Lanefan
Victoria Rules
And why should you?But this is exactly what I'm saying would leave me feeling blind. If I don't know what the PC's motivation is, or how the player sees that relating to other concerns and declared convictions of the PC, then I don't know what is really happening in the fiction and how best to handle it as GM.
Your job (and my job, in my game) is to as neutrally as you can present the game world, the setting, the opportunities for adventure, and the inhabitants of all of the above.
Ideally, it's presented in exactly the same way to:
- an angst-riddled Elf Druid who just wants to sort out his feelings for his father and then save all the poor defenseless trees
- a roaring drunkard of a Part-Orc warrior whose only motivation is to kill anything he can and then eat it afterwards
- a lonely Mage who is looking for her husband, who long ago ran off to join the militia and never came back
- a happy Dwarf Rogue who has no real motivations at all other than adventuring is more fun than mining
If this is the party that gets rolled up I'm just going to find a way to get them into a field adventure and then run that adventure. If I immediately start tailoring things to the Druid and the Mage and their personal problems I'm doing a disservice to the other two who just want to get after it. Sooner or later down the road I might work in something about the Mage's husband and where he ended up, if it's even still relevant by then; and angsty Druid can just go right on being angsty - though the inevitable arguments between he and the Dwarf over the usefulness of trees are bound to be good entertainment!
Never mind that the minute they start a quest or mission whose goal is to find the Mage's husband it's inevitable the Mage will then either retire or die at the first opportunity.
Lanefan