Some players prefer characters with a little class and breeding. When that suits your campaign, great, it’ll give you opportunity for some interesting moral concepts, and a lot of role playing hooks. So, what’s different about being a noble? A lot of players will try to tell you they should just get free stuff- more starting money, better gear, a place they can stay, some servants, supportive family, and all that. And the answer is simple- sure, they can have all that stuff. The trick is to make their characters PAY for it. They’re going to have obligations- “sorry, son, you can’t go off adventuring, it’s the entertaining season, and just what would the Marmadukes say if you weren’t there? It’s unconscionable!” - but in addition to the social obligations, they’ll have duties they owe the family. People they need to protect (even if they don’t want to- families often have mutual-protection alliances), or servants (“No-one is allowed to beat my servants for misbehaving! How dare they touch you!”) and serfs (“an attack on my farms is an attack on my people. If my people are attacked, they can’t pay their taxes, which means no income for me!”). Then you have fallout from intra-family drama (depending on how soap-opera-ish you want to make your game). A second daughter isn’t too important to go adventuring, until the oldest daughter is killed. Suddenly, she has responsibilities, not just to avenge her sister, but to carry on protecting the family and advancing their interests. A long-lost bastard turns up who wants to inherit? Sounds like an opportunity! And then even well-meaning, big-G Good people occasionally make mistakes. Uncovering proof that the slavers have been using your family’s shipping caravans to smuggle slaves through the border, because your dear tender-hearted mother was told they were fleeing unjust persecution from an evil slaving conglomerate? Priceless! All of this requires a little more book-keeping from you, dear GM’s Stash readers, but it can really pay off, and can lead to a D&D game which features neither Dragons nor Dungeons, but which feels a lot closer to a Game of Thrones-style story and is more about caring about the world you’re curating. And it can really pay off! (Originally posted on Game Masters Stash on 6 July 2018) Categories All Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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