Old Farts Demanding Swords

 The party sits around the table, talking to the weird old man who hired them. They received their payment, a miserable two thousand gold pieces for having to fight all of those orcs, that troll, and deal with that one barrier wight, to recover the sword they’d rather not turn over. Chuck the fighter decides, that he wants more money, or he’s keeping the sword. He makes his announcement firmly, and then finds himself turned into a newt. His party objects and find themselves effortlessly in similar states.

After denewtification occurs, they grump and wonder, if that old fart could spontaneously defeat them, why didn’t he get the sword his own damn self.

And they’re justified in their anger.

Players in this situation have numerous valid concerns. And those valid concerns arise from DMs trying to make them feel special. Yes, you heard me right. This jerk ass in the bar is there because the players are meant to feel special in the eyes of this DM.  

One persistant bugbear I see in world design and DMing is the concept of ‘everyone is competent when working against the players.’  They don’t necessarily call it that. Sometimes they call it ‘points of light,’ but it boils down the same thing.

The PC is a 12^th level cleric? Only four other men in the entire history of the world have reached such heights as he! Except for the drow who have like three evil 10^th level clerics, per encounter! The wizard is really tough, but there seem to be reams of evil necromancers (some even work together!) The fighter is a god among men, and encounter gods among orcs of similar level (in groups of four) guarding chests in 10x10x10 rooms.

Why? The DM is simultaneously trying to make the players feel awesome and cool and special, and trying to balance out the requirements of the challenge of the game. Hence every bunch of dirt farming kobolds has to have someone who can challenge the party, the bad guys have to have an ample supply of evil clerics, wizards and the like for the party to battle through, while their own side consists of a collection of morons and low level folks.

It used to be a joke that the city guards couldn’t handle an orc tribe the players could decimate at level 3, but could destroy a level 12 adventuring party. When they were allies, they were scrubs, but as opponents? They got some of that nifty antagonist only steroid cream.

So our wizard in the bar comes from that. He has to need the party so they feel special, but has to be able to destroy them if they step out of line. For their own good of course.

This is ultimately a failure of two things: Trust in players and world building. The DM hasn’t built his world properly, and thus uses carrot and stick approaches to try to keep them in line.

This leads to a paradoxical lesson, and one which I’ve found it’s the most controversial point I ever posit in these sorts of discussions.

If you want the players to matter, don’t make them the only people in the world who can get shit done.

This takes away from the ‘you are the world’s only hope’ or ‘you alone are the heroes of legend,’ thing a bit, but there are many legends, and many hopes.

I think I might expand more on this in other posts. Having trouble keeping focus..too many things want to get out.