DM "adding" to your PC's background?

[Jon_Dahl]

As a DM, I've been trying to think outside the box for some new ideas (always a bad idea) and I was browsing through my players' PC's bios. They're great, but there's some holes like missing info about family background, where received training etc.

I guess many of you are the same, or do you always have detailed backgrounds in D&D? But anyways let's get to the point: What if I fill in the missing pieces as a surprise-element for a plot and suddenly a long-lost brother appears or mom is kidnapped or a rich uncle gives his niece a sizeable donation?

Of course this varies according to players, but is your view? How would you feel? Can't write anymore w just one hand....

 

[frankthedm]

related thread...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/301835-dms-word-final-illogical.html

 

[Thunderfoot]

My take, bad idea. Most players will feel like you're trying to deliberately screw them over. However, I would ask that they finish their backgrounds and warn them that if they don't you will. That way, you're covered. BTW if they are all orphans, that just means that daddy or mommy can show up, if their parents were murdered by some BBEG, he/she/it shows up if that's what you really want to do.

I try to stay away from messing with family too much, occasionally its good for flavor, but as a major plot element, it has a tendency to ruin games.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm not a "plot" guy for campaigns, preferring to have the action arise from what the characters do, but for one-shots or tourneys I feel the DM should have lots of input into the PC backgrounds as the DM knows the setting best for his own campaign world. Most elements introduced by a DM prior to a game beginning can manifest as cliches or railroading in the eyes of many players. Leave the PCs of a campaign to the PCs and let them get to know the game world before coming up with a background (which should still need approval by the DM to avoid incongruities, e.g. guns in settings without them, aliens in settings without them, etc.)

 

[TerraDave]

The DM almost has to create or alter backgrounds, at least a little, just to get the campaign going. At some point, all the PCs have to be in one place, hopefully were the adventure, whatever it is, will start. And players may very well like the fact that events are somehow tied to them (ie, its all about them, even when it isn't). You can do this by using something they have given you, ie their background actually becomes relevant to play, or by filling in a blank, but in a way that seems to fit.

 

[The Shaman]

But anyways let's get to the point: What if I fill in the missing pieces as a surprise-element for a plot and suddenly a long-lost brother appears or mom is kidnapped or a rich uncle gives his niece a sizeable donation?

Of course this varies according to players, but is your view? How would you feel?

I would ask you to stop right now and never, ever do that again.

If you want to ask me to fill in some of what you call "missing pieces" of my character's background, then we can talk about it. If you want to just start inserting your ideas into my character background, then we have a serious problem. In a roleplaying game, I have my character, and you have literally everything else, and while some players might say, "Sure, go ahead, as long as it's interesting," you at the very least need to give them an chance to agree before you start playing aspects of their characters, too.

There's a significant difference between creating consequences which arise from the adventurers' actions and creating stuff that is a part of the characters themselves.

From a different perspective, stuff like "long-lost brothers" pegs my cringe meter in the red. Y'know the moment Star Wars was dead to me? "No, I am your father!" It's so trite, so completely hackneyed, that it took me completely out of the movie, and the franchise.

In any case, I have little enough use for character backgrounds as it is, and it's exactly this sort of thing that makes me like them even less.

My question to you is, why do you feel the need to do this? Do the adventurers lack the personal motivation to go out and stir up trouble on their own? Do you feel like you need to prod them to action all the time?

 

[Abraxas]

As a player, If it doesn't change the basic character concept - I don't mind. However, if it's just a way to screw with me - I oppose it. It's fine to screw with my character because of things I have the character do - but to make it up and it being completely out of my control - well that's not a fun game for me.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I voted not unless you ask first. Of course, unless something in the world background catches my interest, my character probably won't have a background. That will develope as the game plays out. (And if you give me a world background, you'd better give it all to me. I don't want to learn at level 5 that there was a race/class that I'd like to play but can't until my current character bites it, and I'll have to start over at level 1.)

 

[Dausuul]

I'm with the Shaman. I voted "not without asking," but I'd add a strong discouragement from even asking unless you have a damn good reason. Certainly the DM should make it clear up front if this is the sort of thing that might happen.

As a player, my character concept is vitally important to me. If I'm not engaged with the concept I have in my head, I have no interest in playing, and character background is a part of that concept. If the DM starts butting in and adding stuff, it's quite likely I'm going to lose interest in it--the character I'm playing is no longer the one I had in mind when I created him/her.

If I intentionally leave blanks and ask the DM to fill them in, of course, that's another matter. In that case I've already made room in my concept for "Insert DM fiat here."

 

[Umbran]

What if I fill in the missing pieces as a surprise-element for a plot and suddenly a long-lost brother appears or mom is kidnapped or a rich uncle gives his niece a sizeable donation?

When I begin a campaign, I tell the players that if there are segments of their backgrounds they absolutely don't want me to muck with, they should tell me. If you specify that your dad left when you were young, and it is important to you that he not pop up as an evil-general-emperor later in the game, you ought to tell me.

Usually, I ask them to also tell me if they are including some things that they fully intend me to meddle with.

I any case, all additions or changes made by a GM ought to be consistent with everything else in the background. If they specify two siblings, you can't go adding a third that the PC should have known about. If they specify that Mom was a saintly woman, you don't go adding a third at all.

So, for example, in my Deadlands game, one character has a dark, mysterious stranger in his past. The character doesn't know the origins or goals of this stranger, and the player did not specify them in the background. So, darned tootin', those details are mine to play with. He's a kind of Checkov's gun, waiting to become relevant in the game.