New DM here. I'm wondering how the DMs out there who like designing character-based narratives handle the "between combat" role playing of their characters. I realize there is no mechanic for this whatsoever and no real guidelines for how to do so, which is why I'm asking.
Assuming that PCs have back stories that cannot or should not be summarized or disclosed during their short intro blurb during session 0, how do you engage players to role play their flaws, superobjectives, and relationships outside of the party? Of course, this assumes that they paid attention to that part of character creation in the first place, which is something I ask for as a DM.
Generally I try to find something to toss in that prompts one of the players to act in accordance to their back story.
"As you wander down the road, the sun gently warming you, and the sound of the wagon's wheels creaking, you notice the remains of a small village up ahead. It's obvious, even from this distance, that this happened a long time ago. Painted on one of the only walls that remain standing is something written in Orcish."
This would be a call back to one of my players who has a background that they're a Half-Orc who was orphaned. It's assumed that they were the only survivor of a ferocious battle in a settlement North of where they started. The location is of no major importance, simply a landmark that they can pass, or meander through, but it would prompt the players to make conversation.
On the other hand, I also have a few players who are really big into RP and generally take the lead when things get slow. I don't have to work too hard when playing with them.
Right, trying to use character story hooks is already something I do. What I'm talking about is something that gets the players more into the minds of their characters.
I'm thinking of homebrewing a new rule, something like, in order to have any hit point recovery from a short rest, you need to have a convincing conversation with a PC or NPC who is traveling with you OR describe what you are doing during your short rest in 2 to 4 sentences.
It feels like having some kind of mechanical benefit to RPing characters talking to each other might get rid of some of the meta-gamey conversations that players have with each other about their backgrounds or about their abilities. Nudge them to talk or think as if they were really their characters rather than as if they were gamers sitting at a table.
I think it may be Dael Kingsmill or she copied off of someone else a cool system to get people in the mindset of their characters. It's called Tales at the Campfire. If you don't want to click the link, basically your party has camped for the night, or are enjoying the local tavern, or something similar. Then you have your players draw from a deck of real cards. They tell a story about their character based on what suit they draw.
Hearts for a love story
Diamonds for a victorious story
Clubs for a tragic tale
Spades for a tale of loss and defeat
I haven't tried this with my players yet. I really really want to. I'm not sure if they'll go for it. I don't know whether to spring it on them or have them able to plan.
Yes, Tales by the Campfire sounds like something very customizable and it gives less creative players something to use as a jumping off point. I was thinking of using tarot cards to help me generate NPC traits already, but this gives them another use. Thank you.
There’s already a mechanic in the game in the form of inspiration, check that out.
Also, be aware that some characters will be role playing if their character doesn’t talk because they have a dark secret to hide or their player sees them as suspicious or the strong silent type. Not sharing for these characters will be completely in line.
But probably the best way to bring out character background is to give them tough situations that they will have to reason through based on their characters motivations.
For example, the party has a chance to save one member’s long lost love, but it will mean losing a beloved NPC. Maybe the NPC views the lost love as a rival or enemy. Players will have to choose their loyalty based on their background. Other hard decisions will bring out role playing: a captured enemy may give the party away if released, but the good characters can’t bring themselves to murder a prisoner. An NPC recognizes a character from their past and blackmails them about their secret. Does the character just reveal themselves or try to deal with the blackmailer secretly? Lots of stuff like this you can think of probably.
@jclymer Yes, I'm aware of the inspiration mechanic. I've played with at least 5 different DMs so far, and none of them reward inspiration points for RPing (though half of them were as part of AL, so there's that). That aside, it would be unfair of me as a DM to declare that I am going to reward inspiration points without giving the more shy or less off-the-cuff players moments to shine in role-playing. Not everybody is good at making stuff up or speaking up, so giving them regular, predictable occasions to do so could be helpful. This is something I want to test out, at least.
I know that some people like RPing the "strong and silent type" (Batman, much?) and the half-paranoid spy of Whatever. I've played those characters like that myself. Still, having times when players are explicitly asked to talk to each other as their characters - NOT as their real life personas - helps to bring out nuance. How does anybody KNOW that your character is the strong and silent type exactly if all everybody does is fight monsters and drink beer at a tavern? I also think that encouraging people to actually role-play their own silence or their own attempts to lie about their in-game past could be part of an exercise in building additional real life social skills as well as creative thinking. If you ask me, that's the major benefit of table top RPing over video games.
So I've been running a game with a bunch of new players, and I've had a similar challenge. I don't know about creating a specific mechanic to encourage RP, but I can say that I've found success just by calling out downtime in my narrations and giving them a prompt to do things. Some examples:
Bedtime: "As you make camp for the evening, if there's anything any of you wanted to do before bed, now would be the time..."
Travel: *survival check for first half of the day* "As you make you way through the mountains of the Spine, you pass through the occasional stretch where the tree canopy gets so dense that the light barely passes through. Other than a few noises in the brush and massive shadows from birds that you don't recognize far overhead, the first half of your day passes uneventfully. We'll be travelling this way as you make your way to Gildreaal. If there's anyone in your party you want to talk to during this 3-day trip, feel free to interrupt me at any time for a 'walk and talk...'"
This style has it's downsides, of course. It can break the immersive experience as you pull out of the game to remind your players that they are playing characters who would likely have things they want to do/talk about with one another/NPCs, but that said, I've had to prompt them less and less as the game goes on. They're about to hit level 5 and they're getting more comfortable with rolepaying without being prompted, so I think to some extent the trick is just to provide them the space to roleplay with a gentle nudge in the right direction, and they'll slowly get accustomed to doing it naturally.
One thing I've found helpful with this is to ask players what their character is feeling or thinking about something that's happened in the story. At first I was reluctant to do this because I had the idea the only thing I could ask players were what they were doing (or trying to do). But finding out what characters are thinking is obviously a huge part of fantasy novels and, to a lesser extent, movies - there's no reason it shouldn't be a part of DnD as well.
"That's the first time you've encountered undead, how does the make you feel as a life cleric?" "You've never been that close to dying before, does it change how you feel about adventuring?" "You've been dealing with that NPC a lot, how do you feel about them?" "You still don't know what the Soulmonger is, exactly, but you've seen so many ominous warnings. What does your character expect to find at the base of the Tomb?" I find that even the quieter players do pretty well with questions like these. Interesting, fun, or flavourful answers earn inspiration. And quite often, inviting the players to reflect on their character's thoughts or feelings encourages them to describe related actions their characters take, which can help move the action along.
Yeah, I do this with groups of friends. I ran a couple of AL games last year and I think time constraints would have made it hard to add in much more RP material. But thinking back, there was at least one player who I could tell was frustrated because she wanted more roleplaying in the combat-heavy adventure, and one or two questions like this might have made the game a lot more fun for her.
Before the game I knew two of the players very well, one kind of well, and two not at all. Our session zero wasn't all that long, but afterwards there were about two weeks of back and forth between me and each one of them individually as we weaved their character ideas into the world that I'd built. I let them come up with broad strokes, major backstory ideas, and then I'd do rewrites to fit their ideas into my world.
I'd say it took about 7-10 sessions for them to start exploring their characters from a roleplay perspective, but like i said, the gentle prodding helped. Now, 16 sessions in, it gets better every time.
Depending on what you’re looking for, there is also a technique called “blue booking” which can work for some groups.
Players write out their side interactions (either with PCs or NPCs) that don’t directly impact the party’s current session and the DM includes this in the campaign’s canon.
If people aren't actively role-playing, I'll award XP and tell them up front:
"For 10 XP describe what you're doing at camp and what's going through your mind about the recent thing that happened at the place. Extra 10 XP if you interact with someone else."
It almost always gets something good from everyone and even gets the more timid players contributing. Once the scenes are started, they take off and sometimes we forget about the XP because the RP was so good. (Though that does come back to haunt me when they're close to a level up, "hey I'm 10xp short, remember that time when...")
Depending on what you’re looking for, there is also a technique called “blue booking” which can work for some groups.
Players write out their side interactions (either with PCs or NPCs) that don’t directly impact the party’s current session and the DM includes this in the campaign’s canon.
Does "blue booking" happen between game sessions then? Or does it happen during play time? If the latter, does that mean that people pass notes to each other?
In practice, the answer to all three questions can be "yes".
It depends on the scope of the interaction and the group. I've heard of sessions devoted entirely to blue booking. The major questions being: are we blue booking a conversation between two characters that is occurring while the party is travelling and/or setting up camp en route to their destination, or is this a more in depth interaction between PCs and/or NPCs while the various members of the party are training and dealing with non-adventure activities between game sessions/dungeons?
Something simple can be done in-session, depending on how tight a focus you maintain on the game and how much time players have to use while another character is scouting ahead or something similar and is the DMs main focus.
Something more in depth, particularly if it is happening outside of the current (or forthcoming) session, is probably best handled between sessions.
If people aren't actively role-playing, I'll award XP and tell them up front:
"For 10 XP describe what you're doing at camp and what's going through your mind about the recent thing that happened at the place. Extra 10 XP if you interact with someone else."
It almost always gets something good from everyone and even gets the more timid players contributing. Once the scenes are started, they take off and sometimes we forget about the XP because the RP was so good. (Though that does come back to haunt me when they're close to a level up, "hey I'm 10xp short, remember that time when...")
This is interesting. Well, I have yet to see DMs in non-AL games hand out experience that isn't the same experience for every member of the party, including those who did not or could not show up for better or worse. In AL games, the DMs did hand out experience, but those sessions were too short for the DMs to get to know our characters. So not sure whether I would hand out XP this way if I DMed and had inconsistent attendance from my players. (That would probably be a matter for a whole 'nother thread.)
You also need to remember that not all encounters should be combat encounters, but also social or environmental ones. My players rely on me as DM to provide interesting NPCs and situations for them to interact with, and that's where the roleplaying happens. They are not terribly interested in roleplaying with each other to a great extent, and it seems like your players are the same way. It's also how I prefer to play. The DM creates the world and the NPCs and that is where one finds the way forward with the story. It is through exploring the DM's world and interacting with the DM's NPCs that new information comes to light. The players only know so much, and so PCs playing out their backstories and personalities with one another can get a little tiresome. There is certainly a place for it, though - especially in instances where a PC has pertinent information that the others don't, and sometimes they may need a nudge to "talk amongst themselves" for a bit.
I’ve thought about this issue because i’ve seen something kind of similar in my game. Most of my players are fine role playing, but it’s usually playing off the colorful NPCs i create. And this goes for all the NPCs. Random shop keeps, quest givers, bar patrons, temporary party members, etc.
Not every play group is filled with actors who want to play off of each other to create their own story in the story. I think it boils down to this... player to player interaction doesn’t always progress the plot. You can chit chat about how you came from a clan of pillagers until you finally met the one encampment that you couldn’t storm and that your family was slaughtered leaving you all alone to fend for yourself and become the barbarian you are today, or how you once hung out in a Druid circle chanting all day long about trees. But in the hear and the now, it doesn’t progress the conflict or drama of the campaign. It certainly can, but oftentimes doesn’t.
you did say you were looking at this from the character driven narrative perspective. I’d ask yourself this - is this something you want, or something your players want? I think this kind of gaming would definitely require player buy-in. I have a guy in my group that sometimes dozes off if it gets too wordy and less stabby. And that’s just him. Trying to force him to role play more heavily would probably be frustrating for him. And every once in a while he throws out some sweet one liners.
My approach is mostly to give them the opportunities to talk to each other about random stuff / sometimes prompt it, and see if it goes anywhere. If it doesn’t then so be it. Easy enough to move on.
I’ve also noticed that i’ve provided zero answers or help. >.>
Not every play group is filled with actors who want to play off of each other to create their own story in the story. I think it boils down to this... player to player interaction doesn’t always progress the plot. You can chit chat about how you came from a clan of pillagers until you finally met the one encampment that you couldn’t storm and that your family was slaughtered leaving you all alone to fend for yourself and become the barbarian you are today, or how you once hung out in a Druid circle chanting all day long about trees. But in the hear and the now, it doesn’t progress the conflict or drama of the campaign. It certainly can, but oftentimes doesn’t.
Yes, that's true. I guess I approach campaigns the way that I approach other writing challenges, which is to build a world that matters to my audience. Within the structure or scaffolding created by the D&D developers, I feel that the best way to do that is to involve my fellow players in narratives that are not just about killing monsters and getting treasure, but to get their buy-in on plot points dealing with their characters personally, as if they were real people and not just flimsy archetypes that we hang various combat and RP rules on to progress the plot.
you did say you were looking at this from the character driven narrative perspective. I’d ask yourself this - is this something you want, or something your players want? I think this kind of gaming would definitely require player buy-in. I have a guy in my group that sometimes dozes off if it gets too wordy and less stabby. And that’s just him. Trying to force him to role play more heavily would probably be frustrating for him. And every once in a while he throws out some sweet one liners.
Yes, it definitely needs player buy-in. This is why I try to get to know people before I DM for them. This isn't always possible, but if I'm going to take hours to write my own homebrew material for a game, I would want my players to bring their own A-game to the table. To me, that means, we work together beforehand to make sure they have fleshed out characters who aren't just paper-thin stereotypes. I like complex stories with complex NPCs and as DM, I do get to decide what types of people I want at my table. People who just want to be murder hobos who kill and loot without any desire to understand other characters? Generally, no. There's a space for people who want to do that, just not at games in which I homebrew and run.
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New DM here. I'm wondering how the DMs out there who like designing character-based narratives handle the "between combat" role playing of their characters. I realize there is no mechanic for this whatsoever and no real guidelines for how to do so, which is why I'm asking.
Assuming that PCs have back stories that cannot or should not be summarized or disclosed during their short intro blurb during session 0, how do you engage players to role play their flaws, superobjectives, and relationships outside of the party? Of course, this assumes that they paid attention to that part of character creation in the first place, which is something I ask for as a DM.
If this is too vague, let me know.
Generally I try to find something to toss in that prompts one of the players to act in accordance to their back story.
"As you wander down the road, the sun gently warming you, and the sound of the wagon's wheels creaking, you notice the remains of a small village up ahead. It's obvious, even from this distance, that this happened a long time ago. Painted on one of the only walls that remain standing is something written in Orcish."
This would be a call back to one of my players who has a background that they're a Half-Orc who was orphaned. It's assumed that they were the only survivor of a ferocious battle in a settlement North of where they started. The location is of no major importance, simply a landmark that they can pass, or meander through, but it would prompt the players to make conversation.
On the other hand, I also have a few players who are really big into RP and generally take the lead when things get slow. I don't have to work too hard when playing with them.
Right, trying to use character story hooks is already something I do. What I'm talking about is something that gets the players more into the minds of their characters.
I'm thinking of homebrewing a new rule, something like, in order to have any hit point recovery from a short rest, you need to have a convincing conversation with a PC or NPC who is traveling with you OR describe what you are doing during your short rest in 2 to 4 sentences.
It feels like having some kind of mechanical benefit to RPing characters talking to each other might get rid of some of the meta-gamey conversations that players have with each other about their backgrounds or about their abilities. Nudge them to talk or think as if they were really their characters rather than as if they were gamers sitting at a table.
What do you think?
I think it may be Dael Kingsmill or she copied off of someone else a cool system to get people in the mindset of their characters. It's called Tales at the Campfire. If you don't want to click the link, basically your party has camped for the night, or are enjoying the local tavern, or something similar. Then you have your players draw from a deck of real cards. They tell a story about their character based on what suit they draw.
Hearts for a love story
Diamonds for a victorious story
Clubs for a tragic tale
Spades for a tale of loss and defeat
I haven't tried this with my players yet. I really really want to. I'm not sure if they'll go for it. I don't know whether to spring it on them or have them able to plan.
I hope this helped!
Yes, Tales by the Campfire sounds like something very customizable and it gives less creative players something to use as a jumping off point. I was thinking of using tarot cards to help me generate NPC traits already, but this gives them another use. Thank you.
There’s already a mechanic in the game in the form of inspiration, check that out.
Also, be aware that some characters will be role playing if their character doesn’t talk because they have a dark secret to hide or their player sees them as suspicious or the strong silent type. Not sharing for these characters will be completely in line.
But probably the best way to bring out character background is to give them tough situations that they will have to reason through based on their characters motivations.
For example, the party has a chance to save one member’s long lost love, but it will mean losing a beloved NPC. Maybe the NPC views the lost love as a rival or enemy. Players will have to choose their loyalty based on their background. Other hard decisions will bring out role playing: a captured enemy may give the party away if released, but the good characters can’t bring themselves to murder a prisoner. An NPC recognizes a character from their past and blackmails them about their secret. Does the character just reveal themselves or try to deal with the blackmailer secretly? Lots of stuff like this you can think of probably.
@jclymer Yes, I'm aware of the inspiration mechanic. I've played with at least 5 different DMs so far, and none of them reward inspiration points for RPing (though half of them were as part of AL, so there's that). That aside, it would be unfair of me as a DM to declare that I am going to reward inspiration points without giving the more shy or less off-the-cuff players moments to shine in role-playing. Not everybody is good at making stuff up or speaking up, so giving them regular, predictable occasions to do so could be helpful. This is something I want to test out, at least.
I know that some people like RPing the "strong and silent type" (Batman, much?) and the half-paranoid spy of Whatever. I've played those characters like that myself. Still, having times when players are explicitly asked to talk to each other as their characters - NOT as their real life personas - helps to bring out nuance. How does anybody KNOW that your character is the strong and silent type exactly if all everybody does is fight monsters and drink beer at a tavern? I also think that encouraging people to actually role-play their own silence or their own attempts to lie about their in-game past could be part of an exercise in building additional real life social skills as well as creative thinking. If you ask me, that's the major benefit of table top RPing over video games.
So I've been running a game with a bunch of new players, and I've had a similar challenge. I don't know about creating a specific mechanic to encourage RP, but I can say that I've found success just by calling out downtime in my narrations and giving them a prompt to do things. Some examples:
Bedtime: "As you make camp for the evening, if there's anything any of you wanted to do before bed, now would be the time..."
Travel: *survival check for first half of the day* "As you make you way through the mountains of the Spine, you pass through the occasional stretch where the tree canopy gets so dense that the light barely passes through. Other than a few noises in the brush and massive shadows from birds that you don't recognize far overhead, the first half of your day passes uneventfully. We'll be travelling this way as you make your way to Gildreaal. If there's anyone in your party you want to talk to during this 3-day trip, feel free to interrupt me at any time for a 'walk and talk...'"
This style has it's downsides, of course. It can break the immersive experience as you pull out of the game to remind your players that they are playing characters who would likely have things they want to do/talk about with one another/NPCs, but that said, I've had to prompt them less and less as the game goes on. They're about to hit level 5 and they're getting more comfortable with rolepaying without being prompted, so I think to some extent the trick is just to provide them the space to roleplay with a gentle nudge in the right direction, and they'll slowly get accustomed to doing it naturally.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure"
One thing I've found helpful with this is to ask players what their character is feeling or thinking about something that's happened in the story. At first I was reluctant to do this because I had the idea the only thing I could ask players were what they were doing (or trying to do). But finding out what characters are thinking is obviously a huge part of fantasy novels and, to a lesser extent, movies - there's no reason it shouldn't be a part of DnD as well.
"That's the first time you've encountered undead, how does the make you feel as a life cleric?" "You've never been that close to dying before, does it change how you feel about adventuring?" "You've been dealing with that NPC a lot, how do you feel about them?" "You still don't know what the Soulmonger is, exactly, but you've seen so many ominous warnings. What does your character expect to find at the base of the Tomb?" I find that even the quieter players do pretty well with questions like these. Interesting, fun, or flavourful answers earn inspiration. And quite often, inviting the players to reflect on their character's thoughts or feelings encourages them to describe related actions their characters take, which can help move the action along.
Those are interesting ideas, IBernstein and Gelatinous. Do the players at your table already know you well?
How extensive of a session 0 discussion do you have with them?
I think I will start DMing in a few weeks in AL-ish games. Wondering how much of this I can pull off with strangers...
Yeah, I do this with groups of friends. I ran a couple of AL games last year and I think time constraints would have made it hard to add in much more RP material. But thinking back, there was at least one player who I could tell was frustrated because she wanted more roleplaying in the combat-heavy adventure, and one or two questions like this might have made the game a lot more fun for her.
Before the game I knew two of the players very well, one kind of well, and two not at all. Our session zero wasn't all that long, but afterwards there were about two weeks of back and forth between me and each one of them individually as we weaved their character ideas into the world that I'd built. I let them come up with broad strokes, major backstory ideas, and then I'd do rewrites to fit their ideas into my world.
I'd say it took about 7-10 sessions for them to start exploring their characters from a roleplay perspective, but like i said, the gentle prodding helped. Now, 16 sessions in, it gets better every time.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure"
Depending on what you’re looking for, there is also a technique called “blue booking” which can work for some groups.
Players write out their side interactions (either with PCs or NPCs) that don’t directly impact the party’s current session and the DM includes this in the campaign’s canon.
If people aren't actively role-playing, I'll award XP and tell them up front:
"For 10 XP describe what you're doing at camp and what's going through your mind about the recent thing that happened at the place. Extra 10 XP if you interact with someone else."
It almost always gets something good from everyone and even gets the more timid players contributing. Once the scenes are started, they take off and sometimes we forget about the XP because the RP was so good. (Though that does come back to haunt me when they're close to a level up, "hey I'm 10xp short, remember that time when...")
Does "blue booking" happen between game sessions then? Or does it happen during play time? If the latter, does that mean that people pass notes to each other?
In practice, the answer to all three questions can be "yes".
It depends on the scope of the interaction and the group. I've heard of sessions devoted entirely to blue booking. The major questions being: are we blue booking a conversation between two characters that is occurring while the party is travelling and/or setting up camp en route to their destination, or is this a more in depth interaction between PCs and/or NPCs while the various members of the party are training and dealing with non-adventure activities between game sessions/dungeons?
Something simple can be done in-session, depending on how tight a focus you maintain on the game and how much time players have to use while another character is scouting ahead or something similar and is the DMs main focus.
Something more in depth, particularly if it is happening outside of the current (or forthcoming) session, is probably best handled between sessions.
This is interesting. Well, I have yet to see DMs in non-AL games hand out experience that isn't the same experience for every member of the party, including those who did not or could not show up for better or worse. In AL games, the DMs did hand out experience, but those sessions were too short for the DMs to get to know our characters. So not sure whether I would hand out XP this way if I DMed and had inconsistent attendance from my players. (That would probably be a matter for a whole 'nother thread.)
You also need to remember that not all encounters should be combat encounters, but also social or environmental ones. My players rely on me as DM to provide interesting NPCs and situations for them to interact with, and that's where the roleplaying happens. They are not terribly interested in roleplaying with each other to a great extent, and it seems like your players are the same way. It's also how I prefer to play. The DM creates the world and the NPCs and that is where one finds the way forward with the story. It is through exploring the DM's world and interacting with the DM's NPCs that new information comes to light. The players only know so much, and so PCs playing out their backstories and personalities with one another can get a little tiresome. There is certainly a place for it, though - especially in instances where a PC has pertinent information that the others don't, and sometimes they may need a nudge to "talk amongst themselves" for a bit.
I’ve thought about this issue because i’ve seen something kind of similar in my game. Most of my players are fine role playing, but it’s usually playing off the colorful NPCs i create. And this goes for all the NPCs. Random shop keeps, quest givers, bar patrons, temporary party members, etc.
Not every play group is filled with actors who want to play off of each other to create their own story in the story. I think it boils down to this... player to player interaction doesn’t always progress the plot. You can chit chat about how you came from a clan of pillagers until you finally met the one encampment that you couldn’t storm and that your family was slaughtered leaving you all alone to fend for yourself and become the barbarian you are today, or how you once hung out in a Druid circle chanting all day long about trees. But in the hear and the now, it doesn’t progress the conflict or drama of the campaign. It certainly can, but oftentimes doesn’t.
you did say you were looking at this from the character driven narrative perspective. I’d ask yourself this - is this something you want, or something your players want? I think this kind of gaming would definitely require player buy-in. I have a guy in my group that sometimes dozes off if it gets too wordy and less stabby. And that’s just him. Trying to force him to role play more heavily would probably be frustrating for him. And every once in a while he throws out some sweet one liners.
My approach is mostly to give them the opportunities to talk to each other about random stuff / sometimes prompt it, and see if it goes anywhere. If it doesn’t then so be it. Easy enough to move on.
I’ve also noticed that i’ve provided zero answers or help. >.>
Yes, that's true. I guess I approach campaigns the way that I approach other writing challenges, which is to build a world that matters to my audience. Within the structure or scaffolding created by the D&D developers, I feel that the best way to do that is to involve my fellow players in narratives that are not just about killing monsters and getting treasure, but to get their buy-in on plot points dealing with their characters personally, as if they were real people and not just flimsy archetypes that we hang various combat and RP rules on to progress the plot.
Yes, it definitely needs player buy-in. This is why I try to get to know people before I DM for them. This isn't always possible, but if I'm going to take hours to write my own homebrew material for a game, I would want my players to bring their own A-game to the table. To me, that means, we work together beforehand to make sure they have fleshed out characters who aren't just paper-thin stereotypes. I like complex stories with complex NPCs and as DM, I do get to decide what types of people I want at my table. People who just want to be murder hobos who kill and loot without any desire to understand other characters? Generally, no. There's a space for people who want to do that, just not at games in which I homebrew and run.