Handling player ambition

Hello Veeky Forums, perhaps you can assist me with this conundrum.

I have a player with ambitions to take over the known world. He has the appropriate tools to do so, and has already cemented his grasp over a moderate sized region.

There are several problems that come along with this.

- His character no longer has a reason to sally forth and adventure. His subordinates can handle most challenges I throw the party's way.

- He's splitting the party. His reign could be described as neutral evil with extremely good public relations. The player's expertise at getting others to see things his way is the only thing that's prevented the party from totally fracturing, and that thread is starting to wear thin.


Should I just break up the group into two parts (those for and against the character)? Should I tell him to roll a new character? Should I deus-ex his empire into the ground?

The system is 3.5, and I'm happy to answer any questions that can help clear this issue up.

Pic somewhat related to the character in question.

Necromancer with an army of undead march from the underdark. have fun bud.

maybe it's time for a Tarrasque?

So a deus-ex is really the only option at this point? I feel a little bad knocking over his sandcastle, he put a lot of work and thought into it.

I don't know. Is it making the game uninteresting? You should just let it play out if it's not stifling fun. Fuck you could have your player become an organic big bad evil guy. That's pretty cool.

have him over thrown by his own empire. is always fun.

maybe not dues ex, but give the pc a challenge

Can the rest of the players have a place of power in his kingdom? Maybe just up the ante and scale.

I would probably just tell him that is such a full time thing, that he would need to retire the character, but he could still RP the king character. Maybe before each session, throw conundrums and problems at him to solve. use his choices to direct the kingdom and world

It's extremely fun, but it's making the game mechanically difficult to execute. At this point, I essentially have to have to tables set up, and given fractures that are starting to form on the good aligned table, it might become three...

He has nearly everyone drugged up on magically enhanced opium, some without their knowledge. I've tried having people get rowdy, but he just upped the concentration for a while. It's in the food and water that his little kingdom manufactures as a result of that experiment in dethroning.

Any ideas on a challenge that can't be handled by subordinates? That's principally the issue.

The players with even reasonably questionable morality have fallen in line behind him. If I don't have any better ideas, I like your latter suggestion a lot.

No no, dude, no.
Listen.
You ARE the Deus: your narrative, the machina.

He's a NE diplomancer who is sending forth minions? Got a country under his thumb?

Great. move the campaign away from him, include his minions with the party. Basically, unless he's actively scrying what his minions are doing 100% of the time, his PC just became a retired patron. The rest of the party and his minion are now the party of focus.

if he *is* scrying on his minion 24/7, he's not paying attention to his rule, and shit starts to turn against him. Pick a natural disaster: Famine, Plague, an especially bad unseasonal storm... it's really fucking hard to talk down a hurricane. Now add another, somewhat different problem... Crime, a messianic cult, a fire in the warehouse district of the city uncovering one of the unforgivable things he's done... Shit, as they say, Happens. and it turns the people against him... so now he's seeing disruption, not just in your game, but in his kingdom. The borderlands are pushing back with invading barbarian masses and raiders, refugees from adjacent and distant lands are creating a population glut... Everything /pol/ has ever said would happen *does*.
and the people aren't putting up with his diplomacy anymore. They don't listen to his proclamations, and he can't be there in person to sway every angry mob.

And so ends the reign of Player Character the First.

Admit what's happening and tell him the problem, then ask HIM for a solution.

So, either tell him to retire his PC, or rain fire down upon something that's taken two IRL years to generate? See my previous post, I tried angry mobs. If it were just him, I wouldn't have a problem in the slightest, but his strategic utilization of other PC's to stamp out problems that crop up has been irritatingly effective. Even the good aligned PC's which have witnessed some truly horrible sit are forced to help him out by their own philosophies. His argument is essentially utilitarian.

I'll suggest what said in the second half of his post. But you have a valid point. I'm a seasoned GM, and I don't like to admit weakness, which is probably why I haven't done this in the first place.

He's already hit a major "retire" point, being a fucking King. There ain't shit more for you to have him accomplish if he ain't gonna be going out to accomplish shit. If he wants to control the whole world from this point? then he's gonna have to deal with the whole world's problems. and those are going to grow and magnify as his influence grows.

As for the "rain down fire". Yeah, he's no longer *just* a guy in a robe and pointy hat: he's now the overseer and protector of PCistan. He has to deal with the shortages of food, the tapping out of a regional resource, the unnatural storm... Shit's gotta get bigger than "oh look, 20 peasants with torches" now. Hell, if you realyl gotta: invoke a Young Adventuring Party. have a group of lower level PC's defeat one of his minions. ANY one of his minions. Spoil a plan. Stop a something or other... he needs to do the scheming, you just need to foil it. Hell, preferably one at an extreme geographical location (like the distant borders) that his allies (the other PCs) won't be able to reach immediately. Do it as often as needs to be done.

Until said rival adventuring party is *almost* as strong as your actual party, and then... pick them off... one at a time. Make it clear that this is the boss rush. This is the end result of splitting the party. this is the last adventure that this party will face.

Or you could just make the next plot arc not be about him, or his kingdom, at all. Put the spotlight squarely on whatever the LG character is, and keep it there for a while. If he does protest, just remind him that he has a burgeoning empire to run, and this is a different story arc.

Have him make the other party members part of his government and start throwing nation-sized challenges their way. I've actually done this before and it's really fun.

How did you go about executing this mechanically?

Fair points, I like the young adventuring party idea, ha ha.

>He has nearly everyone drugged up on magically enhanced opium
How does anything get done? I mean, if you gave him a limitless supply of mind control drugs, then obviously he's going to be unstoppable. Just fast forward and give him the rest of the world if there are no challenges left.

It's not limitless, he's just strategically used it - to my great frustration. I've tried blighting it, which is how it ended up magically enhanced. There are other factors at play, mostly that one of the PC's is his Head of the Guard.

>I would probably just tell him that is such a full time thing, that he would need to retire the character, but he could still RP the king character. Maybe before each session, throw conundrums and problems at him to solve. use his choices to direct the kingdom and world
This is the best solution.

Make your problem PC work to maintain his domain. Maybe have a neighboring King think that your PC's kingdom will be a nice addition to their expanding empire. Or have a huge evil come from across/under the sea/land and force every other nation to unite under your PC's banner or die.

>The Young Adventurer party foils one of his plans.
>Said plan would end with a big-ass ritual being cast.
>Instead planet gets hit with a giant ritual casting of "purify food and drink"
>Suddenly, all that magical opium laced secretly into food and water is gone.
>Suddenly: entire population goes into magic opium withdrawal.
>including all his minions.

How are the only challenges left ones that could be solved by henchmen? Shouldn't the threats that the party face be faced by them because... no one else can? How did he get a bunch of guys that are the same level/xp/whateveryoursystemusesasameasureofpower to do the work of the adventuring party? Isn't there some kind of big evil to be stopped?
Otherwise, well, it looks like your campaign is over, because if there's no reason for a adventuring party to be around, it seems that the campaign is done

The main pc had a noble background and he wanted to rebuild his house. He appointed other pcs to advisor roles based on class. Sometimes our quest would involve working on the fief or doing something related to the metaplot. Most of the tasks for running the kingdom were handled as a background task, with an npc steward holding down the fort while the party was out. Most conflict was resolved by relevant skill or attribute rolls with bonuses and maluses based on good rp and how the main adventure was going.

>His character no longer has a reason to sally forth and adventure
Why not?
Some nobles go hunting, throw feasts, your king delves into the dungeon of adventure as his pastime so he can have fun with old friends.

Thy may be a threat that only him could stop.
>Ancient X can only be stopped by the king of Y

If he decides that his character wants to stop adventuring then he should retire or semi-retire.
In both cases you can get him to act with you as assistant GM, that directs action of important NPC quest giver.
In that option player plays as his king and is quest giver but mostly stays in his castle to rule and loyal henchmen that adventures with party in place of the king.Bonus points if loyal henchmen starts to conspire against the king while both characters are played by the same guy.

Or you could try to get all the players into kingdom running business and throw kingdom scale problems at them.
Tax evasion, famine, flood, dragon burning towns(dragon is mobile so one party can't catch it), uprising of peasants, neighbourhood country declares war, land dispute, trade negotiations, young hero wants to free king's bride, avenge his father and wields ancients swords of kings of Y that makes him rightful heir to the kingdom.

But sadly 3.5 does not support kingdom level management only thing I remember in similar theme was kingmaker for PF maybe it have some clues how to run a realm

Mind to explain the whole political situation and world building and what's your player role in all of this? Then I'll help you without having to use a Deus Ex Machina.

OP, could you give a more detailed analysis of the situation? The solution could be as simple as him over-reaching himself, to get torn down by downtrodden rebels

You know what to do my man.
Subordinates can't be trusted when you are always on the wrong foot.
Alexander didn't win by fighting from the back lines.
Hannibal couldn't have won Cannae if he didn't remain in the center.
Go full band of the hawk on this shit

Why are you even considering that as an option? What the fuck is wrong with you? Did your uncle rape you as a child?

I'd give him an epilogue and make him roll a new character

Maybe make his character an NPC for future campaigns if it doesn't ruin the story you have planned out

Just ask him what he wants to do. Explain that the character doesn't fit in an adventuring game anymore, and see what he wants to them with them instead.