That's flat out wrong. The man gets enslaved. That's as far from retaining the trappings of his position as you can get.
It's flat-out right. Judah Ben-Hur is a prince of his people. He is on high, is thrown down, and then raised back up again, only to be, perhaps, humbled once more; with various adventures along the way.
When he leaves Rome, he's a major nobleman. Perhaps not the equivalent of emperor or archduke, but that is just quibbling. He runs off to Palestine as soon as he assumes his title, one big adventure along the way, culminating with a battle to the death for the sake of revenge.
It's been a while since I reread those, so I could be wrong, but I don't recall any that did.
That's ok.
And how many of them went off having adventures instead of fighting thread?
In each novel. Political interaction with the lords of the holds and other Weyrleaders was right there the whole time, allies, villains, etc.
Which of the characters are you thinking of?
There is one main character in that book. He has numerous adventures on the way up, and when he gets there, too.
I don't see how that applies.
Robin becomes one of the richest and most influential men on Earth; and he still goes off and has adventures. In a way, the second book is an adventure through his mind.
I've only read the Belgariad (Eddings wrote a good book -- over and over again).
Yeah, regrettably, the second pentalogy was, essentially, a repeat of the first pentalogy where they were only different in the specific details; it even pointed this out and incorporated it into the plot and milieu background. The second two pentalogies were very similar in tone and feel to the first two, as well.
I don't see the relevance.
A large batch of major nobles, including a high king (read emperor) and an imperial princess, plus two great religious centerpieces of multiple kingdoms whose lives had spanned millennia and for whom many people bowed down in reverence, who easily ranked with emperors; Belgarath could have dictated pretty much whatever he wanted in the Alorn kingdoms and they would have done it, kicking and screaming, maybe, but they would have done it; all out adventuring their way through book after book.
Beyond the normal scope of play, you mean?
I did not mean that. Unfortunately, normal is a relative term. If a group does nothing but political campaigns of nobles vying for status and romance on Capital, then adventures on a tramp freighter struggling to make the next mortgage payment are going to seem abnormal.
Say more, situations which are not often represented in published Traveller adventure material; knowing nothing of what the breadth of existing Traveller players have accomplished on their own without public recognition.
And what sort of adventures would you run them through?
It's not my cup of tea, personally.
Perhaps I could dig through some of the Tom Clancy novels I used to read before Ryan became Mary Sue and I gave up on the series.
There are many political thrillers in books, movies, and TV. I even pay attention to a few. I just personally wouldn't want to GM or adventure in them (although I do tinker with them on a milieu-building basis). This makes them look abnormal to me personally and so they seem like specialized situations. They may not seem so to others.
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