A place to post my thoughts on 4e and gaming in general.
Something to Live For
Posted 18th May 2009 at 04:57 PM by FireLance
Giving a character a personal goal is one way to make him seem as if he is more than just a game piece or a collection of statistics and powers.
So, to give the players an incentive to set personal goals for their characters, a character who is actively working towards a personal goal gets a +1 bonus on death saves since it strengthens his will to live.
A character's personal goal should be something quite different from the party's overall campaign goal (if there is one). A character is considered to be actively working towards his goal if he has done (or at least attempted) something that would help him achieve his goal (directly or indirectly) since he gained his previous level. A 1st-level character only needs to declare a goal (what he has previously done to achieve his goal can be made part of his backstory), but a 2nd-level character must have made some attempt to work towards his goal since he was a 1st-level character.
Depending on the needs of his campaign, a DM can take advantage of a character's personal goal to hook him into an adventure (i.e. going on a specific adventure counts as actively working towards his goal), use in-game events that help the character achieve his goal as another type of reward, or require the player to think of ways to achieve his character's goal as an additional challenge.
So, to give the players an incentive to set personal goals for their characters, a character who is actively working towards a personal goal gets a +1 bonus on death saves since it strengthens his will to live.
A character's personal goal should be something quite different from the party's overall campaign goal (if there is one). A character is considered to be actively working towards his goal if he has done (or at least attempted) something that would help him achieve his goal (directly or indirectly) since he gained his previous level. A 1st-level character only needs to declare a goal (what he has previously done to achieve his goal can be made part of his backstory), but a 2nd-level character must have made some attempt to work towards his goal since he was a 1st-level character.
Depending on the needs of his campaign, a DM can take advantage of a character's personal goal to hook him into an adventure (i.e. going on a specific adventure counts as actively working towards his goal), use in-game events that help the character achieve his goal as another type of reward, or require the player to think of ways to achieve his character's goal as an additional challenge.
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