enough to start digging holes?

There's all sorts of things I could do with such a character.  The question is how much game time I want to spend dealing with this jackass and his hole digging jackassery while everyone else twiddles their thumbs.  The answer is none.  

Quote from: David Johansen;927971To my mind escaping the chains of story structure and expectation are the main advantages of rpgs over fiction.  Why anyone would want to tie themselves to those rail road tracks rather than exploring the alternatives is lost on me.

RPGs are also a group activity.  Hole digging guy isn't exploring the alternatives.  He's just being a smug pain in the ass and wasting everyone else's time.

Quote from: yosemitemike;928032RPGs are also a group activity.  Hole digging guy isn't exploring the alternatives.  He's just being a smug pain in the ass and wasting everyone else's time.

I am all for players being content with roleplaying a slice of life of the mundane aspects of my settings. However one of the few metagame rules I have is that whatever character you have in mind it has to work in some manner with group of folks and their characters that playing the campaign. Given the constraints on time it is the way things has to work.

Recently I had a campaign conclude with the characters building an inn, one guy still wanted to adventure. However he was part of a group of six characters five of which who were quite content with what they achieved and felt the campaign came to a good natural stopping point. Hence the campaign ended and we moved on to the next one.

Back in the 90s I had a campaign end by mutual consent after only one adventure. One character was a blacksmith, the other was an agent of the Overlord's secret police the Black Lotus. They were sent to investigate a rebellious baron and discovered he was using Dragon Powder (i.e. gunpowder) and building the first cannons for siege weapons. The investigation and resolution took several in-game month. They obtained the formula, learned the various things they were doing to manufacture the weapons, and brought the baron to justice.

After they negotiated their rewards, they realize that absolutely had no reason to "adventure" anymore. They were quite happy with the outcome despite the fact that the campaign only ran for a handful of session. So we ended it there. For those who want to know, the Black Lotus character was promoted to be a supervisor of field agents, the Blacksmith was made a grandmaster and was put in charge of the shop where the Overlord will be making cannons and Dragon Powder.

Incidental to all this the campaign was also a satisfying mystery as I did extensive research in the early days of gunpowder. The details of which not as commonly well known as you think. So the players were genuinely mystified until they put together enough clues to to the aha! moment. For example early cannon were cast out of bronze because of their strength compared to cast iron and the people doing them were recruited from bellmakers who dealt with casting large object out of metal.

Right. But some of that is more endgame retirement rather than startup refusal.

Soylent offers an example where through poor communication, he ended up with a character whom he reasonable could say wouldn't bite on any of the plot hooks the GM was putting in the water.

Other than that, this all seems like a white room hypothetical. The infinitely digging guy seems like a pure example, but also highlights the fact that this would never happen. If someone did that in any game I've ever played, it wouldn't go like Skarg scripted it. It would end very quickly and awkwardly with someone asking the player playing Vorf, "um. What are you doing?" If they said, "Vord wants to dig," or anything else that doesn't really answer what they are doing, someone would undoubtedly say, "No. Seriously, what. are. you. doing?" and then it would end pretty much there. We'd move on, the DM would tell him to roll up a character who is interested in adventuring and stop screwing around.


As to all the things I thought this thread was going to be about:
1) If a player were to decide that their character would realistically decide to retire from adventuring, and maybe that retirement included a ranch or palatial estate, I could totally see that. Same situation as when a player retires a character because they go off to rule a kingdom when the rest of the party wants to keep exploring dungeons.
2) Yes, I can see role-playing a non-adventurer, so long as everyone agrees that's what we're playing. I've played traveller, so of course I've played a character who was ostensibly a merchant and not an adventurer. The two seem to go hand-in-hand in that game, though. There's also Cyberpunk, where you can be a rock-'n'-roller. I don't remember ever playing one, but it makes sense in any game that doesn't focus on the Solos/fighting. Same with TSR A/D&D when you hit name level and get a keep and followers.
3) I've certainly had players who have insisted on giving their characters non-adventure-valuable professional skills, perhaps even farmer.
4) I remember when we got the Sages and Specialist book for 2e AD&D, just about all of us spent a good week rolling up sages and weaponsmiths and so forth. Likewise when we started playing Hero System and our characters had minions, we wrote up all of them and made sure they were point-compliant... and then we realized that it was never going the get used in-game and stopped such silliness.
5) I've certainly had situations where the adventuring party took a detour to become merchants. Often at low level, or sometime when they've found some form of perpetual revenue contrivance in the middle of the game.

Quote from: Omega;927746
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.

My first thought was from family history. My mom's side of the family came to America from Poland because their farm was smack in the middle of Germany's invasion route into Poland.

Having your farm invaded and burned every few years gets old fast.

Quote from: AsenRG;928021Sure, Green one, but can you tell me what would be the Long Game for a character like Black Vulmea's?

If by 'Long Game' you mean reciprocal favors between player characters as part of shared effort in achieving individual character goals, then the answer is, there isn't one, implicitly or explicitly.

As described in the Boot Hill campaign setup, it's neither an expectation nor necessarily a goal that we should be working together, and the way things are shaping up, my character is quite likely to find himself in a bloody disagreement with the other characters in the none-too-distant future. The only good news for me is I don't expect the two of them to gang up on Eladio, since they're acting orthogonal to one another: one focused on the ranchers and the coming range war, the other on the town and the coming election.

Another mix of characters could result in a very different situationt. One of the four dead player characters in the campaign was a mixed-race civilian Army scout, and our two characters cooperated very well - they planned for the scout to lead out my character's cattle drive. It's a shame a rifle ball splattered his brains all over an arroyo while searching for the Lost Conquistador Mine.

[Charles Xavier and Erik Lendsherr walk into a bar where Logan is having a drink.]
CHARLES: Excuse me, we'd like to talk to you about-
LOGAN: Fuck off.

Quote from: James Gillen;928145[Charles Xavier and Erik Lendsherr walk into a bar where Logan is having a drink.]
CHARLES: Excuse me, we'd like to talk to you about-
LOGAN: Fuck off.

That was classic.