How do you handle a PC (likely a non-combatant one) backstory

>>52851023
A highborn/administratum/whatever can get the party stuff in DH 2e. The Influence boost from Highborn and the bonus from the administratum background opens doors.

>>52851023
>How do you handle a PC (likely a non-combatant one) backstory of being an extremely wealthy merchant, part of the nobility, or any position of power?
Make them foreigners from faraway lands or exiles who retain their skills but little of their money and connections.

>>52851023

That depends on the tone of the story. Trading off combat ability for political power is something I see acceptable, but if you're going to play a greasy politician in a dungeon crawler-centered campaign, don't say I didn't warn you that it wouldn't be the optimal choice for the situation.

>>52851023
I had a half-demon who was centuries old and lost most of his power due to a family curse. He had fucktons of money but was like a c-list brick in a superhero game. He ended up just financing the party and barely ever fought, it was fun. I was able to explore the business side of things in stories, kind of had a Maxwell Lord feel to him.

>>52851023
Any such resource be it money, influence, power or what have you is likely to be tied up in ongoing affairs.
Unless you are the high prince of Goldistan and home when the need arises you won't have access to loads of gold. A wealthy merchant will have more cash on hand than the generic hero to start with but once players are heroes of some renown that usually balances out.

Let the player spend freely on expensive fluff like wine, women and fancy inns. Let him/her bribe NPCs of the common folk. If it becomes the only solution deal with it by sending someone after them who is following the trail of gold either working for your big bad or just someone out for the big score.

When large amounts of cash or serious influence or power is needed that should be treated as an alternative route to reach their gold. A wealthy merchant, noble or what have you who suddenly disturbs the status quo will make enemies. Their wast majority of wealth and power are tied up in businesses and relations. Quick and rash actions in these worlds will hurt the player in the future, both in terms of small fry who lost their jobs trying to get back at "the man" and other trade organizations and other powers who might want to get rid of the player or put him/her back in place for shaking up the market or stirring the pot to violently.
In terms of nobility or other power positions acting outside of the rules of the social play is the best way to get a knife in the back. Poor use of once influence messes with too many other influential peoples plans so hand art often tied.

The difference between going to a cave and killing the goblin king to steal his treasure to be able to buy a ship to go after the big bad and going to another city to convince the lord to buy it for you in return for rerouting your spice caravan there and then also soothing the snubbed citys council is a change in what you roll against.

Problems only arise if the rest of the group wants to murderhobo.

>>52851118
>faraway lands or exiles who retain their skills but little of their money and connections.
This OP
A king has no power in a land in wich he isn't recognized

>>52851023
I ran a Burning Wheel game in which one of the PCs started the game with a resource stat of 7, given that the usual PC starting resource is 0-2 that's rather unusual.

He did however have no other skills, he could make money and buy a lot of things very easily, he also had a lot of contacts, but little of direct situational use. This being Burning Wheel he did start to get better at social skills but his main use was as an enabler for the other PCs, making sure they had the stuff they needed.

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>>52851023
I would argue the opposite: playing a character who's wealthy, noble or in a position of power (assuming your standard fantasy setting) is easier to justify than some random commoner, for multiple reasons.
>The PCs need to afford arms, armor, adventuring gear and/or magical training. These things can get very expensive, with late medieval full plate armor being more or less comparable to a modern house in terms of value relative to the times
>These PCs will often recieve their quests from important people like kings and high priests. Who do you think a king is more likely to trust with such sensitive affairs as the fate of his realm or the life of his daughter, someone from the warrior nobility or some randum schmuck? A well connected merchant's son the king may perhaps even know personally, or some filthy peasant who smells of poverty and failed harvests?
>By D&D WBL charts, even a level 1 character is significantly wealthier than even whatever passes for a 'middle class' in that setting
>In terms of rewards, it would be less controversial for a noble or even a rich merchant to be rewarded with land and titles than some commoner
In my eyes you'd have a harder time trying to justify playing a 'normal' character. If you're afraid of these characters gaining too much power, either make the nobles foreigners or make them lower nobility. By which I mean that the PCs father only rules one incredibly shitty city in the armpit of the realm, and even then the PC is his fifth son so he will almost certainly not inherit.

>>52851205
Rot in Hell, Max.

>>52851023
What are you afraid they are going to do? I'm assuming that the player is not intending to use their influence or money to derail the plot. And if they do so by accident I would just roll with it. But unless the player is going to cause trouble with their money/status/whatever I see no reason to limit them. Money's not going to help them in a dungeon after all.
What you should do is use this as an oppourtunity. The player is part of a rich family? That's four or five npcs that he starts out having a reason to care about. Who cares if some old man at the tavern needs you to kill some rats in his basement? You could have the player's father ask him to guard the next caravan, which will be travelling through giant rat territory...
Speaking of the character's father. Let him exist. Being part of a rich family doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want unless you are the head of said family. With that in mind, it's actually your npc that has control over the power and money. Now you can grant any requests that are reasonable and answer any that aren't with, "Sorry I can't pay for you to do Retarded Plan Here because I am your father and can see that it's not a great idea." Don't neglect the other family members. This is a good opourtunity to link one of the players to the setting.

>>52852418
This can be a good hook for more diplomacy based adventures.
Also it's helpful to have a character that will actually run the business empire whilst you're out adventuring.

I've been in two games where I played a character that had political connections in the setting. In one I was awarded land in the plot relevant location for heroics. I hired a guy to administrate my estate whilst I and the party investigated the creepy plot relevant ruins that were nearby. Note that the land was actually offered to the party and we decided as a group that I, the fighter, would be the land-owner to our new base.
In the second I and another player were brothers in a patrician family in not!Rome we started out by buying the rest of the party as slaves and eventually freeing them. My character's father was our in to the emperor who was basically our quest-giver for the plot related stuff happening around the empire. I did try to use my family's influence to start an abolitionist movement but the dm shot it down and I didn't feel like pushing the issue would actually help. Other than that there's not a lot of ways I could have fucked the setting other than the way any adventurer that is recieving quests from an emperor could. My money and power was not infinite and I didn't want to drag my family's name through the mud by doing something stupid with it. Side note: we ended up killing a God in that campaign.