Adventurer Roleplaying

This page is meant as an advise for both adventurer players and those dealing with them (judges, local lords, etc).

What it Means to be a Commoner

Most of us modern-day people have no idea about the day-to-day reality of class differences in the middle ages. Fact is that common men and nobles were living in two different worlds. Here's a few ideas, taken from the real world, just to give you the idea:

• If a noble wounded or killed a commoner, he might be liable for damages to the commoner's lord, but never to the commoner.
• Commoners could be killed on the spot for the smalles crimes against their lord.
• Most nobles would've considered it insulting to the extreme to have to share a room with a commoner, up to and including dungeon cells.
• For a commoner, even talking to a noble without being asked a question first was often considered a major breach of etiquette.

You can categorize commoners into two general groups. First, the serfs. They are basically slaves. They're the vast majority of the population, and live just about their entire lives working on a farm, or in a mine. They are completely subject to the will and laws of their local lord (whom they are vassals of by birth). They're the ones that produce food, and they're the ones who starve to death when a region is without food.

Second, though, the freemen. They are still commoners, but have a bit more mobility. They don't owe allegience to a specific lord, and so they have to earn their keep by travelling from place to place and doing specialized work. A blacksmith, a trader, or a freelance mercenary might be considered a freeman. And of course, an adventurer.

The Why and How of Adventuring

Adventurers are not nobles. Reasons for this could be:

• The adventurer's father or mother was a commoner
• The adventurer was born out of wedlock
• The adventurer had his nobility stripped and questioned by a more powerful lord
• The adventurer was a criminal who fell foul of the law and lost his noble status
• The adventurer's claim to being part of the noble family is hazy at best (I was adopted!)

As for why the adventurer does what he does, going from place to place, looking for trouble and usually finding it? Your character's motivations are your own, but here are some ideas:

• You feel some sort of religious obligation to smite "evil." Zealotry!
• You feel a sense of penance for your dirty past and want to make up for it.
• You want to become a powerful warrior, famed through the land. Fame!
• You want to just get rich. Greed!
• A family member or loved one was killed by monsters or undead. Vengence!
• You want to become a Knight someday and this is the way you think it'll work. Ambition!
• You're just have really bad luck. Everywhere you go, you wind up doing battle with beasts.
• You started out as a mercenary, but the pay wasn't good and they usually wind up dying for some stuffed-up noble's war

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