Compelling Storytelling

[Imaculata]

With the character I'm currently playing, I specifically left my parents in the backstory, for the DM to use. It's a bit of a cliche that PC's are always orphans, which I wanted to avoid.

 

[Lylandra]

Family members can be tricky. They can make excellent opportunities to roleplay for the players. But ... if every adventure turns into "Save Bob's Mother and Father ... again" then the players may begin to resent Bob. Or the Players will turn all of the future PCs into misanthropic orphans to cut off such an avenue of attack. On the other side of the coin, if the villains DON'T go after Bob's dad, then they're purposely avoiding an easy method attack.

So, yea, family members can be tricky.

Oh yes... it also depends on your players. Some players just don't like having their loved ones in constant danger. Other players like the tension, especially because it offers the character a special reason to fight the bad buys.

For me, as a DM, I try to use the balance I'd enjoy as a player. In my current campaign, I had the father of one of my PCs kidnapped. Not because he was the father of that nasty little gang who ruined the bad guy's plans, but because he was an opposing leader in a war. I also had a courtier/diplomat (who had spend one night with one of my PCs) thrown into prison and threatened with torture because the bad guys knew she was associated with the PCs and they wanted to 1) send a message and 2) set up a trap should they try to rescue her. I guess two occasions over the course of 6 full adventures are not too much.