The more I look at the prompts for this year's #RPGaDay, the more I'm looking at a some stream-of-consciousness posting about role-playing, and that's alright.
First off, if I were to become a patron of the role-playing arts, the first (and only) one I would currently support is Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff.
I also don't drink much tequila, so I have no opinion on that.
In terms of a customer, my players would gravitate their characters to the closest establishment with what they need and the least drama and tension.
But in the general context of a benefactor helping the characters? Perhaps it's my style, or that of my players, but the characters in my game world are a bit more... mercenary, to fully appreciate and benefit from that relationship. They're far more likely to hop from noble in need of help, to merchant in need of help, to property owner, to community, to so on and so forth.
A quick review of the last few games
Star Wars d6: In a mercantile game where they played exotic animal brokers, traversing very legitimate to very black market, I didn't just them seeds for potential seeds for folks who wanted to be their personal benefactor, I sometime dropped whole plot trees in front of them, and they said no. That's not to say they weren't hired by these folks for a mission, and even had mutual business relationships with them.
BECMI D&D: My recently completed "Adventures in Gulluvia" campaign was more akin with mediocre mentor/protege relationships than a patron. In fact, most government factions or powerful individuals proved to be not worth the characters' time, whether by evidence, or a general sense of paranoia.
Gamma World 4th Edition: Maybe the closest to a patron, the De Facto Explorers have a very positive relationship involving the Restorationists. At first glance, it could be a cut-and-dry set-up of the group telling a member (currently a 3-meter tall mutant sunflower), and a former teenage lackey, to assemble a group to perform missions for them, but their successes have allowed the entire group access to the not-so Secret Society's facilities and knowledge. The relationship works because the party still has agency and apparent honesty with the patron. There have been some options to work for others long-term, but they all had noticeable flaws come up after a mission or two.
In the near future, we're pondering continuing the timeline of Call of Cthulhu campaign that ended almost eight years ago. I'm thinking new investigators, staring with scenarios from Secrets of the Sleepless City and moving to Arkham and some of the peculiar surrounding towns. Whether or not the the surviving characters from the original campaign return to action, I'll be certain to to include Ambrose Mogens as a wealthy benefactor to assist the investigators in multiple ways.
According to lore, the Mogens family were at the founding of New Amsterdam and have made hundreds of millions, if not billions by the 1920's. Ambrose, the current head, is well regarding as a philanthropist and technofile.
He's also an agent of, or the manifestation of Nylarathotep himself.
Sure, the original investigators may have burned down his mansion in Queens, in what is erroneously remembered as Operation: Hobo Justice. And yes, the group has had to survive murderous mutations of his own design attacking them. But as the game progressed, they began helping Mogens unintentionally, and showed their general competence.
What a few of them realize is that Mogens used his influence to achieve the release of the investigators from Japanese custody, post-Masks of Nylarlathotep... and perhaps the historically accurate assassination of the US Ambassador to Japan.
Best of all, one of the investigators, Steven O'Hara, returned from China/Japan to successfully defend his Doctoral thesis at Columbia (after some oddly approved extensions). Upon earning that Phd, Steven learned he was offered a job at Columbia, and a research grant for a mythos-related topic he was secretly studying since episode 8 of the campaign.
He might be able to eventually achieve his goal of rescuing a dear friend, through funding from the new Ambrose Mogens School of Applied Physics.
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