D&D 5E Character Age

[Valador]

I'm a fan of players putting some thought into their back story. As long as they're not trying to write themselves into a way too important or over the top story, I promote doing a good solid background and usually try to incorporate some aspect of their story into the campaign.

I think trying to get the players involved through their own stories is some times better than making them feel like they're simply riding along while the DM tells them a story that the DM wants to hear and not the players.

This probably doesn't work well with premade adventure paths and such, but I usually avoid those... I like being able to connect people personally to the story rather than "you all meet in a tavern" etc.

Sorry I'm not quoting specific parts of posts, it's a pain in the ass to do on my phone.

 

[Wik]

I'm a fan of players putting some thought into their back story. As long as they're not trying to write themselves into a way too important or over the top story, I promote doing a good solid background and usually try to incorporate some aspect of their story into the campaign.

See, I'd rather players tell me very vaguely what they did, and then as things show up in game, tying those events to their backstory in retrospect.

You tell me you're a soldier in game. Later on, when a unit is stationed in town... you ask if it's the one you were originally serving with. Hey! Looks like they were. And wouldn't you know it? Your old sergeant is in town.

You can do the same thing if the player tells the GM in advance that he was with such and such unit and the GM makes sure it shows up in the player's travels... but I prefer to have players tagging background events through play, not dictating to the GM at the start of the game what those events are.

I think trying to get the players involved through their own stories is some times better than making them feel like they're simply riding along while the DM tells them a story that the DM wants to hear and not the players.

I agree there. But then, I don't really think RPGs are about "stories" at all. They're more like "war stories" - small little tales that get told while set amongst a much larger framework that often seems unconnected and vague. I don't do over-arching campaigns, though .

Really, it's a case of "different strokes for different folks". It probably explains why we don't see eye to eye on this issue. Which is one of the awesome things about D&D, and probably why it's lasted so long.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not too worried about older PC's having the same skills as younger ones. I've seen too many older adults who don't live life as fully as some teenagers and have half the skills. The same applies to elves who are more relaxed about time and aren't really in a hurry to learn new things since they have centuries to learn things.

My big pet peeve is that experience is gained quickly and that 16 year old 1st level PC will often end up a 20th level 16-18 year old. A raging hormone teen with the power to change worlds is a scary, scary thing.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'm not saying there's a problem with the system, so I'm not sure you're following the point I was trying to make. My point was that the issue was simply a personal annoyance to me, because it doesn't quite mesh well with the system, and I was asking how others dealt with it from the standpoint of non game changing methods to deal with or ignore the issue.

Here's an example. Let's just take a 30 year old character with the soldier background. They joined the military at a relatively young age of 16-17, etc. In those 14 or so years they've seen many battles (large, small, helms deep or whatever), many wars and have led many men and progressed through the ranks. For whatever plot reason they are no longer a soldier and are now a level 1 adventurer who is now all of a sudden dungeon fodder.

I just don't understand what you're saying here. A grizzled badass with years of experience is not a level 1 character. Note that the "veteran" sample NPC in the Monster Manual has 9 hit dice. If you're supposed to create a level 1 character, a grizzled badass with years of experience is not a valid concept.

 

[Ahrimon]

I look at it as HP and attack bonuses are plot interaction effects and that PCs are the few that are no longer bound by fate and the will of the gods.

So Redgar the city guard may have had a +3 to hit and 20 hit points but that's only because that's what fate and the gods (the DM) want him to have and he'll die when it's his time to die regardless of his hit points. Redgar the fighter, and all PCs have that extra spark that sets them apart. However they have done it they are no longer bound by the DMs control. Their abilities and hit points are beyond that of normal mortals and while their hit points may start out lower than they previously had it's because they are no longer protected by fate and they can go beyond what a normal mortal can. It's up to them to prove they are worthy and that they can survive. As they grow in power and skill their HP and bonuses will go up to reflect that. Think of it kind of like a cosmic reset.

Even if you don't subscribe to the PCs are special and unique way of doing things you can still seperate the PCs from the NPCs since they no longer use the same rules. A first level fighter as a fighting style and second wind, as well as all weapons and armor. That's something that no NPC has. Also remember that the skills that your PC have are meant to be the adventuring skills that they get. There's nothing to say that they don't have other skills. If a PC has the background of a Knight, he should know all about knightly stuff, horses, armor, heraldry, etc. He doesn't need a trained skill for that. If you say in your backstory that you're a master chef then so be it. You don't need a special skill for that. So outside of trying to say that your character should be trained in a whole bunch of adventuring skills I don't see where a 30 year old character would have a disconnect with their adventuring skills.

However, I could be convinced to allow a character more starting skills in exchange for ability points. After all, even a grizzled veteran NPC doesn't have the abilities that a PC has so as long as we're trying to make sure that we're modeling going from a NPC to a PC then we shouldn't do it piecemeal.

 

[S'mon]

I would instead caution against backstories that build your character up to be something they can't actually start out as. A level 1 fighter is essentially a grunt in a regular set of armed forces, or might be a little higher but instead come from a bumpkin town where level 1 represents extreme skill. If you write your character (or if anyone at your table does this) to be the Captain of the City Watch, having served in 4 wars and personally protected the king....unless "max level" of your world is level 5, it's highly unlikely that your character could reasonably have done those things without gaining any levels at all.

I'm ok with that as long as you explain why your PC no longer has the skills he would have
had when he was (eg) the king's champion or magist. A curse is one possibility, as is retirement and
skills atrophying. Perhaps undead drained your levels, or in some cases disease and injury
could have done it.

 

[pemerton]

Perhaps undead drained your levels

Now that's a good backstory: "I used to be a 15th level fighter, but a nasty encounter with a vampire brought me unstuck!" The character should also start with a treasure map - "If only we can get back down to the 8th level of the dungeon, all my old magical loot should still be there!"

 

[S'mon]

As a DM, let me tell you something very important: If your DM doesn't work with you to make the campaigns going on the campaigns you'd like to be playing, such that you have more than a "minor say" in what they are about and how they start (in both level and "No 'one night in the tavern' lead-ins, please' meanings), then your DM is not as good at being a DM as they could be.

What if the GM is running a public game with a variable player base? What if the GM doesn't want to start at higher level? Personally, I will listen to potential player input including on starting level,
but I won't necessarily follow it. For one thing, my experience of long term campaigns has
been that starting at 1st tends to give a campaign much better 'legs' than a higher level
start. My Crimson Throne campaign started at 2nd and that worked ok, but I find starting
at 3rd or 4th tends to result in short-lived campaigns.

 

[S'mon]

Now that's a good backstory: "I used to be a 15th level fighter, but a nasty encounter with a vampire brought me unstuck!" The character should also start with a treasure map - "If only we can get back down to the 8th level of the dungeon, all my old magical loot should still be there!"

I once played a 4th level 'Gandalf' Wizard with exactly this backstory; he'd been
level-drained defeating the 'Balrog'.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

What if the GM is running a public game with a variable player base?

Then the DM should adapt their game as best they can to which variable of players actually attend, or at the very least make sure that prior to anyone agreeing to play they are aware of all the ins-and-outs of rule and style choices so that they can make an informed choice whether that is the game for them or not.

What if the GM doesn't want to start at higher level?

The DM is but one person at the table. Compromises should be made acknowledging that fact and treating all participants in the game as equals.

Personally, I will listen to potential player input including on starting level, but I won't necessarily follow it.

That's fine. Sometimes player input is way out of line with what the rest of the people at the table want - the point is not to always do every last thing that any player asks for, but to be open to doing things in a way besides exactly how you the DM wanted to, like it or leave it being the only choices ever available to your players.

As an example of what I mean: I joined a group of gamers after moving to Louisiana in 2001. We all wanted to play D&D. I wanted to use AD&D 2nd edition because I disliked the vast majority of rules changes made by 3rd edition, but the players out-voted me. The result was that I ran 3rd edition, and then 3.5, for the entire life-span of the edition even though I'd much rather have been running 2nd edition.

For one thing, my experience of long term campaigns has been that starting at 1st tends to give a campaign much better 'legs' than a higher level start. My Crimson Throne campaign started at 2nd and that worked ok, but I find starting at 3rd or 4th tends to result in short-lived campaigns.

I think that you are attributing what caused those campaigns to be short-lived to the wrong thing, as my experience is that how long a campaign lasts is more affected by out-of-game details than with the game itself, even in games that mechanically fall apart at some point along the line of experience given to player characters.

The 3 longest campaigns I've ever run started at 5th level (played 2 years and ended at 55th level, in 3.5), 8th level (played 1 year and ended at 13th level, in 3.5), 0-level (played 14 months in total, but started with Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, then converted to Swords & Wizardry, and finally converted to Pathfinder, ending at 15th level) - and so far with 5th edition the difference between starting at 4th level and starting at 1st level has been that the latter takes about 3 sessions to get to the same point as the former starts.