A concern people sometimes have about gaming with a party that has achieved high rank is how to get them into adventures--surely it is said by some characters with high office will be too busy to adventure? Of course this tends to be from the point of view of us modern people who see leaders as office bound entirely.
In my game the party are responsible for a general region controlled by the army that is besieging a city. (They're basically commanding a corps of the army to all intents and purposes.) So when the chief engineer was assassinated in his tent they actually acted like leaders--they cast information gathering spells, used leadership and delegated the investigation while they continued planning the siege. I was disconcerted for a moment but then realized they were taking their responsibilities seriously. It was only when the party's wizard was almost a victim of the assassin that they got involved directly; even then they initially sent a group of lower level rangers and barbarians to try to corner the assassin and to their dismay the npc group took casualties.
So one method of having pcs who are in positions of responsibility get involved with adventures is to make it necessary to have them involved for reasons of their own. I felt kind of thrilled. Just wanted to share this.
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Yes.
You're doing fine with this.
A conceit that is generally intuited by good players is that they must keep characters anchored in the idea that "adventuring" is something they respond to. When players start PCs, I require them to answer the question, "Why is my character an adventurer?" In some cases, it becomes "what motivates my character to adventure/quest/take on missions/risk my life, etc?" (paraphrasing, and could vary depending on atypical PCs.
Around 8th or 9th level - I usually shift the paradigm of "making ones name as an adventurer" or "making something of themselves" to that of "I have landed, albeit, in a minor way."
My PCs get a bit of land, some get titles, some are enouraged to settle down and retire..... yet, most continue to go on as adventurers despite any title or ties that bind.
One way to facilitate this is the conceit that the group will gather to remedy situations as they arise. This is a lot like how we see Gandalf riding the ox cart or whatever into the Shire, then picking up dwarves, etc. in this way, the party re-assembles, if not necessarily all comprised as the same leadership role within a given castle, barony, or country.
Usually a conceit used at higher levels 12-14, is that the Sorcerer/Wizard type of the group usually *poofs* everyone wherever they need. And, there have also been other tropes uses, some of which suspended all disbelief and were quite compelling.
Your point, however, of making it personal, and affecting them, is exactly the type of stuff that makes adventuring compelling at higher levels. I agree wholeheartedly. No longer are they questing for someone else - - - now it is their livlihood and estate (whatever) on the line. Sometimes, as you did, their very lives....
Well done. That is exciting to hear.
I did the "PCs get into a position of authority" bit for my high-level game. Every now and then, though, they were presented with a situation where they couldn't use that authority, so they got into their "working clothes" to handle the situation. A lot of fun, and my players really hammed it up with the roleplaying when they switched gears. Good times that was. :D
My PCs are relatively high level (16-ish), and they now run a small trading concortium on the side (2 ships), and I'm running one of my first "Save the World" scenarios, so they're actively trying to prevent the moon from crashing into the earth. Also, a lot of the locations are so far apart, teleport spells won't work....and the party is so big that they need 3 greater teleport spells to get everyone there, so they still use their ship....and the magic sea charts I stole from the 2008 Superstar competition.
But it's important to get them personally interested.
Interesting games you guys run as well...the airship idea is very cool.
The pcs have captured the city; now they are being given a section of it to govern. They won their first major battle. I feel kind of proud. In a way a lot of what must go on now is intrigue and stuff like that. Fortunately this is a role playing group. Has anyone else run more intrigue and politics than adventure at higher levels?
Yes, I usually have a lot of intrigue and politics in my campaign. At lower levels it stays in the background, and it slowly comes to the foreground at higher levels. I like this type of play, and fortunately my players like it too.
What sounds very nice in your campaign is that you could alternate high- and low-level adventures. If the characters personally take on a mission, you could use a high-level adventure. On the other hand, if they delegate it to a lower-level group, the players could play lower-level characters. This would make a very interesting campaign with a lot of variety.
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I have talked with a number of friends who DM about this very issue many times. The trick of high level play, I think, is to have regular style adventures, but with twists.
Murder mysteries where the dead person doesn't know who (or what) killed him, so resurrection/reincarnation won't get you more than the victim back to life.
"Sick village" (or Castle/Town/City) where the "sickness" is actually alien/monster possession. And you can't really take out the possessing creatures without killing the host. Do you want to save the people by killing them all?
Regular old dungeon crawls where the dungeon is Underwater/In Space/Filled with poisonous gasses/Very hot all the time...the environment becomes a primary challenge even without monsters/NPCs to deal with.
Lots of City-Building and Cloak & Dagger type stuff..enemy agents have infiltrated your stronghold and poisoned your rice supply, someone is consistently stealing a horse and about 500-1000 gp every night, random assaults take place at night time causing the populace to rise up, riot style.
Really play up the NPC interaction / crime scene investigation / jaunt around the world, and THEN have a couple big fights against high CR enemies. Works out pretty well, from where I've been.
-t