I mean... successful adventurers quite often become celebrities. Why are you asking?
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I can see that happening and it proving very dangerous for them.
Whether they get the more important jobs because of their fame, popularity or just simply because they took advantage of the situation where the true hero stayed out of the limelight as they prefer to remain unrecognised because that might mean they will live far longer!
For example King in One Punch Man he accidentally became famous, but began to regret that as people expect him to step up and his own abilities have prevented him getting into too much trouble but regular adventurers' aren't THAT lucky.
Imagine a proclaimed dragon slayer and are eventually sought out for help.
The problem is they didn't kill the dragon they simply claimed the credit after the actual dragon slayer died during the process of killing the dragon.
Now they're stuck holding the can and seek the help of the others to deal with the situation they're in provided they can get over what they did when they either figure it out or were actually present so know the truth?
There's plenty of stories and adventure ideas that can make use of this the first background example that comes to mind is the Folk Hero background!
In a game I ran one player ran a Folk Hero Fallen Aasimar Paladin, but his back story was basically the peasant Batman origin the problem is that makes more sense he had the Criminal background as his killing starving peasants caused his downfall after they attacked him and his parents.
But not as a Folk Hero I ended up explaining he and his parents were ambushed during a trip to the city with his parents killed in front of him and whilst he killed one of their attackers it was only the timely aid of an off duty guard that saved his life.
In the aftermath the Royal Guard clamped down on the investigation making it clear they were covering up the incident and the subsequent outcry caused the creation of a new order of Knights called the Free Knights composed of City and Royal Guards who revolted at the cover up dedicating themselves to preventing that ever happening again.
Thus he became the inspiration for a new order of knights who he joined as his rescuer became his mentor as he was orphaned as a result of that ambush.
In retrospect it's clear I was just as wrong, but that's why session zero's are important but the above is an example of a celebrity in d&d in action have you any examples of your own?
Thank you guys. This is really helpful. In my FR campaign successful adventurers are as well known as rock stars, with all the problems that arise from being famous and all the advantages as well.
@IAmSposta dude is fine 😊. And actually both Tony Stark and Iron Man were celebrities, but for different reasons (or did Tony eventually reveal to the public that he was Iron Man? Idk MCU history that well.)
I definitely think there's an appeal for the players in being more and more recognized for their deeds as their adventure goes on. The whole "zero to hero" thing is fun to watch unfold, especially if you pull a Witcher and have them befriend a bard NPC who decides to sing your praises throughout the land.
Depending on the style of your campaign, I can completely see adventurers being like celebrities - at least once they hit some higher levels. But the level of fame might be more geographically constrained (e.g. not so much internets for your regular villager to distract him from the daily toil)
It could also be celebrity status due to memberships of brotherhoods or guilds - wild barbarian or fighter gladiators in the ring, famous bards that pack out the inn, the cleric that everyone wants a blessing from and so on.
But it could be that once they arrive in Amn or Chult, nobody has any idea who they are - gives some good flexibility.
One of my games actually is about to have the party being followed by a "scrying crew" of sorts who will also be able to provide "audience feedback" to the party. It came up via a random encounter roll in the Baldur's Gate gazetteer at the back of DiA and I decided to literally run with it (Jonas Goodnight and the plight of the Oasis Theater). Basically, I'm reworking Book of the Raven via some reviewers recommendations and then adding a Blair Witch Project element to it. So as 3-4th level characters, this level of celebrity is a bit premature, and there will likely be repercussions. Next session is basically "booth" interviews with each of the cast members by Goodnight, seen by wealthy partriars with the funds to own their own scrying device, or taverns with such mirrors, and everyone paying the subscription fee to get the Oasis out of hock to the Thieves Guild. Yes ,a lot of antique brokers who front for the Thieves Guild are suddenly flush with magic grade mirrors and reflection fountains being sold at a premium. Said mirrors were bound to Elturel for some fancy cathedral or what have you but the ships slated to carry them up river suddenly "decided to unload them here for some reason, at a deal" according to Nine Fingers' people.
One of my games actually is about to have the party being followed by a "scrying crew" of sorts who will also be able to provide "audience feedback" to the party. It came up via a random encounter roll in the Baldur's Gate gazetteer at the back of DiA and I decided to literally run with it (Jonas Goodnight and the plight of the Oasis Theater). Basically, I'm reworking Book of the Raven via some reviewers recommendations and then adding a Blair Witch Project element to it. So as 3-4th level characters, this level of celebrity is a bit premature, and there will likely be repercussions. Next session is basically "booth" interviews with each of the cast members by Goodnight, seen by wealthy partriars with the funds to own their own scrying device, or taverns with such mirrors, and everyone paying the subscription fee to get the Oasis out of hock to the Thieves Guild. Yes ,a lot of antique brokers who front for the Thieves Guild are suddenly flush with magic grade mirrors and reflection fountains being sold at a premium. Said mirrors were bound to Elturel for some fancy cathedral or what have you but the ships slated to carry them up river suddenly "decided to unload them here for some reason, at a deal" according to Nine Fingers' people.
I've seen a group of adventurers become famous for their propensity to (totally unintentionally) leave a place in ruins when they successfully complete an adventure. Does that count?
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
It makes perfect sense for adventurers to become famous, assuming they don't actively try to avoid it. They're fighting monsters, felling villains, saving hapless innocents and other things that bards sing about. Or they might be doing less noble and heroic things that bards tell horror stories about if they're evil adventurers. Or it could be either or maybe even both in different towns and regions depending on the consistency of their behavior and whether or not they've offended any charismatic and influential bards (or somebody with enough coin to commission such bards).
Seriously, life as a commoner in a midieval-ish fantasy world is dull. The most common form of entertainment available to the population at large is a performing bard at the local tavern, or a play at a village festival or maybe an actual theater with regular performances in a larger city. The people want something to distract them from the drudgery of their mundane lives, so tales of heroes and villains will be among the more popular subjects for that kind of entertainment. They won't be the only sources of inspiration for the bards and share the spotlight with tales of romance, tragic or otherwise, bawdy drinking songs, and whatever else makes an interesting story or song but there will definitely be a heroic tale of derring-do here and there.
Fame of individual adventurers should vary based on where they are and how well their stories have spread. If their deeds are more dramatic and make for better stories, those stories will be told more often and spread farther. It's possible that their reputation might precede them to a new region, though also possible that the story has changed over multiple retellings (or rewritings by bards who feel like embellishing) and they're accredited with having done things they haven't actually done (be they good or bad) or maybe somebody else was given the credit. Maybe a bard traveling to another country altered the description of the adventurers to make them more appealing to the local culture and changed their names to more familiar sounding ones, so the party could travel and hear telling of their own deeds by someone who doesn't recognize them at all.
Fame is also a double edged sword. It can garner preferential treatment from commoners and kings alike, but it can also create expectations as others have mentioned. A hero might be offered a free room at an inn but be asked to do something about the powerful bandit leader that comes by town to shake down and extort everybody once a month. And if the party disappoints, offends, or otherwise displeases somebody with wealth, power, and/or fame of their own those people can spread lies about them that will get them hostile reactions from people who haven't met them yet.
There are all sorts of things that can be played with along the lines of famous heroes.
@IAmSposta dude is fine 😊. And actually both Tony Stark and Iron Man were celebrities, but for different reasons (or did Tony eventually reveal to the public that he was Iron Man? Idk MCU history that well.)
@IAmSposta dude is fine 😊. And actually both Tony Stark and Iron Man were celebrities, but for different reasons (or did Tony eventually reveal to the public that he was Iron Man? Idk MCU history that well.)
In the amazing book Kings of the Wylde, adventuring parties are treated like rock stars. They host parades in the streets showing off the creatures they have slain or captured, and people throw tokens like flowers at them as they pass. They are very much celebrities! I think it works way better than having them blend in with everyone else, unless they intend to. It could backfire for anyone using sneaky tactics though, as they won't want to be recognised!
Bards, noble or infamous martials, some Clerics I think are easy slips into the rock star route.
Most rogues, a lot of rangers I think are the more "quiet professional" types who may have reputations in select circles but generally see themselves performing their work out of the public light.
Arcanists I think could go either way.
But back to my Blair Witch Project experiment (starting next week, so doing prep tomorrow). I swear I remember seeing in Dragon back in the late 80s either a miniature or a table top rpg's whose whole conceit was that the players were adventurers performing in a televised dungeon crawl. This sort of pre-dates "reality TV" but "The Running Man" had already been in theaters and was in regular rotation on cable and VHS rentals (at least at my house) and the novella I think had purchase in the TTRPG inspiration well for a time already so the concept wasn't too alien to players. I just can't remember the name of it. It wasn't Blood Bowl.
A bit removed from the topic but I think relevent, the game Car Wars focused on competitive Autoduelists (folks who super up their cars with machine guns and rocket launchers and largely duked it out in arenas but unsanctioned fights happened on public roads) and I think at least in some version fame/celebrity was a thing to include stuff like product endorsements in the game world.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I love the idea of adventurers becoming celebrities, and that making some of their missions a bit more difficult. Think Bruce Wayne being swarmed by reporters while the Joker gets away!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I convert monsters from older versions of D&D and make videos about cool D&D stuff! www.youtube.com/c/DungeonDad
I love the idea of adventurers becoming celebrities, and that making some of their missions a bit more difficult. Think Bruce Wayne being swarmed by reporters while the Joker gets away!
I'm now imagining the possibilities from other films...
"who's this kid? go home! you're not an adventurer!"
later on ,the kid returns as Syndrome, the mad artificer, who hates adventuring parties with a passion and plans on destroying them!
Specifically in the Forgotten Realms but could apply to any world.
I mean... successful adventurers quite often become celebrities. Why are you asking?
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Idle curiosity. And I absolutely agree with you.
I can see that happening and it proving very dangerous for them.
Whether they get the more important jobs because of their fame, popularity or just simply because they took advantage of the situation where the true hero stayed out of the limelight as they prefer to remain unrecognised because that might mean they will live far longer!
For example King in One Punch Man he accidentally became famous, but began to regret that as people expect him to step up and his own abilities have prevented him getting into too much trouble but regular adventurers' aren't THAT lucky.
Imagine a proclaimed dragon slayer and are eventually sought out for help.
The problem is they didn't kill the dragon they simply claimed the credit after the actual dragon slayer died during the process of killing the dragon.
Now they're stuck holding the can and seek the help of the others to deal with the situation they're in provided they can get over what they did when they either figure it out or were actually present so know the truth?
There's plenty of stories and adventure ideas that can make use of this the first background example that comes to mind is the Folk Hero background!
In a game I ran one player ran a Folk Hero Fallen Aasimar Paladin, but his back story was basically the peasant Batman origin the problem is that makes more sense he had the Criminal background as his killing starving peasants caused his downfall after they attacked him and his parents.
But not as a Folk Hero I ended up explaining he and his parents were ambushed during a trip to the city with his parents killed in front of him and whilst he killed one of their attackers it was only the timely aid of an off duty guard that saved his life.
In the aftermath the Royal Guard clamped down on the investigation making it clear they were covering up the incident and the subsequent outcry caused the creation of a new order of Knights called the Free Knights composed of City and Royal Guards who revolted at the cover up dedicating themselves to preventing that ever happening again.
Thus he became the inspiration for a new order of knights who he joined as his rescuer became his mentor as he was orphaned as a result of that ambush.
In retrospect it's clear I was just as wrong, but that's why session zero's are important but the above is an example of a celebrity in d&d in action have you any examples of your own?
Dude,* Adventurers are the super heroes of D&D. Isn’t Tony Stark a celebrity?
*I use dude as a gender agnostic form of address.
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Yes he's a pretty good example possibly also Scanlan at times!
Thank you guys. This is really helpful. In my FR campaign successful adventurers are as well known as rock stars, with all the problems that arise from being famous and all the advantages as well.
@IAmSposta dude is fine 😊. And actually both Tony Stark and Iron Man were celebrities, but for different reasons (or did Tony eventually reveal to the public that he was Iron Man? Idk MCU history that well.)
I definitely think there's an appeal for the players in being more and more recognized for their deeds as their adventure goes on. The whole "zero to hero" thing is fun to watch unfold, especially if you pull a Witcher and have them befriend a bard NPC who decides to sing your praises throughout the land.
Depending on the style of your campaign, I can completely see adventurers being like celebrities - at least once they hit some higher levels. But the level of fame might be more geographically constrained (e.g. not so much internets for your regular villager to distract him from the daily toil)
It could also be celebrity status due to memberships of brotherhoods or guilds - wild barbarian or fighter gladiators in the ring, famous bards that pack out the inn, the cleric that everyone wants a blessing from and so on.
But it could be that once they arrive in Amn or Chult, nobody has any idea who they are - gives some good flexibility.
One of my games actually is about to have the party being followed by a "scrying crew" of sorts who will also be able to provide "audience feedback" to the party. It came up via a random encounter roll in the Baldur's Gate gazetteer at the back of DiA and I decided to literally run with it (Jonas Goodnight and the plight of the Oasis Theater). Basically, I'm reworking Book of the Raven via some reviewers recommendations and then adding a Blair Witch Project element to it. So as 3-4th level characters, this level of celebrity is a bit premature, and there will likely be repercussions. Next session is basically "booth" interviews with each of the cast members by Goodnight, seen by wealthy partriars with the funds to own their own scrying device, or taverns with such mirrors, and everyone paying the subscription fee to get the Oasis out of hock to the Thieves Guild. Yes ,a lot of antique brokers who front for the Thieves Guild are suddenly flush with magic grade mirrors and reflection fountains being sold at a premium. Said mirrors were bound to Elturel for some fancy cathedral or what have you but the ships slated to carry them up river suddenly "decided to unload them here for some reason, at a deal" according to Nine Fingers' people.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Very cool
I've seen a group of adventurers become famous for their propensity to (totally unintentionally) leave a place in ruins when they successfully complete an adventure. Does that count?
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
It makes perfect sense for adventurers to become famous, assuming they don't actively try to avoid it. They're fighting monsters, felling villains, saving hapless innocents and other things that bards sing about. Or they might be doing less noble and heroic things that bards tell horror stories about if they're evil adventurers. Or it could be either or maybe even both in different towns and regions depending on the consistency of their behavior and whether or not they've offended any charismatic and influential bards (or somebody with enough coin to commission such bards).
Seriously, life as a commoner in a midieval-ish fantasy world is dull. The most common form of entertainment available to the population at large is a performing bard at the local tavern, or a play at a village festival or maybe an actual theater with regular performances in a larger city. The people want something to distract them from the drudgery of their mundane lives, so tales of heroes and villains will be among the more popular subjects for that kind of entertainment. They won't be the only sources of inspiration for the bards and share the spotlight with tales of romance, tragic or otherwise, bawdy drinking songs, and whatever else makes an interesting story or song but there will definitely be a heroic tale of derring-do here and there.
Fame of individual adventurers should vary based on where they are and how well their stories have spread. If their deeds are more dramatic and make for better stories, those stories will be told more often and spread farther. It's possible that their reputation might precede them to a new region, though also possible that the story has changed over multiple retellings (or rewritings by bards who feel like embellishing) and they're accredited with having done things they haven't actually done (be they good or bad) or maybe somebody else was given the credit. Maybe a bard traveling to another country altered the description of the adventurers to make them more appealing to the local culture and changed their names to more familiar sounding ones, so the party could travel and hear telling of their own deeds by someone who doesn't recognize them at all.
Fame is also a double edged sword. It can garner preferential treatment from commoners and kings alike, but it can also create expectations as others have mentioned. A hero might be offered a free room at an inn but be asked to do something about the powerful bandit leader that comes by town to shake down and extort everybody once a month. And if the party disappoints, offends, or otherwise displeases somebody with wealth, power, and/or fame of their own those people can spread lies about them that will get them hostile reactions from people who haven't met them yet.
There are all sorts of things that can be played with along the lines of famous heroes.
🤔
I dunno, maybe? 😉
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Thanks 😊
In the amazing book Kings of the Wylde, adventuring parties are treated like rock stars. They host parades in the streets showing off the creatures they have slain or captured, and people throw tokens like flowers at them as they pass. They are very much celebrities! I think it works way better than having them blend in with everyone else, unless they intend to. It could backfire for anyone using sneaky tactics though, as they won't want to be recognised!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Bards, noble or infamous martials, some Clerics I think are easy slips into the rock star route.
Most rogues, a lot of rangers I think are the more "quiet professional" types who may have reputations in select circles but generally see themselves performing their work out of the public light.
Arcanists I think could go either way.
But back to my Blair Witch Project experiment (starting next week, so doing prep tomorrow). I swear I remember seeing in Dragon back in the late 80s either a miniature or a table top rpg's whose whole conceit was that the players were adventurers performing in a televised dungeon crawl. This sort of pre-dates "reality TV" but "The Running Man" had already been in theaters and was in regular rotation on cable and VHS rentals (at least at my house) and the novella I think had purchase in the TTRPG inspiration well for a time already so the concept wasn't too alien to players. I just can't remember the name of it. It wasn't Blood Bowl.
A bit removed from the topic but I think relevent, the game Car Wars focused on competitive Autoduelists (folks who super up their cars with machine guns and rocket launchers and largely duked it out in arenas but unsanctioned fights happened on public roads) and I think at least in some version fame/celebrity was a thing to include stuff like product endorsements in the game world.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I love the idea of adventurers becoming celebrities, and that making some of their missions a bit more difficult. Think Bruce Wayne being swarmed by reporters while the Joker gets away!
I convert monsters from older versions of D&D and make videos about cool D&D stuff! www.youtube.com/c/DungeonDad
I'm now imagining the possibilities from other films...
"who's this kid? go home! you're not an adventurer!"
later on ,the kid returns as Syndrome, the mad artificer, who hates adventuring parties with a passion and plans on destroying them!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!