Refusal of the Call

The Call to Adventure is how we get the players moving in the morning. Without a call to adventure, there is no adventure. But the players have to answer the call.

And sometimes they don't.

Sometimes you've judged their motivations wrong. You thought the players were going to be motivated by money, but this one time they decide to play noble heroes who aren't interested in taking mercenary work. You thought they would jump at the chance to kill a dragon, but they decided they wanted to harass a few humanoids, because the risk/reward ratio is safer.

So what happens now?

When Players Refuse the Call
=== Weak Calls and One Shot Adventures ===

When the call is refused, the primary question is “What was the strength of the call?” If the call was a weak call or a medium call based on a reward, then as a Game Master you should have another adventure ready for them- because there are no negative consequences for refusing the call.

If you only used one of those calls, then it is likely that you are used to creating single adventures instead of a whole campaign. A whole campaign needs a strong call.

In the above case, then you can have a second short adventure ready for the players, something fairly simple, and you can then have the second adventure reappear if the players still want to play.

=== Strong Calls===

If the call is Medium or above (but the medium must be a medium with consequences then the Game Master must take a different tact. A Strong Call has strong consequences for refusal explicitly stated in the call (but not necessarily said in words). The Players should know precisely what they re inviting if the refuse a strong call.

That said, when the Players refuse a call that has consequences for refusal, they should suffer the consequences of refusing the call. As long as the Players understand when the call is made, that they may do what they like but the world will continue to move too. As long as this is clear ahead of time and as long as the consequences are the logical result of the quest going unanswered, most players will take this as a good challenge rather than a punishment- which is exactly what it should be. Our purpose when we game master is to tell a story. Because it is easier to tell a story that we have already prepared, we want to keep the characters on that story track and are perfectly allowed to offer inducements to get them moving. George Lucas killed Luke Skywalker’s Aunt and Uncle when he refused the call.

Different types of call consequences

 * 1) Wanted by the Authorities


 * 1) Pursued by Rival


 * 1) Pursued by Mob


 * 1) Called to pay debt


 * 1) Nation in danger of being overrun/conquered


 * 1) Opposing side seeks to kill them

=== Campaigns ===

Campaigns are a special case. When using the Journey system to design a campaign it is important to keep scale in mind. A Campaign should be large scale and its effects far reaching. When the players refuse the call, the call does not go away in a campaign- it just gives the villain more time to work un-impeded. This means that the call will keep coming up indirectly, because the consequences of refusing the call do not go away in a campaign, they get worse.

Furthermore, whether the players refuse the call or not, they will not be able to avoid the influence of the campaign itself. No matter where Luke goes in the galaxy- the empire is still there and still looking for those droids, the empire still killed his Aunt and Uncle.