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better gaming through chemistry
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<blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2698278" data-attributes="member: 26473"><p>I wanted to highlight this post for two reasons: (1) I agree with both points, and (2) I want to clue you all in on the fact that <strong>Barak</strong> is an excellent player who knows how to create a good background, IMHO.</p><p></p><p><strong>Barak</strong> is a player in a d20 <em>Modern</em> game that I'm GMing, a military adventure campaign. Knowing that his character would be fighting in an environment where just about everyone carries rifles, machine guns, or grenades, he chose to create a character with above average brawling skills, a former boxer dodging some bad choices that put him on the wrong side of the law.</p><p></p><p><strong>Barak</strong> didn't expect me to change the engagements (encounters) specifically so that his character could show off his right hook - in fact, he said that he knew his character wasn't optimized for the kind of combat most prevalent in our game, but that it made the most sense for the character to have those skills and feats. He also said that perhaps the character could find time off-duty to do a little amateur boxing - at the outset of the game I encouraged the players to consider ways in which their characters would spend their leave time and suggested that we could create opportunities to roleplay these activities.</p><p></p><p>Without knowing it at the time he created the character, <strong>Barak</strong>'s character background played directly into a number of encounters that I planned for the game, and I was able to use material from his character backstory to expand on those encounters. Note that I didn't create these encounters with <strong>Barak</strong>'s character in mind - rather the background was specific enough to understand the character's motivations while general enough that I could then tie it into encounters already planned.</p><p></p><p>This to me is how a good character background influences both character creation and campaign development: mechanics are a function of character concept, and background is used to tie the character to the game-world, not as a source of encounters or plot hooks directed at that character.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Shaman, post: 2698278, member: 26473"] I wanted to highlight this post for two reasons: (1) I agree with both points, and (2) I want to clue you all in on the fact that [b]Barak[/b] is an excellent player who knows how to create a good background, IMHO. [b]Barak[/b] is a player in a d20 [i]Modern[/i] game that I'm GMing, a military adventure campaign. Knowing that his character would be fighting in an environment where just about everyone carries rifles, machine guns, or grenades, he chose to create a character with above average brawling skills, a former boxer dodging some bad choices that put him on the wrong side of the law. [b]Barak[/b] didn't expect me to change the engagements (encounters) specifically so that his character could show off his right hook - in fact, he said that he knew his character wasn't optimized for the kind of combat most prevalent in our game, but that it made the most sense for the character to have those skills and feats. He also said that perhaps the character could find time off-duty to do a little amateur boxing - at the outset of the game I encouraged the players to consider ways in which their characters would spend their leave time and suggested that we could create opportunities to roleplay these activities. Without knowing it at the time he created the character, [b]Barak[/b]'s character background played directly into a number of encounters that I planned for the game, and I was able to use material from his character backstory to expand on those encounters. Note that I didn't create these encounters with [b]Barak[/b]'s character in mind - rather the background was specific enough to understand the character's motivations while general enough that I could then tie it into encounters already planned. This to me is how a good character background influences both character creation and campaign development: mechanics are a function of character concept, and background is used to tie the character to the game-world, not as a source of encounters or plot hooks directed at that character. [/QUOTE]
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