Cabbage Seller the RPG

[Earthwalker]

I don’t know why it is but I always seem to have one player in games I run that always has to say something like.

“That seems a bit dangerous shouldn’t we go somewhere else ?”
Or
“Nope I aren’t taking this job its sounds scary”.

No matter what the system, Shadowrun, Torg, Runequest or DnD anything he will always not want to do anything basically adventurous. Which is where my idea for Cabbage Seller the RPG came from. A nice quiet life of a cabbage seller. No hassle or danger just selling cabbages.

I know that caution isn’t a bad thing, but an unwillingness to risk anything is a bad trait. It kills a high adventure game when a player just doesn’t want to adventure.

This isn’t a call for help to deal with the player, I am just wondering if other people have similar problems or stories to share?

[Tengu_temp]

Which is where my idea for Cabbage Seller the RPG came from. A nice quiet life of a cabbage seller. No hassle or danger just selling cabbages.

Ha, not true. You can be sure that there will always be a bunch of superpowered kids running around and destroying your cabbages by accident.

[Fri]

I guess it can become a high-risk economy campaign to become the cabbage monopolist of the kingdom.

[Corrik]

Ha, not true. You can be sure that there will always be a bunch of superpowered kids running around and destroying your cabbages by accident.

Ahhh this guy! At least you'll stay well informed on current events though.

[Yora]

Which is where my idea for Cabbage Seller the RPG came from. A nice quiet life of a cabbage seller. No hassle or danger just selling cabbages.

Cabbage selling is a high risk job.

"My cabbages!!!"

[Tengu_temp]

Ultimately, all the trauma the Cabbage Merchant suffered put him over the edge and he went on a killing spree, wielding dangerous cabbage projectiles.

"I just wanted to get into Ba Sing Se!"

(Cookie if you get the reference. And I don't mean Avatar.)

[Cartigan]

Cabbage selling is a high risk job.

"My cabbages!!!"

First thing that came to mind.

The next most dangerous thing after being part of the main plot is being a fruit/vegetable stall merchant.

[Land Outcast]

Hehe, after some maritime adventures -and the inevitable ship-burning with third level spells- my players started joking about starting a ship-construction company.

This had its precedents though, with the Cart & Coach Iltd., a company a retired character created. (Based off a serious statement from another character who said "we should build and sell carts until we can afford epic equipment... wait, no, then we can keep making carts and won't even need the equipment!")

[Shademan]

I would play it.
offcourse, I would expand into lettuce and cucumbers as well

[RTGoodman]

I will admit to owning THIS RPG, but for some reason no players I've ever had were interested in playing it.

[Earthwalker]

I would play it.
offcourse, I would expand into lettuce and cucumbers as well

Great I just finished my 400 page rule book with full colour images and you now want me to start on the Lettuce and Cucumber splat books ?

I suppose I could re-use some rules, just change cabbage-blight to Lettuce-blight and so on.

Its a good way to get more money for the system I suspect.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Careful now.

I'm with Our Giant, Rich on this one. Some players think that caution is part of good role playing to the extent that the game suffers.
It can be great fun to play a character who whines and complains about the danger and act cowardly - but who ultimately is brave enough to help his friends out when it counts. That's a great sympathetic character, and kind of fun and / or funny.
But playing cautious so that you deliberately avoid the plot? That's just being a jerk.

[NichG]

Well, I think its also the responsibility of the DM to make it somewhat clear when things are going to be normal levels of dangerous, and when the party might be in over their heads. There's a lot of different expectations across different DMs:

1. DM #1 runs a status-quo world, and if the level one party decides to go into the mountains of gold, where there happens to live a great wyrm red dragon, then they meet a great wyrm red dragon, and its their responsibility to know to get out of there or to have checked it out/decided not to go.

2. DM #2 runs a game where plot hooks dropped for the party will be appropriate to their power levels, no matter what it sounds like in the plot hook. He expects the party to have some trust that he's making them sound dangerous to make the heroes seem even more heroic, not to rub his hands together maniacally in expectation of the PC death count.

3. DM #3 drops plot hooks that have a range of difficulty, but gives hints ahead of time. The party is expected to behave rationally and should know when to stay and fight and when to flee. The DM tries to hint when a given encounter is overpowering, but it may/may not always work, so sometimes parties get killed/captured/really lucky and beat the end boss on game #2.

There's more I'm sure, but that'll do to start. This problem can occur when expectations are developed due to being used to a certain kind of DM, and then those expectations are ill suited to a new or different DM.

[Earthwalker]

But playing cautious so that you deliberately avoid the plot? That's just being a jerk.

This is the category the guy falls into.
Of course in Cabbage seller the plot is just going to keep coming to him, and he has to deal with it.
Cabbage blight effecting supplies, then someone is going to have to speak to the druids to try to find a cure.

[Ravens_cry]

Meet Joe Wood.
Trapper, merchant, commoner. Not an adventurer, he hates the swaggering bastards.

[potatocubed]

Talislanta has a character archetype ('class', more or less) called "Marukani Dung-Collector". My players saw this and were more or less unanimous on a Marukani Dung-Collector campaign.

(Of course, their idea was to start out with one of the most useless archetypes possible and ascend to absurd heights, so.)

[jseah]

http://www.carpefulgur.com/recettear/

This one is about playing an magic item shop, on the other side of the counter from the adventurers.
There is dungeon diving involved though, but you can easily play without using it much. (1 time is all you need to trigger plot, if you know what you're doing)

And frankly, the management of the shop and hilarious character interactions make a pretty good game by itself.

Who needs to go kill stuff? >.>

[EccentricCircle]

I think that this sounds like a great idea.
one of my favourite characters ever was a retired adventurer who had become a magic item salesman, another player was a crafter wizard and with a few other companions they travelled the world looking to make a profit. of course this drew them into the plot, and they did a fair bit of adventuring. but the point was that they were "ordinary" people getting involved in a mystery rather than Adventurers seeking out danger and excitement in the hopes of getting rich.

it comes down to player responsibility, your character just wants to set up their shop and settle down to sell their cabbages, but you as a player know that you are playing and adventure game. you have to justify why they will rise to the call of adventure despite their objections. rather than writing it off as something they wouldn't do.

[Thurbane]

If anyone has seen Mr. Majestyk with Charles Bronson, a life in the produce industry can end up getting pretty violent.

"Vietnam veteran Vince Majestyk just wants to grow his watermelons and live in peace on his farm. But the local mob boss has different ideas..."

[eggynack]

A cabbage merchant centered game of D&D would be awesome. I envision it as a low level game where the PCs are relatively poor and need to protect their stock at all costs lest they go hungry. Meanwhile however, more standard adventurers are running around the landscape, fighting the BBEG and causing collateral damage. There could be a crazy battle over an artifact that could potentially destroy the world and the players are just trying to stay out of the way of fireballs.

[some guy]

Ha, not true. You can be sure that there will always be a bunch of superpowered kids running around and destroying your cabbages by accident.

Yeah, I had him show up in my campaign one time, too. Luckily the sorceress was nice and cleaned all his cabbages with prestidigitation and let them march back into the cart.
Fun times.

EDIT: I just remembered I wasted a few real good opportunities to use him again. [sigh] Oh well.
The "Edit" is a lie, this post has not been edited.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Well, I think its also the responsibility of the DM to make it somewhat clear when things are going to be normal levels of dangerous, and when the party might be in over their heads. There's a lot of different expectations across different DMs:

1. DM #1 runs a status-quo world, and if the level one party decides to go into the mountains of gold, where there happens to live a great wyrm red dragon, then they meet a great wyrm red dragon, and its their responsibility to know to get out of there or to have checked it out/decided not to go.

2. DM #2 runs a game where plot hooks dropped for the party will be appropriate to their power levels, no matter what it sounds like in the plot hook. He expects the party to have some trust that he's making them sound dangerous to make the heroes seem even more heroic, not to rub his hands together maniacally in expectation of the PC death count.

3. DM #3 drops plot hooks that have a range of difficulty, but gives hints ahead of time. The party is expected to behave rationally and should know when to stay and fight and when to flee. The DM tries to hint when a given encounter is overpowering, but it may/may not always work, so sometimes parties get killed/captured/really lucky and beat the end boss on game #2.

There's more I'm sure, but that'll do to start. This problem can occur when expectations are developed due to being used to a certain kind of DM, and then those expectations are ill suited to a new or different DM.

These are good points - I once ran a game for group with a chap who never seemed to realise that sometimes the encounter will need more planning than simply charging headlong at the biggest bad guy waving your rapier and shouting "have at you". He got really frustrated when his head-on approach didn't work.
I suppose that he was the exact opposite of the Cabbage Seller - brave to the point of foolhardy, trusting and expecting me to be running a game pitched at his CR all the time...
Of course, I tend to throw higher level encounters in from time to time, and they would really mess him up. I wonder if he'd have become more of a Cabbage Seller if he realised I was quite happy to let the players encounter stuff way out of their league..?

[Lhurgyof]

Yep, we sometimes have that character that's a locksmith and doesn't really help or do anything at all.

At least he told us he's a lock smith, though.

[Vangor]

Do the cabbages contain hell gates?

[Thefurmonger]

I will admit to owning THIS RPG, but for some reason no players I've ever had were interested in playing it.

Dude. I would SOOOOOO play that.

It sounds amazing.

[Tyndmyr]

This is the category the guy falls into.
Of course in Cabbage seller the plot is just going to keep coming to him, and he has to deal with it.
Cabbage blight effecting supplies, then someone is going to have to speak to the druids to try to find a cure.

You can certainly run a campaign like this in 3.5. Grab the SBG. Players build things, and trade and so forth, and of course, have to deal with competition, robbers, monsters in the fields, and so on. Adventurers can be hired. It can actually be a lot of fun.

You will, however, need better trade/craft rules. The 3.5 ones are rubbish.

Any such campaign requires the prep work of reading some Discworld. Find the character CMOT Dibbler. Use excessively.

[Chuckthedwarf]

I think it's very reasonable for a character to be cautious in some instances, especially if the player is roleplaying and doesn't just go "durp lets kill some dragons and some goblins lawl". Yes, in some cases it interferes with plot - but that doesn't mean it's necessarily the player's fault. If a DM gives you plot hooks that are utterly idiotic and something your character - and most characters in general, however heroic, wouldn't follow - why should you? There are some things that just aren't sensible to anyone who isn't a nigh-suicidal cut-throat. That describes most players, though =p

[Caliphbubba]

I have a high level wizard character in the Dragonlance campaign setting that threatens to "Retire to Nothern Ergoth and raise goats" just about every game. Any time the odds seem insurmountable, or anytime one of his long time boon companions die, or anytime a certain NPC shows up.

But in the end he loads up his spell book, staves, and the mysterious talking long sword that sort of hates him and dives into the breach.

I've been playing that character every month for going on 8 years. Good times. :-)

[The_Jackal]

Try to understand what sort of hooks the player wants for his character to undertake risks. A certain amount of caution from your players is good. Far worse than the over-cautious player is the meta-gaming player who refuses to acknowledge danger because 'you can always roll a new character'.

So accept that a healthy level of circumspection is a good quality in a player. It means that they're taking the survival and well-being of their character seriously. Your job is to do your best to give your player enough incentive to get him to undertake dangers.

[Chilingsworth]

Meet Joe Wood.
Trapper, merchant, commoner. Not an adventurer, he hates the swaggering bastards.

Thanks for linking this! I can barely stop reading it!