I think there is a lot of assumption here that the only way to resolve this backstory is to move the whole party to the faraway land and adventure there. It's tough to propose alternate routes without knowing the actual backstory, but generally you should be able to tie the character's conflict into the main conflict in one way or another.
The unobtanium example was a good one, and often the most plausible reason why a large developed region might have interest in a faraway undeveloped land. But instead of going there, maybe an envoy comes to this country. Maybe one of the leaders arrives to discuss trade or to flee assassination or whatever, and that leader can be used as a bargaining chip for some deal the main storyline requires.
As Biowizard said, if I had as much upfront info as your PC did I would not expect my backstory to necessarily fit into the campaign. But as long as you're fleshing it out, I'd recommend do it with an eye towards how your primary narrative conflict could affect that story, and how you could pull it in to be something vital to the plot rather than a side quest that has nothing to do with anything else.
I am glad you found your solution but you need to realise that everyone here was trying to help so I don’t think the name calling is warranted or necessary.
I disagreed with an interpretation of your OP and saw something else in what you are saying. You say I was uncharitable but the thing I took away from your question was your joy in world building and that you seemed generally excited about a players ideas but disappointed they didn’t fit. I read your reasons and made an assumption that you were feeling there were currently no options.
no one was antagonistically asking for more details, we wanted to help, we wanted to use our creativity to benefit you and your game (for zero benefit of our own).
I missed the mark and I am fine with that - I didn’t read your post as one just requiring validation that your decision was the right one. I disagreed with the responses that pigeon holed you as someone that was having a zero fun campaign and disliked your players character and that your only solution was to shut them down and get to it later. I didn’t call people names over it though. I didn’t attack them or belittle them, or accuse them of anything apart from Not approaching DMing in the same way as me.
I think your last post was unnecessary and a little out of line, I know some on this site that would report for less. I have not and I wish you well. I am glad you found the answer you were looking for and I hope it helps your game. But maybe don’t scratch at the eyes of those looking to use there free time and creativity to help you when you have posted asking for help. There was more than one way to interpret your post and I wasn’t alone in thinking you could share more details and we could help. I will do my best not to repeat that mistake on your future posts.
I hope your players and you continue to enjoy your campaign
I will just add that I had a similair situation with 2 players, one wanted to play a warforged, I hadn’t even considered that as something someone would want to play, but that was relatively easy to fit in as they went with the, I have no idea who made me; where I came from or why. I want to discover that about myself. That was easy to fit.
The other was 2 players who wanted to play tabaxi twins, now my main continent much like yours was sketched out, not in the mind of detail I believe yours is, I very much sketch out ideas and then fill in all the blanks as the game progresses, but there was no logical place I could put a tabaxi civilization on my continent and have it make sense. So the tabaxi come from another land, that land isn’t drawn, I have the roughest of rough visions in my head (a city built entirely in the treetops, tabaxi climbing up and down trees) but that is all for now. There is a fantastic seed of a story which I will want to follow at some point but, as you said it will be down to the players, as and when the beats make sense (probably about level 13-16 in my head) if they want to go there. In the meantime the players storyline as laid out does give opportunity to bring elements of it to the players, not anywhere near enough to resolve I, but enough to get the other characters interested and so that when the story thread is placed in front of them the characters feel invested enough to pull at that thread as opposed to the players deciding to have their characters go there.
Now I have had that conversation with those 2 players, in fact all the players have been told that individual stories will be shaped into the campaign narrative I have in my head, there stories have also in some way tweaked my campaign ideas as I have found inspiration to take the adventure to each players own land if they wish. But I have also explained that levels 1-6 I will be giving them time to breathe and inhabit their characters as they are a little and give just the barest of glimpses as to what the future might hold in store if they wish.
Now another option you have is to sit down with the player. Every one of my players came to me with a backstory, and every single one I worked with to tweak the edges so it would have a better chance of fitting in my world. For instance Minotaur Barbarian wanted to come from a crime family, based on the Russian mafia, he told me his father was imprisoned near where the adventure was starting and he was there to deliver a note. I worked with him to tweak that to his father being imprisoned because he had made a mistake and killed someone he shouldn’t have, his father took the blame and the prison sentence and his uncle told him to leave his home nation to stay safe and he would call him to return when it was time. Now in reality the whole thing was set up by his uncle, who wants to take power for himself the player has no idea of any of that. 10 sessions in there is still time to sit down with your player have that conversation and work with them to tweak that backstory keeping the elements they love while also making it fit better into your narriative. This might not be possible but it comes back to the central point, communicating with your player so they don’t feel disappointed that 40 sessions in you haven’t even mentioned them going back hime.
it appears there's a population of players that expect their specific character ideas to be forced into the setting in contradiction to what has already been conceptualized by the DM
This sort of thing needs to be straightened out in Session 0. Not every DM will want to -- or be capable of -- accommodating this type of play style.
I personally would not do this to a GM, and I tend to dislike having it done to me. I try to accommodate as much as possible, but as I have said, if the player manages to force elements of the game, or a play style, on the GM that the GM does not like the campaign will die quickly. All the GM has to do is realize he or she can have more fun NOT running this unpleasant version of the game than running it and your game is toast.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
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.
We are talking about incorporating a backstory into your campaign not running a whole campaign you hate. And OP said it was interesting but just does't fit with the main setting, but it is technically a part of the world that he hasn't developed yet. I find it hard to believe that there is no way to integrate the backstory in a way that works for everyone. Im not saying he should be able to figure it out on his own. Im sure someone on this forum could help in a way that was satisfactory for OP if they knew the details of the campaign.
The OP will have to answer that in this particular case.
From my perspective....I have had players put stuff into their backgrounds that I have reluctantly approved because they wanted it, and then regretted that I had to play those things out because they were not fun for me. It can be as simple has having to keep RPing a "Dependent NPC" in Champions that as a GM, I really hated to RP because I didn't like the DNPC as a character. And every time I rolled up that the DNPC showed in the game, I cringed. And then dreaded the whole scenario I was now having to incorporate it into.
To a player, this is "a little thing." It's just one character disadvantage out of the dozens in the game, just one DNPC, it only occurs on an 8 or less, so statistically 25% of the time. For the GM, who now has to incorporate this DNPC that he dislikes RPing, into a scenario that up until that moment he had been looking forward to, and is now dreading, it just wrecked an entire 3-session adventure.
And yes, as GM, I should have said no to that DNPC up front. But like the OP, I saw how much the player wanted it, so I took it on the chin on behalf of that player. And I dreaded 25% of the adventures I ran for the next year.
I'd like to say I decided never to do that again, and although I did... I've been caught letting other players "have their heart's desire" in their background or disadvantages after this, because despite knowing what can happen, as a GM, my instinct is to try and make my players happy.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Another "suggestion" that was brought up was "bringing their plot to them!" This tells me the OP was not read properly. It also excludes DM's who DM for their players exclusively and do not do collaborative story-telling in the manner that I (and many other DM's) do. That's totally fine, and it's my fault for assuming that message would get across clearly. I will accept the fact that there's a difference in DM style but cannot take the advice as it doesn't pertain to my playstyle or my particular situation. I also think it should be understood that DM's tend to have "major" or "overarching" plots that the players will either take on or ignore. The larger problem here is that it was easy enough to do it for all the other characters because they were either vague and/or local to the setting. I assumed this manner of character backstory creation was normal when joining a DM's campaign. However, it appears there's a population of players that expect their specific character ideas to be forced into the setting in contradiction to what has already been conceptualized by the DM. I'm really not here for that population of players, unfortunately. (And I'm being hyperbolic because that is the extent of my particular predicament, which I outlined above and a couple people were able to discern, fortunately).
I think this part is directed at me, so i feel compelled to reply. I just reread your OP and i don't see how suggesting "bringing the plot to them" is not reading it properly. I was just giving you a suggestion to bring an element of the backstory to where your player are since you were concerned about how far away this other land is. Without any details about your campaign the advise is gonna be pretty hit or miss. To be honest, it seems like you were just looking for validation for your already made decision, not help figuring out how to make the backstory work for both of you, which is how the OP read.
Nowhere in the OP did you mention this player was forcing his ideas on you. You made it seem like your hesitation in approving his backstory was not communicated until you ran into the problem of not knowing how to integrate it. If this player is bullying you into including his ideas then you are well within your right to shut that shit down. But if he just suggested it innocently cause it was a cool concept, and you approved it, then it kindah sucks to tell them after the fact that you won't use it. Obviously you know your campaign better that any of us and it might just be the case that there is no way to integrate it. But even you said in the OP that there might be a solution you can't see. And there usually is.
The OP will have to answer that in this particular case.
From my perspective....I have had players put stuff into their backgrounds that I have reluctantly approved because they wanted it, and then regretted that I had to play those things out because they were not fun for me. It can be as simple has having to keep RPing a "Dependent NPC" in Champions that as a GM, I really hated to RP because I didn't like the DNPC as a character. And every time I rolled up that the DNPC showed in the game, I cringed. And then dreaded the whole scenario I was now having to incorporate it into.
To a player, this is "a little thing." It's just one character disadvantage out of the dozens in the game, just one DNPC, it only occurs on an 8 or less, so statistically 25% of the time. For the GM, who now has to incorporate this DNPC that he dislikes RPing, into a scenario that up until that moment he had been looking forward to, and is now dreading, it just wrecked an entire 3-session adventure.
And yes, as GM, I should have said no to that DNPC up front. But like the OP, I saw how much the player wanted it, so I took it on the chin on behalf of that player. And I dreaded 25% of the adventures I ran for the next year.
I'd like to say I decided never to do that again, and although I did... I've been caught letting other players "have their heart's desire" in their background or disadvantages after this, because despite knowing what can happen, as a GM, my instinct is to try and make my players happy.
Thats interesting. And if the concern was with something the DM was uncomfortable it would be a different story. Thats why we kept asking for details. Cause "i dont see how this can fit into the world" and "i really hate his backstory and really don't want to incorporate it" are two different problems. I would bet money that nine times out of ten, people in this forum can help with the first one in a way that would work for any DM with that problem.
Cause "i dont see how this can fit into the world" and "i really hate his backstory and really don't want to incorporate it" are two different problems.
Sure, to a point.
But we have to realize that everyone has their "pressure points" or their things that just can make an evening not be fun for them. It boots nothing to argue that something shouldn't be someone else's pressure point, because we can't really control that. If "this does not fit into my world" is someone's pressure point, it really doesn't matter how much you or I think it shouldn't be one -- it is, and that's that.
And again, if the players are poking the DM's pressure points, sooner or later, the DM is going to realize that the quickest and easiest way to make it stop is to just not DM anymore.
I have thankfully not had to do this as a DM, but I had to do it as a guild leader in an MMORPG. We had been a 3-leader guild, and the other 2 quit on me. Again, I took it on the chin for the rest of the guild and stepped into the solo leader role, even though I had not ever wanted it (one of the others had been the primary leader of the whole guild, and I had just sort of been vice-leader of one of our two sub-guilds, which was itself more than I really wanted to do). I stuck it out for a couple of months but those guild members, nice as they usually were, kept finding my pressure points. Then I spent a week without internet and realized how great it was not having those pressure points poked. On the drive back home, I spent the whole time crafting out loud in the car, my resignation letter from the guild. The guild imploded after that, since no one else wanted to step up or do any work (which is why the other 2 leaders quit in the first place).
So now, a guild fell apart because the players, unknowingly, probably not on purpose, kept finding the pressure points of the guild leader. These may have been things that wouldn't have bothered you or the OP, but they were my buttons and the players kept pressing them. Once I noticed how nice it was when I made it stop, that was the end of the guild.
Thus my repeating of the point: We have to be careful not to hit the GM's pressure points or the game is over.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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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I think there is a lot of assumption here that the only way to resolve this backstory is to move the whole party to the faraway land and adventure there. It's tough to propose alternate routes without knowing the actual backstory, but generally you should be able to tie the character's conflict into the main conflict in one way or another.
The unobtanium example was a good one, and often the most plausible reason why a large developed region might have interest in a faraway undeveloped land. But instead of going there, maybe an envoy comes to this country. Maybe one of the leaders arrives to discuss trade or to flee assassination or whatever, and that leader can be used as a bargaining chip for some deal the main storyline requires.
As Biowizard said, if I had as much upfront info as your PC did I would not expect my backstory to necessarily fit into the campaign. But as long as you're fleshing it out, I'd recommend do it with an eye towards how your primary narrative conflict could affect that story, and how you could pull it in to be something vital to the plot rather than a side quest that has nothing to do with anything else.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I am glad you found your solution but you need to realise that everyone here was trying to help so I don’t think the name calling is warranted or necessary.
I disagreed with an interpretation of your OP and saw something else in what you are saying. You say I was uncharitable but the thing I took away from your question was your joy in world building and that you seemed generally excited about a players ideas but disappointed they didn’t fit. I read your reasons and made an assumption that you were feeling there were currently no options.
no one was antagonistically asking for more details, we wanted to help, we wanted to use our creativity to benefit you and your game (for zero benefit of our own).
I missed the mark and I am fine with that - I didn’t read your post as one just requiring validation that your decision was the right one. I disagreed with the responses that pigeon holed you as someone that was having a zero fun campaign and disliked your players character and that your only solution was to shut them down and get to it later. I didn’t call people names over it though. I didn’t attack them or belittle them, or accuse them of anything apart from Not approaching DMing in the same way as me.
I think your last post was unnecessary and a little out of line, I know some on this site that would report for less. I have not and I wish you well. I am glad you found the answer you were looking for and I hope it helps your game. But maybe don’t scratch at the eyes of those looking to use there free time and creativity to help you when you have posted asking for help. There was more than one way to interpret your post and I wasn’t alone in thinking you could share more details and we could help. I will do my best not to repeat that mistake on your future posts.
I hope your players and you continue to enjoy your campaign
I will just add that I had a similair situation with 2 players, one wanted to play a warforged, I hadn’t even considered that as something someone would want to play, but that was relatively easy to fit in as they went with the, I have no idea who made me; where I came from or why. I want to discover that about myself. That was easy to fit.
The other was 2 players who wanted to play tabaxi twins, now my main continent much like yours was sketched out, not in the mind of detail I believe yours is, I very much sketch out ideas and then fill in all the blanks as the game progresses, but there was no logical place I could put a tabaxi civilization on my continent and have it make sense. So the tabaxi come from another land, that land isn’t drawn, I have the roughest of rough visions in my head (a city built entirely in the treetops, tabaxi climbing up and down trees) but that is all for now. There is a fantastic seed of a story which I will want to follow at some point but, as you said it will be down to the players, as and when the beats make sense (probably about level 13-16 in my head) if they want to go there. In the meantime the players storyline as laid out does give opportunity to bring elements of it to the players, not anywhere near enough to resolve I, but enough to get the other characters interested and so that when the story thread is placed in front of them the characters feel invested enough to pull at that thread as opposed to the players deciding to have their characters go there.
Now I have had that conversation with those 2 players, in fact all the players have been told that individual stories will be shaped into the campaign narrative I have in my head, there stories have also in some way tweaked my campaign ideas as I have found inspiration to take the adventure to each players own land if they wish. But I have also explained that levels 1-6 I will be giving them time to breathe and inhabit their characters as they are a little and give just the barest of glimpses as to what the future might hold in store if they wish.
Now another option you have is to sit down with the player. Every one of my players came to me with a backstory, and every single one I worked with to tweak the edges so it would have a better chance of fitting in my world. For instance Minotaur Barbarian wanted to come from a crime family, based on the Russian mafia, he told me his father was imprisoned near where the adventure was starting and he was there to deliver a note. I worked with him to tweak that to his father being imprisoned because he had made a mistake and killed someone he shouldn’t have, his father took the blame and the prison sentence and his uncle told him to leave his home nation to stay safe and he would call him to return when it was time. Now in reality the whole thing was set up by his uncle, who wants to take power for himself the player has no idea of any of that. 10 sessions in there is still time to sit down with your player have that conversation and work with them to tweak that backstory keeping the elements they love while also making it fit better into your narriative. This might not be possible but it comes back to the central point, communicating with your player so they don’t feel disappointed that 40 sessions in you haven’t even mentioned them going back hime.
This sort of thing needs to be straightened out in Session 0. Not every DM will want to -- or be capable of -- accommodating this type of play style.
I personally would not do this to a GM, and I tend to dislike having it done to me. I try to accommodate as much as possible, but as I have said, if the player manages to force elements of the game, or a play style, on the GM that the GM does not like the campaign will die quickly. All the GM has to do is realize he or she can have more fun NOT running this unpleasant version of the game than running it and your game is toast.
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.
We are talking about incorporating a backstory into your campaign not running a whole campaign you hate. And OP said it was interesting but just does't fit with the main setting, but it is technically a part of the world that he hasn't developed yet. I find it hard to believe that there is no way to integrate the backstory in a way that works for everyone. Im not saying he should be able to figure it out on his own. Im sure someone on this forum could help in a way that was satisfactory for OP if they knew the details of the campaign.
The OP will have to answer that in this particular case.
From my perspective....I have had players put stuff into their backgrounds that I have reluctantly approved because they wanted it, and then regretted that I had to play those things out because they were not fun for me. It can be as simple has having to keep RPing a "Dependent NPC" in Champions that as a GM, I really hated to RP because I didn't like the DNPC as a character. And every time I rolled up that the DNPC showed in the game, I cringed. And then dreaded the whole scenario I was now having to incorporate it into.
To a player, this is "a little thing." It's just one character disadvantage out of the dozens in the game, just one DNPC, it only occurs on an 8 or less, so statistically 25% of the time. For the GM, who now has to incorporate this DNPC that he dislikes RPing, into a scenario that up until that moment he had been looking forward to, and is now dreading, it just wrecked an entire 3-session adventure.
And yes, as GM, I should have said no to that DNPC up front. But like the OP, I saw how much the player wanted it, so I took it on the chin on behalf of that player. And I dreaded 25% of the adventures I ran for the next year.
I'd like to say I decided never to do that again, and although I did... I've been caught letting other players "have their heart's desire" in their background or disadvantages after this, because despite knowing what can happen, as a GM, my instinct is to try and make my players happy.
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 this part is directed at me, so i feel compelled to reply. I just reread your OP and i don't see how suggesting "bringing the plot to them" is not reading it properly. I was just giving you a suggestion to bring an element of the backstory to where your player are since you were concerned about how far away this other land is. Without any details about your campaign the advise is gonna be pretty hit or miss. To be honest, it seems like you were just looking for validation for your already made decision, not help figuring out how to make the backstory work for both of you, which is how the OP read.
Nowhere in the OP did you mention this player was forcing his ideas on you. You made it seem like your hesitation in approving his backstory was not communicated until you ran into the problem of not knowing how to integrate it. If this player is bullying you into including his ideas then you are well within your right to shut that shit down. But if he just suggested it innocently cause it was a cool concept, and you approved it, then it kindah sucks to tell them after the fact that you won't use it. Obviously you know your campaign better that any of us and it might just be the case that there is no way to integrate it. But even you said in the OP that there might be a solution you can't see. And there usually is.
Thats interesting. And if the concern was with something the DM was uncomfortable it would be a different story. Thats why we kept asking for details. Cause "i dont see how this can fit into the world" and "i really hate his backstory and really don't want to incorporate it" are two different problems. I would bet money that nine times out of ten, people in this forum can help with the first one in a way that would work for any DM with that problem.
Sure, to a point.
But we have to realize that everyone has their "pressure points" or their things that just can make an evening not be fun for them. It boots nothing to argue that something shouldn't be someone else's pressure point, because we can't really control that. If "this does not fit into my world" is someone's pressure point, it really doesn't matter how much you or I think it shouldn't be one -- it is, and that's that.
And again, if the players are poking the DM's pressure points, sooner or later, the DM is going to realize that the quickest and easiest way to make it stop is to just not DM anymore.
I have thankfully not had to do this as a DM, but I had to do it as a guild leader in an MMORPG. We had been a 3-leader guild, and the other 2 quit on me. Again, I took it on the chin for the rest of the guild and stepped into the solo leader role, even though I had not ever wanted it (one of the others had been the primary leader of the whole guild, and I had just sort of been vice-leader of one of our two sub-guilds, which was itself more than I really wanted to do). I stuck it out for a couple of months but those guild members, nice as they usually were, kept finding my pressure points. Then I spent a week without internet and realized how great it was not having those pressure points poked. On the drive back home, I spent the whole time crafting out loud in the car, my resignation letter from the guild. The guild imploded after that, since no one else wanted to step up or do any work (which is why the other 2 leaders quit in the first place).
So now, a guild fell apart because the players, unknowingly, probably not on purpose, kept finding the pressure points of the guild leader. These may have been things that wouldn't have bothered you or the OP, but they were my buttons and the players kept pressing them. Once I noticed how nice it was when I made it stop, that was the end of the guild.
Thus my repeating of the point: We have to be careful not to hit the GM's pressure points or the game is over.
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.