Something that occurred to me from the thread on "Do your PCs walk around town in armor?"

I've been in a number of games where the PCs were set up to be bumbling fools, which tend to culminate in conflict and frustration. Personally, I have a few rules of thumb that I have for play. There are always exceptions, but these are the baseline:

1) The PCs will be key movers and shakers for the scope that they're currently in. So, rather than being junior members of a national organization, acting as backup for the big heroes, they are some of the toughest people in the village.

2) Their adventures generally give the PCs social status. If they eliminate the monsters from the caves outside town, then they are celebrated heroes of the town. If they are scary dangerous, then they are like famed outlaw gunslingers.

3) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general. An individual NPC will have many pieces of information that they don't have, but they have a better grasp of the big picture. In particular, I strictly avoid having dialogue with NPCs which are really about me as GM lecturing to the players. If they really need an info dump, then I'll have them make a skill roll for information-gathering, and give a concise summary of what they find. Preferably, though, I'll set them up to already have key information that others don't know.

How do these compare to your rules of thumb?

It depends on the game for me. If we are running a procedural where the PCs are beat cops or something, then they'll have whatever status that and their history affords; if we are running buddy action cop (like Lethal Weapon) they'll be able to get away with a lot more and when they do outrageous stuff it will be because they're just "those guys".

In my wuxia campaign, power has bearing on your status. Being a badass pretty much lets you flaunt social convention (to a point). The players have been able to break from social norms as their powers increased. However they may have other powerful people react if they're behavior is particularly egregious.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;843634It depends on the game for me. If we are running a procedural where the PCs are beat cops or something, then they'll have whatever status that and their history affords; if we are running buddy action cop (like Lethal Weapon) they'll be able to get away with a lot more and when they do outrageous stuff it will be because they're just "those guys".

Yes, obviously it depends on the game.

Still, having these as defaults does guide what games I run. For example, I'm unlikely to run a game where the PCs are low-rank beat cops on a force. It's not that they will necessarily be tougher than this - but they'll be fairly autonomous. So they're more likely to be a sheriff, deputy, and pals in a small town rather than beat cops in a big city.

Obviously, the concrete status and prestige of the player characters greatly depends on the setting, and type of the campaign. But,generally I vastly prefer the player characters at the begin of a campaign to be outsiders if not outright outcasts, underdogs or the like: those who might have great potential, but are both desperate and non-conformist enough to abandon the relative security of a normal life and become adventurers/mercenaries/treasure hunters, and smart, plucky and sometimes brutal enough to flourish under these circumstances.

During the ongoing events of the campaign, the characters then might earn more respect, gain influence and also enemies, of course (because snobbish aristocrats or their likes who snub their noses at the upstarts are just enormously fun minor antagonists for the PCs to defeat eventually).  But that success has to be their own doing and the natural result of the events within the game, because that makes it an achievement.

I would also almost never use the PCs within a rigid hierarchy like a police force, at least in modern setting. "You are the henchmen of the Sheriff of Nottingham" might work, though. Placing the caimpaign within a regulated power structure automatically limits the character's freedom and independence due to their fixed role and automatically puts them into a subservient role within the power structure. I think it is more fun to leave the players with more freedoms and, as a side effect, more limited ressources so that they can but also have to be more creative.

So yeah. The player characters in my campaigns (and the characters I like to play) are more likely to be at a considerable low point in their lives when the actual action starts and can now try to make things right for themselves - or die trying.

In any setting, it's hard to have PCs that are too conformist.  Conformity is a trait of NPCs.  You can put the PCs under someone, but even then your average PC will have more goals and desires than to "serve the boss".

In light of that, I rarely view PCs as having a place inside a social system.  Either they have earned a place near/at the top (barons, dukes, etc.) or they are viewed as useful outsiders - potentially dangerous, but solving real problems.  

So yeah, the typical PC is someone who has a problem with the current society (which may be flawed, corrupt or evil - so it can be a legitimate issue) or the current society has problems with them.

Quote from: jhkim;843631I've been in a number of games where the PCs were set up to be bumbling fools, which tend to culminate in conflict and frustration.

That seems odd. Who enjoys that?

As for the rest that all depends on what we are playing. For now, I'll comment from my current H+I game.

Quote1) The PCs will be key movers and shakers for the scope that they're currently in. So, rather than being junior members of a national organization, acting as backup for the big heroes, they are some of the toughest people in the village.

As a game/genre conceit I assume the PCs are more likely to act when given a situation than most NPCs. But the PCs are usually the people who act, not because they are more competent than all the NPCs, but because we are looking at the setting from the perspective of the PCs. So whatever choices they make those are the ones we follow and witness the resulting repercussions.

Quote2) Their adventures generally give the PCs social status.

If they succeed. they gain status. Also they may gain social infamy. I'm running a game which is exclusively human and where the PCs have patrons who are higher in social status than they and antagonists who are often of higher social rank than the PCs so their successes and failures tend to give them both social status in some circles and gain them enemies or infamy in other social circles.

Quote3) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general.

I'm not sure I know what you mean here. But I suspect I don't do this. People know what they know. Their status as PC or NPC doesn't alter that.

I think there are some differences in how we see the role of the PCs, though probably not unbridgeable differences.

Typically IMCs the PCs are regarded as having legitimate reasons to do the default adventuring activity - so warriors are allowed to wear armour in most circumstances, say. The PCs won't be harrassed by the authorities if they behave appropriately, though appropriate in eg the City State of the Invincible Overlord may involve paying bribes/kickbacks. PCs who do heroic pro-societal feats will likely have additional leeway.

Quote from: jhkim;843631Something that occurred to me from the thread on "Do your PCs walk around town in armor?"

I've been in a number of games where the PCs were set up to be bumbling fools, which tend to culminate in conflict and frustration. Personally, I have a few rules of thumb that I have for play. There are always exceptions, but these are the baseline:

1) The PCs will be key movers and shakers for the scope that they're currently in. So, rather than being junior members of a national organization, acting as backup for the big heroes, they are some of the toughest people in the village.

2) Their adventures generally give the PCs social status. If they eliminate the monsters from the caves outside town, then they are celebrated heroes of the town. If they are scary dangerous, then they are like famed outlaw gunslingers.

3) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general. An individual NPC will have many pieces of information that they don't have, but they have a better grasp of the big picture. In particular, I strictly avoid having dialogue with NPCs which are really about me as GM lecturing to the players. If they really need an info dump, then I'll have them make a skill roll for information-gathering, and give a concise summary of what they find. Preferably, though, I'll set them up to already have key information that others don't know.

How do these compare to your rules of thumb?

For most fantasy games # 1 & 2 largely apply. #3 depends on the actions of the players. They can take steps to become better informed about things going on but it isn't automatically conferred to them because of PC status.

NPCs have valuable information and some of them may be better connected and thus have more access to the information than the PCs. Consider an underworld/thieves guild member who has lived and operated in a city his/her whole life. Compare that to a PC rogue who has just drifted into town in the last week or so. The city native will have a MUCH better grasp on the big picture of local events than the drifter.

Of course the PC may bring valuable knowledge that isn't local into the mix, but they may need to access that local expertise to bring everything into context. I like for some NPC's to have value and that require players to interact/negotiate with them to gain that information. When it comes to the heroic action I like the PCs to grab all the glory.

I've always used PC level or the tier as an indicator of status in the larger world.

For example, at around level 1-3, the PCs are a big deal to the locals who are directly affected by their actions, but everyone else treats them as wanderers, pawns or expendable resources. From level 4-9 the waves they make are felt on a regional level and they are effectively changing the face of the campaign world. With the right group of players, at about level 10+ they can be major forces in their own right and direct the course of events as they will, but my campaigns tend to end before that point.

Quote from: jhkim;8436313) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general.

I think what you're saying here is that the NPCs hold various bits of information, but it's up to the PCs to assemble it and figure out what it means in the campaign, as opposed to tracking down the one NPC who can explain it all to them. That's my approach when dealing with "mysterious plots" and the like. It's always fun to see what shape the players will assemble from the pieces and how it relates to what I actually prepared.

Interesting topic.

Playing GURPS, some of these elements are player-defined.  They choose their own status, and their skill set and other choices (Contacts, for instance) directs a good bit of their information flow.  I agree that if the players did a good job of spreading background skills around, they're likely to know more about most things than random villagers.

They are likely to be higher status than the locals.  Simply being an "adventurer" doesn't do it -- there's little visual difference between a newbie fighter and a veteran mercenary, except that the newbie fighter's less likely to have pawned her armor for beer.

But out in a small village adventuring in the field?

It's an enduring truth that even clean-cut, upstanding, Godfearing warriors are tolerated only for so long during a crisis, and only thereafter if they try hard to assimilate. Quite aside from that a significant percentage of locals, if not a majority, will never believe the adventurers' efforts were really necessary – she wasn't MY daughter and I didn't see no orcs anyway, I'm sure the dragon would've moved on, and Mother Ginevra's prayers to Manannan were what drove the plague away, not what that ragamuffin bunch of vagrants claimed to have done in some ruined temple somewhere! – they're seldom that.

Instead, c'mon ... we know what most adventurers are like. They don't show the accustomed deference or respect to local authority or customs, and they sure don't obey them. They don't often worship as the locals do. They've often got strange, rough, uncouth manners, and even the nicest of them patronize the weak peasants they had to bail out of trouble. They've got women waving swords, and wizards mucking with things decent folk ought not muck with, and some of 'em ain't even human! The hardest bone to swallow is that every bored kid in the area is neglecting his or her chores and lessons to flirt or fawn all over them. Why, 'Ressa's got that old sword of great-grandfather's out of the trunk, and she says she's going off to be one of them!

That's with the presumption the adventurers are nice guys. Which of course they wouldn't all be. A lot more of them'll be bastards than heroes. A group of adventurers could easily terrorize a farming village, and a week's worth of pillaging, vandalism, molestation and violence will color attitudes for a generation. Be the PCs ever so decent, if the last crew through was a band reminiscent of Flesh+Blood, their reception won't be friendly.

How can the PCs be set up to be bumbling fools, or anything else for that matter? Seems like the moment the game starts the PCs will become whatever the players make of them, no matter the GM's attempts to enforce his assigned roles. Sounds like a cruddy game all around. But so does "PCs are automatically a big deal!"

PCs are usually involved in violence. Thus, they'll be like the people involved in The Life, and ordinary people would have a healthy dose of respect for their skills.
Whether it's mixed with fear, appreciation or authority depends on whether they're part of the official power structures of the setting.

In my campaigns and the ones I play in it has usually been that the PCs are pretty nondescript. They may gain notoriety later, or they may not. If they are playing for the endgame of a domain then as a DM I try to present those opportunities now and then if it fits what the PCs are doing. Which may or may not get them up the social ranks.

As a player I tend to prefer starting out fresh and working upwards from there. That could be via a patron, or could be just us out on our own. Right now the current group I am playing in is fairly unknown to anyone at large as we have been doing this swamp campaign for quite a while now, (level 10, soon to be 11), and pretty much no one really knows we are out here or what we are doing aside from a ranger who asked us to investigate the going on in the swamp wayyyyyyy back at level 1.

An interesting subject.

I think there are many PC-status conventions which don't make sense, which especially show up in computer RPG's. Mainly, that they want to at least start the PCs as low-status yet entrust them with some important quest, and then make them deal with various low-status or medium-status gameplay obstacles and abuse even after they've gained many super-cool powers that make them superheroes - but they're still going to be treated like peasants by many people, attacked by common thieves, asked to run petty errands, swindled by shop-keepers, etc.

I try to have PC status be consistent and make sense in my game worlds. It usually hinges not just on the PC's accomplishments but more importantly on their behavior. Status comes from making and maintaining a good impression. If they do a great service to the powers that be, they may get on a fast-track to high status, especially if they seem to be well-behaved, trustworthy, and capable of future good. But if they seem to be untrustworthy or dangerous, or powerful mainly because they have powerful equipment, they may end up becoming targets or outcasts, or have high-status only amongst the rougher social circles. The PCs' skills, status, culture, and connections and politics may have a large effect too.

To clarify about what I'm talking about.

First, about the campaigns I've disliked that I described as setting the PCs up to be fools.

1) In a common setup, the PCs begin as homeless strangers who seem to be dropped into an area where they have no connections and no knowledge of what is going on. The locals treat them by default with suspicion as armed outsiders. They come into a tavern or similar, and there an NPC contacts them - seeming to know what their situation is, and offers information and a job for them. They then go off into danger, knowing only what the stranger told them.

I've had fun in games like this, but I prefer alternatives. Here are a few:

2) The PCs are strangers in the region, but they came there with a purpose - and have reliable information about secret goings-on to guide them. For example, the PCs might have knowledge of a cult operating, and they've come into the area following leads. They know key figures in the cult and what their bases are, though not details. Or in a modern-day game, they are hunters with special knowledge of the supernatural, who come into town with clues about what is going on.

3) The PCs are strangers in the region, but they have special high status. For example, they could be agents of the Inquisition (Dark Heresy), the captain and officers of a Federation starship (Star Trek), or envoys of the Aldean government (Blue Rose). Alternately, it could be a place where adventurers have high status - like a monster-plagued region that relies on informal adventurers for protection.

4) The PCs are locals who have connections and lives in the area. For example, they might be superheroes in a city dealing with threats that show up (various), wizards who have settled in the area (Ars Magica).


All of these allow for plenty of surprises to the PCs, but gives the PCs more to go on and work with than being unconnected strangers.