I haven’t played in the Forgotten Realms since AD&D2e. I just recently joined a campaign in Waterdeep. I still managed to come up with 600 words (half a page, 4 paragraphs) of backstory. Nothing major, generic stuff. His dad is the clan chief, he has too many older brothers to ever advance without killing them, he went off on his own and got recruited to become a mercenary, when the company captain died there was unrest so he’s taking a break. On his way home to some undisclosed location (because I have no idea about the Forgotten Realms) he stopped in Waterdeep for a few drinks and a night at the inn. That’s all it takes. Sure I fleshed it out a bit, but nothing too detailed.
A backstory is just to give the player and the DM a sense of the character’s motivations. It doesn’t have to be long or detailed, maybe just a few sentences. I welcome a 3-line backstory as much as a 3-page one (my personal preference is a 1/2 page, but whatevs). It could be “just the facts,” or it could be fleshed out with narrative and dialogue and everything. The whole point is to shed some light on the answer to a single question: “Why?”
Happy, well-adjusted people don’t normally risk life and limb for money, or fame and glory. So why has that character? Were they a “happy, well-adjusted” person, or do they have some tragedy that pushed them to this life? Are they motivated by greed, revenge, ambition, boredom, poverty, nihilism, loyalty, coercion, self destructive impulses, conditioning, slavery, are they acting under orders? “Throw me a frickin’ bone here people.” Gimme nothin’ and I got a hard time giving your character a personal motivation to be doing what I have curated for the campaign. By the same token, if the player is good with that, then as long as they’re happy, I’m happy.
Maybe I am being overly harsh but if a player isn't willing to give me a paragraph concerning their character's past life/experiences then they wouldn't play at my table. If I am going to invest hours upon hours of prep work and they can't be bothered to write for 5 min or so they aren't going to add anything to the game. Everyone should be invested in the game at the table its not solely the DM's responsibility to develop the story.
That being said have them start with their background and have them roll on each table. Then have them write a backstory as an adlib kinda thing that fits each rolled outcome. Allow them to use some zany/funny backstories along with more serious ones.
having a background or not is NOT an indication whether a player is invested or not.
As I stated prior the entire table develops the story so if someone refuses to write a simple paragraph, why wouldn't someone assume they are not invested?
because assumptions are most often incorrect and wrong. that is why they are assumptions. it often says more about the person making the assumption then the one they make assumptions about.
having a background or not is NOT an indication whether a player is invested or not.
That's true, just means they have yet to find their characters personality
This is completely false. I've played with lots of players with bold, unique, fleshed-out characters with zero backstory...and lots of players with pages of backstory who don't roleplay at all. In fact, massive backstories are generally bigger red flags in my experience because many people treat them as a substitute for personality.
Maybe I am being overly harsh but if a player isn't willing to give me a paragraph concerning their character's past life/experiences then they wouldn't play at my table. If I am going to invest hours upon hours of prep work and they can't be bothered to write for 5 min or so they aren't going to add anything to the game. Everyone should be invested in the game at the table its not solely the DM's responsibility to develop the story.
That being said have them start with their background and have them roll on each table. Then have them write a backstory as an adlib kinda thing that fits each rolled outcome. Allow them to use some zany/funny backstories along with more serious ones.
I think that is a little harsh.
It's not necessarily true that it takes people "5 minutes" to write a background. Some folks are very slow writers. Others are very fast. For some it comes easily. Others stare at the blank page with the blinking cursor for an hour and come up with nothing. New players may have no idea how to write a background for an RPG, having never done it before.
As the DM, it is our job to facilitate the play at the table... for everyone. That means that if we have a player who is struggling with the background, our job is to help that player out. Now you actually have a good hint there... The player has had to pick a BG from the ones available in the various sourcebooks. That's a start. They've presumably picked, or, if they have no ideas, rolled, on the various flaw, etc., tables within that background. We can start from there... Maybe write just 1 sentence about each bond, ideal, flaw, and then write who your parents are and what city you're from. That's what maybe 6 sentences? That's enough to get started with and hopefully having most of it already set out by the books will help the player get it done.
I'm getting ready to start "online DMing" with a group of friends (and a couple of friends of those friends) and I absolutely will want a background from everyone. But I'm not going to ask for pages and pages. A paragraph or two is enough. Just who are you, where did you come from, and why are you going out on adventures? Enough that I can use the info. to get you into the first couple of storylines. From there the party should be able to pick up the ball and run with it. And, players should not be afraid to invent background details on the fly, either... and I will be giving them some help with that too.
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It's alright to punish players. I was talking about GM revenge today with a friend of mine:
Examples of GM Revenge:
1) If a player is constantly missing games, I might play his character with an NPC with a ridiculous accent and claim that it's spot on to the other players and otherwise make the character act like a bad cockney chimney-sweep (but still competent in combat, because that would be punishing the players who did show up.)
2) If a player abandons a character because he's being fickle or doesn't think the character is interesting, I suggested to a friend making the character as an NPC and making them far more interesting than when the player was playing them.
3) One player that abandoned my game, I took his character and made him run away with the treasure from the dungeon while the other players were sleeping. His character was kind of a dick to begin with, so it was rather IC. I then gave the players the chance to kill said character in the climax of the story.
You have to be subtle, but it is definitely possible to have a little tongue-in-cheek fun at the expense of your poorly behaving players.
If your players refuse to "do their homework", I would suggest that you firstly, make interesting and personalised content for the players who did. It's the players job to create one interesting and fleshed out character for the setting, it's the DM's job to create a multitude. I have no sympathy for the player who can't be bothered to play more than a meatshield with magic items. Maybe have the NPCs fail to be able to remember them and imply that they just blend into the background. If they play the amnesia card, use that as a way to really throw any plot hook you want at them: they owe an unbelievable amount of money, or are a murderer, have a finacée or anything that causes trouble. That's not really a punishment, that's just compelling storytelling.
Absolutely, mess with your misbehaving players: it's half the fun of being a DM.
No offense but, as a DM, I wouldn't consider any of those things "fun."
If the player is constantly missing games, my question would be why? Are these unavoidable circumstances, such as a sick kid at home? If so, then I don't think it's fair to do mean things to the character. Or is the player skipping the game for fickle reasons? In this case, I'd have a talk with the player. Are you not enjoying the game? Would you rather just quit playing? Or is there something I can do to make it more fun for you? This kind of behavior happens for a reason -- and you won't get at that reason, or stop it from happening, by being, I'm sorry but I'm just going to say it, petty with the person's character.
If the player wants to stop playing the character, I would just allow it. I would definitely talk about why first, though. For example, maybe the person feels the character is "******" and that I won't let them do things that would "un-gimp" them, and is frustrated. Maybe the person thought this character would be fun but now doesn't think so. Why would that be? And how can we make sure you make the next character something that you will love playing? Here again, whether you as a DM can "make the character much more interesting" if you play it is rather beside the point. Just because you can have fun playing a character doesn't mean your player will. And remember, as a DM, you have like 25 other things to do, so what is making this character "boring" for the player won't hit you, since you aren't just playing that character.
Finally, if a player abandons the game, I would just take his character out of the situation. Or play it as an NPC until we reach a story position that I can remove it. I probably wouldn't kill it, because it is not my character; it's the player's. And again, I feel like that is just petty.
Again, doing things like having the amnesiac character actually be a murderer, or heavily in debt to some bad dudes or something... I don't see that as "compelling storytelling." Again it seems petty to me.
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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.
No offense but, as a DM, I wouldn't consider any of those things "fun."
If the player is constantly missing games, my question would be why? Are these unavoidable circumstances, such as a sick kid at home? If so, then I don't think it's fair to do mean things to the character. Or is the player skipping the game for fickle reasons? In this case, I'd have a talk with the player. Are you not enjoying the game? Would you rather just quit playing? Or is there something I can do to make it more fun for you? This kind of behavior happens for a reason -- and you won't get at that reason, or stop it from happening, by being, I'm sorry but I'm just going to say it, petty with the person's character.
If the player wants to stop playing the character, I would just allow it. I would definitely talk about why first, though. For example, maybe the person feels the character is "******" and that I won't let them do things that would "un-gimp" them, and is frustrated. Maybe the person thought this character would be fun but now doesn't think so. Why would that be? And how can we make sure you make the next character something that you will love playing? Here again, whether you as a DM can "make the character much more interesting" if you play it is rather beside the point. Just because you can have fun playing a character doesn't mean your player will. And remember, as a DM, you have like 25 other things to do, so what is making this character "boring" for the player won't hit you, since you aren't just playing that character.
Finally, if a player abandons the game, I would just take his character out of the situation. Or play it as an NPC until we reach a story position that I can remove it. I probably wouldn't kill it, because it is not my character; it's the player's. And again, I feel like that is just petty.
Again, doing things like having the amnesiac character actually be a murderer, or heavily in debt to some bad dudes or something... I don't see that as "compelling storytelling." Again it seems petty to me.
I agree with everything you said (as usual, wise one) except the part I underlined. To me, as both a player and a DM, that sounds like a fun, exciting adventure hook!!
No offense but, as a DM, I wouldn't consider any of those things "fun."
If the player is constantly missing games, my question would be why? Are these unavoidable circumstances, such as a sick kid at home? If so, then I don't think it's fair to do mean things to the character. Or is the player skipping the game for fickle reasons? In this case, I'd have a talk with the player. Are you not enjoying the game? Would you rather just quit playing? Or is there something I can do to make it more fun for you? This kind of behavior happens for a reason -- and you won't get at that reason, or stop it from happening, by being, I'm sorry but I'm just going to say it, petty with the person's character.
If the player wants to stop playing the character, I would just allow it. I would definitely talk about why first, though. For example, maybe the person feels the character is "******" and that I won't let them do things that would "un-gimp" them, and is frustrated. Maybe the person thought this character would be fun but now doesn't think so. Why would that be? And how can we make sure you make the next character something that you will love playing? Here again, whether you as a DM can "make the character much more interesting" if you play it is rather beside the point. Just because you can have fun playing a character doesn't mean your player will. And remember, as a DM, you have like 25 other things to do, so what is making this character "boring" for the player won't hit you, since you aren't just playing that character.
Finally, if a player abandons the game, I would just take his character out of the situation. Or play it as an NPC until we reach a story position that I can remove it. I probably wouldn't kill it, because it is not my character; it's the player's. And again, I feel like that is just petty.
Again, doing things like having the amnesiac character actually be a murderer, or heavily in debt to some bad dudes or something... I don't see that as "compelling storytelling." Again it seems petty to me.
Eh, I'm not a push-over. If someone doesn't respect the time I (and others) invest by doing some light work or showing up on time (or at all after we all agreed on a schedule), I'm not inclined to be all touchy-feely and bend over backwards to see things from their perspective. Clearly, they aren't being considerate to the DM or the other players because the truth is that we all have our issues and baggage and things we need to do. Obviously, there are good reasons to be absent or any of these things, but you have to also be clever and judicially minded enough to decide when people aren't being reasonable. If you think being a bit absurd is too much of a "punishment" to deal with disrespectful behaviour? I don't know what I can possibly say to that.
You seem to think a lot of things are petty. You even seem to think living well is the best revenge is petty. If only we were all as angelic as you. Alas. An amnesiac waking up covered in someone's blood is pretty standard fare for a story with an amnesiac. Actually, like 95% of those stories involve troubles from their past coming to bit them in the butt at the worst possible time. Actually, if you aren't having everyone's backstories bit them in the butt at worst possible time, then you're probably using their backstories wrong. That's been dramatic structure since like... at least ancient Greece.
PS. The guy who's character ended up being a villain who got killed loved how I handled his character. He thought it was incredibly appropriate.
No offense but, as a DM, I wouldn't consider any of those things "fun."
If the player is constantly missing games, my question would be why? Are these unavoidable circumstances, such as a sick kid at home? If so, then I don't think it's fair to do mean things to the character. Or is the player skipping the game for fickle reasons? In this case, I'd have a talk with the player. Are you not enjoying the game? Would you rather just quit playing? Or is there something I can do to make it more fun for you? This kind of behavior happens for a reason -- and you won't get at that reason, or stop it from happening, by being, I'm sorry but I'm just going to say it, petty with the person's character.
If the player wants to stop playing the character, I would just allow it. I would definitely talk about why first, though. For example, maybe the person feels the character is "******" and that I won't let them do things that would "un-gimp" them, and is frustrated. Maybe the person thought this character would be fun but now doesn't think so. Why would that be? And how can we make sure you make the next character something that you will love playing? Here again, whether you as a DM can "make the character much more interesting" if you play it is rather beside the point. Just because you can have fun playing a character doesn't mean your player will. And remember, as a DM, you have like 25 other things to do, so what is making this character "boring" for the player won't hit you, since you aren't just playing that character.
Finally, if a player abandons the game, I would just take his character out of the situation. Or play it as an NPC until we reach a story position that I can remove it. I probably wouldn't kill it, because it is not my character; it's the player's. And again, I feel like that is just petty.
Again, doing things like having the amnesiac character actually be a murderer, or heavily in debt to some bad dudes or something... I don't see that as "compelling storytelling." Again it seems petty to me.
I agree with everything you said (as usual, wise one) except the part I underlined. To me, as both a player and a DM, that sounds like a fun, exciting adventure hook!!
I'd welcome this as an opportunity to renounce the past, have a classic redeemed hero arc where the character "is not that person anymore" and tries to balance the scales of their past crimes, make reparations while constantly wondering if it's ever going to be enough to wash away the blood on their hands ;-)
You shouldn't. Some characters don't work with/don't need backstories. A backstory could ruin a character more than you ever can (DON'T DO IT) like the Joker. A backstory could even come through in game after the fact. I hope your players find a better GM.
Kind of on topic, but I am running a character in a session and HE has started to so things, I didn't intend him to, and have beliefs I didn't want. Personally, I prefer someone who sets a personality for their character and PLAYS it, to a good backstory. Point form:
-Grew up in Waterdeep --Son of a Cooper ---Joined army at 16
That's about enough backstory for me to work with. I want the personality, and on the session I am running for the kids, my daughter has gotten a couple inspirations for exceptional RPing (albeit almost caused a TPK once) To have a player (who KNOWS better) do something truly stupid, simply because their character WOULD do that, IMO is gold medal playing. I try to allow my characters to follow their path, instead of what I would do. This is kind of why my Monk is running off on me. I have reached a point of simply playing him and enjoying the ride, even if his frank nature has cost us some relationships in game lol. There is a merchant who has barred us from his store because I told him he was as greedy as a rheumatic dragon.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Kind of on topic, but I am running a character in a session and HE has started to so things, I didn't intend him to, and have beliefs I didn't want. Personally, I prefer someone who sets a personality for their character and PLAYS it, to a good backstory. Point form:
-Grew up in Waterdeep --Son of a Cooper ---Joined army at 16
That's about enough backstory for me to work with. I want the personality, and on the session I am running for the kids, my daughter has gotten a couple inspirations for exceptional RPing (albeit almost caused a TPK once) To have a player (who KNOWS better) do something truly stupid, simply because their character WOULD do that, IMO is gold medal playing. I try to allow my characters to follow their path, instead of what I would do. This is kind of why my Monk is running off on me. I have reached a point of simply playing him and enjoying the ride, even if his frank nature has cost us some relationships in game lol. There is a merchant who has barred us from his store because I told him he was as greedy as a rheumatic dragon.
Honestly misunderstood the beginning of this but after the second paragraph I understood you were talking about a character YOU play saying things you don't like and yeah I get that and agree.
I play in a Monster of the Week game and made a character I jokingly said "Was me if I actually worked in my degree and was ten years older." But slowly he's started to be interested in things and do things I personally would never do (He works as a monster collector for a group of researchers and doing research and dissection's on a living monster seems to get him excited) but I didn't come up with that until like 4 session of play, it just came out of the moment and I LOVE it, but personally would never be as sadistic as his is.
On the side of topic, for a group I DM one of the players backstory is their background - they are a failed merchant - and honestly that is all I need to know about their character and that is all they need to know too. While others of my players have much more in-depth backstories that after playing for half a year I am still working out the things that actually occurred so that things in the world can happen with it. So as a DM I get two completely different options of what do to that those players have impacted; 1 is have them deal deal with their past (player 2) and the other is 2) move forward and find adventure (player 1)
I don't know about punishment, but you can defiantly mess with them a little. Mention in passing that they know the way around this area because they're actually pretty close to the player's hometown. If they walk into a town in that area, surprise! The tavern they walked into is owned by that player's parents. It's a fun way to confuse the role-player a bit, but it won't cause any damage and you can make entire quests around it. Maybe they owe money to some form of mob/mafia, and the adventurers need to raise the money or bring down that group.
Maybe I am being overly harsh but if a player isn't willing to give me a paragraph concerning their character's past life/experiences then they wouldn't play at my table. If I am going to invest hours upon hours of prep work and they can't be bothered to write for 5 min or so they aren't going to add anything to the game. Everyone should be invested in the game at the table its not solely the DM's responsibility to develop the story.
That being said have them start with their background and have them roll on each table. Then have them write a backstory as an adlib kinda thing that fits each rolled outcome. Allow them to use some zany/funny backstories along with more serious ones.
having a background or not is NOT an indication whether a player is invested or not.
As I stated prior the entire table develops the story so if someone refuses to write a simple paragraph, why wouldn't someone assume they are not invested?
One could easily say your table, or your rule over the table, is too quick to mire itself in backstory when the point of the game is to bring a story forth.
While there are research methods to some actor's performance, most of that research is not so much into the character's biography but the characters work or discipline. Many actors will come to understand their character's past by performing the character's present.
A DM insisting on background being delivered is being a poor analog to a dramatic director. For the few who insist on such homework exercises (hint, presume not everyone writes as well as you at a given table) read An Actor Prepares, Creating a Role, and Building a Character. If the professionals who give life to fictional beings don't do it via the homework essay, cut your players some slack and maybe the table will actually share in creating something rather than formulae.
I'm not trying to call out you in particular, 1stsonofkrynn, but since there's a wing of D&D celebrity driven by people with professional training in creative fields, I think a lot of players and DMs are extrapolating how-tos with little understanding of the "meta" behind the arts of fiction, drama, and story.
In my game I have an NPC named Ford Subaru, Gnome Illusionist with some dips in Rogue. Whenever a "high concept" PC tries to not so much find their footing in the game world but rather tries to force their narrative arc into it, they usually come across Ford, who has this uncanny knack of looking at a PC leaving the feeling they're being read like they were numbers and notes on a piece of paper.
Backstories can be built backward as a character moves forward. Something as simple as sometime around fifth level the characters arrive at the walls of the city, Sorcerer, this is your home. Let's have a look around. Most serial fiction is developed this way, retroactively or fleshed out as the story goes further, than this show up with your biography pre written method. Characters before they get lives in fictions and dramas tend to start with simple "Character is a adjective noun who verbs adverb" type descriptors.
If you don't want to dip into the Stanislavski texts I mentioned, watch the old Twilight Zone episode where Shakespeare shows up and has to contend with a method actor trained Burt Reynolds (it's a great episode). Six Characters In Search of An Author shows how what you want, doesn't work.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My current group is an interesting mix. One guy, starved for D&D just like I was, gave me a 10 page backstory with narration and dialogues. His wife, not to be outdone (she is very self conscious and this is her first time playing so she wanted to "do well" despite my assurances that she doesn't need to match hist backstory), wrote a similar one. The third player wrote a 2 page backstory that contained every information about her I wanted but not much beside that. She routinely writes 50k+ word worth of stories at least once a year (regularly participates in National Novel Writing Month) and she told me that she doesn't need to "flex" with her backstory.
One guy wrote a nice short story about his character that didn't include a single piece of information about his character. He was in the same bandwagon as my other player who didn't know how to approach writing a backstory. So basically I told them that I don't want them to write elaborate narratives - I want them to answer 4 types of questions:
1. Who raised you? Parents? Guardians? Do you have siblings or a friend?
2. Who taught you your trade? Self-taught or mentor?
3. What do you do on a typical day? Do you have a hobby?
4. What was your reason for leaving home? Did you run away from an overwhleming foe? Death of relatives? Strive for self advancement? Wanderlust? Encouraged by mentor?
Answering each of those questions in two or three sentences gave me enough of a backstory hooks to give them introductions and start a campaign.
I also left the option of amnesia on the table. I told each and every one of them that if they simply want to say that one day they woke up on a battlefield surrounded by corpses or dug themselves out of a shallow grave and leave the backstory to me then no problem - with the stipulation that they relinquish control of what kind of person they were before they woke up.
If they claim amnesia, have it come up - amnesia is a backstory, just a lazy one, so have people recognize them, try to talk to them. If they are a swashbuckling rogue then there's every chance they have enemies they've forgotten - or, you could discuss with them the possibilities of them creating a backstory which can be incorporated into a quest, like it turns out that they slept with the favourite daughter of the local mob boss, whilst cheating on the son of another, and so have 2 families after them and no idea why. Work with them to establish the basics of their character, and then create an interesting story to catch up with them for a session or two.
I haven’t played in the Forgotten Realms since AD&D2e. I just recently joined a campaign in Waterdeep. I still managed to come up with 600 words (half a page, 4 paragraphs) of backstory. Nothing major, generic stuff. His dad is the clan chief, he has too many older brothers to ever advance without killing them, he went off on his own and got recruited to become a mercenary, when the company captain died there was unrest so he’s taking a break. On his way home to some undisclosed location (because I have no idea about the Forgotten Realms) he stopped in Waterdeep for a few drinks and a night at the inn. That’s all it takes. Sure I fleshed it out a bit, but nothing too detailed.
A backstory is just to give the player and the DM a sense of the character’s motivations. It doesn’t have to be long or detailed, maybe just a few sentences. I welcome a 3-line backstory as much as a 3-page one (my personal preference is a 1/2 page, but whatevs). It could be “just the facts,” or it could be fleshed out with narrative and dialogue and everything. The whole point is to shed some light on the answer to a single question: “Why?”
Happy, well-adjusted people don’t normally risk life and limb for money, or fame and glory. So why has that character? Were they a “happy, well-adjusted” person, or do they have some tragedy that pushed them to this life? Are they motivated by greed, revenge, ambition, boredom, poverty, nihilism, loyalty, coercion, self destructive impulses, conditioning, slavery, are they acting under orders? “Throw me a frickin’ bone here people.” Gimme nothin’ and I got a hard time giving your character a personal motivation to be doing what I have curated for the campaign. By the same token, if the player is good with that, then as long as they’re happy, I’m happy.
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Maybe I am being overly harsh but if a player isn't willing to give me a paragraph concerning their character's past life/experiences then they wouldn't play at my table. If I am going to invest hours upon hours of prep work and they can't be bothered to write for 5 min or so they aren't going to add anything to the game. Everyone should be invested in the game at the table its not solely the DM's responsibility to develop the story.
That being said have them start with their background and have them roll on each table. Then have them write a backstory as an adlib kinda thing that fits each rolled outcome. Allow them to use some zany/funny backstories along with more serious ones.
having a background or not is NOT an indication whether a player is invested or not.
As I stated prior the entire table develops the story so if someone refuses to write a simple paragraph, why wouldn't someone assume they are not invested?
because assumptions are most often incorrect and wrong. that is why they are assumptions. it often says more about the person making the assumption then the one they make assumptions about.
That's true, just means they have yet to find their characters personality
This is completely false. I've played with lots of players with bold, unique, fleshed-out characters with zero backstory...and lots of players with pages of backstory who don't roleplay at all. In fact, massive backstories are generally bigger red flags in my experience because many people treat them as a substitute for personality.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I think that is a little harsh.
It's not necessarily true that it takes people "5 minutes" to write a background. Some folks are very slow writers. Others are very fast. For some it comes easily. Others stare at the blank page with the blinking cursor for an hour and come up with nothing. New players may have no idea how to write a background for an RPG, having never done it before.
As the DM, it is our job to facilitate the play at the table... for everyone. That means that if we have a player who is struggling with the background, our job is to help that player out. Now you actually have a good hint there... The player has had to pick a BG from the ones available in the various sourcebooks. That's a start. They've presumably picked, or, if they have no ideas, rolled, on the various flaw, etc., tables within that background. We can start from there... Maybe write just 1 sentence about each bond, ideal, flaw, and then write who your parents are and what city you're from. That's what maybe 6 sentences? That's enough to get started with and hopefully having most of it already set out by the books will help the player get it done.
I'm getting ready to start "online DMing" with a group of friends (and a couple of friends of those friends) and I absolutely will want a background from everyone. But I'm not going to ask for pages and pages. A paragraph or two is enough. Just who are you, where did you come from, and why are you going out on adventures? Enough that I can use the info. to get you into the first couple of storylines. From there the party should be able to pick up the ball and run with it. And, players should not be afraid to invent background details on the fly, either... and I will be giving them some help with that too.
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.
It's alright to punish players. I was talking about GM revenge today with a friend of mine:
Examples of GM Revenge:
1) If a player is constantly missing games, I might play his character with an NPC with a ridiculous accent and claim that it's spot on to the other players and otherwise make the character act like a bad cockney chimney-sweep (but still competent in combat, because that would be punishing the players who did show up.)
2) If a player abandons a character because he's being fickle or doesn't think the character is interesting, I suggested to a friend making the character as an NPC and making them far more interesting than when the player was playing them.
3) One player that abandoned my game, I took his character and made him run away with the treasure from the dungeon while the other players were sleeping. His character was kind of a dick to begin with, so it was rather IC. I then gave the players the chance to kill said character in the climax of the story.
You have to be subtle, but it is definitely possible to have a little tongue-in-cheek fun at the expense of your poorly behaving players.
If your players refuse to "do their homework", I would suggest that you firstly, make interesting and personalised content for the players who did. It's the players job to create one interesting and fleshed out character for the setting, it's the DM's job to create a multitude. I have no sympathy for the player who can't be bothered to play more than a meatshield with magic items. Maybe have the NPCs fail to be able to remember them and imply that they just blend into the background. If they play the amnesia card, use that as a way to really throw any plot hook you want at them: they owe an unbelievable amount of money, or are a murderer, have a finacée or anything that causes trouble. That's not really a punishment, that's just compelling storytelling.
Absolutely, mess with your misbehaving players: it's half the fun of being a DM.
No offense but, as a DM, I wouldn't consider any of those things "fun."
If the player is constantly missing games, my question would be why? Are these unavoidable circumstances, such as a sick kid at home? If so, then I don't think it's fair to do mean things to the character. Or is the player skipping the game for fickle reasons? In this case, I'd have a talk with the player. Are you not enjoying the game? Would you rather just quit playing? Or is there something I can do to make it more fun for you? This kind of behavior happens for a reason -- and you won't get at that reason, or stop it from happening, by being, I'm sorry but I'm just going to say it, petty with the person's character.
If the player wants to stop playing the character, I would just allow it. I would definitely talk about why first, though. For example, maybe the person feels the character is "******" and that I won't let them do things that would "un-gimp" them, and is frustrated. Maybe the person thought this character would be fun but now doesn't think so. Why would that be? And how can we make sure you make the next character something that you will love playing? Here again, whether you as a DM can "make the character much more interesting" if you play it is rather beside the point. Just because you can have fun playing a character doesn't mean your player will. And remember, as a DM, you have like 25 other things to do, so what is making this character "boring" for the player won't hit you, since you aren't just playing that character.
Finally, if a player abandons the game, I would just take his character out of the situation. Or play it as an NPC until we reach a story position that I can remove it. I probably wouldn't kill it, because it is not my character; it's the player's. And again, I feel like that is just petty.
Again, doing things like having the amnesiac character actually be a murderer, or heavily in debt to some bad dudes or something... I don't see that as "compelling storytelling." Again it seems petty to me.
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I agree with everything you said (as usual, wise one) except the part I underlined. To me, as both a player and a DM, that sounds like a fun, exciting adventure hook!!
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Eh, I'm not a push-over. If someone doesn't respect the time I (and others) invest by doing some light work or showing up on time (or at all after we all agreed on a schedule), I'm not inclined to be all touchy-feely and bend over backwards to see things from their perspective. Clearly, they aren't being considerate to the DM or the other players because the truth is that we all have our issues and baggage and things we need to do. Obviously, there are good reasons to be absent or any of these things, but you have to also be clever and judicially minded enough to decide when people aren't being reasonable. If you think being a bit absurd is too much of a "punishment" to deal with disrespectful behaviour? I don't know what I can possibly say to that.
You seem to think a lot of things are petty. You even seem to think living well is the best revenge is petty. If only we were all as angelic as you. Alas. An amnesiac waking up covered in someone's blood is pretty standard fare for a story with an amnesiac. Actually, like 95% of those stories involve troubles from their past coming to bit them in the butt at the worst possible time. Actually, if you aren't having everyone's backstories bit them in the butt at worst possible time, then you're probably using their backstories wrong. That's been dramatic structure since like... at least ancient Greece.
PS. The guy who's character ended up being a villain who got killed loved how I handled his character. He thought it was incredibly appropriate.
I'd welcome this as an opportunity to renounce the past, have a classic redeemed hero arc where the character "is not that person anymore" and tries to balance the scales of their past crimes, make reparations while constantly wondering if it's ever going to be enough to wash away the blood on their hands ;-)
You shouldn't. Some characters don't work with/don't need backstories. A backstory could ruin a character more than you ever can (DON'T DO IT) like the Joker. A backstory could even come through in game after the fact. I hope your players find a better GM.
Kind of on topic, but I am running a character in a session and HE has started to so things, I didn't intend him to, and have beliefs I didn't want. Personally, I prefer someone who sets a personality for their character and PLAYS it, to a good backstory. Point form:
-Grew up in Waterdeep --Son of a Cooper ---Joined army at 16
That's about enough backstory for me to work with. I want the personality, and on the session I am running for the kids, my daughter has gotten a couple inspirations for exceptional RPing (albeit almost caused a TPK once) To have a player (who KNOWS better) do something truly stupid, simply because their character WOULD do that, IMO is gold medal playing. I try to allow my characters to follow their path, instead of what I would do. This is kind of why my Monk is running off on me. I have reached a point of simply playing him and enjoying the ride, even if his frank nature has cost us some relationships in game lol. There is a merchant who has barred us from his store because I told him he was as greedy as a rheumatic dragon.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Honestly misunderstood the beginning of this but after the second paragraph I understood you were talking about a character YOU play saying things you don't like and yeah I get that and agree.
I play in a Monster of the Week game and made a character I jokingly said "Was me if I actually worked in my degree and was ten years older." But slowly he's started to be interested in things and do things I personally would never do (He works as a monster collector for a group of researchers and doing research and dissection's on a living monster seems to get him excited) but I didn't come up with that until like 4 session of play, it just came out of the moment and I LOVE it, but personally would never be as sadistic as his is.
On the side of topic, for a group I DM one of the players backstory is their background - they are a failed merchant - and honestly that is all I need to know about their character and that is all they need to know too. While others of my players have much more in-depth backstories that after playing for half a year I am still working out the things that actually occurred so that things in the world can happen with it. So as a DM I get two completely different options of what do to that those players have impacted; 1 is have them deal deal with their past (player 2) and the other is 2) move forward and find adventure (player 1)
I don't know about punishment, but you can defiantly mess with them a little. Mention in passing that they know the way around this area because they're actually pretty close to the player's hometown. If they walk into a town in that area, surprise! The tavern they walked into is owned by that player's parents. It's a fun way to confuse the role-player a bit, but it won't cause any damage and you can make entire quests around it. Maybe they owe money to some form of mob/mafia, and the adventurers need to raise the money or bring down that group.
One could easily say your table, or your rule over the table, is too quick to mire itself in backstory when the point of the game is to bring a story forth.
While there are research methods to some actor's performance, most of that research is not so much into the character's biography but the characters work or discipline. Many actors will come to understand their character's past by performing the character's present.
A DM insisting on background being delivered is being a poor analog to a dramatic director. For the few who insist on such homework exercises (hint, presume not everyone writes as well as you at a given table) read An Actor Prepares, Creating a Role, and Building a Character. If the professionals who give life to fictional beings don't do it via the homework essay, cut your players some slack and maybe the table will actually share in creating something rather than formulae.
I'm not trying to call out you in particular, 1stsonofkrynn, but since there's a wing of D&D celebrity driven by people with professional training in creative fields, I think a lot of players and DMs are extrapolating how-tos with little understanding of the "meta" behind the arts of fiction, drama, and story.
In my game I have an NPC named Ford Subaru, Gnome Illusionist with some dips in Rogue. Whenever a "high concept" PC tries to not so much find their footing in the game world but rather tries to force their narrative arc into it, they usually come across Ford, who has this uncanny knack of looking at a PC leaving the feeling they're being read like they were numbers and notes on a piece of paper.
Backstories can be built backward as a character moves forward. Something as simple as sometime around fifth level the characters arrive at the walls of the city, Sorcerer, this is your home. Let's have a look around. Most serial fiction is developed this way, retroactively or fleshed out as the story goes further, than this show up with your biography pre written method. Characters before they get lives in fictions and dramas tend to start with simple "Character is a adjective noun who verbs adverb" type descriptors.
If you don't want to dip into the Stanislavski texts I mentioned, watch the old Twilight Zone episode where Shakespeare shows up and has to contend with a method actor trained Burt Reynolds (it's a great episode). Six Characters In Search of An Author shows how what you want, doesn't work.
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My current group is an interesting mix. One guy, starved for D&D just like I was, gave me a 10 page backstory with narration and dialogues. His wife, not to be outdone (she is very self conscious and this is her first time playing so she wanted to "do well" despite my assurances that she doesn't need to match hist backstory), wrote a similar one. The third player wrote a 2 page backstory that contained every information about her I wanted but not much beside that. She routinely writes 50k+ word worth of stories at least once a year (regularly participates in National Novel Writing Month) and she told me that she doesn't need to "flex" with her backstory.
One guy wrote a nice short story about his character that didn't include a single piece of information about his character. He was in the same bandwagon as my other player who didn't know how to approach writing a backstory. So basically I told them that I don't want them to write elaborate narratives - I want them to answer 4 types of questions:
1. Who raised you? Parents? Guardians? Do you have siblings or a friend?
2. Who taught you your trade? Self-taught or mentor?
3. What do you do on a typical day? Do you have a hobby?
4. What was your reason for leaving home? Did you run away from an overwhleming foe? Death of relatives? Strive for self advancement? Wanderlust? Encouraged by mentor?
Answering each of those questions in two or three sentences gave me enough of a backstory hooks to give them introductions and start a campaign.
I also left the option of amnesia on the table. I told each and every one of them that if they simply want to say that one day they woke up on a battlefield surrounded by corpses or dug themselves out of a shallow grave and leave the backstory to me then no problem - with the stipulation that they relinquish control of what kind of person they were before they woke up.
If they claim amnesia, have it come up - amnesia is a backstory, just a lazy one, so have people recognize them, try to talk to them. If they are a swashbuckling rogue then there's every chance they have enemies they've forgotten - or, you could discuss with them the possibilities of them creating a backstory which can be incorporated into a quest, like it turns out that they slept with the favourite daughter of the local mob boss, whilst cheating on the son of another, and so have 2 families after them and no idea why. Work with them to establish the basics of their character, and then create an interesting story to catch up with them for a session or two.
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