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Adventure Design: Backstory and History
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<blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 6737765" data-attributes="member: 92511"><p>I'll just add my voice to what seems to be a modicum of consensus. The backstory for the adventure is, of course, always enlightening/nice for and from the DM perspective. How much of that gets used during the adventure is not usually much. How much of it gets shared (and then retained) with players is another matter entirely.</p><p></p><p>I, personally, don't think any story that needs more than a paragraph to half a page of "set up"/backstory is necessary. The Village of Hommlet background comes to mind with the few hundred years of background with the Temple of Elemental Evil and it was destroyed and came back and destroyed again and then and then and then...unnecessary.</p><p></p><p>There is a degree of depth to help with immersion. Sure.</p><p></p><p>But the 64,000 gold piece question becomes, where is that line where you cross over from being a "description" to become a "prescription"? When does it no longer assist in the set-up of the adventure, lending some context and flavor, and become a definition for where/how/why/when the adventure "should" happen.</p><p></p><p>For NPCs, a few sentences about anyone: what's unique about them or not, general mood or outlook, motivations (with or without actual alignments) is always welcomed. Makes interactions immeasurably easier to use/RP for the DM. Major players, villains, authority figures, and the like that have a good chance to become more involved/interacted with than, "I get a room and buy a pint", obviously, deserve a more thorough treatment. I would say no more than paragraph or two should ever be necessary. Anything more than that is the purview of the DM to create and flesh out.</p><p></p><p>So...yes, please and thank you, for a small amount of backstory. For a gist. An outline of what's happened/currently going on. Some guidelines of what's at stake/might happen in the near [if not immediate] future. Please and thank you for anything from "sketched out" to "nicely rounded" NPCs. </p><p></p><p>But make sure everything remains DEcriptive and ceases before it becomes PREscriptive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="steeldragons, post: 6737765, member: 92511"] I'll just add my voice to what seems to be a modicum of consensus. The backstory for the adventure is, of course, always enlightening/nice for and from the DM perspective. How much of that gets used during the adventure is not usually much. How much of it gets shared (and then retained) with players is another matter entirely. I, personally, don't think any story that needs more than a paragraph to half a page of "set up"/backstory is necessary. The Village of Hommlet background comes to mind with the few hundred years of background with the Temple of Elemental Evil and it was destroyed and came back and destroyed again and then and then and then...unnecessary. There is a degree of depth to help with immersion. Sure. But the 64,000 gold piece question becomes, where is that line where you cross over from being a "description" to become a "prescription"? When does it no longer assist in the set-up of the adventure, lending some context and flavor, and become a definition for where/how/why/when the adventure "should" happen. For NPCs, a few sentences about anyone: what's unique about them or not, general mood or outlook, motivations (with or without actual alignments) is always welcomed. Makes interactions immeasurably easier to use/RP for the DM. Major players, villains, authority figures, and the like that have a good chance to become more involved/interacted with than, "I get a room and buy a pint", obviously, deserve a more thorough treatment. I would say no more than paragraph or two should ever be necessary. Anything more than that is the purview of the DM to create and flesh out. So...yes, please and thank you, for a small amount of backstory. For a gist. An outline of what's happened/currently going on. Some guidelines of what's at stake/might happen in the near [if not immediate] future. Please and thank you for anything from "sketched out" to "nicely rounded" NPCs. But make sure everything remains DEcriptive and ceases before it becomes PREscriptive. [/QUOTE]
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