Without knowing the backstory or the campaign story it will be difficult to give you ideas on how to integrate them. But how about the his backstory coming to him instead of him coming to the backstory?
Personally I would build something that is somehow connected to the main plot so that it gives everyone a reason to go there if they so choose. Maybe he is from a small village or even a herd of whatever race he is. And when they get there the herd has move on or was attacked and killed and there is just the remains. This might make it easier to create since it would remove all the social aspects of world creation.
Without knowing the backstory or the campaign story it will be difficult to give you ideas on how to integrate them. But how about the his backstory coming to him instead of him coming to the backstory?
Personally I would build something that is somehow connected to the main plot so that it gives everyone a reason to go there if they so choose. Maybe he is from a small village or even a herd of whatever race he is. And when they get there the herd has move on or was attacked and killed and there is just the remains. This might make it easier to create since it would remove all the social aspects of world creation.
I guess it was lost in there since I'm very wordy (I apologize). Bolded is the issue that I'm having as I don't have a good way of doing it without derailing the campaign and the other characters. And to address the things that were missed from the original post: Their home country is very far away (think Canada to Brazil). They came up with their race's culture and country and the conflicts there, which I can't just say "no" to (unless I can...>.>).
What is the character's backstory? Without knowing that it's hard to give advice.
Generally speaking, if a character is a 'far traveller' type, then their backstory starts hunting them down.
That's what I have the problem with, as addressed in the original post. If I were to do that, I can see the numbered outcomes happening.
If you want help coming up with specific ideas you need to tell us the details of the backstory and of the campaign story. Without that we can only give you general advice.
Their home country is very far away (think Canada to Brazil).
This is only a problem at lower levels. You can always wait to resolve this once they can teleport. Or you can even create random magical items that can help them teleport. Or put a teleportation circle at their destination and an NPC that can cast it. Whatever the backstory is can be resolved in just a few sessions once travel is instantaneous.
Maybe a he actually runs into a few people from his homeland. There was something bad there — war, natural disaster. And now there’s some refugees who’ve made their way to “Canada.” Now that the PC is a local, they hope he can try to help them settle in the new land. Maybe the local powers see him as a liaison between the groups, that will give him some spotlight time. And maybe some of these refugees are tied to his backstory.
As far as the party kicking him out, I’d give your players some credit. Usually players are willing to bend a bit for each other so everyone gets their personal plots to deal with. There’s a point where people go with the game side over the story side, remind them of that if needed.
As others have said without knowing the specifics it’s really hard to know if the problem is as bad as you think because tbh it rarely is. As you said you get really invested in world building and it maybe a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.
My gut reaction though is that you shouldn’t sideline your players backstory or your other PC’s, you should sideline your own story.
everything exists in your D&D world because you say it does - the countries are Brazil Canada distance because you say so
- there are no more of the player characters because you say so
so say differently. You said yourself the player’s backstory and goals you find super interesting and your issue is that you don’t want to side track the players, world build the other country or have them just ping there and back. So don’t. If it turns out that you can resolve the whole thing by having a player stroke a magical platypus in a world of marshmallows but that doesn’t fit with your setting and story arc then you tweak both until they do fit together.
you are seeing this as a square peg round hole situation - but as DM you are able to change the shape of the hole and the peg.
if you want our help in coming up with creative ways to do this then we need to know
World details, race details, backstory details etc
but i guarantee you there is a middle ground you are not seeing yet.
there’s a bit of advice around players that don’t want to be railroaded “your players approach a town being attacked by a dragon and turn around and walk the other way how do you handle that? The party run into another adventuring party who do want to fight the dragon - those are their characters now” but the same mechanic can be applied to DM’s. If your player comes up with something awesome, that’s your story now and it’s okay to kill your darlings a little bit in your original plan.
”That’s not what my story would do” is the DM equivalent of “I am just playing what my character would do” and equally as obnoxious
I will second the opinions above that we should know a bit of the plot for both the campaign and backstory before giving suggestions.
That said, the issue of distance can be solved with new technology. Maybe there are some gnomes who invent zeppelins, maybe they find an ancient ritual site that can teleport people to other sites across the world, maybe a magical accident makes them cross to another plane and the exit is near that country (perhaps it is a plane related to dreams and the exist is there because it is close to the character's heart) or maybe they fight in a flying city that loses control and goes to the atmosphere and then crash lands there (and it would take a set amount of time to repair)
For connecting the main plot to it, there are some reasons above but it could also be that some catastrophe or danger encourages the players to leave the country. Alternatively, since you haven't planned much of the other country, make it have some resorce valuable to someone important in the campaign and the party follows them: they could stop the bigbbad from getting it or accompany a diplomatic delegationbor act as guards for prospectors snd traders. Then you design the new nation around that resource.
Design wise, crib existing modules for dungeons, set the characters from the backstory as importantbfor the main quest of the area (escape from new country and go back home, getting resource, denying resource, political intrigue, pre paid holiday, etc).
, set the characters from the backstory as importantbfor the main quest of the area (escape from new country and go back home, getting resource, denying resource, political intrigue, pre paid holiday, etc).
BBEG defeated general: “you will never defeat my lord and master for he possess’s the {maguffin} made of {unobtanium} which can only be defeated by a {counter maguffin} also made in {unobtanium}”
Smart one in the party: “have I heard of {unobtanium}?
DM: roll a history or arcana check
Smart one: 17 plus modifier equals 24
DM: you laugh at the suggestion of {unobtanium} it’s a joke, a myth alchemists tell their children about in bed time stories
DM whispers to mysterious player: {unobtanium}is the natural resource of {Farawayland}
Mysterious one: “it is no myth my friend, I know where we can find the {unobtanium} we need”
Heroicish one that thinks they are the leader: “where is that friend”
You're not alone :-) This happens from time to time, and I really recognize what you describe. I try to avoid it when I start campaigns, but it still happens, and like you write: the problem often doesn't show before it's like 10 sessions or so into the campaign.
Youv'e already talked to your player briefly. That sound like a good start to me.
My gut feeling is that I would not change the campaign, I would not teleport the party or anything like that. I would have a talk with the player and be quite honest that I at the moment don't see any way to incorporate his/her backstory into the campaign. I would take full "blame" for not seeing this during character creation, but ask the player if he/she is fine with having this backstory as "just" a backstory that give flavor to his roleplaying, and I would ask if he/she has any other ideas for how I could involve him/her more personally into the campaign (if he/she wants that).
That being said, that doesn't mean you close the door completely to using that backstory. My campaigns are so open that after 10 more sessions I could suddenly find a "perfect" opportunity to incorporate the backstory after all.
I can’t fully agree on the above - at the point you tell the player “the story I want to tell is more important than the story you want to play” then you are losing a core part of being a DM
I did not have the heart to deny a character concept that would lead to this outcome
We've all been there. I have made the mistake more than once. The main lesson here is, deny it in session 0, or pay for it until session 100. Better to deny up front. Which I have trouble doing, I think we all do -- no one wants to disappoint someone who is super hyped on a concept.
But one of the problems when a player comes up with a concept that doesn't really fit your setting, is this (and I think you are seeing some of that): It is not always possible to come up with a story that fits in with part of a story made by someone else. Your setting works for you, and you are able to make stories about it, because otherwise you would not have this setting. You chose something that innately works for you. If I come along with a different story seed (my background, but something completely alien to your setting), there is no guarantee when I "hand it off" to you to GM it, that you are going to be able to come up with anything good related to my storyline. You just cannot "make yourself" come up with a story. Just because I have some cool ideas about my bugbear character and its society, doesn't mean my GM is necessarily going to be any good at running a bugbear clan. Maybe the DM didn't put a bugbear nation into the world because the DM doesn't have any good ideas for bugbears. And we can all look down our collective noses at that DM and declare that he or she *should* be able to come up with a cool idea for bugbears. But just because we think the DM should have good ideas for them, or we could come up with good ideas for them, is not going to make it so that the DM does have them. Creativity doesn't work that way.
Recognizing this, as a GM, it's better to stop these ideas before they get into the campaign (obviously 20/20 hindsight for you now, and not something we can do anything about for this go-round), because it will only lead to a struggle, and maybe to a situation like this in which the DM doesn't have a good way to incorporate the PC's background into the campaign.
As a player, if I am aware that I made up something that doesn't really fit, and you were being nice to let me do that, I would not take offense if my misfit character's background does not fit into the campaign. I'd tell you don't worry about it. Hopefully your player would say the same.
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I can’t fully agree on the above - at the point you tell the player “the story I want to tell is more important than the story you want to play” then you are losing a core part of being a DM
I think BioWizard's last post really covers my response to you. It's not about me as a DM telling the player my story is more important. It's me as a storyteller saying: "I'm really sorry, but I cannot find a way to fit your backstory into the setting as I've created it. I'm really sorry, I should have stoped you at session 0, but didn't have the heart to do so and hoped I could find a way to weave it into the story. I didn't, I failed. Do you as a player have any idea how we solve that?"
As a DM my concern is not the story I want to tell, its about THE STORY - the combined story of all the PC's and how they interact with my world. If I allowed one of the PC's to create a backstory I realize after 10 sessions is really disruptive to THE STORY, I would rather have a talk to that player on how we solve it for the best of all than to desperately try to force THE STORY into something I don't believe is the best.
So my advice is, do what you think is best for your campaign. You've already talked to the player, so take up that conversation and see if you can find a solution that works. My guess is that BioWizard is right that the player won't take offence, and probably will be open to find a solution :-)
I think asking the player for ideas is also a really good way to go.
I had this happen in my current campaign. It wasn't about the backstory. The player had an idea to do something kind of offbeat to his character, that sort of matches a spell effect, but he wanted it to last a long while but not be permanent. Spell effects can be Restored out of existence and he didn't want that. But he wanted some way for it to go away, after he was tired of it. He thought this would be a cool thing to RP about. And asked me could I just make this thing happen to his character. I won't say the actual effect, because he wanted to surprise the rest of the players, and some day he might still want to do it, and some of them might read this post.
So instead, let me use a similar example of "turning into another species." Let's imagine he is a human who wanted to be turned into a tiefling for a while. And then turn back. It can't be an illusion, but he really turns into a tiefling. It can't be True Polymorph, for a variety of mechanical reasons. None of the magic items that you might be able to come up with would have worked, let's say. But he still wanted it to happen. So what he was asking for was a non-mechanical, but story-based reason to turn into a tiefling, be one for a while (several sessions, he wasn't sure how long) and then, when he decided he was tired of it and had gotten enough RP out of it, go back to being a human. Again, for story reasons.
Well, I could not think of anything that fit my world, made sense based on where they currently were out in the wilderness and the enemies they were fighting, and so forth. He bugged me about it for weeks -- when is it going to happen? Finally I told him, I've got nothing. Oh come on, he argued, it's not that hard. Just make something up.
And as I have tried to explain above - creativity does not work that way. I can't necessarily make up a cool story for you about a very specific thing, just because you want me to. I had nothing.
So finally, I said, let's talk about it. We got together in zoom, and had a long conversation. We talked about spells or magic items that might kind of work. He started to recognize one of his problems was that he wasn't sure how long he wanted to do it, and most game effects either have relatively short and defined durations or are permanent. We talked for quite a while, and neither of us together came up with anything. So I told him, OK you think about it. When you come up with an idea, you tell me.
Days went by. Then weeks. Every so often, I asked if he had anything. Nope. So here's the thing: He couldn't think of a story to make it work either! After a while, he said you know what, let's just forget it. By giving the job to him, he finally realized that what he was asking me to do was not so easy. Even for him, and it was his idea to begin with. How much harder is it to try to come up with something cool when the initial idea wasn't even yours?
Now, again, he was not trying to change his race, and I am not asking anyone to suggest ways he could change his race that we didn't think of. That is not the point of this story. The point of this story is that creativity is not a button you can push and just "make it happen." Sometimes even when you heartily approve of something in a backstory that you think you can make fit in, you just can't do it, because nothing occurs to you. You draw a blank. DM's block. And a player asking you to get over your DM's block and just give them what they want, is not going to make it go away.
One thing I have turned to here is, I do some PMs with some of the folks on here who I feel have similar DMing styles to mine and I ask them for ideas. "How can I handle this?" They say how they might do it. 99% of the time, I don't like that idea specifically, but it sparks something else. But sometimes even they are like, "Geez, I dunno. I've got nothing."
And if you've got nothing, no matter how much you have tried to have something, then you've got nothing. You can't force it to happen. Creativity doesn't work this way.
So it's not usually about the fact that you want your story to go a certain way and Johnny didn't make up a background that lets you tell your story. It's that the DM knows his or her creative wheelhouse, and if a Johnny gets too far outside that wheelhouse, he runs a huge risk that the DM might not be able to come up with stuff to satisfy Johnny's story.
Finally, I think as DMs we have to be careful not to always try to "take it on the chin" as we tend to do to let players have their hearts' desire. Yes, we want to please them, but sometimes you have to say no because you have to realize that what this player wants, you won't be able to accomplish. Or, do what I did and say, "I've got nothing. YOU come up with the story here." Either they'll realize they've asked you to do something so hard they can't do it either, or they'll come up with something cool and you can incorporate it.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Assuming the players have started at level 1 you have a long long time to develop the campaign, ideally you shouldn’t be planning out everything to level 20.
I am running a campaign for 8 players and each has a really interesting backstory I plan to incorporate but they know it might be 2-3 years of real time before they get to the experience that in game. Now I may find it ways to dip in and grow that in the meantime, family members travel to find them, important NPCs to the story have their own adventures being them to the players. But I will develop that as the campaign flows naturally.
There is a difference to saying yes to everything and saying yes to key things and I think you are using your own experiences to imply something about the OP’s situation they have not said (as it has been pointed out several times they have not shared any details about the backstory or setting apart from the character is a non standard race).
I don’t agree with “not in my creative wheelhouse” as a reason and I completely understand your example of a player going “what’s so hard just make something up” but the difference between what you are saying and what I am saying is pretty large.
I think the OP is so invested in the story they are telling (as a DM needs to be) they are struggling to see a solution. I think that sharing the problem rather than the concept of the problem is the key here to at least seeing if a solution can be found.
you think the OP should shut it down and apologise, pay the player on the back and say “maybe next time kiddo”
Having to come up with new lore and logic to make what my players do in a session and want to do in the campaign a reality is not the hurdle, it’s the race.
@sardonicmonkey We apparantly read the OP very differently (I just reread it).
I (and it seems to me BioWizard too), saw an issue we recognized, and had experienced several times ourself (at least I have). We tried to give our best advice out of our own experiences. When you ask a question here, that is basically what you want in my opinion: have advice based on the «personal» experiences of the «hive mind». OP even asked for anecdotal stories, so that tells me that OP actually wanted our personal experiences.
But hopefully our quite different approach to OP, will shed light on the issue and be helpfull to find a solution :-)
If there was no internet then saying "i can't come up with anything so I don't want to incorporate something that will not fit" makes sense. But OP has access to more that just his mind. We are here to help him on the details if he so choose. I post here all the time when i hit a creative block and people have come up with really cool stuff that i would have never thought of. Its really a question of how attached he is with his world and story vs how willing he is to make changes to accommodate his players. I personally think that, if you have the option, you should always go with what will make for a more fun experience for the player.
Furthermore, there have been times when someone has suggested doing something that for me, as a DM, I've said, "Nope." Might be fun for the player, but doing that would be miserably un-fun for me.
And you have to be careful with the whole, "Do whatever is fun for the player" thing... if that ends up making the DM unhappy, and the DM is not having fun him- or herself, the campaign is going to end. It only takes the realization that I could have more fun NOT running this campaign than running it, and you're done. Find a new DM.
As DMs, our instinct, as I say, is to take it on the chin for the players, and we also tend to have a great deal of fun no matter what else, if we're sure the players are having a good time. If they are smiling and laughing and high-fiving each other, it's fun for us too -- to a degree. But if you have to do something to your world that you absolutely hate, or you have to run a type of session that you don't enjoy or makes you uncomfortable, you're not going to want to keep DMing. We are self-sacrificing, yes. But nobody is THAT self-sacrificing.
Example so what I am talking about is clear: I detest Game-of-Thrones style political intrigue. Hate it. Didn't enjoy the novels, and stopped reading them, because I hate it. Would NOT want to play in a game about that. And absolutely would suck at, and be 100% miserable, running it. So if all my players said, "We want GoT" and I tried to run it for them... yeah after 3 or 4 sessions, if that, I'd stop. Because whatever fun they are having, I'd be miserable.
"No D&D is better than bad D&D" -- true for both players and DMs.
So... if the player has come up with something in the background that the DM just does not find fun to design around, then it's better to talk to the player than to have the DM try to take it on the chin perhaps for weeks or months, because in the long run that could end up killing the whole campaign. And if the campaign stops, the player won't be doing his background either.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
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Without knowing the backstory or the campaign story it will be difficult to give you ideas on how to integrate them. But how about the his backstory coming to him instead of him coming to the backstory?
Personally I would build something that is somehow connected to the main plot so that it gives everyone a reason to go there if they so choose. Maybe he is from a small village or even a herd of whatever race he is. And when they get there the herd has move on or was attacked and killed and there is just the remains. This might make it easier to create since it would remove all the social aspects of world creation.
What is the character's backstory? Without knowing that it's hard to give advice.
Generally speaking, if a character is a 'far traveller' type, then their backstory starts hunting them down.
If you want help coming up with specific ideas you need to tell us the details of the backstory and of the campaign story. Without that we can only give you general advice.
This is only a problem at lower levels. You can always wait to resolve this once they can teleport. Or you can even create random magical items that can help them teleport. Or put a teleportation circle at their destination and an NPC that can cast it. Whatever the backstory is can be resolved in just a few sessions once travel is instantaneous.
Maybe a he actually runs into a few people from his homeland. There was something bad there — war, natural disaster. And now there’s some refugees who’ve made their way to “Canada.” Now that the PC is a local, they hope he can try to help them settle in the new land. Maybe the local powers see him as a liaison between the groups, that will give him some spotlight time.
And maybe some of these refugees are tied to his backstory.
As far as the party kicking him out, I’d give your players some credit. Usually players are willing to bend a bit for each other so everyone gets their personal plots to deal with. There’s a point where people go with the game side over the story side, remind them of that if needed.
As others have said without knowing the specifics it’s really hard to know if the problem is as bad as you think because tbh it rarely is. As you said you get really invested in world building and it maybe a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.
My gut reaction though is that you shouldn’t sideline your players backstory or your other PC’s, you should sideline your own story.
everything exists in your D&D world because you say it does - the countries are Brazil Canada distance because you say so
- there are no more of the player characters because you say so
so say differently. You said yourself the player’s backstory and goals you find super interesting and your issue is that you don’t want to side track the players, world build the other country or have them just ping there and back. So don’t. If it turns out that you can resolve the whole thing by having a player stroke a magical platypus in a world of marshmallows but that doesn’t fit with your setting and story arc then you tweak both until they do fit together.
you are seeing this as a square peg round hole situation - but as DM you are able to change the shape of the hole and the peg.
if you want our help in coming up with creative ways to do this then we need to know
World details, race details, backstory details etc
but i guarantee you there is a middle ground you are not seeing yet.
there’s a bit of advice around players that don’t want to be railroaded “your players approach a town being attacked by a dragon and turn around and walk the other way how do you handle that? The party run into another adventuring party who do want to fight the dragon - those are their characters now” but the same mechanic can be applied to DM’s. If your player comes up with something awesome, that’s your story now and it’s okay to kill your darlings a little bit in your original plan.
”That’s not what my story would do” is the DM equivalent of “I am just playing what my character would do” and equally as obnoxious
I will second the opinions above that we should know a bit of the plot for both the campaign and backstory before giving suggestions.
That said, the issue of distance can be solved with new technology. Maybe there are some gnomes who invent zeppelins, maybe they find an ancient ritual site that can teleport people to other sites across the world, maybe a magical accident makes them cross to another plane and the exit is near that country (perhaps it is a plane related to dreams and the exist is there because it is close to the character's heart) or maybe they fight in a flying city that loses control and goes to the atmosphere and then crash lands there (and it would take a set amount of time to repair)
For connecting the main plot to it, there are some reasons above but it could also be that some catastrophe or danger encourages the players to leave the country. Alternatively, since you haven't planned much of the other country, make it have some resorce valuable to someone important in the campaign and the party follows them: they could stop the bigbbad from getting it or accompany a diplomatic delegationbor act as guards for prospectors snd traders. Then you design the new nation around that resource.
Design wise, crib existing modules for dungeons, set the characters from the backstory as importantbfor the main quest of the area (escape from new country and go back home, getting resource, denying resource, political intrigue, pre paid holiday, etc).
BBEG defeated general: “you will never defeat my lord and master for he possess’s the {maguffin} made of {unobtanium} which can only be defeated by a {counter maguffin} also made in {unobtanium}”
Smart one in the party: “have I heard of {unobtanium}?
DM: roll a history or arcana check
Smart one: 17 plus modifier equals 24
DM: you laugh at the suggestion of {unobtanium} it’s a joke, a myth alchemists tell their children about in bed time stories
DM whispers to mysterious player: {unobtanium}is the natural resource of {Farawayland}
Mysterious one: “it is no myth my friend, I know where we can find the {unobtanium} we need”
Heroicish one that thinks they are the leader: “where is that friend”
Bard: “and are there people to sleep with there”
Mysterious one: “Home”
You're not alone :-) This happens from time to time, and I really recognize what you describe. I try to avoid it when I start campaigns, but it still happens, and like you write: the problem often doesn't show before it's like 10 sessions or so into the campaign.
Youv'e already talked to your player briefly. That sound like a good start to me.
My gut feeling is that I would not change the campaign, I would not teleport the party or anything like that. I would have a talk with the player and be quite honest that I at the moment don't see any way to incorporate his/her backstory into the campaign. I would take full "blame" for not seeing this during character creation, but ask the player if he/she is fine with having this backstory as "just" a backstory that give flavor to his roleplaying, and I would ask if he/she has any other ideas for how I could involve him/her more personally into the campaign (if he/she wants that).
That being said, that doesn't mean you close the door completely to using that backstory. My campaigns are so open that after 10 more sessions I could suddenly find a "perfect" opportunity to incorporate the backstory after all.
Ludo ergo sum!
I can’t fully agree on the above - at the point you tell the player “the story I want to tell is more important than the story you want to play” then you are losing a core part of being a DM
We've all been there. I have made the mistake more than once. The main lesson here is, deny it in session 0, or pay for it until session 100. Better to deny up front. Which I have trouble doing, I think we all do -- no one wants to disappoint someone who is super hyped on a concept.
But one of the problems when a player comes up with a concept that doesn't really fit your setting, is this (and I think you are seeing some of that): It is not always possible to come up with a story that fits in with part of a story made by someone else. Your setting works for you, and you are able to make stories about it, because otherwise you would not have this setting. You chose something that innately works for you. If I come along with a different story seed (my background, but something completely alien to your setting), there is no guarantee when I "hand it off" to you to GM it, that you are going to be able to come up with anything good related to my storyline. You just cannot "make yourself" come up with a story. Just because I have some cool ideas about my bugbear character and its society, doesn't mean my GM is necessarily going to be any good at running a bugbear clan. Maybe the DM didn't put a bugbear nation into the world because the DM doesn't have any good ideas for bugbears. And we can all look down our collective noses at that DM and declare that he or she *should* be able to come up with a cool idea for bugbears. But just because we think the DM should have good ideas for them, or we could come up with good ideas for them, is not going to make it so that the DM does have them. Creativity doesn't work that way.
Recognizing this, as a GM, it's better to stop these ideas before they get into the campaign (obviously 20/20 hindsight for you now, and not something we can do anything about for this go-round), because it will only lead to a struggle, and maybe to a situation like this in which the DM doesn't have a good way to incorporate the PC's background into the campaign.
As a player, if I am aware that I made up something that doesn't really fit, and you were being nice to let me do that, I would not take offense if my misfit character's background does not fit into the campaign. I'd tell you don't worry about it. Hopefully your player would say the same.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think BioWizard's last post really covers my response to you. It's not about me as a DM telling the player my story is more important. It's me as a storyteller saying: "I'm really sorry, but I cannot find a way to fit your backstory into the setting as I've created it. I'm really sorry, I should have stoped you at session 0, but didn't have the heart to do so and hoped I could find a way to weave it into the story. I didn't, I failed. Do you as a player have any idea how we solve that?"
As a DM my concern is not the story I want to tell, its about THE STORY - the combined story of all the PC's and how they interact with my world. If I allowed one of the PC's to create a backstory I realize after 10 sessions is really disruptive to THE STORY, I would rather have a talk to that player on how we solve it for the best of all than to desperately try to force THE STORY into something I don't believe is the best.
So my advice is, do what you think is best for your campaign. You've already talked to the player, so take up that conversation and see if you can find a solution that works. My guess is that BioWizard is right that the player won't take offence, and probably will be open to find a solution :-)
Ludo ergo sum!
I think asking the player for ideas is also a really good way to go.
I had this happen in my current campaign. It wasn't about the backstory. The player had an idea to do something kind of offbeat to his character, that sort of matches a spell effect, but he wanted it to last a long while but not be permanent. Spell effects can be Restored out of existence and he didn't want that. But he wanted some way for it to go away, after he was tired of it. He thought this would be a cool thing to RP about. And asked me could I just make this thing happen to his character. I won't say the actual effect, because he wanted to surprise the rest of the players, and some day he might still want to do it, and some of them might read this post.
So instead, let me use a similar example of "turning into another species." Let's imagine he is a human who wanted to be turned into a tiefling for a while. And then turn back. It can't be an illusion, but he really turns into a tiefling. It can't be True Polymorph, for a variety of mechanical reasons. None of the magic items that you might be able to come up with would have worked, let's say. But he still wanted it to happen. So what he was asking for was a non-mechanical, but story-based reason to turn into a tiefling, be one for a while (several sessions, he wasn't sure how long) and then, when he decided he was tired of it and had gotten enough RP out of it, go back to being a human. Again, for story reasons.
Well, I could not think of anything that fit my world, made sense based on where they currently were out in the wilderness and the enemies they were fighting, and so forth. He bugged me about it for weeks -- when is it going to happen? Finally I told him, I've got nothing. Oh come on, he argued, it's not that hard. Just make something up.
And as I have tried to explain above - creativity does not work that way. I can't necessarily make up a cool story for you about a very specific thing, just because you want me to. I had nothing.
So finally, I said, let's talk about it. We got together in zoom, and had a long conversation. We talked about spells or magic items that might kind of work. He started to recognize one of his problems was that he wasn't sure how long he wanted to do it, and most game effects either have relatively short and defined durations or are permanent. We talked for quite a while, and neither of us together came up with anything. So I told him, OK you think about it. When you come up with an idea, you tell me.
Days went by. Then weeks. Every so often, I asked if he had anything. Nope. So here's the thing: He couldn't think of a story to make it work either! After a while, he said you know what, let's just forget it. By giving the job to him, he finally realized that what he was asking me to do was not so easy. Even for him, and it was his idea to begin with. How much harder is it to try to come up with something cool when the initial idea wasn't even yours?
Now, again, he was not trying to change his race, and I am not asking anyone to suggest ways he could change his race that we didn't think of. That is not the point of this story. The point of this story is that creativity is not a button you can push and just "make it happen." Sometimes even when you heartily approve of something in a backstory that you think you can make fit in, you just can't do it, because nothing occurs to you. You draw a blank. DM's block. And a player asking you to get over your DM's block and just give them what they want, is not going to make it go away.
One thing I have turned to here is, I do some PMs with some of the folks on here who I feel have similar DMing styles to mine and I ask them for ideas. "How can I handle this?" They say how they might do it. 99% of the time, I don't like that idea specifically, but it sparks something else. But sometimes even they are like, "Geez, I dunno. I've got nothing."
And if you've got nothing, no matter how much you have tried to have something, then you've got nothing. You can't force it to happen. Creativity doesn't work this way.
So it's not usually about the fact that you want your story to go a certain way and Johnny didn't make up a background that lets you tell your story. It's that the DM knows his or her creative wheelhouse, and if a Johnny gets too far outside that wheelhouse, he runs a huge risk that the DM might not be able to come up with stuff to satisfy Johnny's story.
Finally, I think as DMs we have to be careful not to always try to "take it on the chin" as we tend to do to let players have their hearts' desire. Yes, we want to please them, but sometimes you have to say no because you have to realize that what this player wants, you won't be able to accomplish. Or, do what I did and say, "I've got nothing. YOU come up with the story here." Either they'll realize they've asked you to do something so hard they can't do it either, or they'll come up with something cool and you can incorporate it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Assuming the players have started at level 1 you have a long long time to develop the campaign, ideally you shouldn’t be planning out everything to level 20.
I am running a campaign for 8 players and each has a really interesting backstory I plan to incorporate but they know it might be 2-3 years of real time before they get to the experience that in game. Now I may find it ways to dip in and grow that in the meantime, family members travel to find them, important NPCs to the story have their own adventures being them to the players. But I will develop that as the campaign flows naturally.
There is a difference to saying yes to everything and saying yes to key things and I think you are using your own experiences to imply something about the OP’s situation they have not said (as it has been pointed out several times they have not shared any details about the backstory or setting apart from the character is a non standard race).
I don’t agree with “not in my creative wheelhouse” as a reason and I completely understand your example of a player going “what’s so hard just make something up” but the difference between what you are saying and what I am saying is pretty large.
I think the OP is so invested in the story they are telling (as a DM needs to be) they are struggling to see a solution. I think that sharing the problem rather than the concept of the problem is the key here to at least seeing if a solution can be found.
you think the OP should shut it down and apologise, pay the player on the back and say “maybe next time kiddo”
Having to come up with new lore and logic to make what my players do in a session and want to do in the campaign a reality is not the hurdle, it’s the race.
@sardonicmonkey We apparantly read the OP very differently (I just reread it).
I (and it seems to me BioWizard too), saw an issue we recognized, and had experienced several times ourself (at least I have). We tried to give our best advice out of our own experiences. When you ask a question here, that is basically what you want in my opinion: have advice based on the «personal» experiences of the «hive mind». OP even asked for anecdotal stories, so that tells me that OP actually wanted our personal experiences.
But hopefully our quite different approach to OP, will shed light on the issue and be helpfull to find a solution :-)
Ludo ergo sum!
If there was no internet then saying "i can't come up with anything so I don't want to incorporate something that will not fit" makes sense. But OP has access to more that just his mind. We are here to help him on the details if he so choose. I post here all the time when i hit a creative block and people have come up with really cool stuff that i would have never thought of. Its really a question of how attached he is with his world and story vs how willing he is to make changes to accommodate his players. I personally think that, if you have the option, you should always go with what will make for a more fun experience for the player.
Not everyone's comfortable doing that.
Furthermore, there have been times when someone has suggested doing something that for me, as a DM, I've said, "Nope." Might be fun for the player, but doing that would be miserably un-fun for me.
And you have to be careful with the whole, "Do whatever is fun for the player" thing... if that ends up making the DM unhappy, and the DM is not having fun him- or herself, the campaign is going to end. It only takes the realization that I could have more fun NOT running this campaign than running it, and you're done. Find a new DM.
As DMs, our instinct, as I say, is to take it on the chin for the players, and we also tend to have a great deal of fun no matter what else, if we're sure the players are having a good time. If they are smiling and laughing and high-fiving each other, it's fun for us too -- to a degree. But if you have to do something to your world that you absolutely hate, or you have to run a type of session that you don't enjoy or makes you uncomfortable, you're not going to want to keep DMing. We are self-sacrificing, yes. But nobody is THAT self-sacrificing.
Example so what I am talking about is clear: I detest Game-of-Thrones style political intrigue. Hate it. Didn't enjoy the novels, and stopped reading them, because I hate it. Would NOT want to play in a game about that. And absolutely would suck at, and be 100% miserable, running it. So if all my players said, "We want GoT" and I tried to run it for them... yeah after 3 or 4 sessions, if that, I'd stop. Because whatever fun they are having, I'd be miserable.
"No D&D is better than bad D&D" -- true for both players and DMs.
So... if the player has come up with something in the background that the DM just does not find fun to design around, then it's better to talk to the player than to have the DM try to take it on the chin perhaps for weeks or months, because in the long run that could end up killing the whole campaign. And if the campaign stops, the player won't be doing his background either.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.