DM question: how much do you incorporate PC backgrounds into the campaign?

Man in the Funny Hat · Mar 9, 2020

Also needs to be considered whether the player really wants to have their pc Shanghaied into something the DM cooks up for them personally, or if they’d just as soon remain anonymous orphan farm boy turned hero who’s simply along for the ride. Not all players nor PCs are the same in that regard.
Again, I say the background is for players usage rather than the DM, so no reason a DM should require it.

prabe · Mar 9, 2020

Man in the Funny Hat said:
Also needs to be considered whether the player really wants to have their pc Shanghaied into something the DM cooks up for them personally, or if they’d just as soon remain anonymous orphan farm boy turned hero who’s simply along for the ride. Not all players nor PCs are the same in that regard.
Again, I say the background is for players usage rather than the DM, so no reason a DM should require it.

Even though I'm on the "I use them" side of the debate. I agree that backstories are at least as useful to players as to DMs, and that the DM should not insist on them. I figure anything the player writes in the backstory is fair game, but I'm not going to fridge their family or anything like that--I'm looking for things I can let the characters resolve more than anything else.

gepetto · Mar 10, 2020

Maestrino said:
This whole discussion seems to come down to whether you're the kind of DM that plots out an entire campaign and doesn't want any player backstories derailing "your" campaign, or whether you're the kind of DM that comes up with major plot hooks that can be dropped into pretty much any situation to steer your campagn while still letting your players feel like they're in a wide-open sandbox.

EXAMPLE:
Scenario 1: You have a plot set up to take place in Neverwinter. Come hell or high water, these events will take place in Neverwinter, no matter how you have to get the party there. It's a cool plot

Scenario 2: You have a plot hook that the PCs will find out one of their informants has been captured and thrown in prison. Could happen pretty much anywhere. Wait, one of the characters has some backstory in Neverwinter? Left their cousin for dead in Neverwinter and ran away to become an adventurer? The characters are going to be on their way to Luskan and pass right by Neverwinter anyway? The NPC is now in prison in Neverwinter. The PCs now want to stop to break her out on the way to Luskan. Now one PC reluctantly comes along, but is on edge the whole time because they're worried someone will recognize them. What if that cousin isn't dead? What if the cousin has a position of some power in Neverwinter now, and has been dreaming about revenge for years? This could turn into a dozen game sessions in Neverwinter.

In Scenario 2, is the rest of the party "bored" because this plot hook only ties in to one PCs backstory? Hell no, they're planning a prison break, which is what they would have been doing in Scenario 1 anyway, but now they have extra reason to be sneaky and avoid detection.

Yes a lot of times the rest of the party IS bored because this only ties into one persons story. And I'm bored. Because I dont want to run even one adventure about your stupid cousin much less a dozen. I want to run the adventure I planned, with bigger, more important, more interesting goals then dealing with some half remembered acquaintance from the past.

Just like when I'm out with a friend from work now and we run into someone they knew from from highschool who all of a sudden wants to spend an hour talking about the old days. Nope, not interested. Lets move along, send a facebook message when you get home that we both know they're just going to ignore anyway. And lets get back to what we were planning to do before the peanut gallery showed up and interrupted.

pemerton · Mar 10, 2020

Man in the Funny Hat said:
Backgrounds are for players to use to get a handle on their characters [where they came from, where they are when the game starts, where they as players plan on taking them PRIOR to finding that their plans may change as they begin interacting with the setting and ongoing game], not for ME as DM to use to make adventures revolve around them as individuals in particular. Such occasions to use particular PC's and their personal backgrounds to develop SPECIAL adventures LATER as time and opportunity permits will undoubtedly arise, but I don't need that information to build the world and adventures around even before play begins. In fact, if I am not prepared as DM to run a campaign without ever having a word of background from any player about their individual PC then I haven't actually done my job as DM, have I?

I would answer your (rhetorical) question the opposite way from you: if I'm presenting situations that would be identical regardless of the players' individual PCs then I'm not doing my job as a GM.

pemerton · Mar 10, 2020

Maestrino said:
This whole discussion seems to come down to whether you're the kind of DM that plots out an entire campaign and doesn't want any player backstories derailing "your" campaign, or whether you're the kind of DM that comes up with major plot hooks that can be dropped into pretty much any situation to steer your campagn while still letting your players feel like they're in a wide-open sandbox.

No it doesn't. Read @hawkeyefan's posts. Or mine. We're not talking about either of the things you describe here.

gepetto said:
Yes a lot of times the rest of the party IS bored because this only ties into one persons story. And I'm bored. Because I dont want to run even one adventure about your stupid cousin much less a dozen. I want to run the adventure I planned, with bigger, more important, more interesting goals then dealing with some half remembered acquaintance from the past.

I don't get this at all. DL is more interesting because Tanis's former lover is now his enemy and a dragon hierarch (or whatever they're called - it's been a few decades). LotR is driven by the fact that Gandalf has backstory with Saruman, Aragorn (via his descent from Isildur) with Sauron, Frodo (via his relationship to Bilbo) with Gollum, etc.

Evocative fiction tends to relate to the character, not just to cyphers chasing after McGuffins.

Fenris-77 · Mar 10, 2020

@gepetto - If the default assumption is that whatever story the player comes up with vis a vis their backstory is always going to be less cool and less interesting than whatever you as DM have planned then the issue is with you as the DM, and not so much the quality of the player backstory. I'm very much with @pemerton on this - evocative fiction is character driven, not plot driven. That doesn't mean you don't have a plot, but you also need strong characters and strong ways of connecting those characters to the narrative in multiple ways. You work character driven arcs into the larger plot arcs and make sure everyone gets their moment in the sun. This is much easier if there is some established fiction about how the characters know each other, who they might have in common, and what their core drives and motivations are.

All that said, if both you and your party enjoy running backstory free characters dropped into a plot based adventure, that's fine. If you guys are enjoying yourselves you aren't doing something wrong. However, that doesn't mean that using backstory/background in the way other posters are suggesting is bad, it's just not something that you think you want to do.

shawnhcorey · Mar 10, 2020

Well, I'm confused. If you as GM want/allow the PCs to have backstories, then you should run as session zero where the players create their characters and integrate their backstories into the campaign. All aspects of caharacter integration should be a joint effort between the players and the GM.

hawkeyefan · Mar 10, 2020

shawnhcorey said:
Well, I'm confused. If you as GM want/allow the PCs to have backstories, then you should run as session zero where the players create their characters and integrate their backstories into the campaign. All aspects of caharacter integration should be a joint effort between the players and the GM.

I don't think it has to be entirely front loaded at session zero, but I do think that most of this will require collaboration by the GM and player. I don't think there's any one way to handle this....it can probably take a variety of forms and could be all at once, or a bit at a time over the entire campaign. What works will vary from table to table, and also from character to character, depending on what the group wants to do.

Sacrosanct · Mar 10, 2020

gepetto said:
Yes a lot of times the rest of the party IS bored because this only ties into one persons story. And I'm bored. Because I dont want to run even one adventure about your stupid cousin much less a dozen. I want to run the adventure I planned, with bigger, more important, more interesting goals then dealing with some half remembered acquaintance from the past.

Just like when I'm out with a friend from work now and we run into someone they knew from from highschool who all of a sudden wants to spend an hour talking about the old days. Nope, not interested. Lets move along, send a facebook message when you get home that we both know they're just going to ignore anyway. And lets get back to what we were planning to do before the peanut gallery showed up and interrupted.

Wow. You’ve managed to express both selfishness (What I want is most important to the game, regardless of how anyone else may feel) and insults (calling their friend part of a peanut gallery) in one post.

One of the biggest failings of a DM is when they assume their idea is always better than any players idea. It’s arrogant, often untrue, and leads to people feeling like they are being treated like kids with no input. A bad recipe for a social game where everyone is supposed to have fun.

Ive been DMing over 35 years, with thousands of games. I can say with confidence (and I’m sure many will agree with me here) that some of the best sessions were when the players did something unexpected, or unusual, or creative that wasn’t preplanned by me. It makes the players feel involved, and like their decisions matter to the game world. No one is saying you have to cater to the players and change core game world NPCs or events just because a player wants to, but players should have the ability to play their PCs how they want. If they want to go break out a cousin from prison, then you as the DM should facilitate that and treat the world as a living world that reacts to that. There is a reason why railroading is universally regarded as a bad thing.

prabe · Mar 10, 2020

shawnhcorey said:
Well, I'm confused. If you as GM want/allow the PCs to have backstories, then you should run as session zero where the players create their characters and integrate their backstories into the campaign. All aspects of caharacter integration should be a joint effort between the players and the GM.

I've found that a lot of "Session Zero" can be handled online, and in many ways I prefer getting backstories away from the table. Some people aren't as good as generating backstories with an audience/on the spur of the moment, and I'd rather people be in their comfort zones for this. If players want to tie their characters together in the backstory, that's fine, but I don't insist on it.

DM question: how much do you incorporate PC backgrounds into the campaign?

Man in the Funny Hat

Hero

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun

gepetto

Explorer

pemerton

Legend

pemerton

Legend

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens

shawnhcorey

wizard

hawkeyefan

Legend

Sacrosanct

Legend

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun

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