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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8139712" data-attributes="member: 29398">Agreed it can be frustrating.  That said, if it's what the characters would do then so be it - all I can do as DM is sit back, crack open another beer, and wait for them to decide what to do.  If I'm a player, sooner or later my boredom tolerance will be exceeded and my character will do something rash - usually to its own detriment but hey, at least I got things moving. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />We do random roll for stat generation, so having too specific of a character idea going in is often self-defeating when the dice don't co-operate.As for the kind of things they may want to see come up in play: broad-brush stuff - e.g. if I get a vibe that the players are keen on doing some adventuring in an arctic setting for a while, or that they're tired of facing undead and would like to see some variety - are usually pretty easy to accommodate.  But in specific terms e.g. a character wants to sort out some drama within her family (and I've got one player who quite likes this sort of thing), I try to limit this or do it off-session as while it's going on in-session everyone else is more or less sitting there bored.As a player, some of my characters have rather specific goals but I don't want to waste too much of everyone else's time with them and neither expect nor insist that they come up as part of party play (exception: if I-as-character can talk the party into helping with something tha'ts different, as they always have the option of saying no and if they say yes it's their own choice), and so that stuff gets dealt with off-session or in spare moments.I more want the party as a whole - regardless of who might be in it at the time - to be the star of its show.Hard to give a firm answer as this would be completely situation-dependent.  How familiar is this city otherwise - have the PCs ever been here before, or is it their home base, etc.?  But if it seems reasonable, then most likely yes.Agreed and disagreed at the same time.  The bit with the nefarious gang is quite explainable in a bunch of ways: maybe the informed character had reasons for keeping this knowledge to herself; or maybe the gang or its activities is a new development since the PC's last known info; or maybe the gang has only just revealed its existence to anyone....I could come up with ten of these. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If a character was, say, a Thief or Assassin and was from or based in this city chances are I'd have given its player some broad-base info ahead of time anyway.The bit with the hills isn't so explainable.  Unless something pretty odd is going on, hills tend to be and stay where they are and thus PCs (and players) would know of their existence unless the PCs were complete strangers to the region.Where possible - and it's never perfect but one can always try - I don't like metagame considerations to influence in-character play.  Same reasoning that turns me hard away from any sort of Inspiration or Bennie mechanics; and the same reasoning that tells me PCs and NPCs in the game world are the same and should be treated the same by others.Having player knowledge and character knowledge match, where possible, reduces one avenue where this can occur.My ideal (and if it happens in my lifetime I'll be rather astounded) would be some sort of quasi-VR system, where we could see the players at the table out of one eye and through the eyes of our PC out the other (or by raising and lowering a visor, or similar).  When we spoke in-character it'd be heard - live through the air, not on a speaker - by the other players as our PC voices; there'd be a toggle if we wanted to speak normally OOC.  There'd be ways of controlling our movement within the setting, much like a way-more-sophisticated version of what roll20 has.  In other words, completely immersive on one hand but still live-around-the-table on the other.And if the player says nothing lives there, which would be the most likely outcome, what then?Except without the backstory you really can't have the here-and-now story, or have it make any sense.And in fact at the same time you're telling the micro-story of the PCs you're also telling part of the overall macro-story.  In this instance what you're telling is the story of the final defeat of Sauron.  And Tolkein shows this in his calendar summary at the end of the third book - he shows how this all fits in to the bigger picture.In part because if it does end up erupting under the PCs' feet I can't be accused of hosing them over.  Instead, I can legitimately state the decision to have it erupt then and there was made in complete neutrality, long before the PCs were even rolled up.It's part of the backdrop, which may or may not become a relevant part of the story.OK, let's try another example - this one very timely as it's currently ongoing in my game:I'm running S1 Lost Caverns.  Party has been in the field on and off for over half a year dealing with this; and on one of their visits to town it became clear that what they were in theory doing (finding the Necronomicon, the original holy scripture for all Necromancy; I substituted this into the module in place of the Demonomicon as all its useful spells already exist in my game) could have huge ramifications for Necromancers everywhere and the local Necromancers' guild really really really wanted this book!Unknown to the PCs, word got out.  Other Necromancers' guilds eventually heard about this, took note, and took action.Party finally finishes the adventure and heads back to town.  They're intercepted before they get there: foreign Necromancers have invaded the city and started a war with the locals over who gets to end up with this book.  Civilians are fleeing, if not already dead as collateral damage.  Buildings are burnt.  Huge rewards have been posted (though no-one's really sure by who) for each known party member.  All of this catches the adventurers quite off guard - they were hoping to get back to town, get rid of this damn book, divide their treasury, get all their lost levels restored (Drelzna had a field day!), and relax for a bit of downtime.  Now they have to sort their way through a war, which is what next session will probably consist of.I can think of at least one poster here who would say this is bad design because it uses hidden backstory.  Needless to say, I disagree. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />You risk conflicting visions, for one thing.  For example, using these silly hills again, what if one player wanted hills there while another wanted farmland and a third thought an ocean or very large lake would make sense; meanwhile the GM has to think "what happens if they just go north without asking" and has in mind there's just more swamp that way.You also risk coming up with something that doesn't make geographical or physical sense.  An obvious example is where someone places hills to the north, someone else places ocean to the south, and during play it becomes relevant that the river has to flow south-to-north (i.e. uphill!) so that other things can make sense. (I've seen maps in published novels do things like this and it bugs the hell out of me)  Distances and therefore travel times are even easier to mess up.Far simpler, and far more likely to be/remain consistent, if there's just one hand on the helm.</blockquote>

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