Thoughts on Playing/Allowing PCs of Noble/Royal Lineage?

[BlackOnyx]

As the title says, what are your thoughts on playing as or (as a DM) allowing PCs to play as characters of noble/royal lineage, particularly when said lineage could have substantial influence in the game's setting?


More specifically:


- What unique opportunities/issues do PCs of this type bring to the table?


- Are certain "types" of players (in terms of personality and/or playstyle) better suited to making PCs of this type work?


- What kind of restrictions/ground rules need to be set in place for PCs of this type to work?


In my own experience, I've been having a great time with my character, the son of a wealthy noble, who recently returned home in the midst of the party's last adventure arc. Roleplaying the last several sessions has been a joy, with my character finally getting the chance to return to his natural element. However, had I decided to play my PC as less of the proud/independent type, I could see where potentially game-breaking issues (i.e. extensive wealth/resource acquisition) could have arisen.


What's your take, though? Thoughts? Experiences? I'd love to hear them.

[DeTess]

As the title says, what are your thoughts on playing as or (as a DM) allowing PCs to play as characters of noble/royal lineage, particularly when said lineage could have substantial influence in the game's setting?


If it's the kind of PC power level that your game supports it's fine. Your players should know bout this option in advance though and all have similar levels of background power. Bob the king, accompanied by his peasant friends is bad. Eric the prince, Varael, the son of a legendary general, Mika, youngest wizard to ever study at the prestigious Archmage academy and Zil'Tiras, Silver Dragon, is fine.

[The Viscount]

I had a very fun time in my first campaign playing a character of noble blood who was disowned for impropriety. As a result he had no real legal or monetary benefit, and was off adventuring partially to gain enough fame and fortune to be accepted back into the family. It provided a fun goal to work towards, and I definitely roleplayed him as if he still deserved all the respect of his title, sort of for comedy.

The important thing for Nobles is that there are many levels of nobility, and the lower you go the more there are. The higher up your character is the more difficult it becomes to explain them gallivanting about in grave danger. A young prince might be out campaigning if he's one of 5, and not the eldest, but an only child crown prince is going to need more reason to get involved.

[SpamCreateWater]

I've played in a campaign where ALL of our characters were some form of nobility. Fun times.

It's definitely fun to RP the growing into the responsibilities of leadership. Having to decide how you would react to things because of what might get back to your political opponents in another country is certainly refreshing. And annoying as all buggery at times :smalltongue:

Players that can immerse themselves in their characters overall mindset, instead of surface and immediate reactionary RP, are better off with these characters IMO. Else, you have someone who is accurately RPing a character whose memory goes back two sessions and doesn't extend to the family they've left behind. I've seen characters who act in a generically appropriate fashion, but then 5 minutes later the player will swear a blue streak because they've forgotten their character's overarching purpose in life and now that reaction seems silly.

Restrictions really depend on the limits of your DM's abilities. We had no meta-restrictions in ours because while our characters were nobility, they weren't in safe enough positions to do anything they wanted. It helped that from the start our enemies were not common street urchins, they were scaled up accordingly.

[vasilidor]

I find it to be a general good idea to keep player of the same influence level, unless the game is a competition to gain exactly that.

[Jay R]

I'm in an AD&D 2e game in which all PCs are children of the pharaoh, trying to prove worthy to be his successor.

[Crake]

I recently played a noble knight working on behalf of the crown with the rabble of adventurers from the adventurer's guild. I was playing something of an obstructive bureaucrat (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObstructiveBureaucrat), but, of course, being a noble, I had no interest in looting or rewards, in fact, it was my job to occasionally reward the party with a reward from the crown for exceptional service to the nation (or, on at least a couple occasions, confiscate dangerous loot, which was generally then well compensated for). The DM solved this by basically just dropping less loot, and letting me just have whatever gear I wanted up to my WBL, basically treating it as "crown issued equipment".

[BowStreetRunner]

I was recently running a game in a completely different system, but I think the way we handled noble/royal players would certainly work here as well. In that game system there was an ability similar to the Profession skill that was responsible for determining any income a player received outside the normal wealth acquired in-game by adventuring. If you wanted more wealth, you needed to get this skill up. A player who was a noble/royal was no different. It was assumed that their estate had complex financial obligations and just being nobility/royalty didn't make you wealthy per se. If you didn't have a high 'profession' skill then you weren't managing your estates efficiently and any incomes were being used to pay off expenses.

So you could inform the noble/royal player that their status doesn't actually give them more wealth, as their estate has expenses and debts that need to be balanced against any potential income. If they want to generate a stream of surplus income they can take Profession: Noble or some such to represent this, or just deal with the wealth they generate in-game.

[ngilop]

I have played this on both sides and it depends on the player, the other players, as well as the DM.

The last time I played I was the long lost scion of the fallen human empire and my friend was the something like 8th or ho in line to be the king of the elven kingdom.


My character ended up finding the lost temple of the Empire's patron diety and re-stablishing that faith. The elf due to elf civil war/assassination craziness by the wood elven population of the kingdom became not only the king. But also started some less than nice 'population control'



The elven kingdom was, in my opinion, evil as all get out. it was super crazy.. Remind me of the Khmer Rogue.

[Telonius]

Possible pitfalls OOC: Spotlight stealing, dominating the social encounters, other players feeling cheated when one gets all the respect, generally Special Snowflake Syndrome.

If you can get a player who's comfortable sharing the spotlight, and are able to balance out the amount of attention each player gets, that stuff won't be a problem.

Possible problems IC: Wealth. If he's high up in the nobility, why doesn't he have heaps of gold? Something like this needs to be at least explained; the player really shouldn't be able to violate WBL. (In a system like Mutants and Masterminds, wealth is actually a benefit that you can get, but you have to "pay" for it mechanically; that might or might not work well in a D&D context).

Possible IC character hooks:

- Getting enmeshed in the local politics. If he's a noble, he's important, and other noble houses will care (one way or other) about what happens to him. A rival house might try to thwart the party; a friendly house might aid them.

- Approval or Disapproval of the members of his own house. How do they feel about him adventuring? Are they glad that he's out bringing glory to their house, or embarrassed that he's grubbing around with the common folk? If he fails in a spectacular or public fashion, is he going to risk censure or even expulsion from the nobility?

- The noble's house versus the other members of the party. Related to the previous one; how are they going to react to the Rogue or Barbarian that Prince Fancypants is now palling around with?

- You've been Noticed. People higher in the nobility might decide to give assignments directly. This could be good or bad, depending.

[AnimeTheCat]

I personally played a character that was third in line for the throne. The current King was loved by the people, but was old and ill. As one of his final acts as King, he changed the succession laws to be determined by the people, because his philosiphy was that the king should always be in service of the people. "By the People, For the People" was the decree. With that, my Fighter 2/Wizard 3 set out with his Sword Arm (Friend/Fellow PC, Knight 5), and Scribe (Friend/Fellow PC, Bard 5) and went out to the farthest reaches of the kingdom to visit everyone he could and be the greatest force of positive influence possible. Along the way, he met up with a traveling healer (Friend/Fellow PC, Cleric 5) and his sister, a self-serving vagabond (Friend/Fellow PC, Rogue 5) who went around doing good things for the people of the kingdom to build up support (and coin, in the case of the rogue). It was a very classic party dynamic, but I purposefully never held my heritage over anyone in the party. After all, I was trying to win the hearts and minds of everyone I could, and lording a position over their heads was the worst way to do it.

I guess what I would definitely allow a PC to be a part of a royal dynasty or heir to a throne, but if they started parading about and disrupting the game, I would have no problem sending assassins after them. Of course, the start would be an out of character conversation, but even with that it could be a good story element (and a chance for the character to reasonably desire change, not just the player) if the assassins had a note on them that said something about being an easy target, parading around. Essentially, resolve the issue out of game and then provide an in-game reason for any character changes that may be made.

As for "Types" of players, the ones that can put shun the spotlight themselves and bring other into the spotlight (be it by reminding another player that their character is probably the best in the party for something, or that everyone in the party is in fact important) would probably be the "best" players for the role. Usually this type of player can stay in character and keep things fun for the group, while also serving as a catalyst for story and plot.

On the note of story and plot, if the party seems like they are at a stand still due to lack of information or intel, it's really nice to have someone who can reach out and ask for asstance from a wealthy relative, but they should be weary of doing so too often as that will likely make this adventuring adult seem dependent on mommy and daddy and likely would end in them being severed from the family (at least, that's how I would handle the situation... only less mean... more like "Son, have you tried solving this on your own yet?" kind of deal). Other problems could include similar attitudes, but if the patriarch/matriarch of the family makes it known that the expectation is to rely on the family wealth as little as possible, there shouldn't be too many issues with this in the game. If there are, they can typcially be warned against in game, or handled entirely out of game (again, in a "here's your DM speaking through your father... watch yourself" kind of way).