DM "adding" to your PC's background?

[TheAuldGrump]

Let's see Mr. DM, sir...
Is that your name filled in next to the word: Player?
No?
Then anything you do with my character's background had damned well better be with my permission, or I will be calling someone else 'Mr. DM, sir'.
Capiche?

I don't do it to my players, and I won't put up with it as a player.

The Auld Grump

 

[NewJeffCT]

I think if a player writes up a background that includes a "bitter & angry" family member that the PC abandoned a decade earlier, it's fair game for a DM to use that family member as a potential opponent. (Happened in a game of mine, and the family member became a memorable nemesis for a few sessions...)

However, I would think it crosses the line if every player's family is a hostage or threatened or killed by the bad guys. While I think a ruthless BBEG would go out of his or her way to exploit a potential weakness in their PC nemeses (i.e., kidnap or threaten the PC's mom, dad, sister, grandma, etc, instead of directly confronting the PCs), I do think there should be a limit to how often a DM goes to the well on that sort of thing.

What is the limit is hard to say - some groups might love rescuing their sister from slavers and then turning around to have another PC's family member in a village under siege by hobgoblins, and another PC's brother tries to assassinate the local duke. While, in other groups, that sort of thing would not work at all and they prefer any background stuff to be background/history, or they would prefer the DM not to expand on what they already have.

As a DM, I tend to allow a lot of freedom in terms of background before a campaign starts - short is fine, detailed is fine, lots of plot hooks or none. However, once the campaign starts, I would want the players to make their own history and build upon what happens in game.

 

[NewJeffCT]

(I've also had the characters discover that their fame/infamy is already increasing over the course of the campaign, through the vehicle of the "town song" (they're from a village known as "The Town Where Heroes Are Born," and famous incidents are featured in verses of a tavern song of the same name) and people hearing about their past adventures. Given that growing fame is explicitly part of the Midwood campaign, players seeking to leverage that on their own is a pretty obvious move, IMO.)

I did something like that in my last campaign -
Early in the campaign (3.5E), the players had helped a young cleric of the god of freedom defeat a group of wererats in town. (The cleric was level 3 and the group was level 4 at the time) A PC was also a follower of this god, and the local lord (whom the PCs had earlier saved from being kidnapped) gave them the building where the wererats were headquartered, as it was an old abandoned mill. Since the PCs were not going to stick around town, they asked this young cleric to convert the old mill into a church dedicated to this god of freedom. He agreed.

Maybe by the time the group was up to level 10 or so, they were on another continent and maybe 3 months in game had passed. They ran into a friendly NPC from that town who mentioned to them how deeds of their heroism were reaching back to that town and how the newly opened church had attracted a lot of worshipers because of their reputation.

Later on in game, another six months or so had passed and the players were level 15 or 16 or so and finally made it back into town, and they received a hero's welcome, as tales of their deeds had spread far & wide. They learned that the congregation at that old mill/church had grown so large that sermons were held outdoors and they were already planning on expanding the church to accommodate so many followers.

(There was more than that, but that's a brief summary)

 

[The Shaman]

I simply have players who enjoy playing Athos, is all I'm saying.

I'd enjoy playing Athos, too, but, for me, even better than playing Athos is becoming Athos in actual play.

For my part, it's the concept that "Do I know anyone in this town?" precludes "I'm going to get to know the captain of the watch" -- that's what I have issues with. I have players who do both. If there's any controversy at all, it's the idea that the former is a waste of time and the latter is meaningful: and that's controversial because it's a personal opinion rather than objective fact, and opinions tend to be that way.

If I came across as presenting that as objective fact, it's certainly not my intention. My views are my views based on my experience and my preferences - and yes, my biases as well - but I never assume they're universal to all gamers everywhere.

That said, it is my considered opinion that when players are 'writing hooks for the gamemaster to use' or asking the referee to invent allies and rivals instead of creating them as a consequence of in-character action, that is a passive approach to playing a roleplaying game. If that's controversial, so be it.

Also, I don't think it's fair to describe players who are looking for connections as being more passive and less engaged. Some, maybe: but for many, when they ask if they already know someone, they're asking for an opportunity to ad-lib old memories and play a convincing bond without preamble, which is a different experience than the usual round of introductions and building of acquaintance that happens when they meet NPCs. That's immediately engaging -- and if it's not engaging for the other players at the table, then the player is not doing it correctly.

My personal preference is for drawing on actual memories, not ad-libbing memories of things that never happened, and if it takes a few game-nights to get to that point, then I believe that's a worthwhile trade-off.

And why can't a player say, "Ah, we're back in Paris, where I spent a summer. I go look up my old friend who ran a bakery (says so on my sheet) and ask him about the cardinal's recent behabior. His customers are always telling him stuff, maybe he'll know something."

As long as the player has "Contact: Ragueneau" on his character sheet, we're golden.

"I'm going to talk to people in my old neighborhood," isn't the same as, "I'm looking up my old friend."

My limited understanding of Shaman's game is that it has a lot of NPCs with lot of relationships. I don't see what's wrong with priming the pump a little with the PCs having some relationships, too. At least to some junior NPCs. Or to let them invent (and the GM incorporate) some junior NPCs (which can lead to bigger stuff).

The adventurers in our game are a Musketeer, a bureaucrat, and a spy; they know dozens of people, from their landlady at the Black Stork Inn to other soldiers in the company to lawyers and magistrates at the justice ministry to theology students (the spy's alternate identity) and professors at the Benedictine college in the Latin Quarter.

If the players want to make one of those acquaintances a friend to one of those characters, in the sense of someone on whom they can depend on as a reliable resource, then they need to work at it in actual play; summoning up 'old friends' in the middle of the game from a line of fiction is right-out.

I'm not fond of my concept of sandboxes. Shaman's "social sandbox" (my term) however fascinates me as it sets up a dynamic framework for NPC/PC interaction leading to story-able non-scripted adventures. In short, I think his idea is cool, so when he has this stance about PC background, I feel like he's hobbling it. So, read my statements as somebody who thinks your sandbox is very clever.

Thank you very much, Janx - I really appreciate that.

I've used the analogy that my game is like a dungeon crawl, with npcs as rooms and their relationships as hallways, stairways, and occasionally chutes or secret passages. The adventurers 'explore' the world by working their way through this network of relationships - they can even teleport a bit, in the sense of identifying a room they want to visit and going directly to it without crossing the intervening passages, though this is somewhat more challenging without the benefit of working through the dungeon.

I find this set up does a nice job simulating the nature of personal power relationships in both 17th century France and cape-and-sword fiction, but what I've said about character backgrounds pretty much holds true for other games I run as well; of the games I've run in the past, the one where you are most likely to get away with, "Do I know anyone in this town?" is Traveller, in part because there is a rule for handling that question based on the character background generated in play.

It may strain your credulity that significant relationships from a character's past don't make themselves felt in actual play; it strains my credulity when friends and enemies of the characters are popping up in convenient places and times. Moreover, as I mentioned with respect to Star Wars, in my experience this dependence on 'gotcha!' conflicts out of the character's background fiction reminds me of so many really dreadful stories and movies I've read or seen over the years - it's so mind-crushingly banal.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we're playing a game, and as such there really is an actual, completely real bright line between before-the-game-begins and after-the-game-begins. I think that line matters, and in my experience too much out-of-game thinking can distract from actual play. Unless it is attached to specific rules governing character creation, background fiction is a wholly out-of-game creation and from what I've seen since I started doing this thirty-four years ago, the more the players are focused on making things happen in actual play as opposed to outside of actual play, the more enjoyable the game is.

So I don't think I'm hobbling my game at all by creating an environment in which building relationships supercedes inventing them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Let's see Mr. DM, sir...
Is that your name filled in next to the word: Player?
No?
Then anything you do with my character's background had damned well better be with my permission, or I will be calling someone else 'Mr. DM, sir'.
Capiche?

I don't do it to my players, and I won't put up with it as a player.

The Auld Grump

Are things really this black and white with you, though, Grump? Just curious.

For example, let's say for the sake of argument that the character background you created says that you spent your youth running with a gang of hoodlums before leaving town. Nothing more to this point, nothing less. Your character was in a gang during his youth and then moved away. And you then describe the rest of his background.

But then at some point during the campaign, the party finds themselves in said town for whatever reason. Would you really get that bothered if the DM mentions that the party sees a gang of kids hanging around in an alleyway, and after a Perception check the DM says your character recognizes the gang symbol as the one you had belonged to many years ago? (Thus referencing... or more to the point "using" your background without asking you beforehand.)

At this point, this gang is nothing but descriptive text of just one of many things the party sees as they wander through town. You haven't interacted with them, they haven't interacted with you, and your current adventure might have nothing whatsoever to do with them (so if you wanted to just completely ignore them, you easily could.) This is nothing more than flavor text of the town where the DM slightly personalizes it by referencing a small point in your background.

Would this really be something you'd get pissed about, since the DM didn't ask for your permission beforehand to reference this gang? And if it does... why? Why wouldn't you be okay with a reference from your past to ever be made unless you gave your thumbs-up first, and more importantly, why is it a big enough deal that you'd actually consider leaving the game because of it (taking your quote above strictly at face-value?) I'm not saying you're wrong for doing so... I'm just perplexed about why it's such a big deal.

 

[Barastrondo]

I'd enjoy playing Athos, too, but, for me, even better than playing Athos is becoming Athos in actual play.

That is awesome when it happens. Yet the trick to Athos is that he has some aspects that are deeply personal, based on events that would logically involve only himself and the GM. I feel that the way to best become Athos would require sufficient one-on-one time that it winds up being very similar to talking backstory over lunch before the game starts.

If I came across as presenting that as objective fact, it's certainly not my intention. My views are my views based on my experience and my preferences - and yes, my biases as well - but I never assume they're universal to all gamers everywhere.

Sure. I was only saying that it doesn't surprise me that it's controversial, because not everyone agrees on just what counts as "passive."

That said, it is my considered opinion that when players are 'writing hooks for the gamemaster to use' or asking the referee to invent allies and rivals instead of creating them as a consequence of in-character action, that is a passive approach to playing a roleplaying game. If that's controversial, so be it.

Yeah, I basically disagree. I honestly don't see collaboration as passivity: the player's taking as active a stake in the world, it merely takes a more metagaming form than straight-up play. Which has its disadvantages, but for people like me, also clear advantages.

My personal preference is for drawing on actual memories, not ad-libbing memories of things that never happened, and if it takes a few game-nights to get to that point, then I believe that's a worthwhile trade-off.

Sure. I happen to like both; the ad-libbing memories of "things that never happened" (which is, I figure, a paintbrush that comes awful close to describing the entirety of roleplaying) flexes a different set of creative muscles, and provides a dialogue that's different than the "I create, you interact" dialogue.

It may strain your credulity that significant relationships from a character's past don't make themselves felt in actual play; it strains my credulity when friends and enemies of the characters are popping up in convenient places and times. Moreover, as I mentioned with respect to Star Wars, in my experience this dependence on 'gotcha!' conflicts out of the character's background fiction reminds me of so many really dreadful stories and movies I've read or seen over the years - it's so mind-crushingly banal.

See, now here I agree, but I lay the problem at the foot of melodrama rather than the concept of background elements arising. There's nothing that prevents painfully trite 'gotcha!'s from arising when, as you say, the Baron de Bauchery abducts someone you met last week rather than someone you knew of old. It's the context, and possibly the foreshadowing, that makes or breaks each one.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we're playing a game, and as such there really is an actual, completely real bright line between before-the-game-begins and after-the-game-begins. I think that line matters, and in my experience too much out-of-game thinking can distract from actual play. Unless it is attached to specific rules governing character creation, background fiction is a wholly out-of-game creation and from what I've seen since I started doing this thirty-four years ago, the more the players are focused on making things happen in actual play as opposed to outside of actual play, the more enjoyable the game is.

This doesn't match my experience, but I'm willing to attribute this to the fact that I play with old friends, co-workers, relatives and my wife (who is a combination of the former three, come to think of it). Outside of actual play is something that happens outside of actual sessions as well: we talk over lunch breaks, at Sunday hey-let's-meet-up-for-burgers, and of course my wife and I have all kinds of opportunities to talk about world-building, character relationships and the like, from the morning commute to trying to fall asleep at night. We have more time to game without formally gaming than we do to actually sit around the table: thus, we get more done if we use it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

"Yes, and..." improv is a fun and powerful way of crafting stories. However, it is defective when applied to an RPG focused on exploration and dealing with external challenges.

"Yes and..." is one possible technique, but "There is a gaping 10' pit in front of you, deal with it," is another. I can appreciate games where the adjudication and storytelling are widely distributed, but I do not prefer it. Whether as GM or as a player, I prefer an imaginary world that is stubborn, not pliable to a player's wishes.

But even here in your statement... that IS using "Yes, And" improv technique (even if the DM or player don't necessarily realize it.)

You made the offer "There is a gaping 10' pit in front of you, deal with it." That's the opening salvo of this improv scene. You've established the reality. And now your scene partners (the PCs) are going to "Yes, And" it. They will agree that "Yes, there is a 10' pit in front of us. AND... we will deal with it thusly..." and they'll then tell you what they want to do to get over the pit.

They have a wide range of options in front of them that they could choose to do. Since there is no ONE way... they have to improvise a choice and offer that choice back to you. "We look for a log or piece of wood that we can place across the pit." as one example. And now control of the improv scene comes back to you.

Now granted, it is here at this point that I agree with you that the RPG format does not exactly match up with improvisation performance... in that the RPG does have conditionals that the DM uses... mainly dice rolls. In an improv performance scene, your next move would probably be to find said log or board and put it across the pit so you could cross (and thus advancing the scene). But in the RPG... you instead can make the players roll a die to see if they can find one. And depending on how important this story point is, how easy or hard it is to progress, and now much dramatic tension you want to build with this part of the improv scene... will directly influence you on your choice of Difficulty Class you assign to the roll. Thus, there DOES promote the possibility of the DM saying "No" rather than "Yes, And." (but that's the facet of this that makes it a game.)

But having the "No" enter the scene because of random chance is much more palatable for PCs than having the DM just say "No" just because he's made an arbitrary decision.

And this is why I have a hard time personally getting all bent out of shape if a DM makes an offer using something from my background (when I'm a player), or (when I'm a DM) the player just makes an offer from their own background that seems plausible. Why stomp that out? All doing that does is prolong the scene in question as the other players have to go back to the drawing board to find other explanations to accomplish what they want to do. To me, that's just stalling for no real dramatic effect.

 

[Beginning of the End]

provided the referee has enough forebearance to not go scrounging around the adventurers' backstories for 'gotchas!' to spring on them.

Hmm... I'm beginning to suspect the guy a couple pages ago who guessed that you had been traumatized by bad GMs in the past was hitting pretty close to the mark. It's the only explanation I have for why the only two options you see are "gotcha!" and "characters from my past will never appear in the game session".

I'm not sure why getting away from the player-passivity of, "Do I know anyone in this town?" and moving toward the player-engagement of, "I'm going to get to know the captain of the watch," is so controversial to some people.

I guess we're in the same boat, because I'm not sure what that ridiculous strawmanning you're doing there is supposed to be accomplishing.

Let's see Mr. DM, sir...
Is that your name filled in next to the word: Player?
No?
Then anything you do with my character's background had damned well better be with my permission, or I will be calling someone else 'Mr. DM, sir'.
Capiche?

(looks over your character sheet)

Hmm... You say here that your PC is from the kingdom of Scaramouche. Let's see, Mr. Player... Is that your name filled in next to the words "Dungeon Master"? No? Then anything you do with my campaign world had damned well better be with my permission, or I will be calling someone else "Mr. Player". Capiche? Now go back and rewrite your character. And make sure you do it without assuming anything about my campaign world.

...

Oh. You noticed that your character has to be born and that, in itself, assumes something about my campaign world? Clever boy. Now, go find a different game to play in. You've just realized that you've disqualified yourself from mine.

I just don't have time for that type of crap at my table.

 

[delericho]

If the player puts a 'blank' in his character background ("My character is an amnesiac - he doesn't remember anything from the last 5 years"), then the DM is free to insert whatever he wants.

If the player leaves his entire background blank, then I feel the DM is free to insert whatever he wants.

Beyond that, tread very carefully. In general, the more detailed the PC's background, the less the DM should insert. So, if the entire background consists of "Was brought up on the mean streets of Waterdeep", then the DM can add quite a lot; if the background runs to several pages, complete with family trees and history, then the DM basically shouldn't throw anything in there.

In any case, if the player has detailed the background at all, and hasn't left an obvious 'blank' then the DM should always consult with the player before adding anything.

Edit: Of course, the ideal solution is for the player and DM to work out the background for the character together. That way, the background fits the world and the campaign, and there are no surprises.

Also: In general, my preference (as DM) for PC backgrounds is for them to be no more detailed at the start of the campaign than are the characters in any "Star Trek" show in the pilot episode. That is, we know a few things about them, but not too much. Then, as the campaign progresses, both the player and the DM can add new background elements suitable to the game. (In both cases, the two need to communicate; it's no more appropriate for a player to introduce "he's secretly crown prince of BigKingdomLane" than for the DM to introduce "and he's on the run from deadly Pirate-Ninjas for stealing their sacred cutlass".)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Are things really this black and white with you, though, Grump? Just curious.

Yes.

For example, let's say for the sake of argument that the character background you created says that you spent your youth running with a gang of hoodlums before leaving town. Nothing more to this point, nothing less. Your character was in a gang during his youth and then moved away. And you then describe the rest of his background.

But then at some point during the campaign, the party finds themselves in said town for whatever reason. Would you really get that bothered if the DM mentions that the party sees a gang of kids hanging around in an alleyway, and after a Perception check the DM says your character recognizes the gang symbol as the one you had belonged to many years ago? (Thus referencing... or more to the point "using" your background without asking you beforehand.)

That is 'using' my background - and is fair game. Nothing has been added, just using the hooks that I put in myself.

'Adding' is suddenly being told that I had run with a pack of hoodlums - when I know full well that isn't in my background.

So yes, still very much black and white.

At this point, this gang is nothing but descriptive text of just one of many things the party sees as they wander through town. You haven't interacted with them, they haven't interacted with you, and your current adventure might have nothing whatsoever to do with them (so if you wanted to just completely ignore them, you easily could.) This is nothing more than flavor text of the town where the DM slightly personalizes it by referencing a small point in your background.

Would this really be something you'd get pissed about, since the DM didn't ask for your permission beforehand to reference this gang? And if it does... why? Why wouldn't you be okay with a reference from your past to ever be made unless you gave your thumbs-up first, and more importantly, why is it a big enough deal that you'd actually consider leaving the game because of it (taking your quote above strictly at face-value?) I'm not saying you're wrong for doing so... I'm just perplexed about why it's such a big deal.

Read above - the DM in the example you gave built on my background, he did not suddenly decide that it would be cool that my wizard was a juvenile delinquent, had a bastard son, and was wanted in twelve systems. In the case given I left a hook, and most likely did it deliberately.

[*** Redacted Per Order of Homeland Security. ***]

One example is building upon a given background, the other changes it.

The Auld Grump