RP reasons

[Somensjev]

i want to play a venerable gray elf in a campaign, but my DM wants an RP reason for why my 400 year old elf is only just starting to adventure, and so i wanted to see what some of the playgrounders would say if a DM said this to them

thanks in advance to any replies, and i may take an answer i like, or modify it slightly :smalltongue:

[huttj509]

i want to play a venerable gray elf in a campaign, but my DM wants an RP reason for why my 400 year old elf is only just starting to adventure, and so i wanted to see what some of the playgrounders would say if a DM said this to them

thanks in advance to any replies, and i may take an answer i like, or modify it slightly :smalltongue:

He was bored.

[ArcturusV]

Death Quest? He realized in his old age that he had let idle distractions and basic needs rule his life. He never set out to do anything he really wanted to. So now that he feels death is (relatively for an elf) looming he is driven to a last ditch effort to make his mark on the world?

[Forrestfire]

He may have already been an adventurer for a long time, but he had a nasty run-in with a pack of Wights...

[Somensjev]

He was bored.
so i'm not the only one that thinks like that :smallbiggrin:


Death Quest? He realized in his old age that he had let idle distractions and basic needs rule his life. He never set out to do anything he really wanted to. So now that he feels death is (relatively for an elf) looming he is driven to a last ditch effort to make his mark on the world?

sounds good, so far the reasons i've proposed were "he's bored", "he dreamt about the end of the world" and "he wanted to"

[Ravens_cry]

Why did Bilbo go adventuring? While not venerable, he wasn't exactly young either. Some external force compels him to leave. What has your grey elf being doing for the past 400 years? What kind of thing would stir up an elf to join up with a band of 'children'?
Family is a good motivator.
Perhaps a beloved grandchild has taken ill, they must increase their own skill in order to find a cure.
Another possibility change in politics that suddenly makes Mister Elf persona non grata. Maybe they were an advisor to some human king and, with his death and the ascension of the hotspur (and xenophobic) new king, well, such tired old advise is no longer required, thank you.

[molten_dragon]

i want to play a venerable gray elf in a campaign, but my DM wants an RP reason for why my 400 year old elf is only just starting to adventure, and so i wanted to see what some of the playgrounders would say if a DM said this to them

thanks in advance to any replies, and i may take an answer i like, or modify it slightly :smalltongue:

I would go with the "something horrible happened to his family/friend/village and now he has to go avenge them".

Or "Something horrible threatens the safety of something he loves so he has to leave his peaceful life as an old man and deal with it".

Also, have fun with that 2 STR score.

[Grayson01]

I was going to suggest the same thing he was your typical old Elf who had no ambition of leaving his tree house till his New 115 year old Wife was captured and taken away. So now he is going all Charly Bronson on them.


I would go with the "something horrible happened to his family/friend/village and now he has to go avenge them".

Or "Something horrible threatens the safety of something he loves so he has to leave his peaceful life as an old man and deal with it".

Also, have fun with that 2 STR score.

[Somensjev]

I would go with the "something horrible happened to his family/friend/village and now he has to go avenge them".

Or "Something horrible threatens the safety of something he loves so he has to leave his peaceful life as an old man and deal with it".

Also, have fun with that 2 STR score.

my strength isnt quite that bad. i mean, i did end up with 6 strength, which is horrible, but it's better than 2 :smalltongue:

[geekintheground]

i like "i've been adventuring all my life, i just never did anything big enough to get exp for"

[Bhaakon]

He's managed to outlive his spouse and children (perhaps they died in a single recent tragedy, or just happenstance over the centuries), and while he doesn't have a death wish per se, the loss of the things which previously given his life meaning has driven him to new extremes in a quest to make sure that his existence matters.

So I guess late life existential crisis with a heaping side of nothing to lose.

[Andezzar]

How does one manage to live to 400 and still be level 1? One Lvl 1 commoner encountering another is a very difficult encounter. If he survives, he should get the XP. Now how many people does the elf encounter over 400 years?

[Thistledown]

Rather than just focusing on the reason why he has started adventuring after 400 years, I'm sure that the DM wants you to provide reasoning why he hasn't been adventuring before.

If you work out that, it will hopefully logically lead on to a reason to adventure.

For instance,

If he is a scholar, he might have heard rumours of a text that was believed to have been lost and he wants to obtain it for some reason i.e. to regain lost knowledge.

If he is a keen gardener, he may want to obtain a rare plant or something could have negatively affecte his plants and he's adventuring to get a cure.

If he's a collector of some sort, he might want to adventure to gain more items for his collection.

If he's been rich and not needed to adventure, he might have lost his fortune and need to adventure to survive.
He may have been cheated out of his fortune and start adventuring to gain the means to regain his fortune and/or take revenge.

He could be the last survivor of a disaster and have had to leave his home because it is no longer safe.

He could be a healer whose community has been hit by a mysterious disease and the only way he can get the cure is to find lost knowledge/spell(s)/magic item(s)

He could have a spouse or family member who has disappeared/been abducted and he's adventuring to be able to track them down.

[NichG]

He adventured, settled down, and forgot all his skills/levels.

Possibly because he settled down with a succubus, vampire, or other source of level drain if you want to go that particular route.

[rot42]

Is your DM looking for plot hooks and a character background, or is this a roundabout way of telling you that some other concept would fit better with this particular game?

[unseenmage]

I was going to suggest the same thing he was your typical old Elf who had no ambition of leaving his tree house till his New 115 year old Wife was captured and taken away. So now he is going all Charly Bronson on them.

I read this as '...going all Cherry Bronson on them.'

Made me giggle.

Edit: Also, coma. Put him in a coma for 400 years. Some sort of demonic sleep or something.
Hey, it works for Soap Operas then it works for D&D right?

[TheIronGolem]

Several good ideas presented so far, but I want to point out something: There's no good reason to assume a character has to be new to adventuring just because he's low level.

You could be an old man who's out of practice from a decades-long retirement. Or you could be a grizzled veteran who's been adventuring his whole life, and handwave away your low level as a gameplay conceit (or even a narrative indication of how strong these "new kids" you're working with are).

Mechanics are important, but so is fluff, and the former is supposed to support the latter, not dictate it.

[Soupz]

Because I'm playing a caster and I want the bonuses to my stats.