Do you play "Wandering Adventurers"?

[Yora]

Getting into RPGs with Dungeons & Dragons and through video games, it first was a bit of a suprise for me to see that there are RPGs that don't assume that the PCs are some random loners with a sword who are just passing by when the locals are in need of mercenaries. As with almost all convention of RPGs, I blame it on Lord of the Rings, which takes place almost entirely on the road with characters far away from home. But for example in Mouse Guard, it's assumed that all characters are Guard Mice and the game doesn't even offer any alternatives, and when you would play a Jedi in a Star Wars campaign, you don't have to be sole padavan of a hermit Jedi who spend the last 30 years in hiding.

When I was working on the basic concept for my homebrew setting, which focuses on barbarian clans, it soon became clear that there really isn't any place for adventurers. Who would want to hire some 1st level outsiders if you have a bunch of mid-level warriors in every village? This means you have to be one of these clan warriors, which in turn makes the PCs start as members of a larger organization with a central headquarter.
And thinking back, I just noticed that, aside from my first clueless steps as a GM, I never consciously started a game in a tavern where some random mercenaries meet who then go poking into old ruins. There is almost always a common background to the PCs, even if its a very rough and barely defined one.

How common is it to have campaigns in which the PCs are wandering adventurers who get their quest by looking at the local notice board? Because it seems to me that campaigns would turn out quite differently, based on what brings the characters together and motivates them. (This of course also prevents the problem of having a party with both paladins, necromancers, and assassins.)

[Scow2]

The snag is that characters at level 1 are still a cut above almost everyone else in the world. D&D just does a terrible job of communicating that.

[Isamu Dyson]

The snag is that characters at level 1 are still a cut above almost everyone else in the world. D&D just does a terrible job of communicating that.

I blame the RAW housecat.

[LibraryOgre]

The snag is that characters at level 1 are still a cut above almost everyone else in the world. D&D just does a terrible job of communicating that.

It really depends, there. AD&D? Average person had a d6 or d4 HD and nothing else... probably couldn't wear armor or use any weapon that later editions would call "non-simple" with anything like proficiency. 0th level meant, more or less, "all of the worst features of every class, with none of the good".

However, to the OP, while the standard may be "mercenary adventurers picking up odd jobs", also consider that you're going to need reasons why these odd jobs are being given to "the children", as well as how to deal with players who want to play the special snowflake. You might rationalize it that any threats start out very small and are thus useful to give the kids experience. But the special snowflakes, those take a little more work.

In one game, we were all from a small village in the Western Heartlands. The village was human and halfling... and one guy was playing an elf. His character was older than everyone's grandparents. Fitting him into the game became a major part of the game... why on earth was this elf hanging out with a group of humans?

[BWR]

I haven't yet played a game where the PCs all stay in the same area throughout their career, even if that is their origin and base.
Mostly because by the time the PCs start getting powerful, they start being more important in the world at large and have cleaned up any real problems in their area. Later, they also often have people under their command for lesser things like bandits and a few measly goblins.

Only rarely have PCs I've played or run games for picked up their quests from random strangers in the tavern. Sometimes they have noticed something wrong and gone out to fix it on their own, sometimes an NPC who knows of the PCs somehow has asked them, but off hand I can't recall any time they've picked up a "help wanted" poster. I'm sure it's happened once, and we've started out as mercenaries, along with many NPCs in a motley crew.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

You could think of it this way: there's always "minimum wage work". The mid-level adventurers will go handle things that they find to be more interesting and more urgently demanding their expertise. Level 1 adventurers should get the chump jobs.

[hymer]

I can recall a d20 Modern game, where we were soldiers, and in no position to strike out on our own if we had wanted to. There was also a two-session thing where we worked for the local lord. Aside from that, wandering adventurers is definitely the trend in my experience.
I'm with CarpeGuitarrem. Now you're level 1, you can handle yourselves (hopefully). If there's nothing to do around here for you, go head out and find something to give you real experience. Go on, shoo. If the situation is dire enough that first levels are really needed, well, off they go.

[WbtE]

Getting into RPGs with Dungeons & Dragons and through video games, it first was a bit of a suprise for me to see that there are RPGs that don't assume that the PCs are some random loners with a sword who are just passing by when the locals are in need of mercenaries. As with almost all convention of RPGs, I blame it on Lord of the Rings, which takes place almost entirely on the road with characters far away from home.

As with almost all RPG conventions, it has more to do with Conan, Leiber's Swords, and so forth. LotR has quite a different structure.


How common is it to have campaigns in which the PCs are wandering adventurers who get their quest by looking at the local notice board?

I never run this kind of game and rarely put up with playing in it. More typical would be a picture where the PCs are itinerant treasure-seekers who pro-actively seek out adventures in the quest for wealth. Of course, everyone has their own reasons for wanting money...

[Honest Tiefling]

I'd actually blame Hercules and various other myths for this, or more recently, military/cowboy/pirate fiction.

Adventuring to me, is an ugly term for when a campaign setting is hitting its head against a desk because it had to make room for this convention. I hate hearing it IC without there being some logic to it, and even then it can sound weak.

Personally, I'd rather be a criminal in a gang, a mercenary or even a part of a ship of pirates. But that often takes more coordination then is possible when trying to herd the gang of bored cats that are players.

[veti]

When I was working on the basic concept for my homebrew setting, which focuses on barbarian clans, it soon became clear that there really isn't any place for adventurers. Who would want to hire some 1st level outsiders if you have a bunch of mid-level warriors in every village?

Well, there may be good reasons why you might want to hire itinerant adventurers in that setting. For one thing, the "mid-level warriors" are your warriors - if you lose them, they're gone, your village is forever weaker, and some families in your community are bereaved. If some wandering adventurers die - meh.

For another thing, those warriors have other commitments. If they're off for more than a day or so, who's going to be minding the baby and fetching the water and harvesting the carrots? In a pre-modern setting, most people just don't have a lot of spare time for anything. There are chores and spare to keep them busy, quite literally, every minute of the day.

Finally, presumably they didn't get to be mid-level warriors just by doing the chores described above, so there is other, non-quest-related fighting going on. What if the village is attacked while they're away?

[mucat]

I've rarely played anyone who would give their profession as "Wandering Adventurer." However, many of the campaigns I've played in do end up involving an awful lot of travel. I prefer there to be a good IC reason why they're on the road so much, though. Sometimes their actual profession is one that requires travel (sailor, merchant, archaeologist, bush pilot...) Other times the campaign centers around a crisis serious enough to pull the characters away from whatever they would prefer to be doing with their lives.

[SiuiS]

I've played a few wanderers. Note that wandering characters don't really do the whole 'notice board' thing, at least not organically. They are proactive.

One was a knight errant, eighth son of a family and with nothing to his name. He joined a knightly order for the glory, the purpose, to get back at his family structure for relegating him to the rubbish bin, and as a tool to accomplish something in life. He had a slew of single-rank craft skills and professions, and was a one-man Salvation Army relief group; he would move into an area, listen to what needed doing and do itc sometimes for food and sometimes for reward. We cleared a drow outpost and he hired some men and carved out the cave, built a guard tower there, set up logging operations, cleared a bit of the surrounding wood, set up the field for farming, built and maintained a longhouse and then several huts for villagers, and convinced the local banner men to elect a sheriff to preside over the area and allow favored families to tend the land to maintain the keep without it becoming a tax burden of the local lord (and without it being a threat to established power).

Another went around looking into old ruins because she was a magic archaeologist. Old ruins often had strange tales, dissapearances, and potential hauntings involved because people developed urban legends about the are to explain monster attacks and weird ecology. The game was very sandbox, and revolved around discovering, plumbing and cartographic ancient ruins. The 'plot' such that it was, was an emergent property caused by tensions in the greater magical community over the responsibility of the magic user towards the world at large, spurred by a gifted young thing discovering and unearthing ruins and magic that were dormant or at times sealed away.


These games all worked rather well, but they all had sandbox design, rather than a plot, and there was never anything pressing of the World Threatening Evil variety. There was always the possibility to walk away and not care, and any missions from town grew out of fame and asking around. The players have to be proactive and work towards goals to achieve things, rather than rely on the DM to give them quests from the bounty list or something.

I've played a few games where the game had a plot, or the players weren't proactive, and they didn't go anywhere. Not as far as the wandering adventure angle was concerned.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd actually blame Hercules and various other myths for this, or more recently, military/cowboy/pirate fiction.

I have long held that D&D is pretty much "Westerns in a medieval/fantasy drag."

[Thrudd]

I believe the assumption built into old D&D is that adventurers seek wealth, power and glory. They don't need someone to hire them or send them on a quest, necessarily, at early levels they would go out looking for treasure on their own. Why there are ruins and dungeons full of monsters, treasure and lost magic abundant enough that "adventurer" is a career choice for some people is a question the setting should be answering. When characters gain some power and notoriety, people may in fact start seeking them out for quests or to help protect them from threats. At first, though, it makes sense that the adventurers would be more proactive in gathering rumours of lost treasure and magical items and seeking them out.

[Honest Tiefling]

I have long held that D&D is pretty much "Westerns in a medieval/fantasy drag."

How many campaigns start with a band of lone wanderers with weapons wandering into a remote, frontier town? Especially one with trouble with outlaws?

[Tengu_temp]

The closest I played to this kind of game was Legends of the Wulin, where wandering heroes are an explicit part of the setting. Second closest was a game where the players were all the crew of a large plane in a dieselpunk future and tried to make a living, Firefly/Cowboy Bebop style. In both of these games the main plotline quickly showed up though.

Other than that? Haven't played a "wandering adventurers" game in roughly a decade. I tend to play themed games with set premises rather than random adventuring. And random adventuring is ill-fitting for most of the systems I play.

[Zavoniki]

I don't know if I've ever played or run a campaign like that, or anything close.

A list of a few campaign I've been in.

Eclipse Phase - Untitled: We were Firewall Agents. This was a campaign with a bunch of new roleplayers and its structure was us getting missions, and then pursuing those missions, until the plot revealed itself and then we were just doing that.

Cortex - Tales of the TAC9: I ran this game which was pretty closely structured on the traditional Star Trek/Stargate exploration model. The players were the command crew of Humanities first starship and did awesome things. I guess this is kinda close but there was always a driving plot(Defeat the Bugs, Find new Allies, get Money, etc...)

Pathfinder - Civil War: This was a Pathfinder game that started with the characters making a food delivery then finding an airship and then trying to restore peace and order to a kingdom by finding the kings lost heir. It could have become a Wandering Adventurers campaign but the players never wanted that and sought out plot at every opportunity.

Custom D20(became a D12 dice pool) System for Harry Potter - Mysteries of the Weave: The players were all students at Hogwarts. This was fairly character driven and once again not plot oriented.

Then there's an EP game I'm running right now and a Shadowrun game I'm playing in that just started.

The big problem with the Wandering Adventurers trope is that it doesn't make for a very compelling story. If what you are doing every session is only related by having the same main characters, its hard to build an effective narrative. Even in my Space Exploration game the players had a driving plot goal(Get More Money/Defeat the Evil Bugs and Stop them from Eating Everyone) that changed how they made decisions in the game.

[Sith_Happens]

Both of my current characters were wandering adventurers until the point that they actually joined the campaign and immediately obtained a Main Quest. Does that count?

[AMFV]

Getting into RPGs with Dungeons & Dragons and through video games, it first was a bit of a suprise for me to see that there are RPGs that don't assume that the PCs are some random loners with a sword who are just passing by when the locals are in need of mercenaries. As with almost all convention of RPGs, I blame it on Lord of the Rings, which takes place almost entirely on the road with characters far away from home. But for example in Mouse Guard, it's assumed that all characters are Guard Mice and the game doesn't even offer any alternatives, and when you would play a Jedi in a Star Wars campaign, you don't have to be sole padavan of a hermit Jedi who spend the last 30 years in hiding.

When I was working on the basic concept for my homebrew setting, which focuses on barbarian clans, it soon became clear that there really isn't any place for adventurers. Who would want to hire some 1st level outsiders if you have a bunch of mid-level warriors in every village? This means you have to be one of these clan warriors, which in turn makes the PCs start as members of a larger organization with a central headquarter.
And thinking back, I just noticed that, aside from my first clueless steps as a GM, I never consciously started a game in a tavern where some random mercenaries meet who then go poking into old ruins. There is almost always a common background to the PCs, even if its a very rough and barely defined one.

How common is it to have campaigns in which the PCs are wandering adventurers who get their quest by looking at the local notice board? Because it seems to me that campaigns would turn out quite differently, based on what brings the characters together and motivates them. (This of course also prevents the problem of having a party with both paladins, necromancers, and assassins.)

That's more a convention of westerns and other fantasy works, than it is of the Lord of the Rings. Where only one character (Boromir, arguably) had a mercenary motivation for his character.

I've considered playing as unionized adventurers at one point, part of a union that protects them and brings them together, because that could be loads of fun.

The reason you see more of that is because it's easier to run in the video game world, and the worlds (roleplaying and video gaming) are now basically mirroring each other.

Edit: And I have only played in such a game once, it was pretty fun though.

[fusilier]

Getting into RPGs with Dungeons & Dragons and through video games, it first was a bit of a suprise for me to see that there are RPGs that don't assume that the PCs are some random loners with a sword who are just passing by when the locals are in need of mercenaries. As with almost all convention of RPGs, I blame it on Lord of the Rings, which takes place almost entirely on the road with characters far away from home. But for example in Mouse Guard, it's assumed that all characters are Guard Mice and the game doesn't even offer any alternatives, and when you would play a Jedi in a Star Wars campaign, you don't have to be sole padavan of a hermit Jedi who spend the last 30 years in hiding.

When I was working on the basic concept for my homebrew setting, which focuses on barbarian clans, it soon became clear that there really isn't any place for adventurers. Who would want to hire some 1st level outsiders if you have a bunch of mid-level warriors in every village? This means you have to be one of these clan warriors, which in turn makes the PCs start as members of a larger organization with a central headquarter.
And thinking back, I just noticed that, aside from my first clueless steps as a GM, I never consciously started a game in a tavern where some random mercenaries meet who then go poking into old ruins. There is almost always a common background to the PCs, even if its a very rough and barely defined one.

How common is it to have campaigns in which the PCs are wandering adventurers who get their quest by looking at the local notice board? Because it seems to me that campaigns would turn out quite differently, based on what brings the characters together and motivates them. (This of course also prevents the problem of having a party with both paladins, necromancers, and assassins.)

I think the nature of your barbarian clans is going to be an issue. Even if they are very "primitive" (for want of a better term), they will form war parties, go on trading expeditions, and explore. Nomadic peoples will roam quite a bit to find new areas, etc. On the other hand, they have normal jobs to do -- they are hunters, farmers, and warriors (in the sense that they protect their clan). Most of them can't afford to just wander off and abandon their families for more than a few months. So while there may be plenty of mid-level warriors around, they wouldn't necessarily be available for serious adventuring.

Recruiting an adventuring party among such characters would probably be tricky to do "on the fly" -- a campaign like that I would probably "front-load" it, in the sense that the characters already know each other, and already know what they are getting into, before the game starts.

[Scow2]

How many campaigns start with a band of lone wanderers with weapons wandering into a remote, frontier town? Especially one with trouble with outlaws?Most of them, from what I've seen. Though not entirely "Lone" because it's a whole party.

"You arrive in the small village of Awesometon. There are goblins in the area". Take out the goblins, move to the next town where they have Gnolls, rinse and repeat.

[LibraryOgre]

How many campaigns start with a band of lone wanderers with weapons wandering into a remote, frontier town? Especially one with trouble with outlaws?

Pretty much the premise of T1 The Village of Hommlet and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, off the top of my head. Also, pretty close to the beginning of Night Below.

[Yukitsu]

I've considered playing as unionized adventurers at one point, part of a union that protects them and brings them together, because that could be loads of fun.


I've actually run a game where there was an "adventurers union" that players got semi organized, categorized work from. It was actually pretty fun.

In that setting, the adventurers were by profession monster hunters, trap disablers, treasure hunters etc. hired by the nation to clear out the territory they'd expanded into so their archeologists could then safely raid the place, analyze the relics they brought back etc.

[Urpriest]

For a barbarian setting, during peacetime the barbarians might make a practice of sending out youths to prove themselves in the wilds, fighting beasts and monsters and traveling the land to keep them from causing trouble at home.

[Kane0]

Similarly, tribes that are at odds but do not want to overtly provoke each other may look into third parties to do their dirty work by proxy. A small band of level 1 chumps that cant be traced back to them, for example.

[Frozen_Feet]

"Adventurer" is a catch-all term for the following sorts of people: when legitimized by a society, they are merchants, privateers, police officers, professional soldiers, sailors, caravaneers, hikers, explorers, empirical scientists, hunters, agents, archeologists, nomads, so on and so forth. When not legitimized by a society, they are thieves, hobos, poachers, barbarians, pirates, bandits, mercenaries, spies, grave-robbers and what not.

A lot of people have reasons to move and travel from place to place, and to me, wanderlust is an important part of RPGs. The sense of discovery is fundamental part of the experience and one I try to include in all of my games.

That said, being a random hobo doing odd jobs is hardly necessary for that. Indeed, in most of my campaigns I expect the characters to have or buy a home to serve as base of operations. I also encourage players to come up with their own goals - if they're moving, it's not so that some random person can give them stuff to do. Moving should be part of the doing, either and end to itself ("What's there, over that hill?") or necessary step on the way ("I want to win the tournament, but it's held in another nation.").

An illustrative example would be my maritime campaing that ran from 2010 to end of 2011. My players started as part of the military, then after serving their time moved to an island, buying a mansion. They then spent considerable time exploring their new home region, before acquiring enough money to buy a boat and starting to move from island to island (motivated by sickness of one character for which they went to seek cure from the continent). They periodically returned home, but when the time between visits became longer and longer, they eventually abonded the mansion and bought a larger vessel (a frigate) to serve as base of operations. The imperial capitol on the continent became their new "home port", untill they managed to screw their relations with local law-enforcement and sailed far to the south to flee.

As time went by, many of the original characters died, and were replaced by new ones hired from all across the globe. Few were related to deceased characters, one was rescued from slavery, others were drafted from shady port taverns (yay!) while some were hired through an official process. So the crew eventually became the "traditional" wandering ragtag bunch of misfits due to perfectly natural reasons.

[Airk]

"Adventurer" is a catch-all term for the following sorts of people: when legitimized by a society, they are merchants, privateers, police officers, professional soldiers, sailors, caravaneers, hikers, explorers, empirical scientists, hunters, agents, archeologists, nomads, so on and so forth. When not legitimized by a society, they are thieves, hobos, poachers, barbarians, pirates, bandits, mercenaries, spies, grave-robbers and what not.

Except that "Adventurers" as seen in most RPG games, rarely if ever do any of the activities required to qualify for most of these categories, except when the game starts to fall apart and people start complaining of "murderhoboism".



A lot of people have reasons to move and travel from place to place, and to me, wanderlust is an important part of RPGs. The sense of discovery is fundamental part of the experience and one I try to include in all of my games.

The thing is that you can have this without having the awkwardness of "itinerant adventurers"...



That said, being a random hobo doing odd jobs is hardly necessary for that.

...as you go on to say yourself. :)

[Jarawara]

I have a question concerning the definition of "wandering adventurer".

The characters from the Dragonlance storyline (Tanis, Caramon, Rastlin, or perhaps your own characters if you ran them through the series of modules) - are they considered "Wandering Adventurers", or are they plot-related destiny characters?

They are dragged into the storyline and railroaded across the continent every step of the way. "Wandering" doesn't seem to be an option in that campaign, as all your waking moments are spent following the clues (or the chains) to the next set module.

But on the other hand, they all meet in a tavern at the start of the campaign, the Leaves of the Last Inn. They do not seem to be the "heroes of destiny", but rather just the "heroes who happened by".

So what exactly are they?

[Jay R]

In the game I'm running now, all characters grew up in the same village, and became friends because they clearly were different from everybody else. The first "adventure" was that these people were chosen for what was expected to be a dull duty - escorting a wagonload of apples and potatoes to the next town.

But the goblin wars have just begun, and they got caught up in it. The village they were headed for had been razed, and they went on trying to find a market. Eventually they reached a town under siege, which they were able to help free. (You get a great price for food at the end of a protracted siege.)

When they returned home, wolf-riding goblins were raiding there, and they have since been trying to track the goblin raiders.

They are only wandering adventurers in the same sense that the four hobbits were - they got caught up in a war far bigger than they knew when they left on a simple mission.

[Kiero]

I don't remember the last time I played a game where that was the case, or indeed where there were any adventurers.

In our current D&D4e game, the PCs are defenders of the community. They live in the area in which things happen, and they act to protect the people from whatever threatens them. They don't get paid (there's no loot, for that matter) and they only kill when they have to.

In the historical ACKS game I was running before that, the PCs were mercenaries (and their retinues). While they did walk a very long way to get to Massalia, once there they were acting on behalf of their employer on a (very lucrative) long-term contract to train the city militia.

[Sith_Happens]

Except that "Adventurers" as seen in most RPG games, rarely if ever do any of the activities required to qualify for most of these categories, except when the game starts to fall apart and people start complaining of "murderhoboism".

Really, because I'd say the generic/stereotypical "adventurer" is characterized by doing most or all of the above.

[Airk]

Really, because I'd say the generic/stereotypical "adventurer" is characterized by doing most or all of the above.

Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a merchant (buys, sells, trades goods for profit), a privateer (attacks the enemies of his nation under political letter of marque), a police officer (arrests people who break laws), a professional soldier (part of a formal military unit who takes orders), a sailor (sails a ship, generally as part of a train of command), a caravaneer (drives large, heavy wagons or heavily laden pack animals on long journeys), a hiker (someone who walks for recreation), an explorer (explores new lands and new civilizations for purposes of expanding knowledge/discovery), an empirical scientists (perform experiments and record findings), a hunter (Hunts game for food or sport), AND also several different varieties of thief (at the end of the day, thieves, bandits, pirates and grave robbers are all just different ways of taking people's stuff AND I don't think most adventurers do ANY of them. Except maybe straight up thievery. How often do your games have adventurers ambushing caravans or merchant vessels and taking their loot?)

Can you imagine AN adventurer who does any give one of those things? Probably. But does the stereotypical adventurer do ANY of them? I'd argue the answer is 'generally not'.

[Sith_Happens]

Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a merchant (buys, sells, trades goods for profit), a privateer (attacks the enemies of his nation under political letter of marque), a police officer (arrests people who break laws), a professional soldier (part of a formal military unit who takes orders), a sailor (sails a ship, generally as part of a train of command), a caravaneer (drives large, heavy wagons or heavily laden pack animals on long journeys), a hiker (someone who walks for recreation), an explorer (explores new lands and new civilizations for purposes of expanding knowledge/discovery), an empirical scientists (perform experiments and record findings), a hunter (Hunts game for food or sport), AND also several different varieties of thief (at the end of the day, thieves, bandits, pirates and grave robbers are all just different ways of taking people's stuff AND I don't think most adventurers do ANY of them. Except maybe straight up thievery. How often do your games have adventurers ambushing caravans or merchant vessels and taking their loot?)

Can you imagine AN adventurer who does any give one of those things? Probably. But does the stereotypical adventurer do ANY of them? I'd argue the answer is 'generally not'.

Not all of them all the time, but at least most of them parts of the time.

[Frozen_Feet]

Wow, you managed to type that and still believe your own words?

Okay, example time. Who would you consider a stereotypical adventurer? My pick would be Conan of Cimmeria, who managed to be most of those during his life. He even managed to be those in span of a single story, though I don't remember the name. (It was the one where he starts as King of Aquilonia, is usurped, then goes on a quest to gather forces to reclaim his throne, revisiting various places and people he came across earlier in his career.)

[Airk]

Wow, you managed to type that and still believe your own words?

Okay, example time. Who would you consider a stereotypical adventurer? My pick would be Conan of Cimmeria, who managed to be most of those during his life. He even managed to be those in span of a single story, though I don't remember the name. (It was the one where he starts as King of Aquilonia, is usurped, then goes on a quest to gather forces to reclaim his throne, revisiting various places and people he came across earlier in his career.)

Haven't read it, will have to rely on you:
How much arresting of lawbreakers did he do? :P
Scientific experiments?
Haggling?
Professional soldiering? (This is pretty much the direct opposite of what I think of when I think 'Conan').

Yeah. I still think that.

[mucat]

Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a

<long list snipped>

Can you imagine AN adventurer who does any give one of those things? Probably. But does the stereotypical adventurer do ANY of them? I'd argue the answer is 'generally not'.
We must have different stereotypes. I've never played a character who does all those things at once -- they would be damned busy. But in those campaigns I've played in where we ARE wandering adventurer types -- which is far from every campaign -- almost every PC would fit one or more of the roles on that list.

In our current Steampunk campaign, where we do seem to wander more than a little...

PC #1, the Dashing Captain: Merchant and Privateer.
PC #2, the Hard-Drinking Engineer: Sailor. (Airship crew, but hey.)
PC #3, the Long-Suffering Constable: Police Officer.
PC #4, the Obsessive Mad Surgeon: Scientist and (now court-martialed) Soldier.
PC #5, the Mildly Unhinged Alchemist: Scientist and occasional Thief.
PC #6, the Enigmatic Foreigner who Hits People: Explorer and Hiker.
PC #7, the Insufferable Chef: Thief of several distasteful varieties, some of which we probably don't even know. (While the characters despise him, the players find him hilarious!)

Major NPC Patron #1, the Great Hunter: Hunter and Explorer.
Major NPC Patron #2, the Archaeologist: Scientist and Explorer.

[AMFV]

Except that "Adventurers" as seen in most RPG games, rarely if ever do any of the activities required to qualify for most of these categories, except when the game starts to fall apart and people start complaining of "murderhoboism"

I've had multiple reports of people "complaining of 'murderhoboism'" But I've yet to actually see anybody complain about it... In fact I've only ever seen it discussed as a caricature of a certain style of play (hack and slash). The closest you'd get to that in standard fantasy is Conan and other Swords and Sorcerery type works, and that's a deliberate stylistic choice. So it tends to be that in games where there is that kind of murdering orphaned hobo type, everybody tends to be on board with it.

As far as the standard goes, mercenaries are common because it allows for the DM to have an easy hook (money), so that's often been an accepted method for getting the players into the adventure, and that's typically the one that's assumed in most published works, is that the players are motivated by money.

There are other motivations, but for them to be shared by all the players they require some cohesion at character creation. For example members of a religious order could be motivated by that order. Friends could be motivated by loyalty to a friend not present (trying to rescue him or her) or save his or her reputation post mortum.


Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a merchant (buys, sells, trades goods for profit), a privateer (attacks the enemies of his nation under political letter of marque), a police officer (arrests people who break laws), a professional soldier (part of a formal military unit who takes orders), a sailor (sails a ship, generally as part of a train of command), a caravaneer (drives large, heavy wagons or heavily laden pack animals on long journeys), a hiker (someone who walks for recreation), an explorer (explores new lands and new civilizations for purposes of expanding knowledge/discovery), an empirical scientists (perform experiments and record findings), a hunter (Hunts game for food or sport), AND also several different varieties of thief (at the end of the day, thieves, bandits, pirates and grave robbers are all just different ways of taking people's stuff AND I don't think most adventurers do ANY of them. Except maybe straight up thievery. How often do your games have adventurers ambushing caravans or merchant vessels and taking their loot?)

Can you imagine AN adventurer who does any give one of those things? Probably. But does the stereotypical adventurer do ANY of them? I'd argue the answer is 'generally not'.

Well out of your list I've had many adventurers that did exactly those things, and they were certainly stereotypical beyond that. You've never had adventurers try banditry? You've never had adventurers explore a tomb to learn about history? No wonder you don't think D&D can be a game of social intrigue, you've clearly never played with any D&D players interested in more complex motivations.

As far as the stereotypical adventurer goes, they often have a job, or have a background involving a job, I've had at least one professional detective (with the ranks to prove it), I've had a nobleman, who was very interested in preserving the interests of his family, I've had a pirate, who was trying to obtain a new ship to return to Piracy. I've had a professional locksmith (because I wanted a lawful trapfinding rogue). Those were all my adventurers so I don't think that there is a stereotypical adventurer, except for many of them being motivated by money, which is convenience for a DM.

[LibraryOgre]

I have a question concerning the definition of "wandering adventurer".

The characters from the Dragonlance storyline (Tanis, Caramon, Rastlin, or perhaps your own characters if you ran them through the series of modules) - are they considered "Wandering Adventurers", or are they plot-related destiny characters?


A mixture. For example, I'd say that Tanis, Flint, and Tasslehoff are the wandering adventurer types... while they've been settled in and around Solace for a while, they're primarily freelance troubleshooters. Caramon also falls into this category, due to his position as a freelance warrior, but he's also got the connection to Raistlin, who is far more "instrument of fate" due to his association with Fistandantilius. Sturm is a lot more a plot-related destiny character, as well, but that's because he's got Tragic Hero written all over him in flowing Solamniac script.

[Amaril]

Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a merchant (buys, sells, trades goods for profit), a privateer (attacks the enemies of his nation under political letter of marque), a police officer (arrests people who break laws), a professional soldier (part of a formal military unit who takes orders), a sailor (sails a ship, generally as part of a train of command), a caravaneer (drives large, heavy wagons or heavily laden pack animals on long journeys), a hiker (someone who walks for recreation), an explorer (explores new lands and new civilizations for purposes of expanding knowledge/discovery), an empirical scientists (perform experiments and record findings), a hunter (Hunts game for food or sport), AND also several different varieties of thief (at the end of the day, thieves, bandits, pirates and grave robbers are all just different ways of taking people's stuff AND I don't think most adventurers do ANY of them. Except maybe straight up thievery. How often do your games have adventurers ambushing caravans or merchant vessels and taking their loot?)

Can you imagine AN adventurer who does any give one of those things? Probably. But does the stereotypical adventurer do ANY of them? I'd argue the answer is 'generally not'.

Umm...I'm not sure what games you've been playing, but in my experience, that's pretty much exactly what adventurers do :smallconfused: Generally not all of them at once, but the lives of most adventurers tend to be a mix of several of these at any given time.

[LibraryOgre]

Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a merchant (buys, sells, trades goods for profit), a privateer (attacks the enemies of his nation under political letter of marque), a police officer (arrests people who break laws), a professional soldier (part of a formal military unit who takes orders), a sailor (sails a ship, generally as part of a train of command), a caravaneer (drives large, heavy wagons or heavily laden pack animals on long journeys), a hiker (someone who walks for recreation), an explorer (explores new lands and new civilizations for purposes of expanding knowledge/discovery), an empirical scientists (perform experiments and record findings), a hunter (Hunts game for food or sport), AND also several different varieties of thief (at the end of the day, thieves, bandits, pirates and grave robbers are all just different ways of taking people's stuff AND I don't think most adventurers do ANY of them. Except maybe straight up thievery. How often do your games have adventurers ambushing caravans or merchant vessels and taking their loot?)

My current character is a cleric of the Traveler. As a cleric of the Traveler, his duties include:
Rooting out bandits and evil humanoids (who make it difficult for people to travel; article of faith)
Professional Sailor, Hiker, and caravaneer (mine is specifically a muleteer, which is how he made his way over the mountains from Brandobia, but he is also a sailor)
Explorer ("You mean no one's been there before? Let's travel!")
Tinker (he's got skills as a carpenter, leatherworker, and blacksmith, because it's hard to travel in winter and he needs a way to make a living; plus, you can practice these skills on the road)
Tomb robber (hello, dead things that prey on the living!)
Temple Descrator (tearing down a totem to the Creator of Strife was a big part of the last session).
Privateer (chartered adventurer in the Earldom of Reyifor)
We've also been freelance investigators, agents of the local military... all part of a day's work.

[Slipperychicken]

For my most recent character, I'm trying to explain his behavior with a risk-seeking personality which only lets him feel truly "alive" while taking extreme risks. He can be relatively inactive and hold a "real" job for like a month, but he finds it dull, and still gets cravings for excitement and adventure which make it difficult to refuse when an adventuring party invites him to join.

Prior to traveling, he played aztec death-lacrosse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_stickball) (I know the aztecs didn't use a stick in their ball-games. I modded it into an aztec-style culture and made it much more lethal) in his homeland (the sport was quite sufficient to give him his adrenaline-fix), but his surprising reluctance to kill alienated him, leading to a life of self-imposed exile.

[Kalmageddon]

No, I don't, which come to think of it is probably my main problem when I'm a player in the typical campaign.
See, almost all of the DMs I've known go for the pretty standard wandering adventurers/murderhobos campaign and I can't for the life of me come up with a character that really fits that theme. Every character I've ever played would have been far more comfortable as part of an organization or in a campaign that focuses on the reality of, say, a single city or a small reign.

If we are talking D&D, I'm actually surprised how so many classes are even expected to be adventurers when their concept works much better when tied to a smaller and more stable environment. Like the wizard. Sure, field research and such can be a good reason to go adventuring, but wouldn't any sensible wizard use mercenaries for that? After all, if we disregard the fact that in D&D experience points are earned by killing stuff, a life on the road isn't really comfortable for a study-intesive class.
Same deal for the cleric. Allright, there are enemies of your deity to fight, but what a cleric should be doing most of the time is preaching, handling religious functions and similar things, which sure as hell aren't done by going inside a dungeon and killing things.

[NichG]

I generally dislike this style because it puts too much on the GM to always have the plot-du-jour ready to go. That said, I've used components of this style in recent campaigns.

For example, party is a workshop of students at the Guild, the organization containing all individuals higher than Lv3 in the world. Occasionally there are jobs that they, as a workshop, can take on - mercenary work, building homes, researching new pesticides, whatever. But at the same time, the players decided what kind of workshop they were going to be, and that gave them the context to decide goals for themselves beyond just doing the mercenary work.

So the mercenary jobs were there for when they didn't know what to do next, whereas at the same time they could (and mostly did) pursue their own plot threads.

I guess for me, the #1 thing a character should have is a strong personal desire to do 'something'. Put together a bunch of possibly conflicting personal desires with a situation that forces everyone to band together and game happens.

[mucat]

If we are talking D&D, I'm actually surprised how so many classes are even expected to be adventurers when their concept works much better when tied to a smaller and more stable environment. Like the wizard. Sure, field research and such can be a good reason to go adventuring, but wouldn't any sensible wizard use mercenaries for that?
I can usually find a perfectly IC reason for a wizard to leave their study and hit the road. I have to trust the GM, though, to provide a compelling reason to stay on the road, rather than saying "All right, that's what I was here to do. Back to the books. Take care, and stop by if you're in town. (Except for you, Jean.)"

Fortunately, I seem to have good GMs in that respect; as long as I want to keep the character adventuring, they keep giving them compelling reasons to do so. Even so, sometimes there comes a point for a PC to (temporarily or permanently) fade into NPC status, simply because he/she has other things to be doing...

[Benthesquid]

Some historical individuals to whom the term "Adventurers," might well apply.

Casanova, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casanova) a Freemason, seducer, and con man.
Cagliostro, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagliostro) a mystic, alchemist, and probably con man.
Byron, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron) poet, soldier, and swimmer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Maupin, opera singer, duelist, and crossdresser.
William Walker, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)) mercenary, filibuster, and would-be Empire Builder.

So there's a wide range of careers that can fall under Adventurer. These guys weren't necessarily "Wandering,' adventurers, as many of them had places they remained in for decent period of time, but they did tend to move around a fair amount, because it turns out a lot of people don't like having 'Adventurers' in the neighborhood.

[Thrudd]

No, I don't, which come to think of it is probably my main problem when I'm a player in the typical campaign.
See, almost all of the DMs I've known go for the pretty standard wandering adventurers/murderhobos campaign and I can't for the life of me come up with a character that really fits that theme. Every character I've ever played would have been far more comfortable as part of an organization or in a campaign that focuses on the reality of, say, a single city or a small reign.

If we are talking D&D, I'm actually surprised how so many classes are even expected to be adventurers when their concept works much better when tied to a smaller and more stable environment. Like the wizard. Sure, field research and such can be a good reason to go adventuring, but wouldn't any sensible wizard use mercenaries for that? After all, if we disregard the fact that in D&D experience points are earned by killing stuff, a life on the road isn't really comfortable for a study-intesive class.
Same deal for the cleric. Allright, there are enemies of your deity to fight, but what a cleric should be doing most of the time is preaching, handling religious functions and similar things, which sure as hell aren't done by going inside a dungeon and killing things.

It depends on the setting. In the setting originally assumed by D&D, PC wizards would not be satisfied with the status-quo book studying which would never get them much above being first level. They have the most need to adventure of anyone, because the dungeons and ruins and manses of other wizards are the only place to find the scrolls and books full of lost magical power. The Dying Earth of Jack Vance implies that there are only 100 spells left in existence, and only the most powerful and talented wizards have collected them all at great expense/danger and are able to conduct research of their own into new magical abilities. This very closely matches the default D&D setting, where we have a finite number of codified spells that must be memorized by rote, and very high level wizards may conduct research into making new spells. Only someone already very wealthy and/or powerful could afford to stay safe in their study while others gathered the spells for them. PC's are never such a person, they are by necessity self-starters.
Clerics are meant to be members of their religion's military/warrior branch. They are not the "stay at home and preach" type of priest, by design. Why do you think they know how to wear heavy armor and use maces and hammers (and other weapons depending on the deity)? They have a duty to protect and serve their church and/or their community or the world at large. Delving into dungeons does make a bit less sense for them than for wizards...but cleric spells can also be found on scrolls, so perhaps there is an element of retrieving magic and wealth for their church, as well as destroying monsters.
Every original PC class is designed to be the type of person who wants and/or needs to adventure for one reason or another. This is supported by the OD&D and AD&D XP awarding rules where treasure recovered from the dungeons was the primary source of XP, not killing things (that still gave some). An adventurer's job is recovering wealth and magic from the wild places, either for themselves or for the good of society.

[TheCountAlucard]

One of my last Exalted characters was a prince-turned-scavenger lord, sort of a ruins-exploring occult tomb robber. While he did indeed have a greater desire than dredging up ancient treasures for debauchery funds, he still went many places and wore many hats.

[Scow2]

Aye, Thrudd has it right - Wizards need to adventure to find scrolls, fund research, and see the world (And the magic it contains). "Studying magic in a cloistered tower" is for only two types of wizards: Fresh apprentices learning cantrips so they can go out and explore the world, and wizened old wizards who are consolidating their findings from a lifetime of adventuring: Essentially, Wizard Retirement.

Preaching at home is the LAST place a cleric needs to be. They've got missionary work to do - the church cannot ordain enough Clerics to be everywhere they need one. (Something that bothers me is that D&D doesn't have Eberron's "Priest casts as an X-level cleric" at a temple to that deity, allowing non-clerics to provide cleric services at an established temple)

[Jay R]

Every original PC class is designed to be the type of person who wants and/or needs to adventure for one reason or another. This is supported by the OD&D and AD&D XP awarding rules where treasure recovered from the dungeons was the primary source of XP, not killing things (that still gave some). An adventurer's job is recovering wealth and magic from the wild places, either for themselves or for the good of society.

It would be more accurate to say that every original PC class was designed to be the sort of person who needs to adventure at first. By tenth level or so, the characters were expected to conquer a patch of wilderness, settle down, build keeps, and eventually have the sorts of adventures that come to you.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Airk: when looking at your arguments, I can't help but feel you don't understand the meaning of "catch-all term". It means something can be used of a variety of things - what I did, was to list some of the most typical of those things for the catch-all term of "adventurer". You should've noticed there was a common vein to all the examples: "people moving from place to place for [reasons]". The reasons can be anything. As you noticed me saying, you don't even have to be rootless hobo to apply.

If you try to argue "adventurer" is some distinct thing of its own, you are flat-out wrong. All adventurers, and I do mean all, can be narrowed down to a more specific job title. And again, what I did was list some of the most common of those. I have no idea what you think goes on in "most" campaigns if none of those are included.

So please provide answer to the question I asked: what do you consider as the stereotypical adventure?

Also, what comes to Conan: he reclaimed the throne of Aquilonia and imprisoned or executed his usurpers in his role as a local sovereign. He also was (at the start and end of the story) the highest commander of Aquilonia's military, because, again, King. :smalltongue: (Conan is also part of other established armies in other stories. Sure, he was a barbarian, a thief, a mercenary and general no-good low-life, but that wasn't all he was.) He also traded and haggled his stolen goods for weapons and, if I recall right, helped a wizard to find right ingredients for a potion. So there.

[Urpriest]

So please provide answer to the question I asked: what do you consider as the stereotypical adventure?


I think what you're neglecting is the "destined heroes" type. Think of fiction like the Belgariad, or Wheel of Time to a certain extent, or heck even Game of Thrones often. People aren't wandering because their profession is to wander. Rather, they want to go home, and they would be much better off at home, but circumstances keep conspiring to make them the center of the universe.

I tend to find these sorts of stories hokey unless they have good justification for why the characters are so important/"destined", and regardless I don't think D&D 3.5 represents them well given its simulationist bent. But the folks who wrote Dragonlance disagreed with me. Still, when the folks who write Dragonlance disagree with you that's usually a sign that you're right. :smallwink:

[Frozen_Feet]

Most "destined people" still fall into one or more of those categories. Tasslehof is a wandering thief, because Kender. The cleric and his boyfriend were nomads. Sturm is a questing knight, and knights have 100% tendency to be either professional soldiers or mercenaries. So on and so forth.

Also, once you include pilgrim, crusader, defiler and infidel to the list, they all fit. :smallamused:

[Urpriest]

Most "destined people" still fall into one or more of those categories. Tasslehof is a wandering thief, because Kender. The cleric and his boyfriend were nomads. Sturm is a questing knight, and knights have 100% tendency to be either professional soldiers or mercenaries. So on and so forth.

Also, once you include pilgrim, crusader, defiler and infidel to the list, they all fit. :smallamused:

Eh, doesn't fit so well with the other books I mentioned though. Wheel of Time, it's what, a shepherd, a blacksmith, a horse-trader's son, and three magical apprentices that aren't allowed to leave their magic-school? Game of Thrones does Murphy's law rather than destiny for the most part, which still ends up with an "adventuring party" of a noble's daughter, a blacksmith's apprentice, and a baker's apprentice.

[Frozen_Feet]

Still people moving from place to place for [reasons]. :smallamused: Though I'm not familiar with other works you mentioned, so you'd need to give me more details for me to narrow them down.

[Kiero]

A historical adventurer who lived life like a Player Character: Demetrius I of Macedon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetrius_I_of_Macedon).

[NichG]

I think what you're neglecting is the "destined heroes" type. Think of fiction like the Belgariad, or Wheel of Time to a certain extent, or heck even Game of Thrones often. People aren't wandering because their profession is to wander. Rather, they want to go home, and they would be much better off at home, but circumstances keep conspiring to make them the center of the universe.

I tend to find these sorts of stories hokey unless they have good justification for why the characters are so important/"destined", and regardless I don't think D&D 3.5 represents them well given its simulationist bent. But the folks who wrote Dragonlance disagreed with me. Still, when the folks who write Dragonlance disagree with you that's usually a sign that you're right. :smallwink:

Well, you can make it work in D&D 3.5 by giving the PCs some special mechanical feature that is actually unique to them and sticks out like a sore thumb to the rest of the world so no one is willing to just let them be.

It doesn't even have to be a very potent thing, just something that the villains/powerful forces in the world recognize as 'this isn't normal'.

E.g. you could very well do it by saying something like 'when a PC is killed, everyone at the scene is spontaneously raised to their level', then have an 'NPC PC' get killed to show off the effect. It gives the forces in the world a reason to both boost up the PCs and then eventually put them in situations where they can are likely to be killed.

Heck, you can do it without mechanical abilities as well. A usual 'destined heroes' trope has to do with bloodlines. The PCs are all heirs-in-exile to the seven kingdoms, which have each been taken over by an empire that wants to kill the heirs and end the chance of a disputed succession.

[Urpriest]

Still people moving from place to place for [reasons]. :smallamused: Though I'm not familiar with other works you mentioned, so you'd need to give me more details for me to narrow them down.

Yes, but the difference is that the [reasons] aren't career, they're plot. I think that's quite a meaningful difference, as the latter are forced to be bland "adventurers" because they don't have a clear station in life that would make them make sense moving around.

[Remmirath]

I have very rarely played characters who are wandering adventurers to the extent that they simply go from town to town looking for adventure. Sometimes they are brought together for some reason and had been wandering beforehand, occasionally they will do a touch of wandering in the midst of other things, but that is generally not what they mostly do.

In the two games I am currently in, one of which I am mainly playing in and one of which I am mainly running, I wouldn't classify any of them quite that way. In the first game, most of the characters banded together for the express purpose of stopping one specific threat, and are all part of the same organisation. They had quite varied backgrounds before then, but only a handful of them classify themselves as Adventurers and go about from dungeon to dungeon and such, and most of the other look on them as being rather touched. In the other game, the party began as isolated wanderers who were brought together by circumstance, but have since formed into a mercenary band and have been slowly gaining greater purpose.

So I suppose many of them pass through a wandering phase, but I can't think of any games (well, not since the first few campaigns I ran, which were rather haphazard) where that is all that they do or even the primary thing that they do.

I expect it's more common for one-off games, since it's a bit harder to connect all the characters together for those. At least, I've seen a higher incidence of random wanderers in such games.

[SiuiS]

Really? You think the stereotypical adventurer is a merchant (buys, sells, trades goods for profit), a privateer (attacks the enemies of his nation under political letter of marque), a police officer (arrests people who break laws), a professional soldier (part of a formal military unit who takes orders), a sailor (sails a ship, generally as part of a train of command), a caravaneer (drives large, heavy wagons or heavily laden pack animals on long journeys), a hiker (someone who walks for recreation), an explorer (explores new lands and new civilizations for purposes of expanding knowledge/discovery), an empirical scientists (perform experiments and record findings), a hunter (Hunts game for food or sport), AND also several different varieties of thief (at the end of the day, thieves, bandits, pirates and grave robbers are all just different ways of taking people's stuff AND I don't think most adventurers do ANY of them. Except maybe straight up thievery. How often do your games have adventurers ambushing caravans or merchant vessels and taking their loot?)

Can you imagine AN adventurer who does any give one of those things? Probably. But does the stereotypical adventurer do ANY of them? I'd argue the answer is 'generally not'.

Yeah. Yeah that's pretty standard fare.
Elivaris was a stereotypical noble, who made arrests, commanded peasants, made political decisions, battered and chartered, captained a ship, and took a turn at the rudder. He also ran a caravan made out of some clever uses of a blow, a sled, magically enhanced horses and sociopathic focus.

Tomas the necromancer was a doctor, a lawyer, a chef, and a priest. He was adventuring specifically to apply field conditions testing to his magical theory and played speculator and used minor magics to increase local property values after buying unwanted land and starting a vineyard, a gourmet restaurant and a trading conglomerate. He sealed several trade agreements with the dwarves of Björki mountain and helped start a war by failing to talk down the renegade king of some land whose name I don't remember because he died and spent a year as a ghost and so totally didn't write that down. In his travels he picked up logistics, skinning, and some other off-hand skills.

Gloria NicGouridhe was a displaced noblewoman who was a bit of a dandy. She was an acrobatic swashbuckler, and played politics pretty often, negotiating and plotting more than fencing. When politics turned sour, she took to the sea. She was quite skilled at horsemanship. Made a pretty Penny traveling with a circus at one point.

Shimo ("Frost") was a displaced wave man who spent his time hiking, privateering, survivaling (think "mountain man" but also fisher as well as skinner/trapper) and tracking down the man who was tracking him.

These guys all had reasons to be traveling and on the road, and they all made big use of their chosen skill sets, often circumventing combat encounters thereby. Heck, we had two sessions that were basically 99% skill challenge (in 3.5; name chosen for deacriptive purposes). One was trying to keep a ship from capsizing (players failed) and the other was improvised field surgery to replace an infected, mangled limb (I failed), and it was pretty damn intense for what amounted to "declare skill use, roll d20".