One (level) and done

[Dappershire]

I'm sure someone has thought of this idiocy, and yes, it goes against the idea of rollplaying (though maybe not role); has anyone ever come across a player doing this?

"Ok, Mr. Level 1 Wizard. It is daytime, the city is bustling, and laughter is erupting from the tavern before you."
Player: "I turn around, head to market, and set up a business."
"....Excuse me?"
"Business. With Minor Illusion cantrips, I can set out an illusionary sign (until I can afford a real one), and start my own laundry service, using Prestidigitation, and Mending. 'Clothing Cleaned-Mended-Magiked(the spelling is what will bring the customers). While you wait!' It'll be a gold mine. Who needs adventuring?"

Just a thought I had. Wonder how punishing DMs would be to this.

[Knaight]

The closest I've seen involved a character retiring to become a cook for a noble (they started out as a poor fisherman, so this was a noticeable step up). Next session we brought in a new character, and there were no problems. If your game isn't centered in a particular location the same sort of thing applies to a character setting up shop permanently. If it is set in a particular location, then the character can have a job and also adventure, so all's good.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It's certainly a failure to communicate. If the player wanted to play magical dry cleaning entrepreneurs then the GM should have known about it before the moment he started doing it. It's also a failure of system if you're doing it in D&D.

With buy-in from everyone and the right system there's no reason you couldn't do it, though. Dealing with angry laundry purists claiming that it's a sin to wash with magic. Rival dry cleaners being put out of business by your magical efficiency. Corrupt watchmen and/or mobsters looking for protection money. There's potential there.

[Dappershire]

Corrupt watchmen and/or mobsters looking for protection money. There's potential there.

"So we've been 'earin' things. Things like yous 'avin' a line o'customers, all down th'road, and servin' 'em all before lunch. Things like yous not bein' part o' the WashersGuild. Things like yous not payin' yous dues. We think that needs ta change. I'd hate for the Watch to find yous floatin' face first in yer own washin' tub..."
...But I don't use a washing tub...
"We'd bring one."

[iceman10058]

Slightly different, i had a player make a high level fighter and said he was a farmer. The whole game ended up revolving around him and the other party members doing normal jobs in this small town and every now and then deal with a random monster that came charging through or new uppity adventurers causing a rucus.

[RazorChain]

"So we've been 'earin' things. Things like yous 'avin' a line o'customers, all down th'road, and servin' 'em all before lunch. Things like yous not bein' part o' the WashersGuild. Things like yous not payin' yous dues. We think that needs ta change. I'd hate for the Watch to find yous floatin' face first in yer own washin' tub..."
...But I don't use a washing tub...
"We'd bring one."

"Yes but hear me out berk! I may not be a member of the washers guild, but I DO pay my dues to the Mages guild. I'd love to see you and your cronies bring a tub here so you can all take a swim in it at once as FROGS!"

[LibraryOgre]

"So we've been 'earin' things. Things like yous 'avin' a line o'customers, all down th'road, and servin' 'em all before lunch. Things like yous not bein' part o' the WashersGuild. Things like yous not payin' yous dues. We think that needs ta change. I'd hate for the Watch to find yous floatin' face first in yer own washin' tub..."
...But I don't use a washing tub...
"We'd bring one."

Once again, I find myself directing people to Schlock Mercenary.

[Lord Torath]

They didn't give up after one level, but they did drastically change their goals from dungeon diving to Inn Ownership:

[AD&D Campaign Journal] How To Make Gold and Innfluence People.

It's a pretty fun read.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd probably say something along the lines of "Cool, your character retires to run their business. Now I'ma go run the rest of the party while you start rolling up someone who's actually going to adventure." If you want to play a fantasy business simulator, you should have brought that up before you agreed to join a campaign that was pitched totally differently.

[BayardSPSR]

I once ran a single-player, one-session OSR game in which a thief raided a single dungeon, went up a single level, and used their spoils to immediately open a sandwich shop. "Why would I go back in? That was dangerous, and I'm rich now."

[Zombimode]

I once ran a single-player, one-session OSR game in which a thief raided a single dungeon, went up a single level, and used their spoils to immediately open a sandwich shop. "Why would I go back in? That was dangerous, and I'm rich now."

... how much money you could make from running a simple Sandwich shop?


Personally, I second Grod_The_Giant's Response.

[hymer]

Just a thought I had. Wonder how punishing DMs would be to this.

My real annoyance at this is that the player knew very well what the campaign they were getting into is all about, and the other players would have to be sidelined while playing this business stuff. My reaction would be something like "Okay, your character is a tremendous success. He becomes rich and lives happily ever after. So why don't you make an adventurer character, and the rest of us will start the campaign in the mean time. Come to think of it, is there any reason you shouldn't go home and make it there? You can mail it to me and I'll look it over - if you're interested in playing, that is."

Actually, i wouldn't be that verbose. One player decided his PC didn't agree with the party majority, and would wander off away from the group with no way to ever find them again. And I looked at him pointedly and asked "Do you want to play?" He did.

[Zombimode]

And I looked at him pointedly and asked "Do you want to play?" He did.

Exactly.

Rich Burlew's article Making the tough decisions should be a mandatory read for new Players.

[Slipperychicken]

I'd just ask him if he agrees with the premise of the game, and if he insists on it, I'll kindly ask him to quit wasting my time. If he wants to force me to run a small business simulator instead of the game we agreed to, then he can get right out of my game. I am under no obligation to waste my precious free time babysitting this cheeky fool.

I wouldn't pull a bait-and-switch on my players to forcibly change the game from high fantasy adventure to laundry tycoon without warning. That's just a disrespect for their time and energy. In return I expect all my players to respect the basic premises of the game we agreed to, or else they won't be my players for long.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Shadowrun, 3rd Ed, character creation. You prioritise Stats, Skills, Race, Wealth and Magical Ability (in a number of different optional ways).

If your first priority is Wealth, you have a cool million nuyen to spend in character creation, not just on weapons, armour and cyberware, but on lifestyle (which covers accommodation rental and food).

A permanent middle-class lifestyle costs 1 million nuyen.

One of my fellow players jokes that he keeps on making characters who prioritise money then spend their cash on a permanent lifestyle and retire. They never even hit the table.

(One of my characters was literally a single job away from retirement. Another job and she would have been able to buy her way out of the life, with provision for her husband as well, which cost an extra 10%. One. Job. Away. And guess what? Her husband turned out to be having an affair, stole all the money and went to another country. Things went badly after that).

[KillianHawkeye]

(One of my characters was literally a single job away from retirement. Another job and she would have been able to buy her way out of the life, with provision for her husband as well, which cost an extra 10%. One. Job. Away. And guess what? Her husband turned out to be having an affair, stole all the money and went to another country. Things went badly after that).

This is why you never say you're "just one week from retiring" out loud where the movie can hear you.

[CharonsHelper]

"Ok, Mr. Level 1 Wizard. It is daytime, the city is bustling, and laughter is erupting from the tavern before you."
Player: "I turn around, head to market, and set up a business."
"....Excuse me?"
"Business. With Minor Illusion cantrips, I can set out an illusionary sign (until I can afford a real one), and start my own laundry service, using Prestidigitation, and Mending. 'Clothing Cleaned-Mended-Magiked(the spelling is what will bring the customers). While you wait!' It'll be a gold mine. Who needs adventuring?"

"Okay - you do that and become a boring NPC. Now roll up another character who actually wants to go adventuring."

[Cluedrew]

Question, what is "we are going to play lv1 characters not adventuring" is supposed to be the campaign?

Slice of Life campaign of [relative power level of level 1 PCs] people in a fantastical world might be fun.

[danelsan]

Adventures in magical clothes-cleaning? Just think of it as a Studio Ghibli style of story and go with Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, it is perfect for that kind of fantastical slice-of-life game.

[Arbane]

I remember hearing about one GM who had players do this often enough that they started handing out certificates saying "Congratulations! You have successfully escaped the campaign!".

[SimonMoon6]

I'm sure someone has thought of this idiocy, and yes, it goes against the idea of rollplaying (though maybe not role); has anyone ever come across a player doing this?

"Ok, Mr. Level 1 Wizard. It is daytime, the city is bustling, and laughter is erupting from the tavern before you."
Player: "I turn around, head to market, and set up a business."
"....Excuse me?"
"Business. With Minor Illusion cantrips, I can set out an illusionary sign (until I can afford a real one), and start my own laundry service, using Prestidigitation, and Mending. 'Clothing Cleaned-Mended-Magiked(the spelling is what will bring the customers). While you wait!' It'll be a gold mine. Who needs adventuring?"

Just a thought I had. Wonder how punishing DMs would be to this.

This happened to me. This is a story I never get tired of telling.

The game system was an obscure game called Gatecrasher. The setting was the default Gatecrasher setting: the Earth's solar system, where each planet and moon had different levels of technology and/or magic. After the players made their had characters, they noticed that the equipment list in the rules included various kinds of high-tech battle armor. But the problem was that it was ridiculously expensive, as in "not meant for beginning players". Well, they wanted it anyway. In fact, they refused to go on any adventures until they could afford it.

In D&D terms, this is like a first level character wanting +5 armor (with another +5 in enhancements) *and* a shield of that caliber *and* a weapon of that caliber. At first level. And refusing to adventure without such things.

Like most adventurers, they had no real job skills. So, they had to try to get minimum wage jobs. And suddenly, I'm in the position where I'm running a game about mundane reality in a setting which is very far away from reality. They had to struggle to get an apartment, had to balance saving money with needing entertainment to avoid going insane, and so on and so forth. One of the players had a somewhat privileged background and didn't have any idea how difficult certain basic life goals could be, so I sort-of enjoyed showing these difficulties. But this wasn't the game I had planned to run at all.

Eventually, one of the PCs became a professional athlete who suffered from racism and death threats (because he was an ogre). But that was the most interesting thing that happened. And then another player missed a session, so I had his character be kidnapped, which was going to lead to an actual adventure (who kidnapped him and why?), but the PCs missed their chance to get the main clue, so they never found him. And the player then moved away, so he never got rescued and the PCs never encountered my quirky interesting villains (the Chance brothers... one was slender, one was the opposite, so they were known as "Slim" and "Fat", as in Slim Chance and Fat Chance... and then Fat Chance would be killed, leaving Slim to seek revenge on the PCs, bringing in his sister (who was a sister), so there would only be two Chances left: Slim and Nun).

And then, we just moved on to other games. So, basically, nothing interesting ever happened. And they never got their battle armor.

[Traab]

It's certainly a failure to communicate. If the player wanted to play magical dry cleaning entrepreneurs then the GM should have known about it before the moment he started doing it. It's also a failure of system if you're doing it in D&D.

With buy-in from everyone and the right system there's no reason you couldn't do it, though. Dealing with angry laundry purists claiming that it's a sin to wash with magic. Rival dry cleaners being put out of business by your magical efficiency. Corrupt watchmen and/or mobsters looking for protection money. There's potential there.

Basically this or the "Your character is now a successful npc merchant, grats, now roll something that wants to adventure or go home." If the other players find this amusing enough a dm quick on his metaphorical feet could create an entire campaign around this. Dont forget about the cultists that think the foul odor of unwashed clothing can be used to summon Schlubnoggoth the Unclean to rule over the city, and this rapid cleansing of clothing is detrimental to their plans. Starting at level one you could be cleaning the new building of its rat infestation, fixing the sewers full of whatever low level monsters might be there, then dealing with the seedy underbelly of the city, then the cultists and their stinky abberations summoned from the sub plane known only as the Bog of Eternal Stench.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Basically this or the "Your character is now a successful npc merchant, grats, now roll something that wants to adventure or go home." If the other players find this amusing enough a dm quick on his metaphorical feet could create an entire campaign around this. Dont forget about the cultists that think the foul odor of unwashed clothing can be used to summon Schlubnoggoth the Unclean to rule over the city, and this rapid cleansing of clothing is detrimental to their plans. Starting at level one you could be cleaning the new building of its rat infestation, fixing the sewers full of whatever low level monsters might be there, then dealing with the seedy underbelly of the city, then the cultists and their stinky abberations summoned from the sub plane known only as the Bog of Eternal Stench.

It's not that it's impossible to construct a game around such a turn of events; it's that you're trying to force an abrupt tone change on the GM. You're telling him "No, I don't want to play the game you're presenting," and any way you slice it that's incredibly rude.

[NovenFromTheSun]

I'd ask, "Okay, when do you want the bad guys to attack your business?"

[Ninja-Radish]

I'm sure someone has thought of this idiocy, and yes, it goes against the idea of rollplaying (though maybe not role); has anyone ever come across a player doing this?

"Ok, Mr. Level 1 Wizard. It is daytime, the city is bustling, and laughter is erupting from the tavern before you."
Player: "I turn around, head to market, and set up a business."
"....Excuse me?"
"Business. With Minor Illusion cantrips, I can set out an illusionary sign (until I can afford a real one), and start my own laundry service, using Prestidigitation, and Mending. 'Clothing Cleaned-Mended-Magiked(the spelling is what will bring the customers). While you wait!' It'll be a gold mine. Who needs adventuring?"

Just a thought I had. Wonder how punishing DMs would be to this.

I would make him create a new character. I'd just say "OK, your character becomes a successful businessman, congratulations. Now make a f--king adventurer character so we can get on with the game".

[Belac93]

Relevant Story:

I was playing a solo game with my DM. It was a standard fantasy world, lots of goblins, set in a large plain. My character was a paranoid cowardly fighter named Twitchy. He had lots of traumatizing adventures, including (legitimately) taking out over 10 guards and escaping 6 or so times as they were trying to take him into jail.

Partway through the adventure, he was introduced to the 'dragon daggers,' which were magical bone dagger that would grant whoever held all of them whatever wish they wanted (yes, my DM had recently started watching Dragon Ball and is one of the worst creatively-inclined people at actually creating original stuff I've ever met). My character continued to go about his regular adventures, because he had no way of actually finding the next daggers, but they kept getting conveniently placed in his path.

Around level 8 or so (our games never really go higher than level 11 or 12), he murdered a (luckily corrupt) noble. He was handed another dragon-dagger, and was told he was over halfway done (he had 7 out of 13). With the noble's death, however, also came 1,000,000 gp.

So, Twitchy promptly decided to hide all the dragon daggers around the world (including chucking them into volcanoes, deep oceans, and all sorts of stuff), before buying a nice parcel of land with his money and living out the rest of his days in peace with his best friend ogre, Gronk (they met escaping from the guards for the 6th and final time).

Twitchy never really wanted to be an adventurer, it just made ends meet. He decided no-one should have as much power as the dragon daggers gave, so he got rid of them, and settled down for a nice business, halfway through the campaign.

Premature ends for characters are not bad things, believe it or not. I understand someone being annoyed if a character immediately stops adventuring right away, but after a level or two, when they finally figure out adventuring is dangerous, it's a great thing. Just let their former character retire as a helpful NPC, and they can roll up a new one.

It's funner than the character dying, and makes for a more interesting story than 'my 12th PC to get eaten by rats because he never stopped adventuring and his luck ran out.' I would much prefer 'Sir Gerald the 3rd was tired at the end of a long-successful life. He opened a town church and an orphanage, and spent the rest of his days giving aid to anyone who reminds him of his former companions.'

It makes the campaign world feel more alive if you let PCs retire after a while.

[J-H]

I am the player in a solo game set in Thay right now. My Duskblade's goal is to get rich and marry a Red Wizard or RW's daughter so that his kids will be able to be Red Wizards. Goal: Around 150k gp, high political and social starus, and good networking.
It's nice to have a goal in mind instead of never-ending adventuring.

[Traab]

It's not that it's impossible to construct a game around such a turn of events; it's that you're trying to force an abrupt tone change on the GM. You're telling him "No, I don't want to play the game you're presenting," and any way you slice it that's incredibly rude.

Oh I agree, thats why I said only if everyone else wants to do this random unexpected change. Chances are if they do your pre planned adventure wasnt going to have a lot of enthusiasm anyways. You already had one guy instantly disrupt it from the start, and everyone else decided this was a better idea anyways. Thats generally a bad sign.

[Clistenes]

There is no reason a player can't do both in the same campaign...

Actually, that would be a good background for an urban campaign. Your character starts as a level one wizard who makes a living cleaning and fixing stuff with Mending and Prestigitation or maybe even uses Prestigitation to season food in a stall...

The fighter could be a city guard, the rogue a street rat and petty thief, the bard a street musician, the cleric an acolyte in some small temple and orphanage... etc.

Maybe they all know each other because they were raised in the same orphanage? Or they are just neighbours.

Then suddenly something happens. A murder mistery. A Ghoul outbreak. An ooze infestation. A plague, like those in Lord of the Scarlett Tide or The Stink, or an evil cult like in Caverns of the Ooze Lord, or a goblinoid invasion like in Red Hand of Doom. Or maybe there is an ancient evil buried below the city, like in Touch/Shadows/Wrath of the Abyss... And the characters have no choice but to try to save the city.

As the characters gain levels, you could keep track of their civilian careers too.

[Knaight]

There is no reason a player can't do both in the same campaign...

Actually, that would be a good background for an urban campaign. Your character starts as a level one wizard who makes a living cleaning and fixing stuff with Mending and Prestigitation or maybe even uses Prestigitation to season food in a stall...

The fighter could be a city guard, the rogue a street rat and petty thief, the bard a street musician, the cleric an acolyte in some small temple and orphanage... etc.

Bolded for emphasis. You're obviously correct here (and Like I said earlier, if travel isn't a component all's good), but this is a demonstration that the character only works with a certain campaign, and bringing them to a more standard campaign causes problems - the same way that bringing your wanderer who can never have roots and refuses to stick around anywhere to a location centered campaign causes problems.