Why are players so... Ambitious? Independent?

the majority of us spend our working days serving a lord who we are usually completely disconnected from, and this bothers us deeply. Many of us pay rent to a lord we are just as disconnected from. the entire world is run by lords we have no connection with but are nonetheless beholden to.

FRPGs are where we are allowed to break free from these constraints.

As Lord Heilwig always said you can measure the character of a person by those they follow

>judging people by those they emulate

yeah. that's pretty deep. Heilwig was obviously an astute scholar.

And that is why communism will never work

Because most players don't gather around to world build, craft communities and make epics that will last the test of time. They want to stab things and get rich, and they go in with the expectation that it will be consequence free.

You have two options. Either cater to their whims, or show them there will be consequences. If they don't like the consequences, they can either change how they play, or they can find someone else to run the game. Playing no games is infinitely better than playing a game that's just going to piss you off.

Mine did.
Now they're too fucking powerful and the rest of the world doesn't know what to do about them, anymore.

Well, mine did

And then they waltzed into the setting equivalent of the UN summit, where the leaders of the nations were specifically discussing what to do about them, and rather than negotiating or using any form of tact or subtlety, they basically just started autistically shouting and demanded that everyone in the room give them all the kingdoms.

You only hear about the ones who go murderhobo.

Otherwise, it's either teenagers being rebellious, man-children thinking that's still okay as an adult, or the same spirit that makes people into libertardians, which is honestly probably just #2 again.

But "doing all the work for some chucklefuck while he its around doing fuckall" is precisely the experience of the proletariat.

Well the man he models himself after was maybe an autistic psycho but you'd have to be to be known as the Lord of Blades

Also it was a more of a
"We are so great and Exalted that normal people do not deserve our undying loyalty and respect." Kind of thing

It's kinda hard to NOT do that when you're a thrallherd.

Your players are wise men.

Is Doom a Bard or Warlock?

He's Doom.

>serving someone else or unconditionally working with someone.

That's an NPC, not a player character.

user, I've been reguarly running games for a lot of new players for about 4 years and believe me, the alternative is far, FAR worse.

They just sit there, and do nothing.
Then when you suggest something because otherwise nothing will happen, they do it, then they just sit there again.

The moment they have to make a decision, or think about what they want to do? They freeze. Maybe they just have poor social skills, being new to Uni.

But holy shit it is awkward.

20 Bard / 20 Warlock

>"Why should I be content to lead one nation, when I can control the whole world, 'Mr. President?"

Alright, so how did this NOT work?

I don't mind dedicating myself to another as a character, but it should be either be a powerful/charismatic NPC (there had been multiple times where my party has ended up serving one of the final bosses), or another PC with the permission of the DM.

Playing the campaign like a damn fiddle!

Working isn't following.

Is this the thread where bad GMs complain about their railroads not working?

In all fairness, there aren't that many people in the world that outrank my character, at least not politically. God-Queen is a hell of a drug

In the protestant work ethic it is, matey!

I... What... How does anyone get the title of "God-Queen"?

If the OP's assertion is true, then why do faction-based settings (World of Darkness, Legend of the Five Rings, most of Magic: The Gathering's faction-based planes) get so many players interested in joining factions, when being a member of a faction usually implies having a superior somewhere?

Because roleplaying is, at the end of the day, a form of escapism. Most people have fucktard bosses or professors or teachers or what have you in real life, and they don't want to put up with that in game. There are exceptions obviously, but that's generally why.

Alternatively because players exist only to ruin the best laid plans of GMs REEEEEEEEEEEEE

exalted?

Presumably a similar way to how people acqquire god-king or god-emperor, which has happened pretty often throughout history.

Because they're human. It's human nature.

Despite most law systems, religious or secular trying to rein it in, people will always find the desire to do so.

Don't play with fucking hipsters. Problem solved.

In the case of L5R, being a member of a faction has definite benefits. PCs are generally expected to be people of some level of prominence in their families and receive a degree of latitude in how they support their clan's prosperity. Put another way, it's okay for you to have to answer to someone else as long as there are still people who have to answer to you.

In World of Darkness, factions don't have rigid hierarchies (for the most part) and the presence of the option to start as someone fairly important or well-known to the organization means you don't have to start at the bottom. And again, being part of a faction means you are definitively part of something, as opposed to what usually happens in D&D where every asshole in the world thinks you're somehow beholden to them and that refusing to do some bullshit for the change they found between the couch cushions is treason and who will refuse to even let you namedrop them after you've inevitably done some bullshit anyway.

Well adjusted people can easily accept working along others.
What OP is referring to is the dregs commonly known as that guy.

Roleplaying games are Power Fantasies to forget about our own dull lives.

I hope you gave in to their demands
And then fucked them over by having rebellions, coups and what not happen constantly all over the globe

Because more often than not whoever commands the your character is an incompitent toss-pot. Give me a boss that is smart, has faced hardship, shown virtue, his ability to lead and that he values his underlings and I'd follow him through hell itself.

>Why are players so... Ambitious? Independent?
In addition to other points raised in this thread, it is noteworthy to mention that there was a thread that went to 500 posts about whether an average pc should be able to kill a king in his throne room or not.
It boiled down to two differing philosophies:
1.) The players are mortal protagonists and can fail and die by their own choices and actions or through significantly bad luck.

2.) The PCs are essentially General Zod strolling through the setting with no obstacle they cannot surmount to do whatever they want to at the time.

>being a heretic

There's your problem.

If I have a fantasy setting where I get the chance to make a character whom has amazing powers, who has the confidence I wish I had day to day and whom has opportunities in excess, my end goal for them is not to sit in someone elses shadow for eternity.

That changes if its a game wherein you play a pretty regular guy but if Im playing a wizard in D&D Im eventually going to want to become top dog and like open my own wizarding school or something.

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Most heads of state don't actually have the authority to hand over a country.
If they tried, the state itself would say "fuck that."

Also, Dr.Doom can't leave without letting people out (and leaving the machine unattended).
So *he* is trapped too.

Gestalt warlock artificer.

Lack of real consequences.

Look at two other groups which operate in consequence free environments: tenured college professors and civil servants. Both turn into petty dictators at the drop of a hat. Why? They can't be fired, so why not?

Just because somebody ostensibly rules a country doesn't mean that they have the power to give it away. The country itself would have different ideas.

So they could say 'Yeah, okay', and it would mean absolutely nothing.

>Play a game to feel powerful and independent
>Some fuck expects you to bow before them and do their bidding

>Under capitalism man exploits man, and under communism it's the other way around

Because we role play for ESCAPISM. I already work 10 hours a day for a corporate overlord, I don't want to play that.

Because they don't want to be inevitably fucked over by their partner/pact/etc, which is both extremely common in real life and in fiction, and makes logical sense: Two guys with the ambition to take over the world actually do it (the absolute madmen), why would they be content to share that power with anyone?

Because if they're not ambitious then you get 4 players which become dirt farmers instead of kobold killers.

First you become a queen, then you become a god.
Maybe the other war round if you're feeling saucy.

Dammit, why can't they just let Doom rule the world and pay him lip service so he can fix all the problems?

Why would anybody want to go on an adventure where they're subservient to someone else?

I'd love to have a PC with meaningful connections with other NPCs, it's just that I've never had a DM where that worked out. I've never been able to play a cleric, paladin, or warlock because my DMs would always use my god or patron to take away my class features, despite what the book says about oaths and pacts. I've never been able to cast a conjuration spell because my DMs would always have my summoned creatures hostile towards me, sometimes going as far as to ignore the spell's description to disobey me. I've never been able to write a character with a backstory involving other entities because my DMs would make them unreliable or openly hostile towards me, despite whatever relationship was already stated. The characters I've had that were safe are neutral human fighters that were born yesterday.

>Also, Dr.Doom can't leave without letting people out (and leaving the machine unattended).
>So *he* is trapped too.
It's a doombot.

we do it for the glory. where our compatriots are CONTENT with merely trudging forward or showing up to a glorified family-game-night their parents allowed them to invite their Friends to, we seek that golden trophy at the end, no matter the cost, maybe we were harsh shooting down the bard who has to get wasted at EVERY tavern, maybe a little mean to the druid as we burned down the forest to kill the giant spider, and yes we prolly shouldn't have used the fighter as a literal shield when the dragon breathed fire. but damn it man! we want to see the end of this, to fight the good fight and enjoy the sweet wine of victory when that overlord is finally deposed and the land is free from the evil! if we must be that jackass at the table that's a little too serious, then let us all be a jackass for JUSTICE!

oh, are we talking about how every economic and ruling system has collapsed dozens of times and we should abandon them all and instead subsume ourselves to the will of a computer tyrant?
Because it sounds like we are.

I started a game with the party as members of a small mercenary group. A few new recruits crippled their leader and killed everyone not in the party. I expected them to escort their leader to town and go off on their own, but they instead kept him as their leader, tried to get him medical help, and recruited more to replenish their ranks.

players are pretty great when you aren't trying to make them do something.

...

Doom trims the fat.

By killing inefficient and ineffective minions.

It would be good for the world, bad for world leaders

>not dropping things on earth
If they didn't want things dropped on them, they would be living in space.

...

let's drop MORE things on earth.
Need to free up those resources so newtypes can use 'em during the planetcracking!

Absolutely Ambitious

Any other versions of this parodying fictional governments and ideologies?

>Alright, so how did this NOT work?
Turns out, UN reps can't actually give away their country.

There's a very simple answer to that:
"Not you, that's for sure."

having players be more or less self employed gives them sense of agency, having a guy bark orders makes it feel like they have no power or choice

obviously, it largely depends on the DM, but assuming cylindrical PCs in a vacuum, giving players some degree of control over their quests is never a bad thing

Your answer made me Chuckle.

In many ways I feel GMs often create their own issues by humoring their Players too much. We're all here to have a good time but there's a point where you've got to take on the responsibilities of the "referee" aspect of GMing.

>they're all shit so we may as well go with the one that helps out your fello mahn XD
No we're talking about how one is complete dogshit, you can fuck off now Stalin

>that one guy that asks about who's in charge, or how to become a super god during initial character creation

>not wanting to be as free as the open sky
>not leaving all planetside authority behind like the dust from your ship
>not trying to outsmart the feds at any given opportunity

Shit taste familia

Okay, but seriously, why the hell can't people accept that the USSR/China style of "Communism" isn't it? I'm not defending Communism in anyway, I don't like the ideology at all, but "Fascism with breadlines" is not Communism. Actual Communism could pretty much only work in a very, very small, local scale, a farming community or such.

no, we should go for the one that helps our machine overlords.
The only system we have that hasn't failed yet.

>communism
>working
>ever
>at any level

At least someone got what I was going for.

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