How do you prevent the main character from being stuck as a grunt after saving the world many times in a long story?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This is a recurring problem I typically see pop up in RPGs that span many years, ie World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, etc. Basically the hero has gone on many adventures and military campaigns, has overthrown several tyrants and dark lords, is a liberator of multiple kingdoms, fought in civil wars and fended off invasions, is a great war hero, has reached level 120 or whatever after having gotten lots of powerups and studied under many masters, has networked with many world leaders, etc. Also, at least 10 years has passed and your character isn't a fresh faced young man from the starter zone anymore. By now he's probably at least in his 30s or 40s. So why are still being treated as a grunt taking orders from ensigns and lieutenants? Your character has more accomplishments and real life experience than most people in the setting, even top generals and sovereigns. You should be one of them.

Some games like Mount & Blade allow the player to sensibly ascend from a noob footman to an experienced squad leader to being a low ranking noble and then becoming a king, but other RPGs seem to struggle with this. WoW and GW2 briefly flirted this idea. In WoD, the player finally gets recognized for their accomplishments and gets promoted by the High King/Warchief to commander and is put in charge of the Draenor military campaign, and you get to build a base and order followers around. In the next expansion you get appointed as the leader of a class organization like the Knights of the Silver Hand or the Earthen Ring, and again get to order followers around. Then come the Battle for Azeroth expansion, all of that is forgotten and you are once again being ordered around as a grunt, rather than being your faction's most experienced general. And you don't lead your Legion class organization against evils anymore. GW2 early on had the player become the Commander of the Pact alliance and then the leader of the whole Pact up through End of Dragons, but then after that he's back to being a nobody grunt.

[Acrux]

ACKS has solved this problem. (Tabletop, though.)

[J1M]

Retired.
Aged past prime.
Promoted to monarch.
Ascended to pantheon.

[WhiteShark]

This really requires the game be built around a progression in scale.

To expand on what @Acrux said, ACKS stands for Adventurer Conqueror King System. The PCs start off as regular dungeon-delving adventurers, but at a certain level it becomes possible to attract an army of followers by acquiring a stronghold, at which point the scope of the game expands: they probably still do some personal dungeon delving, but the focus now is on traversing the world with their armies and fighting large battles to clear swathes of wilderness. Once their domains becomes so large that they can no longer manage all of them personally, they must appoint their NPC henchmen to be vassals of their own domains within the PCs' realms, and now the game becomes one of making war and conquering other kingdoms. Dungeon delving is largely relegated to something for underlings to do using an abstract resolution system, and the PCs command multiple armies; the ones not under the direct control of the PCs are led by NPC generals, whose offscreen battles are likewise also resolved using a quick abstract system.

As you can imagine, this layering of systems combines what would ordinarily be two or three different games, and it pretty much requires a sandbox; it wouldn't work at all in a typical narrative RPG of linear structure. I haven't played M&B, but, from what I've heard, it seems the closest.

[Acrux]

And to expand on that even more, players at higher levels require monthly expenditures of gold to maintain the stronghold, city, or kingdom. So, there can still be incentives for players to have occasional character level adventures - to loot a dragon's horde, or discover treasures from a lost city - in order have enough money to keep up maintenance.

[J1M]

MMO specific: the writers are thinking from a soy perspective where they see progression as formal promotions in institutions because that is the life they know.

When the Secret Service SWAT sniper takes a shot that resolves a hostage situation, he doesn't become mayor of the city. He probably gets a medal and is on speed dial next time something happens.

When a mercenary does a great job for G4S or Blackwater, he doesn't become a General at the Department of Defense. He gets paid and a flight home.

Adventures as mercenaries solves a lot of these issues.

Adventures as sports stars is perhaps a more useful directive for a soy writing team.

[Oyster Sauce]

Sequels

[Tangerine]

You're misidentifying the problem. It's not that the hero stays a grunt, it's the quest design escalates beyond what is suitable for the hero because of the mistaken idea that bigger threat = more interesting.

[Demonic Fate]

Mages, both PC and NPCs, have a hierarchy that's outside the traditional power structures. When they become older and stronger, they build a big fuckoff tower and play with pentagrams all day long and chain lightning anyone who bothers them. Ars Magica is the pinnacle of this paradigm in RPGs.

(This is actually a power fantasy for us IRL nerds. We desperately wish that the reward for being good at our jobs was to get to do the same job but with fancier tools and better pay, instead of being "promoted" to managing people who are worse than us.)

It doesn't literally have to be mages, but the PCs should be others in some sense, so that the issue described by OP doesn't arise. Monks, jedis, planar interlopers, ronin, federal marshals, hobbits, take your pick based on the setting. People who can't or won't become kings or generals even if they're smarter and stronger than all the soldiers they work with.

[WhiteShark]

the mistaken idea that bigger threat = more interesting

I don't think this is mistaken at all. An RPG that never moved on from goblins and kobolds would be pretty boring... unless, of course, it scaled up to fighting armies of them. Actually, hyperscaling is the better excuse for cutting armies and rulership out of the equation: if the threats are so powerful as to be effectively immune to normal human soldiers and weapons, there's no reason for anybody but the equally godlike heroes to fight them, and the heroes probably wouldn't have time to do anything else.

[Tangerine]

the mistaken idea that bigger threat = more interesting

I don't think this is mistaken at all. An RPG that never moved on from goblins and kobolds would be pretty boring... unless, of course, it scaled up to fighting armies of them. Actually, hyperscaling is the better excuse for cutting armies and rulership out of the equation: if the threats are so powerful as to be effectively immune to normal human soldiers and weapons, there's no reason for anybody but the equally godlike heroes to fight them, and the heroes probably wouldn't have time to do anything else.

To clarify, when I say bigger threat, I mean bigger in scope, not challenge. Would Strahd's Possession be more interesting if it took place in a whole kingdom instead of a barony? I don't think so. Is an orc army that's about to invade more interesting than dealing with political intrigue in the city? Not necessarily. Yes, some increase in scope makes things more interesting for an adventurer, but after a certain point it doesn't really matter.

[Norfleet]

WoW and GW2 briefly flirted this idea. In WoD, the player finally gets recognized for their accomplishments and gets promoted by the High King/Warchief to commander and is put in charge of the Draenor military campaign, and you get to build a base and order followers around. In the next expansion you get appointed as the leader of a class organization like the Knights of the Silver Hand or the Earthen Ring, and again get to order followers around. Then come the Battle for Azeroth expansion, all of that is forgotten and you are once again being ordered around as a grunt, rather than being your faction's most experienced general.

MMOs always struggle with this concept, because promoting a player to a position where he's expected to have agency and make decisions is fundamentally at odds with a genre where players have no agency and make no decisions. The solution is, obviously, as some mentioned, not to give the player promotions that would otherwise change their status to something that should no longer be participating in the core gameplay loop. You don't make him a general, because generals don't spend their time personally killing things anymore.

You're misidentifying the problem. It's not that the hero stays a grunt, it's the quest design escalates beyond what is suitable for the hero because of the mistaken idea that bigger threat = more interesting.

On the contrary. The problem is that the quest design NEVER ESCALATES. "Kill $NUM_MONSTER $MONSTER_NAME", "Interact with $NUM_GLOWY_THINGS $GLOWY_THING_NAME". If you're never going to actually let the player decide which monster is to be killed and which glowy thing is to be interacted with, then why promote the player to a position where he should legitimately be making that decision and assigning these quests to noobs instead?

[Tangerine]

WoW and GW2 briefly flirted this idea. In WoD, the player finally gets recognized for their accomplishments and gets promoted by the High King/Warchief to commander and is put in charge of the Draenor military campaign, and you get to build a base and order followers around. In the next expansion you get appointed as the leader of a class organization like the Knights of the Silver Hand or the Earthen Ring, and again get to order followers around. Then come the Battle for Azeroth expansion, all of that is forgotten and you are once again being ordered around as a grunt, rather than being your faction's most experienced general.

MMOs always struggle with this concept, because promoting a player to a position where he's expected to have agency and make decisions is fundamentally at odds with a genre where players have no agency and make no decisions. The solution is, obviously, as some mentioned, not to give the player promotions that would otherwise change their status to something that should no longer be participating in the core gameplay loop. You don't make him a general, because generals don't spend their time personally killing things anymore.

You're misidentifying the problem. It's not that the hero stays a grunt, it's the quest design escalates beyond what is suitable for the hero because of the mistaken idea that bigger threat = more interesting.

On the contrary. The problem is that the quest design NEVER ESCALATES. "Kill $NUM_MONSTER $MONSTER_NAME", "Interact with $NUM_GLOWY_THINGS $GLOWY_THING_NAME". If you're never going to actually let the player decide which monster is to be killed and which glowy thing is to be interacted with, then why promote the player to a position where he should legitimately be making that decision and assigning these quests to noobs instead?

You're right. It's more accurate to say the narrative escalates, but the quests do not.

[Norfleet]

You're right. It's more accurate to say the narrative escalates, but the quests do not.

Not even. It's that the player's purported position in the narrative escalates, but his gameplay role never does. If the player were promoted from Kobold Slayer to Goblin Slayer to Orc Slayer to Ogre Slayer, all the way on up to Dragon Slayer and Demon Slayer, the narrative would escalate, but the player's role in it would remain the same: Slaying the threatening monster. If you make him a general, he no longer really should be in the role of Monster Slayer. A general doesn't spend his time slaying monsters, he decides which monsters get slain and who should do it. If you don't want this to be your game, maybe don't make your player a general!

[Tangerine]

You're right. It's more accurate to say the narrative escalates, but the quests do not.

Not even. It's that the player's purported position in the narrative escalates, but his gameplay role never does. If the player were promoted from Kobold Slayer to Goblin Slayer to Orc Slayer to Ogre Slayer, all the way on up to Dragon Slayer and Demon Slayer, the narrative would escalate, but the player's role in it would remain the same: Slaying the threatening monster. If you make him a general, he no longer really should be in the role of Monster Slayer. A general doesn't spend his time slaying monsters, he decides which monsters get slain and who should do it. If you don't want this to be your game, maybe don't make your player a general!

I'm going to clarify my position, since I didn't do a good job explaining it to begin with. If you have a traditional adventurer hero, you can keep him in that role if his narrative/quests are things that an adventurer and his companions could believably handle. What often happens, however, is that the narrative threat the hero faces escalates beyond what is reasonable for his role. For example, the hero just defeated a lich on behalf of the duke and he now gets a request from the king to personally stop an orc invasion. The designers give the player this narrative framing for the next quest because if the area under threat is larger and the threat itself is larger, they believe it must be more interesting. I don't believe that's inherently true. Additionally, as you mentioned, and I agree, these kinds of tasks should be handled by a general or monarch, but the games Val is talking about have you handle them at the adventurer level. The problem, as I see it, is not that the player isn't acting in the leadership role, but that this kind of quest was given to the player in the first place when the designers want to maintain the hero's adventurer role.

[Norfleet]

What often happens, however, is that the narrative threat the hero faces escalates beyond what is reasonable for his role. For example, the hero just defeated a lich on behalf of the duke and he now gets a request from the king to personally stop an orc invasion. The designers give the player this narrative framing for the next quest because if the area under threat is larger and the threat itself is larger, they believe it must be more interesting. I don't believe that's inherently true. Additionally, as you mentioned, and I agree, these kinds of tasks should be handled by a general or monarch, but the games Val is talking about have you handle them at the adventurer level.

I don't see the problem so far. The problem is not that the player has been given this quest. After all, the player is going to still resolve the quest as a murderhobo: He's going to barge into the Orc Warchief's yurt and kill him, whereupon the orc horde, now leaderless, dissolve into chaotic disorder to be mopped up offscreen. Very few games are going to have the player now resolve this as a general, by commanding armies in the field to fight the orc horde.

The problem starts when the devs hand out the title of general, but the player never interacts with this title, nor is this title properly acknowledged, and he continues to resolve issues as a murderhobo by being given specific quests to kill specific things by random NPCs, rather than as a general, deciding what should be done.

[rusty_shackleford]

Maybe they just enjoy what they do and don't want to be a leader

[DemoGraph]

You're right. It's more accurate to say the narrative escalates, but the quests do not.

Not even. It's that the player's purported position in the narrative escalates, but his gameplay role never does.

Exactly. There're usually not enough game mechanics to support social interactions, especially complex ones.
Modern cRPGs are all about clicking mana sliders on a timer to win, devs don't even think about anything else.
Have you ever tried in a RPG to get a promotion to managerial job? I mean, not bash heads until you win or run fedex, but in a dynamic relationship-based system? Show some success (maybe even a fake one) to your boss, persuade him that your opponent isn't good enough, but don't do it too straightforwardly, so that he didn't decide that you're too manipulative, or god forbid, smarter than he is? Have you then discreetly sabotaged your boss to take up his place? Or changed your projects so that they optimized looking good on a resume rather than shareholders' profits?
There's nothing even close to that. NPCs in RPGs don't have agency, memory and relationship (reputation) systems. And without those no group interactions are possible.

So why are still being treated as a grunt taking orders from ensigns and lieutenants?

Ars Magica, GURPS, Exalted (and arguably everything oWoD) are able to handle this situation.
On PC you probably should rather look at god/colony sims (DF, Rimworld, etc.) rather than RPGs. They have at least something.
Or go EVE online.

[rusty_shackleford]

I like RPGs that let me deploy troops on missions

[Tadeusz]

NWN2 has something like that - at one moment you get a castle and you have to manage it. I think it's hard to implement such social progression with mechanical changes in a MMORPG but it may be possible to a certain extent. For example, in Lineage 2 you may become the leader of a clan and get a castle and then you can get some benefits from it like setting taxes and determining amount of manor goods that you wish to buy.

[rusty_shackleford]

NWN2 has something like that - at one moment you get a castle and you have to manage it. I think it's hard to implement such social progression with mechanical changes in a MMORPG but it may be possible to a certain extent. For example, in Lineage 2 you may become the leader of a clan and get a castle and then you can get some benefits from it like setting taxes and determining amount of manor goods that you wish to buy.

NWN2's castle is the best part of the OC

[Vaako]

Maybe by not having levels. Just need to balance enemies arround the player and give him counter abilities he can require with money/grind/knowledge. But then publishers couldnt sell you that easiely an expansion/dlc which is mandatory to have. If you still can compete in the game.

[Brugmans]

So why are still being treated as a grunt taking orders from ensigns and lieutenants?

Ars Magica, GURPS, Exalted (and arguably everything oWoD) are able to handle this situation.

Becoming a lord with your fief, castle etc. was already a thing in Dungeons and Dragons, but I don't know if it was kept in newer editions, I've never seen it in play.

[NotAI]

Divinity 2 Dragon Knight Saga (Hail Swen!) gave you a castle and minions who groveled as soon as you properly became a Dragon Knight because, well, that makes more sense than:

Yeah, in the typical game and story you do get:

"Hero! Legendary Hero! I remember you from that statue of you that stands in the town square. You defeated the evil dragon. And the invading space monsters. Now look here, I am a chef, as you can see, and two rascals stole my roast chicken. Not 10 minutes ago. If you get my chicken back (before they eat it!) I will give you a magical twig you can shove up your arse for marginally faster mana regen!"

"Yes maam, Miss Chef. Right away! I'll drop everything I'm doing and search far and wide for your roast chicken. Otherwise I'll never get this **** out of my quest journal. And that would ******* suck, because I have OCD.''

(heroic main theme plays)

[Irenaeus]

So why are still being treated as a grunt taking orders from ensigns and lieutenants?

Ars Magica, GURPS, Exalted (and arguably everything oWoD) are able to handle this situation.

Becoming a lord with your fief, castle etc. was already a thing in Dungeons and Dragons, but I don't know if it was kept in newer editions, I've never seen it in play.

They have a version for it in every edition (don't know about 4th), it's just that most people don't play these types of campaigns.

[Norfleet]

Maybe they just enjoy what they do and don't want to be a leader

Your character never gets to express this one way or another. In fact, you're pretty much never allowed to actually do that thing, let alone complain about having to do that thing.

[Kain]

You char decided to destroy the world and succeed. Now it's no longer matters if he is still a grunt or not.

[loregamer]

I'm not sure how to solve and properly do a reputation system, but I will say that Skyrim's is hilariously bad. One second you're the legendary Dragonborn, next, you're some shmuck who the guards and NPCs will openly disrespect

[ArcaneLurker]

Game devs typically want to minimise the amount of voice acting needed.
With a game where dialogue is written-only, it should be easy to create more different situational reactions, including reactions to player affinity or status, it's just tedious having to think of all the potential outcomes.

Skyrim didn't even have a proper main quest, but I can't even attack them for it because not a single company has made anything anywhere near similar to Elder Scrolls.

[J1M]

NWN2 has something like that - at one moment you get a castle and you have to manage it. I think it's hard to implement such social progression with mechanical changes in a MMORPG but it may be possible to a certain extent. For example, in Lineage 2 you may become the leader of a clan and get a castle and then you can get some benefits from it like setting taxes and determining amount of manor goods that you wish to buy.

NWN2's castle is the best part of the OC

Some people who like RPGs are very slow learners. It's why they complain about kingdom management. Or vehicles in MMOs.