D&D 5E Players railroading dungeonmasters

cbwjm · Mar 4, 2021

I tend to have very little in the way of background. Like, my current soldier was part of a now defunct mercenary group hired by the local empire before becoming a guard for a merchant group. None of my backgrounds tend to be more involved than that which can be good and bad for the DM, some like to have a little more for hooks to draw your character into, others are just happy you aren't the 7th son of a 7th son with some epic destiny ahead of you.

Shiroiken · Mar 4, 2021

It's only possible to railroad the DM if they don't have a spine. The DM has veto power over backgrounds, and both should work together to take the player's concept and fit as much as possible into the world. I've had the type of player who wants to have "accidentally" done something amazing before play begins. I always nix those, because unless it fits into something I need, a character shouldn't have already "peaked" at level 0.

auburn2 · Mar 5, 2021

This is a bunch of nonsense. First off lets differentiate between background and backstory. Background is a choice you make which comes with features and drawbacks and the DM will determine what backgrounds are allowed. Generally if you take a background you get the things that come with it, but nothing more. Having the noble background for example means you have two skills, a gaming set proficiency, a language and the position of privilige feature. It doe not mean youu are allowed in the castle or can ask for an audience with the king or can get money from the treasury.

The characters work with the DM and develop a backstory to fit the DM's campaign. This can be narrow in focus or wide open, but regardless it is the DMA and player that develop it. Most of the time it is the player who says what he wants, and the DM tweaks it to fit the campaign.

As far as length it can be short or long. As a player I prefer long backstories, but that is because much of the fun is making the character. One DM I know demands 2 pages of backstory for any character in her campaign. As a DM it does not make much difference to me, long or short.

The biggest thing to keep in mind though is it is a BACKstory. It is what happened before the character started playing, and should have very little on the story going forward.

fearsomepirate · Mar 5, 2021

My rule is don't write a backstory so long that if, in the first session, a goblin rolls boxcars on a critical hit when you're at 1 hp, you get mad and quit the game.

tetrasodium · Mar 5, 2021

auburn2 said:
This is a bunch of nonsense. First off lets differentiate between background and backstory. Background is a choice you make which comes with features and drawbacks and the DM will determine what backgrounds are allowed. Generally if you take a background you get the things that come with it, but nothing more. Having the noble background for example means you have two skills, a gaming set proficiency, a language and the position of privilige feature. It doe not mean youu are allowed in the castle or can ask for an audience with the king or can get money from the treasury.

The characters work with the DM and develop a backstory to fit the DM's campaign. This can be narrow in focus or wide open, but regardless it is the DMA and player that develop it. Most of the time it is the player who says what he wants, and the DM tweaks it to fit the campaign.

As far as length it can be short or long. As a player I prefer long backstories, but that is because much of the fun is making the character. I know one DM I know demands 2 pages of backstory for any character in her campaign. As a DM it does not make much difference to me, long or short.

The biggest thing to keeo in mind though is it is a BACKstory. It is what happened before the character started playing, and should have very little on the story going forward.

That bolded bit is basically step 1 The problem player type talked about in the video might go through the motions but doesn't give a fig what the gm says about it unless that feedback is "100% no" & won't care about working with the gm at all in session 1 or any other session. That player doesn't care if it fits the world so much as if it's allowed in the door. Having thought on it the last few hours, statements like "I'm playing my fursona" or "I'm a roleplayer and my character..."& similar tend to be warning signs visible from another galaxy as the player is often more concerned with the integrity of.. well... notgointhere. At a table of 4-6 players the GM can't keep babying bob week after week at the table or spend a bunch of time working with him on every little detail of his characterso bob can find motivation for his character on par with everyone else while bob only needs to fit his character in juuust enough to not get booted from the group or do it in a way that the gm looks like the bad guy for doing it.

loverdrive · Mar 5, 2021

Well, any sort of character inherently restricts the GM, since anyway everything in the game is gonna (or at least, should be) revolving around the PCs, so I don't see any problem with that.

Though I generally prefer people having quantum backstories. A haunted veteran is way better and effective than "I've fought in so-and-so war, and in so-and-so battle I've got horribly scarred as so-and-so baddies slaughtered my entire squad!"

Seramus · Mar 5, 2021

Some people get into the skin of their character by writing large backstories.
Other players have to actually play the character to figure out their backstory.
Some don't even care. What happens now and in the future is what matters.

All three ways are perfectly fine.

pogre · Mar 5, 2021

Agree with the general sentiments here. I do not mind long character back stories - after all, players who craft long back stories are often more invested in their character and it is a lot more fun to kill the character. I kid, I kid. However, for us, back stories is what has led up to the adventuring life, not a directive for what should happen next.

Umbran · Mar 5, 2021

I've seen a suggestion that a character's backstory should be no more than (Char Level)² paragraphs long.

I have also recently seen the following meme:

But broadly, I've never seen much problem with elaborate character backstories - if the players want to hand me ways to make them feel more connected to the game, I'm for it.

My session zero includes a discussion of backstory - that I am not promising that any particular element of it becomes relevant in game, that the player cannot assert access to powers or resources not represented on their sheet because of stuff in their backstory, and that they can label parts of their story "hands off" "please discuss before altering" and "please mess with this, I would find it fun", and the like. So, my players know the basic way I'm going to work with their backstories.

Asisreo · Mar 5, 2021

Players in my games will read their backstory aloud (punishment enough for some) and we will discuss, usually at length, how it connects to the world, the plot, and the other characters.

Isolated backstories honestly aren't great because that usually means the character themselves are isolated which usually makes for bland characters altogether.