Yet Still More on Adventuring Groups

[Okay, at last this thing starts to peter out.]


The DM’s complaint against a group with a job is obvious: adventures aren’t written that way. Well, now you don’t have to use any of those cheesy plot hooks to get the players to do something. I think most adventures may play out about the same way, but now there’s a distinct goal for the characters to work towards. Some change to the XP system may be needed to reflect this, as killing things and taking their stuff may no longer be appropriate.

From the players’ standpoint, they’ve lost some freedom of action. Moreover, they now have something to lose in adventuring other than their characters’ lives: their jobs and social status. Whenever they fail in a goal, or make a bad decision, it may directly effect them economically or worse. As freebooting adventurers certainly you could gain a bad reputation, but you’re not going any lower socially. As a group with a direction though, you may start off with legitimacy, authority, status, and even wealth.

With the directed group, there will automatically be a mechanism for cycling in replacement characters, as opposed to just finding random people in random places to replace dead members. A sandbox setting should come to life. Instead of the characters being a contaminant in a sterile system, they’re introduced as fully active participants in it.

How does this work with a big dungeon? Depends on why the group wants to go in. Looting and killing will probably still occur, but now there’s a goal and the group may need to show some results.

As the group becomes more enmeshed in the setting, their status in it will change, for better or worse. The group should be working towards a goal. It might somewhat vague and general, long term, or quite limited and specific. The group may dissolve upon the completion or resolution of the goal. They could become another kind of group, or find another goal for their existing one.

There should be a real threat of losing the group’s jobs or status based on the characters’ actions. Outside events and beyond the characters’ control can disrupt their status.

[That’s it. It just sort of stops there. I must have broken a fingernail or ran out of scotch. No, I don’t feel like adding to this or cleaning it up. Don’t go yet though, there’s still a little more on this topic.]