Help with a new ambitious player.

[MonkeySage]

An ambitious player has joined my group just recently. I told him about where the game was currently taking place and he immediately knew what he wanted to play.

So, a bit of explaining: This a magocratic republic. Slavery is common practice, especially among patricians, and the senate is entirely made up of aristocratic mages. Plebeians almost never make it into the senate even as quaestors, and aristocratic non mages rarely have much better chance than plebeians.

The player in question has created his character with two goals. She wants a front row seat in the senate, and she wants to abolish the practice of slavery.

I want my player to really enjoy his experience, though I've got doubts he'll succeed in his primary goals. He's playing a summoner, though I don't know if he's a patrician or a plebeian.

Just to be clear, I'm not complaining. I love ambitious characters, and have always played very ambitious characters in the games I've played in.

[PersonMan]

I'd do two things:

1. Ask the player if they think the character will have a chance to succeed. It's entirely possible that the most they expect is an epilogue with "and X uses the influence gained from destroying the dragon-king of the east to get a seat in the Senate", and that their goals are going to be used as reasons for going for power / adventuring.

2. Ask the player how important the goals are to them. If they really want it to work, figure out how far you think they could go and tell them - if they know the most she can reasonably get is a Senate seat, so she'll have to find some really good methods of acquiring influence to get even that far, they'll probably not be upset if half-hearted work towards the goals end up with little or no gains.

[BayardSPSR]

That's a huge ambition that sounds like it could dominate the campaign. Is that your intention? And if not, how do you plan on managing it relative to the goals of other people at the table?

[MonkeySage]

The bigger plot of the story only partially takes place in the republic; nearby is a big scary empire. The republic is small but very powerful and would make a find addition to the empire. And the current emperor is viewed by the players as something of a tyrant. Actually most of the story takes place well within imperial borders.