So basically I'm leveling up and am able to "create" a Stronghold. I mean it's not my 1st house, but it's "my first" house....as in all me and just me. So the first thing I have to do, after "evicting" the previous tenets (i.e. bought the house) was to secure the premises.....in this case change all my locks.
Now I'm at the cleanup and slowly moving in phase.
Anyway, clearly that's my real life at the moment, but I've yet to be able to do this in-game. I did get close once. My DS Invoker got a high enough level and saved up more than enough coin. The tipping point was my PC getting a Pseudo Dragon familiar, so then he was all set to "retire", build a library, and begin his practice (he was working on being a Doctor of sorts)*.
I've never GM'd a player building a bonafide Stronghold either.
In-game I like the idea of a Stronghold/Library/Whatever, but it seems to me to be more of a goal....a journey, not really a destination, something to work towards, but probably a campaign-wrecker if it ever came to fruition. While I can certainly come up with ideas for adventures emanating from the Stronghold, or during it's creation, they just seem way too different from the types of adventures during the normal murder-hoboing.....
So basically I see the creation of a Stronghold as more of an end-game thing. Retire the PC and maybe bring them back out here & there for one-offs. I often have some sort of end-game idea in mind for my PCs. My current OSR Magic User doesn't have one....yet, but my last HackMaster PC was expected to return to the homeland and probably die leading a rebellion to free his enslaved brethren. I was hoping that'd be an epic campaign, but alas the gaming group broke up and I haven't touched that PC since.
Usually I like to pose a question to the 12 13 readers I have here at the Tavern and the obvious one would be if anyone has built a Stronghold before, but what I'd rather read about is if/how many of us envision an end-game for their PCs. Not just what, but when (level?), and what is involved in that thought process?
I don't envision an end-game, no. Since I usually have several characters, when I feel like a change I switch for a while. My paladin won Midkemia's Black Tower, and he became Baron Tulan. He had plenty of adventures after that, and they often came to him instead of the other way around. I can't guess what level he was when he became Baron, but when I moved away he was 15th.
ReplyDeleteIn TSR-era D&D or the OSR based off it there's no point in envisioning anything beyond death. The math doesn't support any long term planning, since you will eventually fail a save or die and that's the end of you even if something else doesn't kill you first - which it probably will, long before Raise Dead is an option. Living to fourth level is an endgame achievement in those games.
ReplyDeleteIn WotC-era D&D strongholds are strongly de-emphasized as a mechanic, which is ironic since the focus on more durable characters and balanced encounter construction means you often live long enough to reach those kinds of levels. Instead you're generally expected to just keep on adventuring against ever-more-powerful (but not more dangerous) foes until your campaign collapses from exhaustion. 4e is maybe the exception, the leveling is so fast and the endgames for each epic destiny are so clearly spelled out that you can realistically "finish" PCs - but they still aren't building strongholds most of the time.
Forbidden Lands is actually all about building strongholds (well, and hexcrawling) and it's something you'll be striving toward from early on rather than an endgame thing. It's well supported mechanically, far less fiddly than anything Gygax wrote, and having a good home base has a significant impact on how effective you are at adventuring outside of it. It's the only fantasy game where I've ever had PCs build anything meaningful, although I've seen others where they invested in NPC endeavors.
Traveller is the only other game I've seen where the players had both the means and motivation to build their own "strongholds" during a campaign. Asteroid mining outposts that morphed into R&R and supply centers for the rest of the Belter population, landing facilities that started out as little more than a bare field and eventually grew to replace the planet's old (and much neglected) starport to become a trade and transit hub and then a fortress to stand off piratical raiders, even a custom built modular space habitat that could be (although it never was) broken down and moved via FTL tugs - I've seen all those things over the years.
"In TSR-era D&D or the OSR based off it there's no point in envisioning anything beyond death. The math doesn't support any long term planning, since you will eventually fail a save or die and that's the end of you even if something else doesn't kill you first - which it probably will, long before Raise Dead is an option. Living to fourth level is an endgame achievement in those games."
DeleteThat might be a tad pessimistic. With the "hovering on death's door" rule, the slow poison spell, and a party that's willing to get a dead comrade raised surviving to 4th level is definitely achievable. After that survival gets easier.
These days, I only get to DM old school D&D except for play-by-post. PbP is so slow that I haven't worried about endgame conditions for any of those PCs. And like Dick said above, newer editions don't really have strongholds built in.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever get to play old school again in a long-term campaign, I will probably start thinking about strongholds and rulership IF I make it up to around 6th level.
I've built a stronghold as a player.
ReplyDeleteTwo PCs have done it in IMC. Two more are working on it. It's not a campaign ender - or it doesn't have to be.
My stronghold (research library/laboratory) was the foundation for the championship tournament we wrote...
ReplyDeleteI played a thief who built his thieve's guild stronghold in the vein of the New York Explorer's Club. Pipes and tweed jackets, taxidermized monsters decorating wood paneled lounge rooms, and a group of like-minded congregants who mingle to talk business and boast or lecture on things discovered during their expeditions. Smokey back room deals for the affluent and discerning adventurer were the bread and butter of the guild business.
ReplyDelete