I think there's some entrenching going on in this thread about what a DM should or shouldn't do with incorporating backstory that glosses over one significant tenet: opposing playstyles are still valid.
There isn't a right or wrong way to DM a game - there's just differences in preference and compatibility that make it wrong for individuals. As long as expectations are managed early on and both parties are willing to communicate and listen, then fun should still be possible even if the DM or player makes some missteps along the way. If preferences are mutually exclusive and one/both are unwilling to compromise, then it's a playstyle mismatch, nothing more. It may suck and hurt, but it doesn't mean the DM or the player is wrong - just wrong for each other.
I do have sympathy for OP, as I've been in games where the DM didn't really respect my character's history or give me openings to roleplay how I wanted. I also have sympathy for the DM, as sometimes players have such rigid ideas about what their characters should be that they make it difficult to tell a collaborative story unless it perfectly matches their vision. I think that DMs and players can sometimes treat D&D like writing a book, and feel threatened or upset if the dice or other people interfere with the planned outcome. The problem is, D&D doesn't really work well with planned outcomes - for characters or plots. The dice and improv have a way of introducing curveballs...
I know that Gygax had an interview or whatnot ages ago about the game not being a cooperative storytelling thing. What Gygax likely intended today was not a Half-orc buying crack from an owl. (See Oxventure: Legacy of Dragons.) What D&D became is probably not what Gygax designed. It has been somewhat coopted by storytellers on both sides of the screen. If that's not the table's intent, it should be discussed from the start. Communcation.
D&D was never intended to be what Gygax designed - largely because Gygax did not design D&D. Gygax was only half of a team that also included Dave Arneson - Gygax focused on the more wargame side of the game, the mechanics, while Arneson brought in the roleplaying element. The very first session of Porto-D&D - the moment they realised they had a hit on their hands - was Arneson DMing a combatless, roleplaying heavy session based entirely around a (bad) pun.
Now, Gygax, being a less than stellar human being, forced Arneson out of the company, tried to reshape the narrative where he was the sole creator (despite Arneson’s roleplaying element being why the game differentiated itself from other wargames and was successful), ran TSR into the ground with his draconian views of what he thought D&D should be, and eventually left the company and the game has been better off ever since.
I honestly don’t think anyone has done more damage to D&D than Gygax. Beyond the base idea of how combat works, Gygax’s main legacies are a fictional history of the game, flawed notions of the DM-player dynamic, and racism and sexism. Wizards has been trying for years to keep the good things Gygax brought to the game, while also returning a bit more of Arneson’s vision and excising the many problems they inherited from Gygax. But they’re still fighting against inertia, and Gygax’s problematic legacy is still very much present in how folks treat the game.
Do you know how everyone today says 'play the way you want'? Well I do not remember Gygaz coming to our sessions and dropping his rules hammer on us. We played with all sexes and colors and no one seemed the least bit upset about the game. Its only 40 years later that society has changed and people are a bit more touchy about things so the game owners had to change it. I do believe that D&D's popularity has gone up at least in part, if not in total, because of the internet. When Gygaz was running it no one ever though of online play. We played the game how we liked and the big G never bothered us.
I get tired or people blaming him for the worlds problems.
In someways I feel more restricted now than then. The more rules the more they inevitably tell you what not to do. We never needed rules to tell us what we could do.
I would love it if I can just write a few bullet points about my character's backstory and let the DM be my "ghostwriter" and come up with a flushed out story in the world that we will be playing in. Afterwards, I can work with the DM to finalize the backstory. I find it much more efficient than the other way around, where I would start off by writing a lengthy backstory and have to toss out or change all the parts that doesn't fit in the world.
Different people enjoy different methods. I like Kotath's approach to creating a character's background and think that Kotath will be a great DM for me. There really is no need to label someone as a "mediocre DM" just because they approach the game differently than you do. No playstyle should be more superior than others.
That 'and I'll tell you how I am adjusting it to my world' is essentially what I was talking about.
The world does get flexed to accommodate, up to a point.
The DM in question should have worked with rather than just by fiat. And they should have done so before session 0 for that character. However, that said, there are limits to how far the player gets to write the world, outside of the in play actions of their character.
Your “essentially” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, seeing as it ignores the entire point I made about who holds the agency, but I think we can at least agree there needs to be a meeting of the minds on how a backstory fits into the world.
Circling back to OP’s post again, I would hope you could also agree that, once a player and DM agree to a background - as seems to be the case here - a DM should not micromanage that background and “solve” the character’s problems for them. That’s just bad DMing and bad writing - you are agreeing in session zero to “here is a challenge for your character to overcome, or at least a reason to adventure” and then handing them in session five all their personal goals complete and wrapped in a nice little bow. There’s a reason no one likes a deus ex machina ending to a story - they’re unsatisfying you the viewer and they’re certainly unsatisfying if you are taking the more active position of stepping into the shores of the person whose problems are solved with divine intervention.
Just to clarify a few more things, because I see a lot of “what about”s appearing.
I did work with my DM and they approved my backstory. So to all the people saying that’s what should have happened, I agree. And it did.
To the suggestions that I was being too rigid with my backstory, I do have to disagree. I was not at all expecting my backstory to come up any time soon. This was meant to be a long form campaign. I was looking forward to finding out how the NPCs from my past would find me. A large part of my disappointment was learning that finding me was easy, because my character evidently forgot he was a changeling. And yes, the NPC my character robbed could have used divination magic to track my character down. But he clearly didn’t. It was clear the DM thought my character’s current appearance was exactly how he looked when he worked for the NPC, despite me stating otherwise.
It was obviously a misunderstanding, and I don’t blame the DM for that. I was still disappointed by it, as it made my character seem really dumb for no reason. That said, I could have brought it up with the DM, but based on their reaction to another player raising issues with the game, I’m glad I didn’t.
Again, the biggest problem was the DM making things too easy. Not just solving my backstory but solving everything, it felt like. We were handed a ton of gold, magic items, super accommodating NPCs, an easy win for a fight that could have been an exciting challenge. It felt empty, and I didn’t see any likelihood things would change.
Just to clarify a few more things, because I see a lot of “what about”s appearing.
I did work with my DM and they approved my backstory. So to all the people saying that’s what should have happened, I agree. And it did.
To the suggestions that I was being too rigid with my backstory, I do have to disagree. I was not at all expecting my backstory to come up any time soon. This was meant to be a long form campaign. I was looking forward to finding out how the NPCs from my past would find me. A large part of my disappointment was learning that finding me was easy, because my character evidently forgot he was a changeling. And yes, the NPC my character robbed could have used divination magic to track my character down. But he clearly didn’t. It was clear the DM thought my character’s current appearance was exactly how he looked when he worked for the NPC, despite me stating otherwise.
It was obviously a misunderstanding, and I don’t blame the DM for that. I was still disappointed by it, as it made my character seem really dumb for no reason. That said, I could have brought it up with the DM, but based on their reaction to another player raising issues with the game, I’m glad I didn’t.
Again, the biggest problem was the DM making things too easy. Not just solving my backstory but solving everything, it felt like. We were handed a ton of gold, magic items, super accommodating NPCs, an easy win for a fight that could have been an exciting challenge. It felt empty, and I didn’t see any likelihood things would change.
I agree disappointing and by your past posts on the GM and the game, it might be expected in some form. GM's like players have good days and bad days, try things out that don't work and those are the excellent ones, the GM's who are just starting and or learning often do those things more often.
So how do you the player manage expatiations vs the GM's expatiations of what a game should or should not be? IMHO you talk about it and if there is a problem then you find a way to solve it and if you do not then often other things occur.
BTW, this not the first time I have seen a post like yours where the player and GM are different pages (maybe books) from one another on gaming and game play basics. For example when reading the 1DD PT doc I noticed in the beginning it said something like "PC's are exceptional" and I have seen players jump all over a statement like that in the past and cause problems and issues in game play and possible story ideas. They have it in their mind that exceptional is something dramatically different from what the GM thinks, it is more in line with a work of fiction and or a movie in which the hero/antihero always prevails and problems are just tissue paper trivialities with bright paint to make them stand out.
The players I DM for don’t write detailed backstories - just enough to set a personality, some basic tendencies and explain why they became adventurers. I generally do the same. However, what is clear to me is that in session zero 2 things were never cleared up. 1) the OP never made clear that they expected the backstory to take most of the campaign to resolve. 2) the DM never asked the OP about how fast and what sort of resolution of the backstory they wanted. So both made mistakes in communication (generally what happens when one or both parties are upset).
lessons to learn? Make sure you understand how and n what time frame backstory resolutions are/should occur and that both the DM and player are in agreement on that timeline.
I’ve read a number of intricate and extended backstories here and over my career as a DM and sent a number back for complete overhaul. Generally, the higher the level the campaign starts at the longer the backstory should be as you have to xplain how they got to the level they are at. Consider the experience the PC should be getting from all that backstory activity - how much would you, as a DM, award and therefore what level should the character be (remember it’s 300 EXP to L2 - I can see giving 600 worth of backstory experience to cover childhood and adolescence but not more than 900 EXP of background to a level 1 character. After that they should be explaining why they are higher level not what horrors or glories formed them into (L1) adventurers.
The players I DM for don’t write detailed backstories - just enough to set a personality, some basic tendencies and explain why they became adventurers. I generally do the same. However, what is clear to me is that in session zero 2 things were never cleared up. 1) the OP never made clear that they expected the backstory to take most of the campaign to resolve. 2) the DM never asked the OP about how fast and what sort of resolution of the backstory they wanted. So both made mistakes in communication (generally what happens when one or both parties are upset).
lessons to learn? Make sure you understand how and n what time frame backstory resolutions are/should occur and that both the DM and player are in agreement on that timeline.
I’ve read a number of intricate and extended backstories here and over my career as a DM and sent a number back for complete overhaul. Generally, the higher the level the campaign starts at the longer the backstory should be as you have to xplain how they got to the level they are at. Consider the experience the PC should be getting from all that backstory activity - how much would you, as a DM, award and therefore what level should the character be (remember it’s 300 EXP to L2 - I can see giving 600 worth of backstory experience to cover childhood and adolescence but not more than 900 EXP of background to a level 1 character. After that they should be explaining why they are higher level not what horrors or glories formed them into (L1) adventurers.
Misunderstanding here, I think; I did not want or expect my backstory to take “most of the campaign” to resolve. I said I didn’t expect it to come up so soon, because I assumed it was more important to establish the party dynamic and the overarching plot we’d be dealing with.
I think people are focusing on the wrong part of the original poster's experience. Yes, the DM does have the power (and burden of determining how their players' characters' background factor into and affect the course of the campaign. However, the OP is not complaining about the DM's right to work with the character's backstory. What the original poster is complaining about is how the DM completely misunderstood their character's backstory, completely misplayed the doppleganger's "last job," and had a random NPC easily track down and know the name of the doppleganger's alternative identity that they have never interacted with and certainly should have never heard of.
So yeah, the DM screwed up this character's backstory. I too would not want to be a player under a DM who is unable to read the actual version of my backstory if I clearly wrote it.
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Lots of different angles here, but i'd say this much.
1) Overwhelmed DM who was trying to do too much too fast, used quick and easy fights where they didn't kill the party as opposed to thinking through a multi-round fight by proper balancing.
2) DM didn't keep track of what he said to individual players. Noticed by backstory fails and by getting annoyed at others when they called them out. Sounds like they need to probably lower the player count and put restrictions on backstory so they can find people who aren't that worried about what their exact characters backstory is since they have some struggles fitting them in with a story that fits the backstory and the campaign both.
3) Player really was expecting the promise to be held based on 1 specific conversation based on what i have read and can react to here. I'd be looking to follow up a bit better in the future. It appears unlikely you would've gotten it through to this DM without some frustrations from them coming out. However, i do think if it's that important at any point, it needs to be reiterated to help the DM notice it. Some of us spend quite a few hours trying to line up what we are going to do, and it isn't always easy to keep track of each players individual expectations of the campaign. How he messed up to the point where someone with a different appearance was recognized by someone who only knew their former appearance i can't ever defend (that's just bad), but you can also help by increasing communication. it might not always make it work out, but you increase the chances of it working.
To me it sounds like the OP had a very specific idea of how their backstories should have played out. In that case they should have informed the DM "I want this and that to happen" . Otherwise it's up to the DM whether your backstory will have short or long ending and at what manner. You can't expect another person (that has to consider and think of way more things than you do as player) to guess your expectations and make your fantasy reality.
To me it sounds like the OP had a very specific idea of how their backstories should have played out. In that case they should have informed the DM "I want this and that to happen" . Otherwise it's up to the DM whether your backstory will have short or long ending and at what manner. You can't expect another person (that has to consider and think of way more things than you do as player) to guess your expectations and make your fantasy reality.
It does not take a mind reader to know that no one wants a deus ex machina ending to anything, especially if they are personally involved in the story. As for a DM being overwhelmed by other aspects of the game… if the DM is so overwhelmed by DMing that they forget a basic no-no of storytelling, that might be a sign of a bigger problem.
I think people are focusing on the wrong part of the original poster's experience. Yes, the DM does have the power (and burden of determining how their players' characters' background factor into and affect the course of the campaign. However, the OP is not complaining about the DM's right to work with the character's backstory. What the original poster is complaining about is how the DM completely misunderstood their character's backstory, completely misplayed the doppleganger's "last job," and had a random NPC easily track down and know the name of the doppleganger's alternative identity that they have never interacted with and certainly should have never heard of.
So yeah, the DM screwed up this character's backstory. I too would not want to be a player under a DM who is unable to read the actual version of my backstory if I clearly wrote it.
Thanks, I feel like you’re one of the few who has acknowledged that part. It was not a matter of personal taste, it was very clearly from not reading what I wrote.
To me it sounds like the OP had a very specific idea of how their backstories should have played out. In that case they should have informed the DM "I want this and that to happen" . Otherwise it's up to the DM whether your backstory will have short or long ending and at what manner. You can't expect another person (that has to consider and think of way more things than you do as player) to guess your expectations and make your fantasy reality.
I really had no specific idea, nor would I have ever said to the DM “I want ______ to happen.” That goes against my personal philosophy as a player and a DM. My issue is they did not read my backstory enough to realize no NPC should have been able to recognize my character, let alone track him down without some sort of magic.
I do think it’s pretty half-hearted to resolve a PC’s backstory hooks in a matter of 20 minutes. Was I expecting a multi-session side quest, no. But I would think it’s not to much to ask for something more than a very rushed “here’s NPC you crossed, ready to kill you, but they see you’re doing good deeds now so they forgive you, and by the way they also took care of those other NPCs who were your former gang members, who you were pissed at/afraid of.”
I think people are focusing on the wrong part of the original poster's experience. Yes, the DM does have the power (and burden of determining how their players' characters' background factor into and affect the course of the campaign. However, the OP is not complaining about the DM's right to work with the character's backstory. What the original poster is complaining about is how the DM completely misunderstood their character's backstory, completely misplayed the doppleganger's "last job," and had a random NPC easily track down and know the name of the doppleganger's alternative identity that they have never interacted with and certainly should have never heard of.
So yeah, the DM screwed up this character's backstory. I too would not want to be a player under a DM who is unable to read the actual version of my backstory if I clearly wrote it.
Thanks, I feel like you’re one of the few who has acknowledged that part. It was not a matter of personal taste, it was very clearly from not reading what I wrote.
To me it sounds like the OP had a very specific idea of how their backstories should have played out. In that case they should have informed the DM "I want this and that to happen" . Otherwise it's up to the DM whether your backstory will have short or long ending and at what manner. You can't expect another person (that has to consider and think of way more things than you do as player) to guess your expectations and make your fantasy reality.
I really had no specific idea, nor would I have ever said to the DM “I want ______ to happen.” That goes against my personal philosophy as a player and a DM. My issue is they did not read my backstory enough to realize no NPC should have been able to recognize my character, let alone track him down without some sort of magic.
I do think it’s pretty half-hearted to resolve a PC’s backstory hooks in a matter of 20 minutes. Was I expecting a multi-session side quest, no. But I would think it’s not to much to ask for something more than a very rushed “here’s NPC you crossed, ready to kill you, but they see you’re doing good deeds now so they forgive you, and by the way they also took care of those other NPCs who were your former gang members, who you were pissed at/afraid of.”
The DM was careless with your backstory and rushed through it and didn’t even take into account that your character was a changeling. I get it.
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I am just curious, what were your expectations regarding your bs in the campaign? From what I read in the first post, it feels to me that you character made himself a new persona and thus effectively cut all connections to his past life. Did you expect some interaction with your past life (and if the answer is positive, how did you expect the past life would find you?)at all or was your plan to be pretty much a tabula rasa regarding the connections to the world and use your bs just for a internal motivation kind of thing? (I haven't read the last 4 pages, so sorry if you answered that before).
I am just curious, what were your expectations regarding your bs in the campaign? From what I read in the first post, it feels to me that you character made himself a new persona and thus effectively cut all connections to his past life. Did you expect some interaction with your past life (and if the answer is positive, how did you expect the past life would find you?)at all or was your plan to be pretty much a tabula rasa regarding the connections to the world and use your bs just for a internal motivation kind of thing? (I haven't read the last 4 pages, so sorry if you answered that before).
I had no set ideas on how my backstory would come up.I was prepared for one (or more) of the NPCs in my backstory to track me down using magic. I was also prepared for a plot hook that would compel my character to re-engage with his past, for example, an opportunity to do something directly beneficial for one of the families he robbed. And there’s probably a dozen possibilities I haven’t thought of. I would have been happy with just about anything, as long as it gave my character some agency.
The players I DM for don’t write detailed backstories - just enough to set a personality, some basic tendencies and explain why they became adventurers. I generally do the same. However, what is clear to me is that in session zero 2 things were never cleared up. 1) the OP never made clear that they expected the backstory to take most of the campaign to resolve. 2) the DM never asked the OP about how fast and what sort of resolution of the backstory they wanted. So both made mistakes in communication (generally what happens when one or both parties are upset).
lessons to learn? Make sure you understand how and n what time frame backstory resolutions are/should occur and that both the DM and player are in agreement on that timeline.
I’ve read a number of intricate and extended backstories here and over my career as a DM and sent a number back for complete overhaul. Generally, the higher the level the campaign starts at the longer the backstory should be as you have to xplain how they got to the level they are at. Consider the experience the PC should be getting from all that backstory activity - how much would you, as a DM, award and therefore what level should the character be (remember it’s 300 EXP to L2 - I can see giving 600 worth of backstory experience to cover childhood and adolescence but not more than 900 EXP of background to a level 1 character. After that they should be explaining why they are higher level not what horrors or glories formed them into (L1) adventurers.
Misunderstanding here, I think; I did not want or expect my backstory to take “most of the campaign” to resolve. I said I didn’t expect it to come up so soon, because I assumed it was more important to establish the party dynamic and the overarching plot we’d be dealing with.
Your right that was a misunderstanding and extension on my part. I should have said that it appeared that you had not made clear the time frame you thought appropriate for the backstory to be involved in the storyline.
I went back to reread the original post, and it reads like the DM paid no attention to your backstory in the pbp rewrite of the last part of the bs. That was, to me, a warning of what was to come. Allow me to suggest that you take back the agency over the character and write short addendum to the backstory turning the entire episode not a bad dream the character had and restore the backstory as you wanted it and find a better DM and new campaign to bring it to.
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I think there's some entrenching going on in this thread about what a DM should or shouldn't do with incorporating backstory that glosses over one significant tenet: opposing playstyles are still valid.
There isn't a right or wrong way to DM a game - there's just differences in preference and compatibility that make it wrong for individuals. As long as expectations are managed early on and both parties are willing to communicate and listen, then fun should still be possible even if the DM or player makes some missteps along the way. If preferences are mutually exclusive and one/both are unwilling to compromise, then it's a playstyle mismatch, nothing more. It may suck and hurt, but it doesn't mean the DM or the player is wrong - just wrong for each other.
I do have sympathy for OP, as I've been in games where the DM didn't really respect my character's history or give me openings to roleplay how I wanted. I also have sympathy for the DM, as sometimes players have such rigid ideas about what their characters should be that they make it difficult to tell a collaborative story unless it perfectly matches their vision. I think that DMs and players can sometimes treat D&D like writing a book, and feel threatened or upset if the dice or other people interfere with the planned outcome. The problem is, D&D doesn't really work well with planned outcomes - for characters or plots. The dice and improv have a way of introducing curveballs...
Do you know how everyone today says 'play the way you want'? Well I do not remember Gygaz coming to our sessions and dropping his rules hammer on us. We played with all sexes and colors and no one seemed the least bit upset about the game. Its only 40 years later that society has changed and people are a bit more touchy about things so the game owners had to change it.
I do believe that D&D's popularity has gone up at least in part, if not in total, because of the internet. When Gygaz was running it no one ever though of online play.
We played the game how we liked and the big G never bothered us.
I get tired or people blaming him for the worlds problems.
In someways I feel more restricted now than then. The more rules the more they inevitably tell you what not to do. We never needed rules to tell us what we could do.
I would love it if I can just write a few bullet points about my character's backstory and let the DM be my "ghostwriter" and come up with a flushed out story in the world that we will be playing in. Afterwards, I can work with the DM to finalize the backstory. I find it much more efficient than the other way around, where I would start off by writing a lengthy backstory and have to toss out or change all the parts that doesn't fit in the world.
Different people enjoy different methods. I like Kotath's approach to creating a character's background and think that Kotath will be a great DM for me. There really is no need to label someone as a "mediocre DM" just because they approach the game differently than you do. No playstyle should be more superior than others.
Your “essentially” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, seeing as it ignores the entire point I made about who holds the agency, but I think we can at least agree there needs to be a meeting of the minds on how a backstory fits into the world.
Circling back to OP’s post again, I would hope you could also agree that, once a player and DM agree to a background - as seems to be the case here - a DM should not micromanage that background and “solve” the character’s problems for them. That’s just bad DMing and bad writing - you are agreeing in session zero to “here is a challenge for your character to overcome, or at least a reason to adventure” and then handing them in session five all their personal goals complete and wrapped in a nice little bow. There’s a reason no one likes a deus ex machina ending to a story - they’re unsatisfying you the viewer and they’re certainly unsatisfying if you are taking the more active position of stepping into the shores of the person whose problems are solved with divine intervention.
Just to clarify a few more things, because I see a lot of “what about”s appearing.
I did work with my DM and they approved my backstory. So to all the people saying that’s what should have happened, I agree. And it did.
To the suggestions that I was being too rigid with my backstory, I do have to disagree. I was not at all expecting my backstory to come up any time soon. This was meant to be a long form campaign. I was looking forward to finding out how the NPCs from my past would find me. A large part of my disappointment was learning that finding me was easy, because my character evidently forgot he was a changeling. And yes, the NPC my character robbed could have used divination magic to track my character down. But he clearly didn’t. It was clear the DM thought my character’s current appearance was exactly how he looked when he worked for the NPC, despite me stating otherwise.
It was obviously a misunderstanding, and I don’t blame the DM for that. I was still disappointed by it, as it made my character seem really dumb for no reason. That said, I could have brought it up with the DM, but based on their reaction to another player raising issues with the game, I’m glad I didn’t.
Again, the biggest problem was the DM making things too easy. Not just solving my backstory but solving everything, it felt like. We were handed a ton of gold, magic items, super accommodating NPCs, an easy win for a fight that could have been an exciting challenge. It felt empty, and I didn’t see any likelihood things would change.
I agree disappointing and by your past posts on the GM and the game, it might be expected in some form. GM's like players have good days and bad days, try things out that don't work and those are the excellent ones, the GM's who are just starting and or learning often do those things more often.
So how do you the player manage expatiations vs the GM's expatiations of what a game should or should not be? IMHO you talk about it and if there is a problem then you find a way to solve it and if you do not then often other things occur.
BTW, this not the first time I have seen a post like yours where the player and GM are different pages (maybe books) from one another on gaming and game play basics. For example when reading the 1DD PT doc I noticed in the beginning it said something like "PC's are exceptional" and I have seen players jump all over a statement like that in the past and cause problems and issues in game play and possible story ideas. They have it in their mind that exceptional is something dramatically different from what the GM thinks, it is more in line with a work of fiction and or a movie in which the hero/antihero always prevails and problems are just tissue paper trivialities with bright paint to make them stand out.
The players I DM for don’t write detailed backstories - just enough to set a personality, some basic tendencies and explain why they became adventurers. I generally do the same. However, what is clear to me is that in session zero 2 things were never cleared up.
1) the OP never made clear that they expected the backstory to take most of the campaign to resolve.
2) the DM never asked the OP about how fast and what sort of resolution of the backstory they wanted.
So both made mistakes in communication (generally what happens when one or both parties are upset).
lessons to learn? Make sure you understand how and n what time frame backstory resolutions are/should occur and that both the DM and player are in agreement on that timeline.
I’ve read a number of intricate and extended backstories here and over my career as a DM and sent a number back for complete overhaul. Generally, the higher the level the campaign starts at the longer the backstory should be as you have to xplain how they got to the level they are at. Consider the experience the PC should be getting from all that backstory activity - how much would you, as a DM, award and therefore what level should the character be (remember it’s 300 EXP to L2 - I can see giving 600 worth of backstory experience to cover childhood and adolescence but not more than 900 EXP of background to a level 1 character. After that they should be explaining why they are higher level not what horrors or glories formed them into (L1) adventurers.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Misunderstanding here, I think; I did not want or expect my backstory to take “most of the campaign” to resolve. I said I didn’t expect it to come up so soon, because I assumed it was more important to establish the party dynamic and the overarching plot we’d be dealing with.
I think people are focusing on the wrong part of the original poster's experience. Yes, the DM does have the power (and burden of determining how their players' characters' background factor into and affect the course of the campaign. However, the OP is not complaining about the DM's right to work with the character's backstory. What the original poster is complaining about is how the DM completely misunderstood their character's backstory, completely misplayed the doppleganger's "last job," and had a random NPC easily track down and know the name of the doppleganger's alternative identity that they have never interacted with and certainly should have never heard of.
So yeah, the DM screwed up this character's backstory. I too would not want to be a player under a DM who is unable to read the actual version of my backstory if I clearly wrote it.
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HERE.Lots of different angles here, but i'd say this much.
1) Overwhelmed DM who was trying to do too much too fast, used quick and easy fights where they didn't kill the party as opposed to thinking through a multi-round fight by proper balancing.
2) DM didn't keep track of what he said to individual players. Noticed by backstory fails and by getting annoyed at others when they called them out. Sounds like they need to probably lower the player count and put restrictions on backstory so they can find people who aren't that worried about what their exact characters backstory is since they have some struggles fitting them in with a story that fits the backstory and the campaign both.
3) Player really was expecting the promise to be held based on 1 specific conversation based on what i have read and can react to here. I'd be looking to follow up a bit better in the future. It appears unlikely you would've gotten it through to this DM without some frustrations from them coming out. However, i do think if it's that important at any point, it needs to be reiterated to help the DM notice it. Some of us spend quite a few hours trying to line up what we are going to do, and it isn't always easy to keep track of each players individual expectations of the campaign. How he messed up to the point where someone with a different appearance was recognized by someone who only knew their former appearance i can't ever defend (that's just bad), but you can also help by increasing communication. it might not always make it work out, but you increase the chances of it working.
To me it sounds like the OP had a very specific idea of how their backstories should have played out. In that case they should have informed the DM "I want this and that to happen" . Otherwise it's up to the DM whether your backstory will have short or long ending and at what manner. You can't expect another person (that has to consider and think of way more things than you do as player) to guess your expectations and make your fantasy reality.
It does not take a mind reader to know that no one wants a deus ex machina ending to anything, especially if they are personally involved in the story. As for a DM being overwhelmed by other aspects of the game… if the DM is so overwhelmed by DMing that they forget a basic no-no of storytelling, that might be a sign of a bigger problem.
Thanks, I feel like you’re one of the few who has acknowledged that part. It was not a matter of personal taste, it was very clearly from not reading what I wrote.
I really had no specific idea, nor would I have ever said to the DM “I want ______ to happen.” That goes against my personal philosophy as a player and a DM. My issue is they did not read my backstory enough to realize no NPC should have been able to recognize my character, let alone track him down without some sort of magic.
I do think it’s pretty half-hearted to resolve a PC’s backstory hooks in a matter of 20 minutes. Was I expecting a multi-session side quest, no. But I would think it’s not to much to ask for something more than a very rushed “here’s NPC you crossed, ready to kill you, but they see you’re doing good deeds now so they forgive you, and by the way they also took care of those other NPCs who were your former gang members, who you were pissed at/afraid of.”
The DM was careless with your backstory and rushed through it and didn’t even take into account that your character was a changeling. I get it.
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Why was the backstory even played out?
I am just curious, what were your expectations regarding your bs in the campaign? From what I read in the first post, it feels to me that you character made himself a new persona and thus effectively cut all connections to his past life. Did you expect some interaction with your past life (and if the answer is positive, how did you expect the past life would find you?)at all or was your plan to be pretty much a tabula rasa regarding the connections to the world and use your bs just for a internal motivation kind of thing? (I haven't read the last 4 pages, so sorry if you answered that before).
I had no set ideas on how my backstory would come up. I was prepared for one (or more) of the NPCs in my backstory to track me down using magic. I was also prepared for a plot hook that would compel my character to re-engage with his past, for example, an opportunity to do something directly beneficial for one of the families he robbed. And there’s probably a dozen possibilities I haven’t thought of. I would have been happy with just about anything, as long as it gave my character some agency.
Your right that was a misunderstanding and extension on my part. I should have said that it appeared that you had not made clear the time frame you thought appropriate for the backstory to be involved in the storyline.
I went back to reread the original post, and it reads like the DM paid no attention to your backstory in the pbp rewrite of the last part of the bs. That was, to me, a warning of what was to come. Allow me to suggest that you take back the agency over the character and write short addendum to the backstory turning the entire episode not a bad dream the character had and restore the backstory as you wanted it and find a better DM and new campaign to bring it to.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.