"What's at the End of Satan's Rainbow?"
Far too often, a campaign ends after the first big arc is finished. The characters have gone out, saved the world, defeated the big evil end boss, rescued the princess, and defeated the evil vizier. Or whatever the plot is.
Cool. Congrats.
So what happens next?
That "what happens next" for me is more important than the victory. What does my character do afterwards? What other things does my character get to see? Who does my character get to meet? How has the world changed now that we won?
I don't make characters to go through a single campaign and stop. They have goals, they have interests and hobbies and families. They had a life before the adventure, and may want to return to it after - or go do something else that doesn't involve 'go out and kill a lot of monsters and save the world'.
The 'save the world' plot, for my characters, is an interruption in their life - it takes up time they would usually rather use to do other things. They understand that they have to do this - and they'll do it - but ... well. My characters tend to be sane. "Yeah, I'm going to war against Urzulu the God of Inverse Chaos's Avatar. I'd much rather be doing anything but this, but it needs to be done."
They go along with the plot. Because they realize what's happening is important - I don't do it for meta-reasons. ("Well, he's a PC, this is the campaign, so he should go along with the GM's hooks"). I don't do that. I go, 'here's the character, what's the hook? would my character go along with it?' And ... well, 99% of the time the answer is 'yes', because I have a good GM, and the GM makes hooks that work for the kind of characters I make. I also don't believe in making the GM's life any harder than it has to be. I'm not that kind of a jerk.
But my characters are also multifaceted. There's things they want to do, and I want to get the chance to do them. It can be done at the start of the campaign, off and on through the campaign, or after the campaign, but I want to actually do them and get them done.
I had a character who's life ambition was 'be a good duellist, get people to pay me to duel on their behalf, and live to a ripe old age'. He wound up going out and saving the world. Twice. Not his career plan. At the end of the campaign? He was the blood-brother to a sultan, and got his own island to rule. Cool. I'd have liked to carry on and see just what that's like, what he'd have to face, etc.
Never happened.
In another campaign, my character's goal was to challenge his evil uncle, kill the guy, take over the nation, and become a benevolent dictator. He was actually a real nice guy, too. Just, his uncle, and most of the heads of the other families, were evil and needed to be taken down. The campaign ended just before my plan was going to go into motion. Though, the GM was suffering anxiety, since it was her first campaign, so she gets a pass. And she was an amazing game master, so no real complaints except that I never got to see the character's arc finish.
Another character's goal was to build a kingdom in the New World. He wanted to rule, but he wanted to do it without wiping out / subjugating the locals (if there were, he wasn't sure until he got there). By the end of the campaign, he succeeded. He was recognized as the ruler of the colony, he was respected by the locals, he had built his kingdom on unclaimed territory, and had made treaties with a bunch of different cultures. That one was quite satisfying. We got to explore everything he wanted to do.
He was also the exception to the rule, because his plans blended with what the campaign was about - exploring the New World. But it could have gone another way - what if we'd dealt with the threat before he could gather the influence he needed? What if he'd not made peace with the locals yet? Then the campaign is over, and ... the character's journey's not complete.
My usual goal when I roleplay is to explore the world, meet up with NPCs, interact with the setting on a social level. I may make horrible killmongers from time to time, but that's only a tiny portion of who the character is. What they are is built on their personality, their goals, their hobbies and the people they know.
Let's take the current campaign we're in, and the two characters our sibling and I are using:
One is a priestess, buried alive by a rival, and kept 'alive' by her goddess to rise up some four thousand years later. Her goddess manifests around her - she's still wrapped in her funeral bandages and the regalia she wore when she was buried - so she floats around with this manifestation covering her. Her goal is to explore and learn about this new world she's living in. It isn't to save the world, or beat up monsters, or get treasure and become rich. She cares nothing for any of that. She wants to continue being a priestess, to do her sacred duties, and to learn what the world is like so she can do it well. (Summoner, no Summoning Spells, no divine spells. She's a priestess because that's her job, not her Class)
The other is a teenager, who was taken away as a child, trained by fictional heroes in an oasis that doesn't exist, and released at the age of 16 to become a big damn hero. His family was wiped out while he was gone, he's got a fire dryad as a girlfriend, and he's trying to track down the people responsible for the death of his family. He knows nothing of society, so he's following around the group because at least they know what they're doing. He's a beatstick, and damn good at hitting things. (Paladin) But his goal isn't to beat on things. He charges into battle because he's brave (foolish) and wants to do the Right Thing, but that's not what defines him. Each battle is a test of his ability, but all it is to him is a test. When he's not in the middle of battle, he's wanting to see what's out there, he wants to know more about his 'home' (the oasis) and why he can't return to it. He wants to see the world with his girlfriend, do romantic things, and help common folk.
Do The Thing might be the campaign's plot, but it isn't their plot. It's a thing they do because they're in the right place at the right time to Do The Thing. But that isn't what their story's about - their story goes beyond that, and we really want to be able to explore what happens after the plot is done. And not a little 'so here's the summary of their life after'. We want to go out. See the world. Make friends and encounter NPCs. Discover how the world's functioning after plot happens.
That, to us, is fun. It's why we game. It's like why we read books. Not for the plot, but for the world building, to see how the world ticks, to see how the people living in the world ticks. The plot, for us, is just the vessel in which we get to see the world - it isn't the point of the story for us. It's ... an excuse. A diversion. Just the tool to go 'hey, cool, look at that'.
The Kushiel series is an excellent example. The world building there is phenomenal, and what keeps us coming back. The storytelling is good, yes, very good, but the world building is amazing, and we want to know more and more and more about the world - more so than we want to know about the characters.
Here's an amusing thing. 13th Age and Blue Rose have maps. You can look at the map and you know what's there. Me? I'm like, 'okay, we've devoured everything you've had to say about this region. So, what's beyond the map's borders? What's there, what are they like, how are they different from what you've shown so far?'
We want to see the world, the cultures, the kingdoms and nations, the magic, the religion, the gods and the people. This is what drives us. We're interested in the social aspect of the world, the natural aspect, the religious and magical aspect. The adventure? That's just the excuse to get out there and see the world.
"Okay, so we spent the last three days going into the dungeon. Can we go hang out for the local festival now? I want to see what stories the bards have, check up on the local legends, and visit the temple of Eris to pay my respects."
I'm not kidding, either. In a D&D campaign not too long ago? My character built his goddess a shrine, did some good deeds for the locals, and would petition his goddess to figure out what she needed him to do. (This was the Elemental Evil campaign of all things). Yeah, he went out to Defeat the Evil, but ... he didn't take much of the treasure, gave most of it to the locals to help them out, and got things for his shrine so he could make his goddess happy. That was his focus. Not 'you must go out and Do The Thing'. He defeated the evil, because it was a danger and needed to be put down, but it wasn't what defined him.
Then there was the paladin. Her big thing was the Raven Queen brought her back to life after she was murdered in an alley as a homeless orphan. She now had the goal of going out and helping the poor, the homeless, the orphans, and fighting those who would oppress them. She wanted to inspire them to fight for their lives and to rise up from where they were. She wasn't a crusader. She wasn't there to go out and Fight Evil. She was a street-level character, regardless of whether or not she was 1st level or 12th level. Fight ogres? There's people for that. Defeat demons? That's not her calling. Now, that slave ring going around and stealing kids? That's going down. Who cares if the 'big bad' of the slave ring's some 3rd level merchant dweeb. He's her 'big bad', and her life's goal is to slaughter people like him.
Or the angelic paladin from another campaign. She was thrown off a ship after her armour and shield were stripped from her. Her goal? Get her stuff back, earn her angelic wings, and beat the crap out of the captain and his crew. Found out it was the ruler of the kingdom she was from who ordered her be dumped - she was friends with his kid. Found out there was a prophecy that she'd come into his palace with an army. Which is why he got her dumped. Well, the guy was right, because she came back with an armada. And when she found out why she was dumped, she was like, 'are you stupid?' He retired, his kids took over, and she was fine with all of this. Now she had a naval fleet for her friends. Her 'arc' was done, she got what she wanted, we could close the book for her.
I mean, sure, the GM has a plot in mind usually. I'm more than willing to go along with it. I don't want it to be the only reason the game's moving forward, I want there to be other things. I want the characters to be people first and foremost, and to see their desires and needs met, rather than having them just 'go along' with whatever direction the plot needs them to be going.
In fact, I prefer if it is possible to deviate from the plot, abandon it, and go do other things if it makes sense to do so. Like, if the street kid finds out the group's going to go take out Orcus, the group can go 'screw that, that's above my pay grade', and go do anything else after telling the local temple what's going down.
So, what's your thoughts?
Are you fine with campaigns ending after the arc's done? Do you want to be able to have your characters do things that have nothing to do with the plot? How about as a GM. Do you want to stick to the arc, or are you willing to let the players go full sandbox for as long as they're enjoying themselves?
Let us know!
Comments
Post a Comment