LostSoul said:
I see your point. But you need to tell the player that he doesn't always have to follow the DM's plots if he's not interested in them. There's a limit to that sort of thing. Give the DM some slack to see where it's going, sure. Always following his plots, no.
...snip....
And sometimes the best advice is "Quit".
No disagreement here. I think the next quote hits on our difference in expectations.
LostSoul said:
How about this: "I was a farmer. Today I went home and saw my wife being taken by orcs!"
DM: "Okay, you're going to hunt rats in the sewers."
Player: "That's lame, but if I don't follow his plot like this book says, I'll be doing something wrong."
I'd say that it's the player's job to start the story. That's what his background is for.
I think we're getting closer to the crux of the matter (and it's a good idea for a section of the book, creating backgrounds and what to expect out of them). Basicallly, LostSoul has a different expectation of what a background contains and is for than I do (and perhaps at least 3 other people agree with me).
I don't expect a background to contain an immediate plothook. There should be nothing in it that says the PC's next thing to do is XYZ. For example, LostSoul's background of "I was a farmer. Today I went home and saw my wife being taken by orcs!" would be vetoed by me. I don't want PCs providing me with anything immediate. I want background to consist of references. Such as, who trained you, how did you get your skills/class ability? Describe your family. What are your interests? What's a long term goal? I also tend to limit the kinds of pre-game events you can describe, basically nothing too specific or recent that would drastically set anything up. I want backgrounds I can ignore or use, at MY discretion. Some backgrounds will hint at great plot ideas to use, some won't. I don't want any backgrounds that implicitly force me to do stuff (that's kinda like reverse direction railroading, and I think that may be a key factor on what DM's don't want in backgrounds).
Now, LostSoul, if you built a background for your PC to my method, can you see how my statement "Another way to look at adventures is this: The DM's job is to START the story, provide a few hooks to an interesting adventure." would make sense? I don't expect a player to provide me with an immediate plothook. The reason is that some players get too ambitious in their backgrounds, putting in things that don't fit or aren't appropriate. A 1st level PC has no business hunting down an Ogre magi. Additionally, what if that immediate goal (which is rather short term) has to compete with a whole party's worth of individual immediate goals.
There are exceptions, some players have some pretty good ideas for stuff that will jump start the campaign. But I absolutely don't want a player dictating exactly what and how my campaign will start.
As someone else pointed out, the backstory of "A bad guy killed my wife, I shall hunt him down and kill him" is rather limited. How exactly do I hook in the other players? I want a more open background, so I can encourage the party to team up and pursue a series of short term and long term goals together (as well as personal ones on the side). Generally, most players don't do good backgrounds and planning to make a party that will logically be able to meet up and work together on something.
Ultimately, this is why the archetype story for D&D is meet in a bar, get a map, goto dungeon, kill stuff, take their stuff, go home, do it again next week. In order to tell that style of story, I need player backgrounds that would ENCOURAGE that kind of behavior.
Now, as the game progresses past a few sessions, my style shifts to bring in more NPCs and incorporate elements of PC's past (both pre-campaign, and post 1st adventure), as well as to have more complex topics like "an ogre magi killed my wife while we were out in the dungeon, will you guys who have adventured with me for so long, aid me in my quest for vengeance." Ultimately, I think my version of getting to the "ogre magi killed my wife" storyline is better AFTER the campaign has been running, than it is for a 1st level PC to try to get a bunch of nobody's together to help him.
Now, for my PC I just built, I had a fairly basic plan:
Backgroun for 1st level halfling rogue under a new DM
a few years ago, came from halfling community that had been overrun by orcs and such (couldn't name the place because the DM hadn't built all the world)
His goal:
do some adventuring
get money
collect weapons and armor from dead monsters
get bag of holding
buy shop stall and sell used weapons and armor (cutting out middle man of normal weapons shop), increasing profit margin
develop good reputation in community
get involved in local government (election?)
Build a stable and nice home
That goal doesn't imply anything HAS to happen, merely that the halfling will try to follow the plan. Initially, he has immediate hooks into being willing to follow any plot hook that leads to money and getting loot. It calls for an event that happened in his past that isn't too dramatic and doesn't really change anything (halfling villages get overrun all the time...). In this example, I didn't even come up with any names or such. I may do so later, but for the first adventure, the DM had enough to go on, and could count on me to tackle the most common plot hooks. That helps, because it gives the DM experience, so he can write more complex adventures later (which my background implies he is interested in).
Janx