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Message: <blockquote data-quote="touc" data-source="post: 8949895" data-attributes="member: 19270">Having run Curse of Strahd to completion (with major modifications to Strahd's personality and motivations), backstory tie-ins mean very little because your impetus is to get home/escape the mists. Instead of giving players powers of your choosing (and for new players, just one more feature to track), I'd recommend a "jam" session with your gamers where they build upon a story of why they're adventuring together and why they'd risk their lives for one another. For example, you could start with the frontier town dinner. Player 1, why are you at the dinner? If the player stalls, help with a few open-ended suggestions. "You're human, are you perhaps related to the Baroness, or work there, or something else?"  Player 2, how do you know Player 1's character? "You're dwarven, which means you're old enough that you'd have seen Player 1 born and growing up. Did you have any role in that, did you help them or offer advice, or something else?"  Get the ball rolling, let the players come up with cool ideas (and they will). By the time my gamers did this, one was the daughter of the Baroness who got her first task (get rid of the Vistani stragglers), one was the bastard son of the oft-absent baron (fiercely protected by the daughter, who fought to keep him there when his sorcerous powers manifested), another was the "wise old mentor" half-elf who educated them both, and he was friends with the game warden (a dwarven ranger who taught the kids outdoor skills). Now you have a "family" of adventurers who would do anything to protect one another as they soon find themselves being drawn away from the safety of their home and into a strange, lethal world.</blockquote>

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