One of your players wants to reroll as the captain of the city watch

>One of your players wants to reroll as the captain of the city watch

If he's a martial of sufficient level, I'd let him *become* the Captain. But that's an adventure in itself, and the party's kinda busy with other issues right now, so it'll have to wait.

If you want a Sam Vimes clone in the party, I can do that. But not as a PC, sorry. You'd fuck it up.

Discworld is overrated.

A thread died for this.

Seriously, what's the big deal? Are you one of those people that doesn't let PCs be nobles or have any kind of status?

>martial of sufficient level
>saying no
Jesus, it's like you hate fun. You should try gurps, maybe pull the stick out of your ass

But I'm already using the city watch.

Maybe let him work toward the position, but it's not as easy as cold-clocking the current Captain and taking his badge. Anything like a city watch is going to have as much politics involved in determining a leader as actual combat ability, if not more.

Who said he had to usurp the position?
Just have him BE the captain
What the fuck man.

>Character starts as a leader
>This means he must have stabbed a guy and taken his control

If he's of sufficiently high level, why not? I'm not going to let some level 1 scrub play captain of the guard unless he has a noble background, but around level 5 or so that's a valid background.

Personally, I'd try to make such things as being nobility a double edged sword. You get privileges (the actual kind, not the "YOU'RE A FUCKING WHITE MALE" kind) but you also have obligations. You have certain duties to your family and the higher nobility and royalty of your region may demand certain favors and services that might put you at odds with the rest of the party or your end goal. Imagine for example that a party member is a nobleman from a neighboring kingdom, and the king of said kingdom signs a peace treaty with the Dark Lord and orders all of his vassals to cease all hostile activities. Does the noble PC obey his liege and abandon his friends, or continue the mission and put himself (and by extent his entire house) at odds with their liege? A few wrong decisions and he goes from nobleman to disgraced nobleman rather rapidly.

...

You must be a riot at parties.

What makes you say that? I'm boring because I actually enjoy using a PC's backstory to create unique conflicts relating to him and his heritage rather than simply using his nobility as a passe-partout?

>City Watch
>Nobility

What noble would want a job as the captain of the city watch? Thats the job of a loyal low born that is just smart enough not to take too large of bribes and maintain the peace.

No, you just sound like an ass.

My current character is a recently retired captain of the city watch, who effectively quit his job to go adventuring. My previous character died, so I had to roll up a new one. Since the rest of the party were already well-established and powerful heroes, it made sense that someone who was on the same power level as them wasn't just random nobody #3471.

Why wouldn't you let players start in positions of power or privilege (at any level higher than lv 1)?

>Obligations
I have the Noble background in my current 5e game, and I went to a chart of noble titles to find the one with the least authority. Even as a Viscount, effectively a property manager on behalf of a landed Knight, I end up spending hours of time just reviewing paperwork at least four times a month.

What the fuck is "unique" about "screw you for not playing a murderhobo"?

People like you are the reason players are orphan psychopaths.

Also, passe-partout? Really?

I'll admit I don't know exactly how the medieval world worked in this regard, but I assume you either get into positions of authority because you worked hard enough or because you know enough people to pull strings for you. Being nobility would mean the latter, and I'd assume being captain of the watch of a major metropolis would be a prestigious position, perhaps one of the best non-nobles could aspire to.

Just because he listed what could happen if somebody took that trait?

Not the guy you're replying to btw, I'm just curious.

I believe in giving people a fair warning when they want to get something/do something.

Well that's the thing, you pretty much have to immediately give up your position as Captain to go adventuring, unless the campaign takes place exclusively in the city. I guess you can still maintain contacts from your time in charge, though.

>What the fuck is "unique" about "screw you for not playing a murderhobo"?
Since when is giving someone a unique storyline relating to their character screwing them over? I'd borderline call that preferential treatment. The average street urchin pickpocket rogue doesn't get a unique conflict, he doesn't get a side-quest centered around his character, and he doesn't get received with fanfare whenever entering any land where his family is even vaguely known. He gets fucking nothing.

But I guess I'm an asshole for not showering him with gold and magic items because he picked the one background that invalidates all other backgrounds, and for making "noble" the new "orphan human male fighter who grew up on a farm".

If the city watch is a branch of the military, it is in fact quite likely that only nobility are allowed to become captain. It's quite common, historically, for higher military positions to be reserved for nobility. It doesn't require too much imagination to expand that concept to the city guard as well.

The best non-nobles could aspire to was typically the worst of what actual nobles could aspire to, if even that.

He doesn't sound like an ass, he sounds like a guy who want realistic consequences in his campaign. Being nobility doesn't mean you're an adventurer who plays more blackjack and bangs more hookers, it means you're a nobleman who needs to remember his responsibility. The fact that he's using the character's backstory to build more tension in the game is a good thing unless you're a fucking murderhobo who wants to only pillage villages or to only raid dungeons all damn day.

I got to appoint the successor (my character's son), and had the option of pulling quite some strings there. That is, until we had to make ourselves wanted criminals to prevent the town from being razed by a cult, but that's a whole different story.

You're right in the regard that playing a character that is both adventurer and active captain of the city watch is a poor idea.

The rogue doesn't get one because you're fucking lazy. The farmboy doesn't get one because you're too fucking lazy to tie his background to anything. Nothing about the town, their families, their past and motivations feeds a sidequest? Or is it just too hard because it's not out of the box like noblesse oblige?

The fact that you go out of your way to cut corners and add stipulations to the other player's status just shows you're really just doing it to put a leash on them. You're lazy, you're a coward, and you want a pat on the head for it.

>doesn't want to be some powerful nobe
>doesn't want to be some wealthy merchant
>doesn't want to be a general of some large army
>just wants to be the captain of some city watch
>a position of only slightly better pay then your average commoner and really no true athority other then arresting bad guys

Really, what's the problem here?

You could still be active captain if the campaign consisted of episodic adventures within the city itself. Ptolus is a good case for such a scenario.

>The rogue doesn't get one because you're fucking lazy.
No, he doesn't get one because he put zero effort into his character. If he's just "some orphan" who picks pockets, then that's what he is. If he happens to be part of a gang, then he gets gang contacts that work in his favor but expect shit from him in return. Kind of like the nobleman and his family.

>The farmboy doesn't get one because you're too fucking lazy to tie his background to anything
No, he doesn't get anything because he too put zero effort into his backstory. Why did he end up on a farm? Was he a serf? Did someone buy his freedom? Is he saving up to buy the freedom of his family? Who does he know and what does he want? Who is his daddy and what does he do?

>Or is it just too hard because it's not out of the box like noblesse oblige?
It's too hard because a DM is not the storyteller. The DM can only work with the tools he's being given. The more tools you give the DM, the more he's able to adjust adventures to your character and his environment.

>The fact that you go out of your way to cut corners and add stipulations to the other player's status
I do that to every player who puts effort into giving himself a backstory. If you want to play a cardboard cutout, you're going to get just that: a tool that goes on adventures.

Playing a game is collectively telling a story in which everyone puts some effort. Players can't just sit back and absorb the DM's story. At that point you might as well play a video game with a pre-generated character, backstory and personal conflict.

Listen, faggot, not that guy, but you know how fucking hard it is to write up fucking side-quests for all of the player characters? It's fucking difficult as you have to understand how each and every one of the character involved connects to the PC, how the sidequest connects to the main plot, and consequences both for completing and for not completing that sidequest, not to mention getting the other characters/players interested in the quest that's gonna star only the main guy or really matter to him. God fucking help you if you do all that shit and finish it, then suddenly that player drops out and you get a new one whose character doesn't fit that quest line. : |

>Well that's the thing, you pretty much have to immediately give up your position as Captain to go adventuring
nah, you just go on adventures and never stop being captain of the guard
>stopping a war
Arrest both sides for loitering
>rogue golems run amok?
conscript 'em into the guard!
>Adventures to far off lands?
you're in hot pursuit of... something

when exactly did upper echelons of the British military stop being predominantly nobles of one stripe or another?

If we are following history, the city watch are not a branch of the military and will be under the command of the local magistrates.

If we follow game logic, then they can be whatever you want and leads back to the famous tg statement of "Depends on the Setting"

>It's hard though. That's why you do it for one guy because you don't want him having too much going on. Not the others because lol they're just peasants.

So you just fill in the noble guy's background to suit your needs, but not the others? And this is still not a cheap way to keep the party under your control how?

>absorb the DM's story

And here it is. This right here is why you do it. You want that railroad. You want your story. Collective story telling is nice, but at the end of the day, it gets in the way.

>So you just fill in the noble guy's background to suit your needs
You do realizing I'm talking about a purely theoretical player who takes the noble background suggested by another user, right? I don't literally have a piece of paper with his background right in front of me. This is all a thought experiment.

>You want that railroad.
I'm not. I'm using character elements and giving hooks based on that. The theoretical nobleman and the theoretical conflict I mentioned aren't railroads, but a dillemma. He can either choose to go home and set things straight, or keep on trucking and become a noble in exile. And here's a little secret: being a noble in exile is interesting. It gives you a new plot hook after the current one is fulfilled: a quest to either redeem yourself or through force demand what was once yours. Hell, he can even go to the king in whose name he fulfilled the original quest and demand territory and titles comparable to the ones he lost. These are all options dependent on whatever the player wants.

I don't understand your problem. Perhaps that's not how you roll and that's fine, but I don't see how I'm either an asshole or railroading.

>when exactly did upper echelons of the British military stop being predominantly nobles of one stripe or another?

Not him, but probably when you stopped paying for your commission, which was post Crimean war.

Nobility has responsibilities and he agreed to handle those responsibilities when he said he wanted to play a nobleman. Either he deals with it or he doesn't play a nobleman. The DM's in the right for making him deal with it.

Also, faggot, if you're not playing for collective storytelling, then what are you doing beyond cherrypicking the guy's post for the one thing that supports your claim that he only wants the DM's story even though he's the fucking DM? If there's no collective story telling going on, then you're circle-jerking over numbers while the DM is stuck there, trying to get you involved beyond rubbing a sad one out as he's forced to watch. You don't give the DM shit, he won't give you shit, and guess what, that's not railroading on the DM's part, that's your own laziness as a player.

The DM doesn't shit out an interesting character for you to play, you make an interesting character that he can build the adventures around. If you don't do that and just bring a damp lump of shit, then get fucked, you're getting shit for an adventure.

>when exactly did upper echelons of the British military stop being predominantly nobles of one stripe or another?

Has it done that?

this

Let him start as captain, but tell him he has to have a bunch of disadvantages to make up for it - the Watch might be small and incompetent, he might have financial obligations, an enemy in the Watch or alcoholism, something like that

/thread

>Nobility has responsibilities and he agreed to handle those responsibilities when he said he wanted to play a nobleman

He didn't though. He's an adventurer who happens to have a noble family, which may offer him some extra wealth and knowledge from his upbringing or may not because of some tragedy or other. His backstory could have any number of aspects that disqualify him from giving a damn about any responsibility he may have. He may have stripped himself of all noble insignia, changed his name, changed allegiances, just be bumming around for fun because he's young and doesn't give a care, maybe he's just a really shitty and ineffective noble whose kind of an asshat.

Both you and the guy you are arguing with are retards because you both have entirely different ideas of what a character claiming to have noble ancestry is entitled and responsible for when the fact is that those qualities are not based on the character's nobility but on a dozen other factors his backstory should cover.

>small, incompetent, and alcoholic
Best watch, this way you get the joy of shaping them up as your downtime from adventuring.

How does that end the thread? that had nothing to do with the subject of the thread, /derailment might have worked, but it didn't because they are still bitching.

a fine personal goal. a useful hook for a one-off adventure IF i have stuff prepared for that. otherwise, in the hands of an undisciplined player, it could unbalance some encounters and ruin the game for everyone.

HA! No, it's still posh boys in the guards i'm afraid- those sweet anti-peasant mess bills

keep trolling

That sounds like a great character concept. The player takes on a measure of responsibility in return for some local authority and the GM can now throw all sorts of interesting plot hooks at the party. The character would have immediate investment in any adventures in his home town, as well as any quests elsewhere that might need doing in service of said town (for example, driving off a band of hobgoblins to the north, or investigating reports of a monster terrorizing a nearby lake). Such a character would also likely be Lawful Neutral or Lawful Good using D&D terminology, which is good for party cohesion assuming everyone else isn't an asshole.

Ah, what I wouldn't do for a character like this in one of my games, instead of the regular old murder-hobos I always get. The only Lawful character anyone else ever made was a Lawful Evil crusading Knight who went Deus Vult on every demi-human he saw.

Perhaps create a situation of changing of the hats within the nobility in which the Captain's relatives are either dead or disgraced. The only person in the upper councils that maintains the Captain's position out of respect for his family has fallen ill in old age. Make an opposing force that wants to see him expunged of status, but are unable to because of the sort of subtle social politics of image in court and bureaucracy of eliminating undesirables within the upper circles. So instead of stripping him of title and resources, they invent a new branch of law enforcement like a metsuke/vigilante sort of job where it cuts them free from commanding troops and allows them to travel to deal with unrest within their jurisdiction and sometimes engage in espionage. He will have to acquire his own resources to negate any ties to the hierarchy. Ultimately the job is "secret" in order to enable deniability and protection of all noble parties involved, in essence creating a facade of promotion, but really just casting him to the wayside. This can come with a variety of missions/duties/responsibilities that are antithetical to the Captain's ambitions, but also with the trappings of consequences for dereliction of duty that will result in his exile and ruin any sort of status, however illusory, he has. He can still be called Captain more as a taunt than a title.

The guy said he was talking about a character that was explicitly a noble and an adventurer. Not a disgraced noble but an actual noble with actual responsibilities.