TheRPGSite

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":D.

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.

Our AD&D campaign totally had this. In spades. We had one player who liked trade and commerce and well we pretty much all liked trade and commerce so a lot of our games ended up being trade related. The way we dealt with this was easy. The farmer, or trader or whomever wasn't the player's only character. They had adventuring characters as well. If they are resistant to the idea, then maybe suggest that the adventuring character be somehow connected to the farm or business. Also, consider that farmers can also have adventures. Roving bands of goblins, orcs, or bandits could be troublesome. Wolves might hound their livestock, or even werewolves. Gaming with that character could be some sort of castle defense. Really though I think the best way to go is to have the player have more than one character, and then give their farmer/trader attention when needed.

Haven't has a player who wanted to play a mundane farmer before. I suppose I would just let them farm to their hearts content. Of course there are still worldwide events that will affect them from time-to-time. I'd also roll for regular encounters. The encounter mix would be different, much less highly hazardous wilderness and monster encounters, and alot more farmer and townsfolk and what not encounters, but that would change from time-to-time as well.

Getting a crop in in the face of any natural disaster, or during a war would be an interesting proposition. There's always bandits and thieves, and traveling storytellers and bards.

Almost every ancient or medieval generation has to deal with at least one ...or more, clan feuds, or wars. Actually there's been a war the U.S. has been involved in just about every twenty years or so, since this country has been founded. There was only one generation that skipped this, and that was around 1880 or so, just after the civil war, with that single exception, there has been a major war about every 20 years

1775-83 AWI
War of 1812
Indian Wars 1796-1840
Mexican-American War 1847
Civil War 1861
1866-1876 Western Indian Wars
Spanish American War 1899
First Work War 1916
Second World War 1939
Korean War 1951
Vietnam 1961-1974
First Gulf War 1991
War in Afghanistan 2001-
War in Iraq 2003-
Libyan Revolution 2011-2013
Syrian Civil War 2011-
War on Terror 1991-  

Lastest U.S. casualty is SFC Zachary Allan Bannister, 33, who was killed in action while serving in Alpha 3236, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Kenya, Africa on October 17, 2016.
Reference: https://www.facebook.com/sofrep/posts/1123182741081605

The U.S. has escalated operations in the continent of Africa, the last few years to help combat radical Al-Qaeda splinter groups such as Al-Shabaab. While DoD claims training exercise, I suspect he may have been caught in an ambush by Al-Shabaab who themselves have been escalated operations the last couple of years in Africa. They have been targeting and frequently attacking regular Kenya army units, I know of at least three such attacks this year alone... anyway a moment of respect for our latest fallen soldier is on order.

Anyways, I would let them play and do breakout sessions for the homebodies. When running a large groups, breakout sessions are mandatory as the group usually splits into one or more subgroups that each develops their own goals and (aometimes conflicting) agendas.

Incidentally in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the peasant farmer is pretty much the only PC who starts with any food.  I've always thought that was an interesting contrast to the standard week of standard rations plus week of iron rations in the backpack.  The small budget and lack of food puts some pressure on the PCs to get out there and do some dirty work.

Quote from: rawma;927782Did 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.

1: There are no weak characters in D&D. There may be weak (minded) players though. YMMV in other games. From what I've seen so far its either allways been a players interest. They happen to like that aspect (same as how some like the kingdom builder endgame of D&D). Or it occurred on a whim (Probably from a too good description of the rural start town). I have though never seen a player do it to be disruptive or baulky.

2: Well there wouldnt be a schism otherwise would there?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;927784Since I always say "This is a game about adventuring so make characters who want to adventure," no.

Usually the same. Someone saying "No. I dont want to go beat up goblins. I want to plant potatoes and go to the harvest festival." When the whole pitch was "Adventurers going adventuring" would likely get a firm. "No." back.

If Im running something more open ended then maybee "yes" maybee "no". Maybee I'll just hand them Agricola. :D

Quote from: Omega;927746The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

I would interpret that as a statement by the player that they don't want to play.  That's fine.  They don't have to play.  No one is forcing them.  This game is about adventurers who go adventuring.  If you don't want to play that game, don't.

"A game about adventurers who go adventuring" certainly is one way to look at it:). It's certainly how the hobby began.

The other way is "it's a game about people living in a given setting and potentially, getting caught in, instigating or resolving trouble", however:p. It certainly existed almost since the same time.

Let me make it clear that neither of these is superior, at least not as far as I'm concerned, though my default is the latter. It's just that the latter certainly is more permitting regarding what activities the PCs might undertake, which I find fun;).
The former needs the PCs to go adventuring, or it couldn't keep it "about PCs who go adventuring", could it?

In the end, we're back to needing to know what kind of game you're playing, so you wouldn't accidentally disrupt it. Say, it might happen by trying to shift a game away from adventuring when the PC has the means to retire and become a respected person. I've done that mistake myself, but it's sill a mistake if you agreed to play a game about adventurers who go to adventures:D!

Great! Your PC becomes a farmer, so now he's an NPC.

Here's 3D6, roll up a new character or GTFO.

I run games for groups looking to have fun, not Bitchnugget the Special Snowflake.

I would rather not deal with a player who decides his character is going to go off and do something that the rest of the players aren't doing.  Maybe jumping back and forth between that player farming and the rest of the players doing something else like exploring the wild or fighting the bad guys sounds fun to you but it sounds like a tedious pain in the ass to me.  Either that person wants to do what the rest of us are doing or they don't.  If they don't, they can leave.

edit - I am very clear about what sort of game I will be running before characters are even made.

"Farming? You don't know how. You could buy some land and have some peasants work it for you, but all land is owned by some lord, so you'd have to swear fealty to him. And would he find the best use for an Xth level fighter to be supervising peasants? Or might he send you on... adventures? Anyway, for the meantime you'll need to get loot and level up and try to get to know some lord who you can swear fealty to. In other words, adventure."

There is a campaign in the Dorastor supplement for RuneQuest/Glorantha that specifically describes a farming setting, with rules for working out production and so on, sure it's on the borders of a monster-infected hellhole, but the premise is that the PCs are farmer/settlers. In fact, there was a movement called the Seattle farm Collective, I think, that promoted the simple farmboy/girl as a good base for campaigns.

It works best with non-Class based systems, though, as I cannot see anyone writing up "Farmer" as a class in D&D.

Quote from: soltakss;927857There is a campaign in the Dorastor supplement for RuneQuest/Glorantha that specifically describes a farming setting, with rules for working out production and so on, sure it's on the borders of a monster-infected hellhole, but the premise is that the PCs are farmer/settlers. In fact, there was a movement called the Seattle farm Collective, I think, that promoted the simple farmboy/girl as a good base for campaigns.

It works best with non-Class based systems, though, as I cannot see anyone writing up "Farmer" as a class in D&D.

Commoner NPC class.

Thanks to Omega for creating the thread but I think people are taking the title a bit too literally. AsenRG and a few others get it, though. It's also interesting to see how the fantasy default goes hand in glove as an assumption with "wandering band of adventurers".

I don't think I've personally seen this exact problem but there's often been uneasiness over why the PCs are together, especially once the character concepts moved outside the idea of pure explorers/treasure hunters.

An alternate hypothetical would be the PC who has a settled life and social standing, like an aristocrat, an official, or a scholar. Even if they go on one adventure, keeping them on the road indefinitely may be problematic.

But it's fine if they want to farm.  Give them prices for different qualities of land, draft animals, buildings, fences, livestock, and seed.  Let them marry a buxom peasant girl and have half a dozen cute little kids.  But then the crop fails and there's a drought in the land and the goblin raiders are picking off the sheep and the neighbours are telling the local lord that you stole their cattle and the local priest swears it's all your daughter with the endearing weird traits who's clearly a witch and a bullette knocks over the barn.  And the kids are gonna starve and the wife needs expensive medicine.  And there's a reward or a treasure or a beanstalk that grows to the clouds when your kid sells your dry old cow for a handful of beans and you throw them on the hard dry ground in disgust.  And then a band of adventurers arrive and instead of saving the day they set up a protection racket and start eyeing your daughters.

Adventure can come to you after all.  Did you think the player characters were the only murder hobos in the world?

Quote from: Arminius;927880Thanks to Omega for creating the thread but I think people are taking the title a bit too literally. AsenRG and a few others get it, though. It's also interesting to see how the fantasy default goes hand in glove as an assumption with "wandering band of adventurers".

I don't think I've personally seen this exact problem but there's often been uneasiness over why the PCs are together, especially once the character concepts moved outside the idea of pure explorers/treasure hunters.

An alternate hypothetical would be the PC who has a settled life and social standing, like an aristocrat, an official, or a scholar. Even if they go on one adventure, keeping them on the road indefinitely may be problematic.

What do you think the actual question is? Is it a different question which could be a different thread, like, "Why do your players' PCs stay in the same place and cooperate and spend their lives on adventures?" or "What do you do when some/all of a PC group want to do other things besides adventure together?"

There's a guy who's posted on the TFT email list several times about the impossible GM challenge he feels will destroy any GM, which is what if he just keeps saying his PC starts digging a hole and keeps digging and asking what he finds. I mention this because to me this seems both not a problem, and also a more obvious version of the problem some people struggle with in trying to force their group behavior expectations on roleplayers and/or players who aren't as interested in staying together and doing what the GM expected/wants/prepped.

But of course, part of my "solution" is to not care that much if the group splits or I need to tell players their character isn't part of the group any more because they chose to go somewhere else, or if the other PCs ditch or kill their PC for valid reasons, or if they all decide to go explore down a path where there isn't any treasure or anything that looks like an adventure like they think should appear for them because they are the PCs, or if they decide to push their survivability thinking I'm going to deus ex save them from suicidally stupid choices.

Player: I start digging down. What do I find?
GM: You know even in TFT we have rules for that? Where are you digging? What are you using to dig? How long are you planning to dig? What's your work schedule.
Player: 5 meters back towards the house from the mailbox. I keep digging. Let me know what I find. I'll let you know when or if I stop. Could be years.
Player: Ok. You start digging down. So far, just dirt and worms and rocks. Other players, you find Vord The Delver in the yard of his aunt's house, digging a hole.
(Other players think he's been possessed, bring a mystic who confirms he's just a crazy jerk. Players decide to go adventuring in the mountains, leaving Vord behind.)
GM: So, Vord is apparently just going to keep digging. Do you have any interest in playing as a different character?
Player: No, I keep digging. What do I find?
GM: Well so far you've found more dirt and hit clay two feet down. It's going a lot slower now. Just clay for an hour. Out-of-character, if Vord is really just as crazy as you say, he's probably just going to hit clay for a long time, and need to widen his pit and/or get a ladder, and after a while the villagers might intervene. But basically you've created a crazy character who has little to do with the rest of the party. If you really want to game it out, we could do that later, but probably Vord is just a crazy NPC. Are you interested in playing the adventuring game the rest of us are doing, with a different character, or not?
(If yes, player starts a new character. If no, he's not a player in that group any more.)

In the Earthdawn Cathay Quest the party had a blacksmith shop in Tiet Dei's capital, an inn near the frontier, and a mine in Taolin. A lot of their adventures were trade based, essentially moving along the road between their three businesses, collecting money, collecting ore, and creating weapons and armor. The group had a Merchant and a Weaponsmith as part of the group.  The best adventure was when a rival merchant tried to capture the group's Weaponsmith and put him into forced labor. His thugs failed and they busted up his slavery ring of miners and smiths. Then they tried to capture Bing Qing for the king for execution for his crimes including allying with a traitorous noble trying to overthrow his kingdom. They found him at their inn trying to burn it to the ground next and captured him with his remaining men trying to free him as they returned to the king. He was executed and eventually returned to try and kill the group again as a floating zombie corpse with a ridiculously outstretched neck and head that he had to hold in his hands to see proper.  This is only as fun as you make it though, and as game master I admit that I tired of the concept after a while and wanted to move to other subplots like the war of the 5 armies and The Shadowed fighting for control of Cathay.

One thing I like about Savage Worlds is the Rich edge for income purposes. So set up all the trade and shops you want, then have subordinates do the work and you need to go to the locations of your businesses to collect your income every month. Works well and they can keep trying to adventure and expand their businesses rather than maintain a long trade route themselves like they tried in Cathay Quest. Salomo Rune did this in our first 50 Fathoms run setting up new deals as we went to new ports and it was an excellent way to run things.

My character is a farmer, or wants to be.

Specifically he wants a cattle ranch. To get it he took a job as a hand on a large ranch, which involved joining a posse to catch an outlaw who was hiding out on the range - and then being ambushed by the outlaw's gang later on - fighting Apaches, chasing down rustlers, and hunting a mountain lion. He raised capital by gambling in a local saloon on his day off each week, which got him into fistfights and gunfights and put on trial and run out of town by vigilantes. Most recently he's been hunting wolves to protect herds during a hard winter - and battling bandits and hired killers as well - and as a result of card game won the deed to a general store and then bought a saloon in town.

Now he's preparing to buy cattle for a 450-mile drive to Kansas, which also involves rounding up mavericks without being accused of rustling, catching mustangs and breaking them for the remuda, and supervising a staff of six cowhands and a cook. There will be rustlers and bandits and Indians and prairies fires and thunderstorms and tornadoes and stampedes and a constant search for water and Gawd knows what else along the way.

Once he gets back from the drive, he's got a nice piece of land in mind for his ranch, provided he can handle renegade Apaches, outlaws, regulators and rival ranchers who don't want anyone on 'their' range.

And he's getting involved with local politics in Promise City, what with the municipal election coming up in the fall, quietly siding with the small ranchers who the wealthy cattlemen call 'rustlers' and drive off 'their' range with hired guns.

Yup, that's me, refusing the call of adventure to roleplay a farmer.

Quote from: Omega;927838There are no weak characters in D&D. There may be weak (minded) players though.

:rolleyes: Save it for the next 3d6 in order thread; there should be another within a month.

Black Vulmea, how did the other PCs fit into this?

Skarg: I do think that players who abuse their "PCness" should be dealt with as you suggest. Of course this means the group as a whole has veto power on your character concept. Even in the wandering adventurer paradigm, the core of the party isn't likely to admit someone to the group who's going to steal from them or murder them in their sleep. It shouldn't just be "why am I adventuring" but also "why would these people let me hang out with them?"

I blame Thieves, Assassins, and Paladins for this, and to a lesser extent Rangers and Clerics.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;927855"Farming? You don't know how. You could buy some land and have some peasants work it for you, but all land is owned by some lord, so you'd have to swear fealty to him. And would he find the best use for an Xth level fighter to be supervising peasants? Or might he send you on... adventures? Anyway, for the meantime you'll need to get loot and level up and try to get to know some lord who you can swear fealty to. In other words, adventure."

This is why the Monk class involves learning Distance Death and Quivering Palm and not Right Livelihood or the realization of Non-self.

JG

Quote from: Arminius;927906Skarg: I do think that players who abuse their "PCness" should be dealt with as you suggest. Of course this means the group as a whole has veto power on your character concept. Even in the wandering adventurer paradigm, the core of the party isn't likely to admit someone to the group who's going to steal from them or murder them in their sleep. It shouldn't just be "why am I adventuring" but also "why would these people let me hang out with them?"

I blame Thieves, Assassins, and Paladins for this, and to a lesser extent Rangers and Clerics.

Yep. Though I am more often interested in the disagreements than wishing the players were all on exactly the same page. When good roleplaying is involved, the disagreements between players have been some of the more interesting and memorable and fun and tense and unpredictable elements of play. I'd usually rather a party splits (or characters die or patrons be alienated or whatever) for real reasons that make sense, than have players censoring their roleplaying for meta reasons. Having an unwritten rule that PCs all have to get along and cooperate and stay together and "follow the plot" or whatever seem like bad problems, while split parties and deaths for interesting/logical reasons seem more like inconvenient but interesting features.

When I sometimes see people post questions about "how do I handle a new group who has chosen Evil and Good characters who should logically want to kill each other?", my usual first thought is, "well, I'd have them meet and see who defeats the other - the survivors keep their PCs and the others need to roll up new PCs who will get along with the survivors", and that sounds much more interesting to me, actually, than just all agreeing to be the same alignment and magically meeting and forming a party.

Sometimes I think you'll get a player wanting to be a farmer more often when the RPG is touted as allowing you to be anything. And some want to test that. The problem comes when its just one player out of the blue or when they agreed to A but then baulk and want to play peasant. No problem if the GM has stated its an option and the rest of the group is on board. Simmilar to when you get one player who wants to do courtly intrigue and everyone else wants to go dungeon delving.

Dragon Storm actually developed a character flaw card based on this actually happening at a session Susan was GMing. I was there and yeah it did happen. A player wanted to play a non-shifter. Which aside from the orcs and vorn, there weren't any such as PCs. So there was developed the "Denial" card which essentially means the PC cant change at all aside from possibly a necro using a force shift spell.

And bemusingly enough the PCs usually start as peasants who DONT want to be adventurers. They were perfectly fine being farmers and such. Then they find out the truth the hard way and well its adventure... or die. *cue The Fugitive music* :cool:

Other games really put the screws on the GM to come up with adventures for parties consisting of, A rock musician, a programmer, a mercenary and a mechanic... While others have that as the central theme. The socialite, the professor, the aviator and the cop are all inexorably entangled in an ever deepening mystery.

Quote from: Omega;927937Other games really put the screws on the GM to come up with adventures for parties consisting of, A rock musician, a programmer, a mercenary and a mechanic... While others have that as the central theme. The socialite, the professor, the aviator and the cop are all inexorably entangled in an ever deepening mystery.

Juuust sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

I've used the "your plane crashes/ship wrecks/train derails in some godforsaken place/through a dimensional rift/Oz/Narnia" more than once.

It doesn't work so well for S&S, life-is-brutal-and-dangerous kind of settings, but as long as there's pressure to stick together to increase the odds of survival it'll get off the ground.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927888Yup, that's me, refusing the call of adventure to roleplay a farmer.

That is exactly why these things can work out well.

I grew up on a farm.  I roleplay to have fun.  No fucking WAY would I play a medieval peasant farmer.

Quote from: Skarg;927886There's a guy who's posted on the TFT email list several times about the impossible GM challenge he feels will destroy any GM, which is what if he just keeps saying his PC starts digging a hole and keeps digging and asking what he finds. I mention this because to me this seems both not a problem, and also a more obvious version of the problem some people struggle with in trying to force their group behavior expectations on roleplayers and/or players who aren't as interested in staying together and doing what the GM expected/wants/prepped.

My first question would be, out of character, "what are you doing?"

Take your statement "players who aren't as interested in staying together."  Okay, if you cut the group in two, each group gets half as much play time as before.  If each PC goes their own way, each person gets much less play time than before and you've drastically increased the referee load.

This is all shit that should be talked about beforehand.  The referee is not an infinite number of televisions that dispense entertainment; the ref has limited time, and quite possibly the other players have limited time as well.

Also, why the fuck would somebody want to "destroy any GM?"  What the actual fuck?

And as for "I'm going to dig a hole and keep digging forever and asking what I find," I would say " you find that the referee thinks you're a fucknugget.  Now either play with the rest of us or get the hell out of here."

I mean, seriously, what the hell?

Quote from: Arminius;927901Black Vulmea, how did the other PCs fit into this?

We're playing the campaign by the early Boot Hill rules in which the player characters are not a 'party of adventurers,' but rather may have conflicting roles - lawman, rancher, outlaw, hired gun, &c. We make use of campaign turns (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2016/02/campaign-turn.html) with written orders for our characters, and the other players play the non-player characters as we resolve our turns. If our orders look like they may lead to conflict between the player characters, the third player or an outside gamer resolves the turn.

Right now I'm the only player with his original character still in the game - one player is on his second character, the other is on his fourth. The original three characters started together in BH1 Mad Mesa - one character was killed and replaced by a new character before we moved on to BH2 Lost Conquistador Mine. My character was run out of Dead Mule by vigilantes and went on to Promise City while the other two continued to search for the lost mine. Both of those characters died when they were ambushed searching for the mine and new characters brought in on the way to Promise City - one of those characters died at the hands of bandits as well, before reaching Promise City, and was replaced, leaving us with our current group.

The current assortment of characters consists of my cowboy/gambler (https://promisecity.blogspot.com/2016/08/let-me-tell-you-about-my-char-seriously.html%5B/url), an ex-Union Army Pinkerton detective/bounty hunter, and a gunfighter masquerading as a snake-oil salesman. Right now my character is in Burned Bush Wells following the the events of BH3, the detective/bounty hunter left Burned Bush Wells and returned to Promise City when he decided hunting wolves was too much work for the money, and the snake-oil salesman/gunman remained in Promise City, ingratiating himself with the Law & Order faction. It's highly likely that our characters will come into conflict before too long - the Pinkerton is offering his services to the ranchers' association as a 'range detective' to run off 'rustlers,' and my character is sure to be on the opposite faction from both of the other characters when we get into BH3 Ballots & Bullets.

We're also moving into troupe play. My character's brother and a family friend are on their way from Nebraska to join him for the cattle drive, the Pinkerton has a partner, and the snake-oil salesman's 'sister' - that's what he calls her, anyway - joined him from California with her coolie servant in tow. Election season in Promise City promises to be bloody.

Though, even using AD&D you could buy a decent herd of sheep or cattle and head into the wilderness with hired farm hands.  What you do is build a fortified farmstead with its own well and XP farm all the stuff that comes after you and your livestock.  So you start raising hedgerows to funnel visitors into kill zones and try to make alliances with local nature powers like satyrs, centaurs, and nymphs.  You could even do it with a character who got seduced by a dryad.  Just set up and let the adventures come to you.  The problem is that most raiders don't carry all their worldly wealth with them so the profit margin will be thin but with the right application of bless flocks and sacrifices to the gods of fertility you might be able to make more money in the meat trade.  And if they don't know that those cans of 'tuna' contain goblin well, you probably didn't play enough nethack.

Quote from: David Johansen;927956What you do is build a fortified farmstead with its own well and XP farm all the stuff that comes after you and your livestock.

You can also use peasants in place of livestock.

Just sayin'.

As for the hole digger I imagine there's a number of answers.  Not the least of which is that they disturb a grave, awaken a ghost and are aged to death before they can climb out again.  Really I'm a bit surprised the party didn't use the hole as a latrine.  There's also the risk of pockets of noxious gasses.  Anyone who's read Little House On The Prairie would very likely think of that.  Anhegs, purple worms, bullettes, and flesh worms all seem like good encounters.  A more gentle hand might have them reach a hole where a king and an old wizard are visiting with a badger and an owl.  They smile and say, "oh, well you came around by the shorter path, sit down and have a cup of tea now, you might as well, you've reached the bottom of that particular hole whether you realize it or not."  If they're still down there after dark they could be eaten by a grue.  It could start to rain and the mud could start sliding in.  They could hit a strange metal pipe that goes on in both directions and explodes in a horrible fireball if they don't get out of the hole.  They could hit bedrock and discover they can go no farther.  They could drop right into a boss fight (ugh hate that term with a passion) all alone and show the party how deadly the enemy really is.   They could fall out the bottom of the hole in China or hell.

Really, what DM doesn't have something they could do to a PC who's dumb enough to start digging holes?  If you've killed them once and they do it again let them find a land mine and lose both arms and one leg, then let them lie in the hole wondering what will become of them until someone comes along, looks in the hole and just shakes their head and starts filling it in.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927958You can also use peasants in place of livestock.

Just sayin'.

Well, if you're careful and successful enough they might manage to get their birth rate above their death rate but since you're using them as a buffer and to swell your numbers when the inevitable monsters come.  Think of it as building a modest domain at lower levels with the intent of eventually becoming a lord.  But the objective is to look vulnerable and then sucker the monsters in.  A dragon caught in a pillory is worth as many XP as a loose one after all.

I prefer games with a clear cut premise. The GM as part of the pitch says "You are member of the Rebel Alliance/Justice League/local Ghostbusters franchise". That tells me what my character does. The "why" or "how" is up to me, but at least I know what kind of character to build and that if the rest of the players follow the same guideline, we'll have a party that is coherent and has a strong to work together.

If the GM says "create whatever you like" then I can easily end up with a "farmer who doesn't want to adventure" sort of character. Not literally a "farmer" but for instance maybe a journalist who goes a long with the party just far enough to get the story has no interest in resolving the issue being investigated.

Quote from: Skarg;927886What do you think the actual question is? Is it a different question which could be a different thread, like, "Why do your players' PCs stay in the same place and cooperate and spend their lives on adventures?" or "What do you do when some/all of a PC group want to do other things besides adventure together?"

BTW just to answer this question: the discussion seems to have started in How to tell the DM that his campaign is boring (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35436-How-to-tell-the-DM-that-his-campaign-is-boring) and then Bonus Currencies and Avoiding the Narrative Stance (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35443-Bonus-Currencies-and-Avoiding-the-Narrative-Stance). I think the idea's been recapped here by now but the original theme was players whose character concept means they don't actively seek adventure. (Somehow this got mixed up in Campbellian Monomyth, which is interesting but not, in my opinion, a universal template either for traditional fiction or for roleplaying games.)

To 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.

I'm still not 100% clear about the original premise.  There is a difference between "I want to play a character who is reluctantly forced into an adventure like Bilbo" and "I'm going to sit here in the bar and say no to the guy who tried to hire me.  I'm going to get drunk".  I've heard of both.  Which are we speaking of?

Quote from: Omega;927746The subject came up of players having their character effectively refuse the call to adventure and instead want to stay a lowly farmer or peasant.

This is called a 'troll'.  You say, "You do this and live a relatively happy life."  Then you take his character sheet, and continue with players that are there to play a game instead of being smartasses.

The problem with this discussion is not getting caught debating the extremes.

Extreme 1 - This campaign is about going on adventures, you will always go on adventures, never doing anything on the side that isn't adventuring, no matter how much it makes sense or fits the setting or the characters themselves.  Ie. a GM and/or players being complete fucknuggets.  This is complete and total shit, no one wants this.  No sense in talking about it like it's a real thing.  The sane people leave and everyone moves on.

Extreme 2 - I want to do what I want to do, and whatever you want to do is not what I want to do, yet I demand you spend time focusing on me.  Ie. A fucknugget player who never should have been sitting at your table to begin with. This is complete and total shit, no one wants this.  No sense in talking about this like it's a real thing.  You flush the turd and move on.

Everyone else - Players engage with the premise and nature of the campaign and setting, GM allows players the freedom to engage with more than one premise allowed by that campaign and setting.

You can mitigate problems through 1. Expectations, 2. Flexibility of both GM and player.  Funny how those fix a lot of things. :)

Now if you have one player who wants to go one way, and the rest of the party another, that's tough if everyone is actually roleplaying, engaged in the game, and not being a fucknugget.  Possibly retire the character, bringing them back in if circumstance allow it, or maybe deal with the other character from time to time (but obviously the GM can't be expected to have the time to do this), but the player who is pushing for the split has to accept that "and the PC lived happily ever after" might be the result of his leaving everyone else.

Now if some of the PCs have their own agendas, and not all of them match up, then separate parties might be an answer.  Of course all the players and the GM have to go along with this, because everyone sacrifices in this case.  The GM has a more complicated campaign to run and different PC groups will have different amounts of time allotted to them.  Also, some players don't like bouncing back and forth between groups, they want to play one character.  If you don't split the party and some of the players prove to be more flexible, and go with the other party, remember this, and make sure that if it happens again, that the fact that they went along last time gets factored in.

Now if all the PCs want to move one way, and the GM another, then it depends on how much the GM can give.  For example, one of my groups is currently in a war-torn nation with a newly-crowned King that most of the country does not support.  The Civil War will continue, there is lots of land to retake and occupy, and smart characters who are interested in that kind of thing, may very well find themselves with a land grant of some kind, because frequently when a nation is in total chaos, title and land are easier to hand out than coin. I could...

• block this in-game by simply making sure that never happens, regardless of circumstance ie. being a railroading fucknugget of a GM.
• take it to the table, and just tell the players I'm either not interested in this turn of the campaign or I simply don't have time to do it.
• be flexible and have prepared myself for this possibility.

Well any GM who puts PCs in the middle of a land where title and land might be up for grabs, and doesn't factor that in, is kind of an idiot, so my response is #3.  I've prepared myself that the players might become less the wandering type of adventurer and more the defend your property against bandits, soldiers, predators, roving ghouls, and whoever else kind of adventurer, or that they may simply prefer to hire on with a Noble they like and thus change their adventuring to more mercenary work.  It fits the genre perfectly, there's hardly a S&S character who wasn't a merc at some point or another, supporting some noble in their quest for power.

As long as people recognize each other's limitations and interests and aren't completely self-absorbed selfish pricks, things should work out fine.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;927980I'm still not 100% clear about the original premise.  There is a difference between "I want to play a character who is reluctantly forced into an adventure like Bilbo" and "I'm going to sit here in the bar and say no to the guy who tried to hire me.  I'm going to get drunk".  I've heard of both.  Which are we speaking of?

I guess it could be either. Part of the problem may be differentiating the two, but it could also be partly on the GM, differences of gaming philosophy, and failures of communication. For example, assume Bilbo is a freshly generated PC. If the player wants to be forced into an adventure, no problem. Even more if there's an understanding, maybe from past history between the people at the table, that there's going to be some playful struggle before he assents. Pretty much the same if the player's "up for anything" and just flat-out trusts the GM to take the lead on setting things in motion. On the other hand if the player has a strongly divergent idea of the type of "adventure" that would arise in the life of a Hobbiton gentleman, he might not like the arrival of Gandalf & the dwarves. He might see it as implausible, intrusive, destructive to his character concept, etc.

Okay, here it's hard to have much sympathy for Bilbo-player--I mean what would his adventures be at home? But if the PC was a minor noble whose player was looking forward to engaging in local politics & intrigue, and now he's being offered a hexcrawl/dungeon looting expedition, there's more to it. I really don't think it would help things for the GM to then up the pressure by having Smaug fly over and burn his castle.

Our Pathfinder group did something like this last year. I think the GM had fucked with us a little too much (bit of a railroad with shifting goals/enemies to keep the carrot/stick just out of grasp)... so at some point we found ourselves in a nice town, gave up on the main quest (at least for the time being) and bought some land and started a farm. We hired help and started a profitable business. There was still 'adventure' but it was mostly local, trading favors with the local archmage and the wizards' college.
It wasn't outright rebellion... just choosing to no longer engage with a somewhat forced plotline that was turning into a shaggy dog story.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;927980I'm still not 100% clear about the original premise.  There is a difference between "I want to play a character who is reluctantly forced into an adventure like Bilbo" and "I'm going to sit here in the bar and say no to the guy who tried to hire me.  I'm going to get drunk".  I've heard of both.  Which are we speaking of?

The thread was aimed mostly at the second. Though some seem to get it mixed up with the first.
With the added pondering of those who might start out adventurers but for whatever reason decided they would rather be merchants or farmers and stopped adventuring. Or at least stopped the dungeon delve and combat oriented adventuring more or less.

Quote from: Omega;927998The thread was aimed mostly at the second. Though some seem to get it mixed up with the first.
With the added pondering of those who might start out adventurers but for whatever reason decided they would rather be merchants or farmers and stopped adventuring. Or at least stopped the dungeon delve and combat oriented adventuring more or less.

That's kind of what I thought, because "reluctant adventurer" is an old standby.

I 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?"

Seems obvious to me, but I've never seen any discussion of people asking such "players" what their goals really are.

I did have one player in my OD&D game decide that since gold gave XP he was going to invest all his money in various merchant ventures.

He seemed less than thrilled when I told him that his financial successes made him a second level merchant rather than a ninth level magic user.

I had a player with a gnome illusionist who took an offer from a grateful noble to be a  court magician and effectively retired that character from the game.  The player had decided the character was too delicate for how he liked to play and I think was pretty happy to have an excuse to give the character a good home.

Quote from: ligedog;928004I had a player with a gnome illusionist who took an offer from a grateful noble to be a  court magician and effectively retired that character from the game.  The player had decided the character was too delicate for how he liked to play and I think was pretty happy to have an excuse to give the character a good home.

I've had characters do this.  My first Dark Heresy character 'retired', only to become an Inquisitor later (as in, the NPC doling out missions when I GM'd).  You can always re-use these characters if need be.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927888My character is a farmer, or wants to be.

Specifically he wants a cattle ranch. To get it he took a job as a hand on a large ranch, which involved joining a posse to catch an outlaw who was hiding out on the range - and then being ambushed by the outlaw's gang later on - fighting Apaches, chasing down rustlers, and hunting a mountain lion. He raised capital by gambling in a local saloon on his day off each week, which got him into fistfights and gunfights and put on trial and run out of town by vigilantes. Most recently he's been hunting wolves to protect herds during a hard winter - and battling bandits and hired killers as well - and as a result of card game won the deed to a general store and then bought a saloon in town.

Now he's preparing to buy cattle for a 450-mile drive to Kansas, which also involves rounding up mavericks without being accused of rustling, catching mustangs and breaking them for the remuda, and supervising a staff of six cowhands and a cook. There will be rustlers and bandits and Indians and prairies fires and thunderstorms and tornadoes and stampedes and a constant search for water and Gawd knows what else along the way.

Once he gets back from the drive, he's got a nice piece of land in mind for his ranch, provided he can handle renegade Apaches, outlaws, regulators and rival ranchers who don't want anyone on 'their' range.

And he's getting involved with local politics in Promise City, what with the municipal election coming up in the fall, quietly siding with the small ranchers who the wealthy cattlemen call 'rustlers' and drive off 'their' range with hired guns.

Yup, that's me, refusing the call of adventure to roleplay a farmer.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927953We're playing the campaign by the early Boot Hill rules in which the player characters are not a 'party of adventurers,' but rather may have conflicting roles - lawman, rancher, outlaw, hired gun, &c. We make use of campaign turns (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2016/02/campaign-turn.html) with written orders for our characters, and the other players play the non-player characters as we resolve our turns. If our orders look like they may lead to conflict between the player characters, the third player or an outside gamer resolves the turn.

Right now I'm the only player with his original character still in the game - one player is on his second character, the other is on his fourth. The original three characters started together in BH1 Mad Mesa - one character was killed and replaced by a new character before we moved on to BH2 Lost Conquistador Mine. My character was run out of Dead Mule by vigilantes and went on to Promise City while the other two continued to search for the lost mine. Both of those characters died when they were ambushed searching for the mine and new characters brought in on the way to Promise City - one of those characters died at the hands of bandits as well, before reaching Promise City, and was replaced, leaving us with our current group.

The current assortment of characters consists of my cowboy/gambler (https://promisecity.blogspot.com/2016/08/let-me-tell-you-about-my-char-seriously.html%5B/url), an ex-Union Army Pinkerton detective/bounty hunter, and a gunfighter masquerading as a snake-oil salesman. Right now my character is in Burned Bush Wells following the the events of BH3, the detective/bounty hunter left Burned Bush Wells and returned to Promise City when he decided hunting wolves was too much work for the money, and the snake-oil salesman/gunman remained in Promise City, ingratiating himself with the Law & Order faction. It's highly likely that our characters will come into conflict before too long - the Pinkerton is offering his services to the ranchers' association as a 'range detective' to run off 'rustlers,' and my character is sure to be on the opposite faction from both of the other characters when we get into BH3 Ballots & Bullets.

We're also moving into troupe play. My character's brother and a family friend are on their way from Nebraska to join him for the cattle drive, the Pinkerton has a partner, and the snake-oil salesman's 'sister' - that's what he calls her, anyway - joined him from California with her coolie servant in tow. Election season in Promise City promises to be bloody.

And here's Black Vulmea coming up with a great example of how you do farmers interesting and fun to play:).
And it's actually a simple premise. In virtually every profession has its hierarchy and climbing to the top is hard. Even without trying to climb, in every profession you meet people trying to play dirty, aggressive jealous competitors, problem workers and co-workers, people that try to swindle you for money, and the like.
Now let's remember that most of us don't play in 21st century USA, but in times when resolving such differences by rather violent means might even grant you some measure of prestige in society, like after winning a duel.
There's adventures to be had everywhere. That's even a suggested optional mode of play in The Price of Power (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/142181/The-Price-of-Power) supplement for Fates Worse Than Death RPG;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;927980I'm still not 100% clear about the original premise.  There is a difference between "I want to play a character who is reluctantly forced into an adventure like Bilbo" and "I'm going to sit here in the bar and say no to the guy who tried to hire me.  I'm going to get drunk".  I've heard of both.  Which are we speaking of?

Neither, AFAICT.
Even in the original thread I mentioned that playrs who refuse to engage the opportunities they're offered and don't come up with their own goals mean you have an OOC problem and it's time for a talk. It might lead to the player changing his ways, the player asking for a specific hook to get the character started on adventuring, the player leaving, or whatever.

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  (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0326.html)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.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;928125If 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.

I meant the "Long Game" in the sense CRK said it in this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35481-Players-having-characters-refuse-adventuring-to-become-farmers&p=928016&viewfull=1#post928016) so basically, "getting allies, money and assets by adventuring". Which, in your game, should probably amount to a cattle raid, I'm not sure:).
But what I wanted to imply is that the thing you're doing in that Boot Hill game is still adventuring, despite or rather because of being a farmer;).

Obviously Logan's player couldn't be there for that session.

Quote from: CRKrueger;928148That was classic.

Obviously Logan's player couldn't be there that week.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;928153Obviously Logan's player couldn't be there that week.

ROFL probably.  

Although if he was being a stick-in-the-mud, Charles could have made him get up and sing "I'm a little Teacup" and then Erik could have Magneto'd him out the front window and then...
Charles - "Let's try this again, shall we?"

BV is currently doing things that are, to classic adventuring games, non-adventures.  Now, he's in a Western game, so to a more realistic western game, these are adventures.  However, they are still 100% his goals, and all the other players are doing 100% their goals, which may or may not intersect, and may not involve the way the "classic adventure" model is usually brought to westerns, doing some kind of ad-hoc law enforcement/mercenary work/get rid of the BBEG who isn't Thulsa Doom, but Dent Baxter.

My point was though...that even though he is non-standard adventuring following 100% PC goals, there still is a point for him to do standard adventuring, non-immediate PC goals - like getting rid of bandits, aiding US Marshalls, getting favors owed and reputation built.  Not by interaction with PCs necessarily, but NPCs.  

Get your Spencer rifle and help Clem defend his Beeves against some lowdown rustlers, and later on, when you need men, money, resources, a place to hide out because you're basically now in the Lincoln County War vs. The Cattle Barons, you now have resources to call on from all those "non PC-goal, random standard western adventures" you got sidetracked into. :D

If the Troll-Hunter can't find a reason that helping a Vampire-Hunter might come in handy, or a Cattleman can't figure out how helping a Gold Miner might be worth doing...well the campaign and players have bigger issues.

Right. Dont make a character who is totally antisocial or incapable of co-operating with the rest of the group when needed.

One of the reasons I DESPISED the Nega Psychic in Beyond the Supernatural was one player took it and then was a total pain in the ass with the rest of the party and played them refusing to work with the group and only tagged along to debunk them. That was a not fun session and through the player (and/or characters) own stupidity, got the PC excessively dead. The other players effectively said "Dont ever take that sort of character class/personality again." Just short of the Player or PC refusing to adventure.

The digging character was just an extreme hypothetical. I wrote out how I might theoretically react to it without just shutting it down quickly, to try to show how the whole thing doesn't seem like necessarily a big problem, if no one is too invested in every player necessarily having a PC who is a trusted, cooperative, always caring and doing what the party is supposed to be doing, kind of thing. So ya it's not an actual play example and might not be how exactly I would handle it, but it was an attempt to show that digressions and retirement or NPC-ization to do whatever doesn't have to be a problem and can be handled organically rather than by shutting down by force, or by the players conforming their ideas to the play conventions more than they really want to.

Quote from: CRKrueger;928174BV is currently doing things that are, to classic adventuring games, non-adventures.

Yeah, I posted there are two kinds of games, didn't I? But in the more general sense of "adventures", these are "his adventures" - in the sense that if his character lives long enough and becomes wealthy enough, he might write a book titled "I'm BV's character: My Life and Adventures":D.

QuoteNow, he's in a Western game, so to a more realistic western game, these are adventures.

Indeed.

QuoteHowever, they are still 100% his goals, and all the other players are doing 100% their goals, which may or may not intersect, and may not involve the way the "classic adventure" model is usually brought to westerns, doing some kind of ad-hoc law enforcement/mercenary work/get rid of the BBEG who isn't Thulsa Doom, but Dent Baxter.

And we're trying to be closer to people living there, right? Or are we trying to emulate the genre model of the "classic adventure games";)?

QuoteMy point was though...that even though he is non-standard adventuring following 100% PC goals, there still is a point for him to do standard adventuring, non-immediate PC goals - like getting rid of bandits, aiding US Marshalls, getting favors owed and reputation built.  Not by interaction with PCs necessarily, but NPCs.

Sure there is. But if he doesn't want to, he doesn't need to - that's the main difference between "games about adventurers doing adventures", and "games about people just being there and chasing their own goals".
I've lost track of the times when some part of the group wanted to have adventures, and another part of the group wanted to have local goals. I allow them to either split, or I get the players with goals to become a sort of "patrons" for the rest of them.

QuoteGet your Spencer rifle and help Clem defend his Beeves against some lowdown rustlers, and later on, when you need men, money, resources, a place to hide out because you're basically now in the Lincoln County War vs. The Cattle Barons, you now have resources to call on from all those "non PC-goal, random standard western adventures" you got sidetracked into. :D

Sure, that's possible.
Or, if I decide to, I might get such resources from PC-goals, successfully achieved.

QuoteIf the Troll-Hunter can't find a reason that helping a Vampire-Hunter might come in handy, or a Cattleman can't figure out how helping a Gold Miner might be worth doing...well the campaign and players have bigger issues.

Or it's not an issue, but working as intended. BV just said no such things are expected. He seems to enjoy it, and the other players rolled new PCs after losing the first. I'd suspect that's a sign they enjoy it, too!
Of course, nothing wrong with players who have complementary goals. It's just not the only way to play!

BV, which Boot Hill edition are you using?

Are there any fantasy games that provide a similar level of "large scale" structure? Or any RPGs in general? Flashing Blades seems to be a candidate, but I don't remember too well. Gangbusters? En Garde sort of does but I think it was sort of rudimentary. (And let's not get into SG stuff that basically give a bunch of social/relationship/metagame mechanics and then breezily tell you to create/improvise the world structures.)

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.

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

Refuse the call of adventure? Only once, but it made sense. The character had reached 5th or 6th level, and circumstances came to be that he found a woman to marry and a couple of orphans to adopt. He became the "power behind the throne" in his town, and the player discovered that the character was content. He retired the character and made a new one.

Effectively demand that the adventure come to them or I provide motivation? Yeah, but if you aren't interested in your allies' escapades, the 2-3 hooks that I provided, or come up with something on your own... they sat there until they decided to play ball. I can appreciate that there are content or indifferent people in the world. Don't make one of those.

I have had players make use of trade and arbitrage as a way of making money while exploring the world. Also, a jewelry shop that the party kept in gold and lived above.

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

JG

I had a wizard who was a cobbler by trade. He only adventured when he was bored or occasionally wanted to increase his power. As for not participating, its best to simply tell the players what to expect and if they don't want that, either try and meet expectation if that will make you happy or get another GM.

Quote from: AsenRG;928149I meant the "Long Game" in the sense CRK said it in this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35481-Players-having-characters-refuse-adventuring-to-become-farmers&p=928016&viewfull=1#post928016) so basically, "getting allies, money and assets by adventuring". . . [W]hat I wanted to imply is that the thing you're doing in that Boot Hill game is still adventuring, despite or rather because of being a farmer;).

Quote from: CRKrueger;928174BV is currently doing things that are, to classic adventuring games, non-adventures.  Now, he's in a Western game, so to a more realistic western game, these are adventures.

Our characters live in a world in which the stuff of everyday life is the call to adventure.

Quote from: CRKrueger;928174However, they are still 100% his goals, and all the other players are doing 100% their goals, which may or may not intersect, and may not involve the way the "classic adventure" model is usually brought to westerns, doing some kind of ad-hoc law enforcement/mercenary work/get rid of the BBEG who isn't Thulsa Doom, but Dent Baxter.

As I mentioned, we're playing through the first four Boot Hill modules and we're in the process of putting a bow on BH4 Burned Bush Wells, which is pretty close to what you described here. It's one of my favorite published adventures for any roleplaying game, not least because while it's predicated on the "get rid of the BBEG" model, it explicitly allows for the player characters to do nothing, for the events of 'the adventure' to exist wholly in the background. If you want your character to hunt wolves for bounties and play cards to pass the winter and ignore the struggle between the Burned Bush Business Council and Lyle Underhay, then do it - the text of the adventure expects and accepts this as a reasonable choice and notes how the game-world changes as a result.
 

Quote from: CRKrueger;928174My point was though...that even though he is non-standard adventuring following 100% PC goals, there still is a point for him to do standard adventuring, non-immediate PC goals - like getting rid of bandits, aiding US Marshals, getting favors owed and reputation built.  Not by interaction with PCs necessarily, but NPCs.
 
Get your Spencer rifle and help Clem defend his Beeves against some lowdown rustlers, and later on, when you need men, money, resources, a place to hide out because you're basically now in the Lincoln County War vs. The Cattle Barons, you now have resources to call on from all those "non PC-goal, random standard western adventures" you got sidetracked into. :D

Exactly right.
 

Quote from: CRKrueger;928174If the Troll-Hunter can't find a reason that helping a Vampire-Hunter might come in handy, or a Cattleman can't figure out how helping a Gold Miner might be worth doing...well the campaign and players have bigger issues.

Indeed.

May I say that you've been killing it this whole thread, Mean Green?
 

Quote from: Willie the Duck;928153Obviously Logan 's player couldn't be there that week.

:D
 

Quote from: Arminius;928228BV, which Boot Hill edition are you using?

2e Boot Hill, the first boxed-set edition of the game, the one many gamers say is 'really a tabletop miniatures game' as it 'lacks the features' of a 'true' roleplaying game, and by 'many gamers' I mean sphincter-faced shit-for-brains.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;928584Our characters live in a world in which the stuff of everyday life is the call to adventure.

Exactly. And the stuff of everyday life, as your example with the hunting shows, can also be ignored.
For some reason, that notion is hard on some Referees, including some I've met in person.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;9285842e Boot Hill, the first boxed-set edition of the game, the one many gamers say is 'really a tabletop miniatures game' as it 'lacks the features' of a 'true' roleplaying game, and by 'many gamers' I mean sphincter-faced shit-for-brains.

I have to remember that next time I play Mechwarrior or Phoenix Command or use Battlesystem for an entire session.

Quote from: Krimson;928622I have to remember that next time I play Mechwarrior or Phoenix Command or use Battlesystem for an entire session.

Mechwarior is an RPG for Battletech. Battletech itself is not an RPG. If you used Battlesystem for a whole session and didnt do any role playing then you were playing a wargame. If Im playing Agricola instead of RPing a farmer then Im playing a board game.

Back on topic.

One player group I met at a con way back in 99 mentioned that they had been playing as sort of fantasy prospectors. I believe they were a party comprised of just dwarves and gnomes. Any adventuring was incidental to finding that mother lode.You could also do that in Star Frontiers. buy a mining and refinery ship and set off to prospect.

Good thread!

Quote from: James Gillen;927921This is why the Monk class involves learning Distance Death and Quivering Palm and not Right Livelihood or the realization of Non-self.

JG

To become enlightened, you first must survive long enough to find enlightenment. ;)

Arrows of Indra has rules for running a farm. Or a business, or school, or gang.