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Need advice: creating PC's within the context of a unfamiliar setting.
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<blockquote data-quote="magnusmalkus" data-source="post: 6985587" data-attributes="member: 34915"><p>I don't have players yet, and I don't know who they will be, but I'm on the verge of starting up a home-brew D&D campaign setting I've developed. But I have a dilemma:</p><p></p><p><strong>How do you get your players to create characters within the context of the setting when it's a Home-Brew?</strong> </p><p></p><p>The players have Zero Knowledge about the world and it's conflicts or the factions on any side.</p><p></p><p>It's unrealistic to spell it all out at Session Zero; and few players have interest in reading a synopsis beyond a few paragraphs in length. (But it had better be packed full of hooks!) You can't expect players to absorb gallons of setting information at the start. </p><p></p><p>In the end, I want them to have backgrounds and personality and goals and motives that make sense within the context of the setting, but they simply do not have enough info <em>at the start </em>to be getting on with. Once a few game sessions passes and I've had time to give exposition to the setting (Showing, as opposed to simply Telling), THEN maybe they'd be better prepared to created something truly 'hooked in'.</p><p></p><p><strong>What other advice could you give DM's and players putting together characters for a home-brew, going in with only a drop of knowledge at Session Zero?</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p>The only answer I can imagine is to ask the perspective players to drop all character preconceptions before coming to the table. They'd have to draw up fairly generic PC's attached to the campaign with bare threads provided by the DM until the player finds something 'in-game' that interests them. But, is that very exciting? If I were a player, I'm not sure I'd like to be given my tie to the campaign world until I found something to hook onto on my own. </p><p></p><p>Is that my only option? As a DM bringing my pre-fabricated campaign, I realize I have a responsibility to be flexible, but I'd rather not have to flex the boundaries defined by my created work much. And in the end, aren't I permitted, as DM, to determine said boundaries?</p><p></p><p>For example: In the past, I've had players who wanted to bring in concepts like 'Witch Hunter' or 'miniature giant from a faraway land' or 'slime cultist worshiping an entity from the Xth Dimension'. Really far-out stuff that'd I'd have to stretch my setting and create whole new swaths of factions and opponents totally unrelated to my predominant theme. They all felt like square pegs hammered into square hole. I would like to avoid this, this time around.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="magnusmalkus, post: 6985587, member: 34915"] I don't have players yet, and I don't know who they will be, but I'm on the verge of starting up a home-brew D&D campaign setting I've developed. But I have a dilemma: [B]How do you get your players to create characters within the context of the setting when it's a Home-Brew?[/B] The players have Zero Knowledge about the world and it's conflicts or the factions on any side. It's unrealistic to spell it all out at Session Zero; and few players have interest in reading a synopsis beyond a few paragraphs in length. (But it had better be packed full of hooks!) You can't expect players to absorb gallons of setting information at the start. In the end, I want them to have backgrounds and personality and goals and motives that make sense within the context of the setting, but they simply do not have enough info [I]at the start [/I]to be getting on with. Once a few game sessions passes and I've had time to give exposition to the setting (Showing, as opposed to simply Telling), THEN maybe they'd be better prepared to created something truly 'hooked in'. [B]What other advice could you give DM's and players putting together characters for a home-brew, going in with only a drop of knowledge at Session Zero? [/B] The only answer I can imagine is to ask the perspective players to drop all character preconceptions before coming to the table. They'd have to draw up fairly generic PC's attached to the campaign with bare threads provided by the DM until the player finds something 'in-game' that interests them. But, is that very exciting? If I were a player, I'm not sure I'd like to be given my tie to the campaign world until I found something to hook onto on my own. Is that my only option? As a DM bringing my pre-fabricated campaign, I realize I have a responsibility to be flexible, but I'd rather not have to flex the boundaries defined by my created work much. And in the end, aren't I permitted, as DM, to determine said boundaries? For example: In the past, I've had players who wanted to bring in concepts like 'Witch Hunter' or 'miniature giant from a faraway land' or 'slime cultist worshiping an entity from the Xth Dimension'. Really far-out stuff that'd I'd have to stretch my setting and create whole new swaths of factions and opponents totally unrelated to my predominant theme. They all felt like square pegs hammered into square hole. I would like to avoid this, this time around. [/QUOTE]
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