smbakeresq
Explorer
Only 1 in 10 player does it, but when a PC builds in a weakness or a MC that doesn’t really fit, the rest of the players notice it. The DM really notices it, at least I do, and that hooks the PC to the DM.
Yeah, things like this make me very glad for my group.
"Yeah, you can have what you want, but, I'm going to beat you about the head and ears with the DM beatstick until you either give up in frustration or your character dies. Hey, what? I didn't kill your character. Got nothing to do with me. Nosiree."
If it works for you folks, hey, more power to you. Me, I'll most often rewrite the campaign setting at the drop of a hat for a player that's actually invested in the character he's creating. Setting is disposable AFAIC. It's probably the least important thing at the table. Certainly far, far behind what the player's want.
So, given the thread drift, I thought I'd add my two cents regarding fluff and backstory and character creation.
In my opinion, and for my campaigns, NO ONE CARES. I really want to emphasize this. I feel like, woah, stop trying to make fetch happen.
You can't make your character cool or awesome or interesting because you define him as so. You can have all the written backstory of your character being the secret child of werewolves, or the King, or leprechauns, or whatever. Doesn't matter. Because characters are defined through play, not by all the things you can imagine happened before the game began.
Yes, it is great to have everyone invested. A background can help with the following:
1. Starting personality (hopefully, like in reality, the PC's personality changes over time and with events).
2. Why are they adventuring? What is their goal?
3. Maybe a hook or two for the DM.
That's it. We have a simple belief in our campaigns, going way back- time spent agonizing over character creation is time that is not spent playing. Creating a character should take no more than 20 minutes. The character reveals himself/herself to you in play, not through design. IMO.
I often refer to "foregrounded" characters when folks talk about how characters without a lot of backstory are bad or deficient.So, given the thread drift, I thought I'd add my two cents regarding fluff and backstory and character creation.
In my opinion, and for my campaigns, NO ONE CARES. I really want to emphasize this. I feel like, woah, stop trying to make fetch happen.
You can't make your character cool or awesome or interesting because you define him as so. You can have all the written backstory of your character being the secret child of werewolves, or the King, or leprechauns, or whatever. Doesn't matter. Because characters are defined through play, not by all the things you can imagine happened before the game began.
Yes, it is great to have everyone invested. A background can help with the following:
1. Starting personality (hopefully, like in reality, the PC's personality changes over time and with events).
2. Why are they adventuring? What is their goal?
3. Maybe a hook or two for the DM.
That's it. We have a simple belief in our campaigns, going way back- time spent agonizing over character creation is time that is not spent playing. Creating a character should take no more than 20 minutes. The character reveals himself/herself to you in play, not through design. IMO.
any number of my posts on that subject in this thread but thats pointless. i have repeatedly said that i do and i encourage the Gm to work with the player and the two of them create together and collaborate together on how things interact between fluff and world etc etc etc. I have said more than once i encourage my players to create new things outside of their characters to add to the world "we" use. i repeatedly refer to this in most cases as "our world."
If you wanted to you could have noticed the following...5ekyu - I read your words here, but your own it seems willful mis-reading's of Aerial's explanation for why a non-nomadic tribal person has rage abilities doesn't jive with your words. He's not trying to create a "half" anything per his backstory. It's a story that gives rationale to his particular character having the ability to rage when he's not empowered by the spirits of a tribe or however you flavor rage in your game.
He's saying my dad turned into a werewolf when I was conceived, so I have rage and the attendant other barbarian abilities. And I spent my starting feat to gain "animalistic" senses aka Alertness.
That is a pretty unique set of circumstances that doesn't in anyway affect how normal barbarians work in your world. It could provide you as the DM a set of plot hooks to work with. Maybe his story gets out. Maybe there is an evil lycanthropic cult who hears about it and kidnaps the PC for experiments/torture. Maybe they try to re-create it and make a bunch of children they can raise in their beliefs that aren't tainted by the curse of lycanthropy but who have some bestial traits (rage/alertness). I only see that as making my job as DM easier. Unless you already have a railroad story you want to send the characters down that doesn't fit that. Then ignore any plot hooks this backstory generates. It only effects your game as much as you let it as the DM effect how things in your game work. Maybe it's not ANY different. Rage is an extension of the supernatural in your world, and animal totems are very tied to barbarian classes. Maybe it's the spirit of animals that grant in some small way the rage abilities, and in this case this PC is accessing those spirit animals (wolf) differently, but it's the same spirit and same rage. That is up to you as a DM. But I don't see your reading of Arial's backstory as "trying to work with a player" to integrate their PC/story into the game or world.
[MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION] - that is a cool backstory and a great way to think up a "civilized" barbarian. I like that you took Alertness with your variant human feat for the flavor of it. I would absolutely allow that for my games. I would still reserve the right to revoke Divine (read Cleric/Druid/Paladin) abilities if a PC went against
"That is a pretty unique set of circumstances that doesn't in anyway affect how normal barbarians work in your world. "5ekyu - I read your words here, but your own it seems willful mis-reading's of Aerial's explanation for why a non-nomadic tribal person has rage abilities doesn't jive with your words. He's not trying to create a "half" anything per his backstory. It's a story that gives rationale to his particular character having the ability to rage when he's not empowered by the spirits of a tribe or however you flavor rage in your game.
He's saying my dad turned into a werewolf when I was conceived, so I have rage and the attendant other barbarian abilities. And I spent my starting feat to gain "animalistic" senses aka Alertness.
That is a pretty unique set of circumstances that doesn't in anyway affect how normal barbarians work in your world. It could provide you as the DM a set of plot hooks to work with. Maybe his story gets out. Maybe there is an evil lycanthropic cult who hears about it and kidnaps the PC for experiments/torture. Maybe they try to re-create it and make a bunch of children they can raise in their beliefs that aren't tainted by the curse of lycanthropy but who have some bestial traits (rage/alertness). I only see that as making my job as DM easier. Unless you already have a railroad story you want to send the characters down that doesn't fit that. Then ignore any plot hooks this backstory generates. It only effects your game as much as you let it as the DM effect how things in your game work. Maybe it's not ANY different. Rage is an extension of the supernatural in your world, and animal totems are very tied to barbarian classes. Maybe it's the spirit of animals that grant in some small way the rage abilities, and in this case this PC is accessing those spirit animals (wolf) differently, but it's the same spirit and same rage. That is up to you as a DM. But I don't see your reading of Arial's backstory as "trying to work with a player" to integrate their PC/story into the game or world.
[MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION] - that is a cool backstory and a great way to think up a "civilized" barbarian. I like that you took Alertness with your variant human feat for the flavor of it. I would absolutely allow that for my games. I would still reserve the right to revoke Divine (read Cleric/Druid/Paladin) abilities if a PC went against their God/Oaths/Nature. Of course I would discuss with player first or drop serious hints, and it wouldn't be for random or light things. But for heavy, continued, willful violation, absolutely.
You can of course edit that post.Fair point. There is a world of difference between a half-elf and a half-were creature, I agree. I conflated your post with those words and a post from pming to which most of my subsequent points were aimed. Consider the majority of my post redirected [MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION] !
That said, I do think that if someone comes with a were-creature conceived barbarian there is no issue with that. It doesn't try to make a half-werewolf or substantively change anything about the game or the backstory of the world. See my post above.