A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Lanefan]

I am just one point of view, and there are much better people at explaining the OSR than me. All I will say is OSR, at this point, is not so easily boiled down to one thing. It is a spectrum of views. I think it leans to challenging the player (though I have absolutely seen OSR people raise concerns about split between character and player knowledge---you can take either view and be old school in my view).

The bracketed bit about sums up where I sit, along with most of our crew here - we're old-school but we are concerned about the character/player knowledge split and take steps to try to minimize it (e.g. someone scouting alone has their actions handled by note, or by he and the DM going into another room for a moment, so that the other players don't now what's become of the scout; pleasant side effect is that it also allows the returning scout to report her findings in her own words, just like it'd happen were it real).

I think the chief, governing, viewpoint though is: does this work in practice on a weekly basis (preferably in a long term campaign).

From here, yes it does.

One of the benefits, I suppose, of having our campaigns go on for ages is that the PC learning curve e.g. regarding trolls v fire doesn't have to be repeated/replayed very often.

For my current campaign I renamed some common monsters (orcs, ogres, goblins and kobolds were renamed grash, turvitians, knill and quitchi respectively) while leaving their physical descriptions etc. mostly as they were. Worked really well, gave some "freshness" for some long-term players, and gave the campaign a bit of identity of its own.

Also I think OSR folks tend to eschew anything that feels like RPG theory (especially if they are reductionist or if the terminology and categorization seems to drain all the life and magic out of what is going on at the table).

Yeah, the bit I've bolded drives me nuts; and I see it - either direct from some poster or other or as a quote from some "expert" game designer or theorist - in here far too often.

So even a categorization of 'player vs. game', would be one, even if accurate, would make many OSR adherents wince I believe. Perhaps I am wrong though.

For my part, player-v-game is an example of a quite reasonable jumping-off point for discussion. This stuff is nigh-impossible to discuss without reducing a few concepts down to their basics in order to give us some definition, mostly because every table - and every person involved - does it differently or would if they could.

 

[Lanefan]

When I’m talking about Discovery and Competition I have a particular meaning that doesn’t appear to be relatable to some.

It’s central to player and mediated through a particular game’s principles and play priorities/goals. Competition is going to mean something slightly (or significantly) different in 4e than it does in Torchbearer than it does in Dogs in the Vineyard than it does in My Life With Master. But fundamentally it’s going to mean players advocating for their PCs as vigorously as they can as mediated through the PC build aspects, the resolution mechanics, and the reward cycles...all as a coherent expression of the game’s premise (eg, some games you actually WANT your PC to struggle in thematic conflict...and you’re rewarded for it; this is also Competition as it’s a representation of your skill in advocating for your PC, which isn’t just on the singular axis of attaining bigger numbers but can also mean change via failure, against the obstacles set before it). The last part is a BIG ONE. If the game’s premise isn’t coherently expressed by all of the other stuff I mentioned, then there is going to be some weird results now and again (sometimes a lot more often).

I'm not sure I 100% follow you here so if I get this wrong please correct me, but the bit I bolded carries another aspect as well which is I think at (or very close to) the core of much of this discussion: that this advocacy for one's PC extends to trying to gain whatever in-game advantage you can for it.

In the examples at hand, this includes:

- advocating for use of player knowledge in situations where it is better than character knowledge (e.g. trolls v fire)
- arbitrarily giving your PC a background that carries a built-in advantage in the fiction (e.g. nobility grants wealth, prestige, and authority)
- basing one's play around the meta-rewards rather than what makes sense in the fiction (e.g. taking on needless combats just to gain xp)

However. Just as it is the player's duty to try to advocate for any advantage they can for their PC (which taken to its extreme can include outright cheating), I see it as the DM's duty to push back hard against this advocacy when it goes too far.

The question then becomes what is "too far"? The first two advocacy examples (player knowledge and background) above are in my view too far, and a DM is well within her rights to shut this down when she sees it. The third one is fuzzier; if there's a halfway-reasonable in-fiction reason to do it then fine, but if it makes no sense at all then something's gone adrift.

And, in line with Competition, Discovery is about the player finding new things out (as a child might) about character (their own and others) and setting as they advocate for their PC (as above) in engagements with situations that challenge them thematically.

More or less. One thing to note, however, is that to discover something as a player - particularly about the setting - it perforce needs to be something previously unknown; which means if the players are also involved in setting creation this discovery aspect is going to be greatly lessened.

 

[Lanefan]

My take on this is that I don't expect my players to fake ignorance, nor do I expect them to possess the knowledge that their character should have. Their characters are allowed to use what ever assumptions they have as players, but their guess is as good as that of an unexperienced player. Where their knowledge as players is lacking, I provide them with the information that I believe their characters would have so that they are able to play the competent adventurer they are trying to portray.

For example, last night my players defeated two Liches, and being an experienced player, the priest in the party asked me if his character knew about philacteries. I decided to have him make a check to determine the outcome, but I might as well have said 'yes', because my campaign does not hinge on finding and destroying the philacteries of those Liches. I have no intention to have those Liches make a surprise return, and so whether they destroy the philacteries is irrelevant to the campaign honestly.

But as neither the players nor PCs know this it only makes sense that if they know about philacteries they're likely to bend some effort into finding/destroying them to prevent those liches from coming back later...particularly as the PCs would probably realize they just kinda peed those liches off by destroying their skeletal forms!

Is it really a problem that the player uses his knowledge of Liches in the game? His character is a priest, so it is entirely possible that he has some how obtained this knowledge over the years.

If the priest is experienced enough to be defeating liches then it's certainly more than possible he's been told about this stuff in his training: hence, an easy-to-pass check to see if he was told and-or whether he was paying attention at the time.

But even if he hadn't been a priest and had no reason to have this knowledge at all, would it really make a big difference?

Absolutely! Massive difference. Very difficult check to know this - unless you-as-DM have run liches against this PC or party before, but I'm assuming this is a first-encounter scenario.

Does it make the game easier to know what a philactery is when dealing with a Lich?

In the here-and-now moment, no. But for potential later consequences, very much so.

Even if you-as-DM have decided those liches won't bother the PCs again, the PCs don't know that and will likely be looking over their shoulders for quite some time.

Honestly, to me as a DM the difficulty of my encounters does not hinge on some obscure bit of gotcha knowledge. My players can decide for themselves if their character knows something, and if they are in doubt I'm happy to make that ruling for them. But more often than not, I simply ask my players 'Do YOU think your character would have this knowledge?' rather than telling them 'NO'.

And if the players are truly advocating for their PCs then of course their answer will be "Yes, we have this knowledge", whether there's good in-game reason for it or not.

I will however correct misunderstandings about the facts as established in the campaign, if I believe their characters should know better. Players can sometimes get confused or misremember details, especially over the course of a long campaign (which is understandable). For example, the same player thought that the God of Death would disapprove of another player laying the souls of the Liches to rest, but I corrected him on this. I corrected him because I felt that his priest would have a deep understanding of the gods in my campaign world and know things that the player might not.

I do this sort of thing - remind them of things they in theory would know or remember - all the time on both a large and small scale; largely because what was a week for the players might only have been an hour for the PCs (or several years real v 6 months in-game on a larger scale).

To me it is all about facilitating my players, and helping them with what they are trying to do. If one player wants to play the wise priest who informs his party about Liches, I try to give him the freedom to do this. I pass that information to him, so the gameplay can continue, rather than come to an abrupt halt. To me there is no benefit to hiding this information from my players or their characters.

To me there is.

The liches example is a great one for this. Fine, they destroy the liches and loot their lair. But six months or a year later back come those same liches looking for a) revenge and b) their loot back. At this point the PCs might start wondering if there's something else they need to do to finish these guys off for good...and thus you in effect get two adventures out of one. Benefits all round, I say.

 

[Lanefan]

Sorry to take so long to reply....I had a busy weekend.

No worries.

I think the bit I quoted here is really just about preference. I know based on our past discussions that you prefer to play with the expectation that the PCs are "no one special", they're just another person in their world. Which is fine, of course. I don't really care to try and hew to some kind of quasi-medieval social class expectations; my players come up with characters they want to play, and I work with them to make that happen. Any advantage they get from their background is easily offset with an equal disadvantage.

As long as you're applying disadvantages to cancel off advantages I'd likely have no problem with it were I in your game.

I also think that the life of an adventurer is simply different from whatever society woudl consider "normal", so to me, PCs are special no matter what. They don't need to be some kind of "chosen one" or anything, but I don't think that they are typical by any means.

But again, this is simply preference.

I tend to prefer the zero-to-hero arc, particularly as it helps allow for some long-term growth and change during a long campaign.

Aren't many of the choices made by players for their characters made to gain an advantage? Weapon or ability selection, spell choice, feats versus stat increses, what magic item to wear in their belt slot.....all these things are done with advantage in mind. There may be other factors as well, but mechanical advantage is likely always a consideration.

Indeed, but in my game almost all of that happens at char-gen which to me largely falls in the meta realm anyway. The magic item one - that's almost always explainable in the fiction through the PC's own sense of self-preservation.

Why is that a problem in the scenario you describe? I will point out I think it's a bit of an extreme, and certainly different than the one I presented in a couple of key ways, but still it may be interesting to discuss. What's the big deal if the player does decide to claim lordship of Karsos? Sure, it may make things easier for them in the immediate "hey the guards aren't gonna kill us" kind of way, but I woudl also think it would open up several opportunities. What's the PC's place in Korsos? Are people happy for him to turn back up? Was his family glad he was gone? All kinds of political angles seem to present themselves.

Two problems leap to mind.

One, if player A claims lordship of Karsos it denies players B, C and D the option of doing so should they have so desired.

Two, it grants potential advantages (wealth, status, authority) that wouldn't otherwise be present; and while some of that can be cancelled out by political considerations etc., to do so presents a here-and-now headache for the DM which could have been thought out earlier had this fact of nobility been known earlier e.g. at char-gen.

Now, if the goal of play is not to get embroiled in the political situation in Karsos, these concerns don't need to be raised. Perhaps something else can be done with this bit of info. But the question is if this isn't the goal....if this isn't what the player wants, then why would they introduce this idea? Just to avoid being bothered by some guards in a potentially hostile town? Seems a bit of a big card to play for that reason.

It comes under the aegis of player advocacy for their PC, and looking for an advantage.

Does this interfere with the DM's plans? Or the other players? If so, can that be reconciled? I would imagine a conversation would happen, and the best way to proceed would be decided on by all.

Well for one thing if it did interfere with my plans the last thing I'm going to want to do is tell them that! That said, again if I-as-DM had known earlier about this nobility bit then I could have planned around it and even incorporated it in somewhere else if it made sense in the fiction. (e.g. the PC would likely have been dealt with much differently in some towns previously visited, and approached said visits differently also, had the nobility piece been known up front)

Again, I don't see the problem with the stakes. To me, it's the idea of the player's background actually becoming important in play. That means the player will likely be more invested because the character is more tied to things.

Yes, which means let's get the important bits of the background known up front rather than appearing out of nowhere halfway through.

I can't make something important in play if I don't know it exists.

As for the "slippery slope" kind of argument....I don't think that's really a concern. Perhaps with certain players or certain groups, but I think that in general most players can actually handle this without abusing it. It may take a little adjustment to actually incorporate this kind of thing into a game where it previously didn't exist, but I think it's achievable.

For me it's a very great concern.

Well, in the case of a wizard or cleric, I don't know. In my 5E game, one of the characters is a Diviner. She gets those kinds of hunches all the time. Perfectly within the fiction that's been established.

Fair enough.

And I'm sure we could come up with an explanation for just about any scenario.

The easiest would be to not confirm that the PC is actually dead. Just cut away leaving her actual status unknown. Maybe she's in negative HP, or making death saves or whatever. Then you'll actually get honest action from the players. This would probably be ideal if you want to avoid metagaming.

The way to achieve this (and how I do it, when I can) is to take the scout's player aside and sort the scouting out beyond the hearing/knowledge of the other players, then leave the scout's player aside while I deal with the rest of 'em.

Don't you just flash forward past the hour of waiting? I would expect so. "Okay, an hour's passed and the scout has not returned....you all have an uneasy feeling about this," and you're all set. Play proceeds largely as it would have without the need for pretending not to know what we know thing. The players can play their characters without their knowledge of the scout's death impacting their decision making.

Sometimes yes, other times something might happen during that hour e.g. the main party are forced to move and thus won't be there for the scout to find on her return. Or, if the scout doesn't return after an hour and they really don't know why, for all I know they might say "Let's give her another half-hour"; an outcome much less likely if they-as-players already know she ain't coming back at all.

 

[pemerton]

If Player knowledge must be separated from Pc knowledge, what's the point of talking IC in first person?

<snip>

How can one Drama roleplay at all, or why people gets upset if the silent Player likes to play Bards, if Pc/Player are separated? How can one value pure roleplay if there's no way to tell which is which?

To me, it seems there are two uncontroversial ways it can become true in the fiction that a PC knows something:

* The player has some knowledge and imputes it to the PC;

* The GM informs the player of something that the the PC knows.​

The extent to which a GM is able to veto/gate the first approach will depend primarily on table conventions. Off the top of my head I can't think of any rulebook that expressly says talks about the GM being able to veto this.

A third way is for the player to succeed at some sort of knowledge/Discern Realities/etc check. Whether such a check generates player-authored knowledge (eg Burning Wheel) or GM-authored knowledge (eg 4e D&D, Dungeon World) will depend on the system details as mediated through table conventions.

When it comes to drama/freeform/"first person" roleplaying and resolution, these methods are not all created equal. If the player can't declare actions until the GM tells him/her what the PC knows, we're getting close to the GM roleplaying with him-/herself. Likewise if the GM is exercising lots of veto/gating over player-to-PC imputed knowledge. A lot of knowledge checks, especially when it is the GM who provides the answers, can also get in the way.

Seems legit and perfectly reasonable. But let's take nothing for granted: How do you know for sure the God of Death will not take offense?

This goes to a variation of player-imputes-knowledge-to-PC, which (at least in my experience), is helpful to first-person roleplaying: the player is entitled to make up setting elements and incorporate them into his/her roleplaying of his/her PC.

I have one player in particular who likes to do this - sometimes drawing on his recollections of how a system or a setting works (he's been RPGing for over 30 years and so has a lot of such recollections), and sometimes just projecting his best sense (given past episodes of play plus genre logic) of how things should be in the setting.

 

[pemerton]

No edition restricts the addition of background after play has started.

I think this comment can be generalised: [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s assertions about how PC knowledge, PC background etc are to be handled may be true accounts of how he likes to play the game, but find little support in D&D rules texts, esepecially 4e.

The purpose of backgrounds is informational about the PC, not to gain mechanical advantages during game play. Sure, there will be the occasional mechanical advantage such as information about some sort of monster or other, but by and large the background is just fluff. Even when I bring in a portion of it, making that aspect of the background matter and being better for play, it will generally be fluff and carry no mechanical value at all. For example, a player in my game had his PC befriend a hermit. I might one day have that hermit one day track his PC down and ask him to help with some bandits that have taken up residence near the hermit's remote location, making it difficult for him to live.

The purpose of backgrounds is informational, yes, but I would say more importantly that it's also to grant context to the character's place in the world. This can manifest in a variety of ways. Why can't some of them be advantageous to the character?

I think that "background is just fluff" and "I might one day include the PC background" are pretty telling that you expect DM authority on these matters. And again, that's fine....but this is kind of why some folks are critical of this method. They don't want their backgrounds to be "just fluff". They want the GM to actively involve their background into play, or they want a game that allows this to happen.

This relates to what [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] said upthread about PC backgrounds and PC goals being the MEAT of play.

If the only significance of befriending a hermit is that he might give my PC a fetch quest, that is about as far from MEAT as we can get while still having the hermit figure in play. And this isn't even about "advantage" - it's about what establishes the dramatic trajectory and focus of play.

Example: party arrives at Karnos, an unfamiliar and not-that-friendly town. Player A, who has up to now left her character background mostly blank, suddenly declares "Oh, don't worry - I'm the local noble here and my word is the law. Everyone knows me. And look, here come some of my personal guards now - they saw us coming.".

If this (that a party member is the local noble here) had been known from square one the party's dealing with and feelings toward Karnos would have almost certainly been much different. Very likely they'd have used it as a safe home base all along, rather than only coming here now because they have to.

Aren't many of the choices made by players for their characters made to gain an advantage? Weapon or ability selection, spell choice, feats versus stat increses, what magic item to wear in their belt slot.....all these things are done with advantage in mind. There may be other factors as well, but mechanical advantage is likely always a consideration.

Why is that a problem in the scenario you describe? I will point out I think it's a bit of an extreme, and certainly different than the one I presented in a couple of key ways, but still it may be interesting to discuss. What's the big deal if the player does decide to claim lordship of Karsos? Sure, it may make things easier for them in the immediate "hey the guards aren't gonna kill us" kind of way, but I woudl also think it would open up several opportunities. What's the PC's place in Korsos? Are people happy for him to turn back up? Was his family glad he was gone? All kinds of political angles seem to present themselves.

Now, if the goal of play is not to get embroiled in the political situation in Karsos, these concerns don't need to be raised. Perhaps something else can be done with this bit of info. But the question is if this isn't the goal....if this isn't what the player wants, then why would they introduce this idea? Just to avoid being bothered by some guards in a potentially hostile town? Seems a bit of a big card to play for that reason.

Does this interfere with the DM's plans? Or the other players? If so, can that be reconciled? I would imagine a conversation would happen, and the best way to proceed would be decided on by all.

Some further thoughts on this example: what do the mechanics of the system say? For instance, if my PC is a noble, what are the rules for attracting and/or commanding an entourage?
[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s presentation of the example rests on some assumptions about the answers to those questions. But those aren't the only assumptions that are possible.

For instance, in Cortex+ Heroic, an entourage would normally be either a resource or an asset (similar mechanical devices, but established via different mechanical processes). Neither can just be brougjht into being by way of player stipulation.

In some versions of D&D there are Loyalty mechanics. If the PC has been absent from home for a long period, in those rules that would probably affect the loyalty of the entourage, and hence the likelihood of them willingly turning up upon the PCs' arrival.

Etc.

The bigger point is that most RPGs have ways of establishing fiction other than simply fiat narration (whether by GM or player). Posts that proceed on the assumption that the only alternative to player fiat is GM fiat; or that if GM fiat is abandoned, then player fiat will take it's place; seem to wilfully disregard this fact. (Which is a point I've been making, on-and-off, basically since the start of this thread.)

 

[Numidius]

This goes to a variation of player-imputes-knowledge-to-PC, which (at least in my experience), is helpful to first-person roleplaying: the player is entitled to make up setting elements and incorporate them into his/her roleplaying of his/her PC.

I have one player in particular who likes to do this - sometimes drawing on his recollections of how a system or a setting works (he's been RPGing for over 30 years and so has a lot of such recollections), and sometimes just projecting his best sense (given past episodes of play plus genre logic) of how things should be in the setting.

Right, and that is from player' side. I was asking from the Gm side, since I understand [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] is the Gm in the Death God example, and me being a bit provocative, like: how even if is the Gm, can he/she be sure if a Death God will take offense?

 

[Maxperson]

Your character has never encountered a trap before. Good roleplay involves intentionally triggering the trap to doom your character.

It depends. PC's have brains, so it would depend on what the trap looked like. A spear trap in a wall is pretty clearly something you don't want to trigger, even if you've never encountered a trap. A button on the wall might be something the PC pushes. Circumstances will determine whether it's good or bad roleplay.

Ah, yes. Again, the previously discussed situation where the mental headspace of your PC exists as Schrödinger's Cat.

Which is the same exact position every other PC's mental headspace is at. Every time your PC encounters a new situation that you as a player have no knowledge of, the same Schrodinger's headspace exists. The PC both knows and does not know the knowledge until determined by a roll or game play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Except you are framing it too extremely. There is nothing wrong with challenges like monsters that have weaknesses you have to discover. And I think there is place in games for really challenging monsters (who have weaknesses that may be very hard to discover). I think it is fine if you don't like that. But I get a lot of enjoyment from games where there is a risk of dying because I don't figure out how to kill some kind of weird monster. I find that very exciting.

Dying just has no real appeal. I mean, if I died because some fact was so obscure nobody in the party could figure out that the dragon had a peanut allergy, then really, killing all the characters was a positive thing? It was suspenseful? I just can't see it. I have DMed 1000's of games and really almost never seen something like that come back as "wow! Good game!".

OTOH I've seen plenty of times when something happened roughly like what 4e seems to aim for by design. That is something like a monster that is TOUGH, but beatable if you aren't zeroed in on its exact weakness. Treants in 4e are a decent example, they are vulnerable to fire and take some extra damage from it. If you didn't know that, then they're a bit tougher to beat, but you CAN chop one up.

Or, a scenario where someone who thought ahead gets a decent extra benefit, again the treant comes to mind, if you packed fire, you got the prize.

Now, 4e trolls admittedly break that design, but I don't think that was a great idea. OTOH its hard to find a 4e party with NO fire damage, and its clear that even neophyte players can make monster knowledge checks to learn to do that. Its not GREAT, but it isn't a perfect game. Given the means PCs have at their disposal by the levels trolls are common it isn't worth complaining about much.

 

[Maxperson]

This is the same kind of fear of abuse that people worried about Mother May I are citing. They see it as a GM having the ability to decide things that could lead to abuse. In this case, the players are allowed to decide things, and you're immediately concerned about abuse. "If it can be done once, then why not every time?" applies to both concerns.

It's not about a fear of abuse. It's about common sense and reason. It makes no sense for a group to want to use player knowledge about trolls out of a desire not to have to feign ignorance, but but okay with feigning ignorance about vampires and golems. It's not at all the same kind of situation as "Mother May I."

I'm not really concerned with how HP are described in the book because that's changed over the years, and everyone does it the way they prefer.

But if you're telling me that your players are equally cautious when they have 110 HP as they are when they have 14 HP, I would be amazed.

It's true that people run hit points how they prefer, but it's equally true that I wasn't stating "my way," but rather RAW when I spelled out what hit points are.

As for my players being equally cautious at 110 hit points as they are at 14, no they aren't. That's only because they are not perfect. They try, though. They will avoid a 30 foot fall at 110 hit points and at 14 hit points, because a 30 foot fall can mean death. The PCs don't have any knowledge of hit points, so they don't know they are at 110.

I appreciate you making the clarification. I don't think it's always been clear that you are talking about your game.

In my first post I forgot to specify that it was for my game. In my follow-up I did specify. I have repeated it a number of time as well. The reason that there is "confusion" is that there are poster's here who would rather ignore the truth in favor of false statements in order to try and "win." I'm not referring to you, but rather to those who just don't want to have discussions with me in good faith the way you do. If they did, they would be having the same civil conversation that we are.

I don't know if the fact that new players won't know about vulnerabilities is what's factored into difficulty so much as the fact that they have resistance to standard attacks or regeneration and the like is what's factored in. A troll is worth whatever XP its worth because it can regenerate, not because characters know or don't know it can regenerate.

A troll is very unlikely to even be able to regenerate if the party knows the truth. They will use methods that take advantage of the weakness, to the xp value should be diminished if metagaming player knowledge is allowed.

If your PCs learn about troll vulnerability through some reasonable in game means, do you then lower the XP reward for any trolls they face? If they meet a merchant guard captain who tells them "there are trolls in the hills....make sure you burn them, or else they'll regenerate" is this an unfair advantage?

No, it's not an unfair advantage, because it's not guaranteed that they will find out. The game has rules for determining if players can find out, or it did. 5e leaves that in the DM's hands again. I believe that the players sometimes knowing and sometimes not is the balance point of monsters with weaknesses. Players never knowing would make them worth more. Players always knowing would make them worth less.

So I think that what's really the core of the disagreement is the "when" that these things are decided. Would you agree with that?

I think so. It may not be the only disagreement, but it seems like the largest one. I'm even okay with the player adding in background later if it makes sense for the PC, but not if it's done for immediate gain.

The purpose of backgrounds is informational, yes, but I would say more importantly that it's also to grant context to the character's place in the world. This can manifest in a variety of ways. Why can't some of them be advantageous to the character?

They can be. I've already agreed that it can. They just can't come up with it on the fly to take advantage of what's in front of them. That to me is as much cheating as metagaming is.

I think that "background is just fluff" and "I might one day include the PC background" are pretty telling that you expect DM authority on these matters. And again, that's fine....but this is kind of why some folks are critical of this method. They don't want their backgrounds to be "just fluff". They want the GM to actively involve their background into play, or they want a game that allows this to happen. They want the story to be their character's story to a large extent, and not something that could happen to any character.

Look at Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.....both have background elements that come into play heavily in the Star Wars stories. Luke's is more central to the overall story, but Han's is also very important, too....it provides him with motivation, characterization, context in the fictional world, and complications when his past comes back to bite him.

Ideally, we don't go into Star Wars knowing all these details. They emerge as we watch the fiction. Han Solo's background isn't given to us ahead of time in the "Episode IV" scroll. We learn it as we watch the movie....he's a smuggler....he owes a dangerous person a debt....and so on. Those details can also emerge through play in an RPG, rather than being pre-determined. This is the kind of "Discovery" that I think is what [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] is talking about.

I don't think you understood what I meant by "fluff," even though I provided an example that is similar what happens to Han Solo. Fluff just means "not mechanical." A fluff background can and will be very important. It can provide motivations, context, and become part of play. There's nothing wrong with being fluff. Fluff is often more important in my game than mechanics are.

So, if a player in a hypothetical game decides to play a smuggler, and a hypothetical GM decides to treat that as just fluff....don't you think that a huge opportunity for a game with potentially strong player investment is being missed?

No, because the player investment will be there. Fluff does not mean "unused" and "unimportant." It just means that it will not be mechanical in nature. Han Solo's background with Jaba had a huge influence, even though it was fluff. Leia's fluff background as a princess is important throughout the movies, even though her planet is destroyed.