So I am working on an adventurous Librarian Crafter at the moment who is going to eventually take leadership, build his own permanent demiplane, and make the people who adventures with completely awesome.
The question that came to my mind while building this guy was, "what is this guy going to do after he stops adventuring?" The question was easy to answer: retire to his demiplane, become influential in Avistian's politics, become filthy rich, walk around in Nirvana, and convince the outsiders whose true names he knows to be his allies instead of frenimies.
However, should I extend this advice to my PCs? It is helpful to some major degree, but at the but at the same time people might spend far too much time thinking about things that wont benefit them while adventuring.
What do you guys think?
What is my character going to do when he stops adventuring? Die, because that's the only time he'll stop.
If you enjoy writing out stories about what your character has done once his sheet has been moved to the Great Folder, then your story sounds nifty. Every once in a while a player in my group will end an adventure with a character that had done such feats of awesomeness that his name will be heard in epic ballads across many worlds, but that's about the extent of the post-adventuring career we ever get to. BTW, Simon LeGrande is one such character that I played several years ago.
In the word's of that guy from Office Space: "Two chicks at the same time. I imagine if I was a millionaire I could probably set something like that up."
Yeah, but it's always nice when the GM sets another story in the same world to see your old PCs around. The trick is making sure they're doing something that keeps them too busy to interfere in the new story.
Or sets them up to play a part, with player permission preferably.
Anyways, sometimes just asking puts the idea in people's heads. If it doesn't come then, sometimes it comes better closer to the end, after many decisions and actions and bonds have really sculpted who they are and will be.
I will look at my scars
see the gray hair slowly replacing black
take another swallow of good drink
look around at what I have earned through risk and danger
and think to myself
that I have one more adventure left in me
Yeah, but it's always nice when the GM sets another story in the same world to see your old PCs around. The trick is making sure they're doing something that keeps them too busy to interfere in the new story.The old PC's can't interfere in a story they don't know about, and does not touch on their space.
The old PC's are now NPC's under DM control, and it's his problem to keep the groups separate.
How you run each game and carry over will vary from game to game. Some GMs might give total control of a PC to a player, another might decide he controls every aspect, including what happened to that PC after the adventure, regardless of the need/want of the player who owned it.
I'm getting out of Ustalav as fast as I can, finding someone cute, and settling down and staying home in Lastwall.
Because I am done with this. I just can't do it any more.
Huh...
I think I know what I'd like to do, but I don't see having any time for it right now. If we make it through this mess, I'd want to stay by...well...my best friend's side and help her build something better than what we found.
But there's still too damn much left to do. I don't know if I'll ever have time to settle down. There's just too many mistakes and failures I need to fix. Too many people we let down.
I'd hoped we could travel together forever, but sooner or later our path is gonna fork.
Guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Never really been the type to settle down, I reckon.
I...
When the Crusade is done, when this great threat is ended....I would hope to have found someone. To find a life with them in a place where we would be welcomed. To be able to start a family. To have children who we would love and raise free of all the hardship and horror we have witnessed. Free of all the anguish that our blood has brought us.
I would hope to have a home built upon love.
I do not know that I will see that in this life. I suspect this crusade will demand my life before it is done.
Still...'tis a beautiful dream. It does offer some measure of peace.
I pray that I can catch a glimpse of it, at the very least.
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Note: all of these are home games
- Bucky Brambletramp, NG male Halfling ranger/cavalier (gestalt): well, my granther and my da was both trappers and the Brambletramps've been huntin' these woods fer generations. Bein as we earned the right t'live free on the frontier, I'm guessin' I'll go right back t'doin just that. Since those bloody mercs and goblins teamed up and took our village I've had m'hands full huntin' them, but if I got the chance? Well sure enough I'd be settin' snares back up near Falder's Patch where the foxes drive the hares. Think I'll even build a lodge up there, so's others what got set t' wanderin on account o' the war have a place t'come home to when they're done. I always did like company, aint that right Blitzer? *ruffles wolf animal companion's muzzle*
- Morngrymm Ironheel, CG male dwarf ranger 1/cleric 1: demons; what fool summoner goes and makes deals with demons? That's the fight I've found myself in, and it's just beginning. Jus now I can't see my way through to the end, what with danger on all sides. But if I do have something waiting after all this...
*looks of wistfully; hums the first bars of Desperado*
Well, I just don't know to be honest. I was raised a soldier in the Black Wyvern Company; even though the Company's gone the way of the winds with Boss Wyvernspytt gone, I've still got the march in my legs y'know? I suppose I'll go back to that - hirin' my services out to those that'll have me. I don't know as I'll ever really settle anywhere until old Marthammor Duin calls me back down the trail to Dwarfhome.
- Kalivan Scriventhorn, NG male half-elf wizard 7: as a boy I was apprenticed as a scribe but my days of being bent over the books is over, save for my spells. No, I've wandered over these lands for a decade now and I've gotten to know its people. So much chaos, tumult and danger for such far-flung folk. But you know who suffers the most? The children; they have no voice, no defense and no place to go when those closest to them are gone.
A theater. Yes, that's my dream. I've gotten quite good at performing. I may be no bard but I more than make up for it with my puppets; the constructs I've made. Together we are a troupe to rival any in the cosmopolitan cities. But my theater will be no ostentatious eyesore where only grown-ups watch stuffy plays. I'll build a stage that can dance; a theater that flies; actors who make their own lights and magic! And then when all of this business is behind me I'll take to the road once more and re-visit the contacts I've made. My earnings will go to these good men and women and homes shall be opened, expanded, so that the children will have a place and a voice. And I will visit them, with my magical toys and treats, and bring back the joy to their innocent hearts!
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I'd first like to note that I think coming up with this is a great idea, even if you never get to use it, just for the amount of thought you can and should put into it, enabling some very cool characterization.
For some examples:
My LE Drow Bard in a home game intended to rule as much of an empire as he could arrange, intelligently and effectively. He succeeded very well, grabbing something like a quarter of a continent while a personal friend of his got another quarter, and his mother a third quarter. He was pretty friendly with the guy who got the fourth quarter as well.
My NG Aasimar Synthesist intended to never stop being a hero and adventuring until he dropped dead. That's likely what happened to him as well, since he survived that campaign.
My CG Shoanti Half-Orc Oracle/Barbarian and priest of Cayden Cailean (long story) in the upcoming RotRL game I'm gonna be in is a whole 18 years old. I legitimately don't think he has any idea what he's gonna do with his life yet. He'll probably figure it out at some point...but sure hasn't yet.
Rule a large section of Hell as Asmodeus's favored son.
The adventure is the story, When the story is over, the campaign ends.
Trying to figure out what a character wants to do when the adventure is over can help you know their motivations and roleplay them more effectively, even if you don't actually play out the retirement. What are they fighting for?
It's perfectly possible that your character lives to adventure and to fight: that they will keep fighting and getting stronger until they meet something bigger and tougher and die.
It's also possible that what motivated your character at first level changes: Your first level rogue might just want to do more daring heists, until he learns to really hate the BBEG. But then what happens? Upper-story jobs don't really motivate level 15-20 characters the same way.
Or your wizard wants to delve forgotten ruins to recover lore and spellbooks from ancient wizards. Even defeating the BBEG is a means to access the BBEG's library. That's a lot different than a character whose motivations are to get tougher so they can fight tougher things and get tougher.
Rule Madrigal.
"Heh, most likely stop for me is bleeding out from biting off more than I can chew. 'Course, gods save the place I'm close to when that happens."
The scarred half-orc would lean back in the chair and take another pull of his ale "Though on the off chance old age starts biting me before I end up a smear, guess I could always start taking apprentices. Show them the ways of walking the darkness and being the scariest things in it. The night's still beautiful, and Madame Butterfly still needs boots on the ground making sure nothing tries to make it a time of terror. Besides," he leans forward again and pets a small sleeping black dragon curled up on the table next to him, "Someone's gotta keep this little rascal in line, try to get him to grow up to be a little benevolent."
It really depends on how the game ends. The concluding events of a game can sometimes have huge impacts on this. I have a character who currently wants to conquer Cheliax in the name of Desna and turn it into a place of hope, fortune, and prosperity for the masses. If she succeeds in game, then the answer would be easy: rebuild the empire, start making political alliances, use her new military might to help the Whispered Song tear Nidal apart from the inside, and otherwise make the country a better place.
If the game doesn't end in her taking over Cheliax, the answer COULD end up being her joining up with the Milani and Desnan agents in Cheliax and start working on it's downfall, but there's also a chance that the ending of the game presents a different threat that's more interesting. For all I know, the church of Zon Kuthon might find an ancient ritual towards the end of the campaign that lets them summon their dark master onto the material plane and post game, she dedicates her life to purging all traces of the ritual and cultists that would attempt to use it.
I feel there really isn't might advice to give on this outside of knowing who your character is. If you know their motives, then the answer is usually pretty obvious.
For at least one of my characters, the "what then?" was to be a harsh but reliable goddess to those who worship her, and to convince those who didn't already to do so.
Another of my characters went east, seeking to bring word and worship of their goddess to the unfortunates who had never heard of her.
Most of my characters have grand motivations and big plans. No quiet farm in the countryside for them.
Ralph L'Mao adventured to find his lost love that had left to find Xin Shalast. At the end of the adventure he found her dead and instead went back to
The college and hooked up with one of the alufiends and did research there. Eventually his daughter will be a sorceress character for another game.