DM "adding" to your PC's background?

[Nagol]

I GM most of the time. Often as a player, I prefer a "fifth business" role compared to a "protagonist" role. I don't really want my character to be a heavy focus of play. I intentionally make support characters with light non-descript backgrounds for that reason.

Additionally, as a player, I'm more focused on what the PC has done in campaign play rather than what happened off screen to get him there. Involve someone from my past? OK, I guess I'll play along. Involve someone I've developed a relationship with in game? Now you have my attention.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Like Star Wars, this is a story, not a game.

If it's a game where your "character" has no connections to anything in the environment, you'd be better off playing the D&D board game, rather than a roleplaying game.

Ideally, a character's background is both a framework for how they'll behave in the game and a tool for telling the DM what sort of adventures they'd like to have. If, instead, it's a battleground between player or DM, either the DM or the player would probably be happier playing with a different group.

 

[Dice4Hire]

As a DM, I will ask players about putting things in their backgrounds, but that is rare.

As a player, I wold not mind the DM asking me to add stuff if it fits well.

It is a cooperative game, after all.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

If it's a game where your "character" has no connections to anything in the environment, you'd be better off playing the D&D board game, rather than a roleplaying game.

I think you managed to misread a comment about having a light backstory as having no involvement in the game.

Additionally, as a player, I'm more focused on what the PC has done in campaign play rather than what happened off screen to get him there. Involve someone from my past? OK, I guess I'll play along. Involve someone I've developed a relationship with in game? Now you have my attention.

That's more what I'm looking for.

 

[The Shaman]

Why does there need to be a "gotcha" in the character's background at all? Don't the adventurers makes friends and enemies after the game starts?

That's part of the shared experience.

I'd hope so, but apparently that's not the case.

Why does there need to be a "gotcha" in the character's background at all? Don't the adventurers makes friends and enemies after the game starts?

No. They never do.

Seriously? The adventurers never help anyone, never earn gratitude, never piss anyone off, never scheme on their own?

How is that even possible?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think you managed to misread a comment about having a light backstory as having no involvement in the game.

Your explanation about what you meant was longer than the original comment. It's hard to tease out meaning from minimalistic replies.

 

[Janx]

I tell my players that backstory is for you to introduce elements for the GM to incorporate.

If you mention the name of your mentor, that means I can have him show up in a game.

I don't think a DM should royally jack with the character of those NPCs or rewrite them.

I also don't think a GM should over-use having bad stuff happen to those NPCs. But that's the case for every trope in the game. Don't over use or it becomes abuse.

In reality, I might use a threat against PCs or family in the first session, just ot get them going, but I wouldn't script anything bad happening to them for quite some time.

You'll get a better emotional reaction if the NPCs are around for some time, and the Players actually grow to like and care about them.

Then you can whack a cherished NPC and the players reaction will befit the PCs reaction.

It's all about moderation.

 

[The Shaman]

Players closing off the possibility of plots revolving around NPCs and institutions that they care about are really cutting out a lot of possibilities for engaging adventures.

And what I find so strange is the idea that the adventurers don't care enough about npcs and institutions they encounter in the course of actual play for those to be a source of conflict and consequences.

In what kind of game do the adventurers earn no friendship or gratitude, make no rivals or enemies, meet nothing and no one of importance?

It's also really hard for DMs to keep creating plots about brand new NPCs and situations that the players will endlessly care about:

"Oh, another princess needs rescuing? OK, I guess."

What happened to the consequences from the rescue of the first princess?

Princess Pinkflower is delivered from the villainous grasp of the lecherous baron de Bauchery; her family is grateful, the adventurers are feted and rewarded.

But what of the baron, or his heir, if the adventurers finished him off? What about the secret society of which the baron was a member? What about the suitor to the princess who's been shown up as ineffectual at best, a coward at worst, by the adventurers? And his family, which has the king's ear? And what of the princess' younger sister, who is now looking at a 'politically advantageous' marriage again, which means betrothel to some marcher lord with the manners of a pig?

If the adventurers win, somebody else loses. Figure out who loses when the adventurers win, and you don't need to write plots or make up stuff from their backgrounds anymore, because the game becomes a perpetual motion machine.

. . . [T]he whole party should be happy to help rescue the cleric's family farm or help the paladin do well at the jousting tourney and impress his beloved.

Now this I agree with.

The relatives and friends and sweethearts should also be patrons for adventures, sources of information and other resources.

And this, too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And what I find so strange is the idea that the adventurers don't care enough about npcs and institutions they encounter in the course of actual play for those to be a source of conflict and consequences.

In what kind of game do the adventurers earn no friendship or gratitude, make no rivals or enemies, meet nothing and no one of importance?

I don't know. No one has seriously postulated that kind of game. Someone said it as a joke, and it wasn't me.

But the DM being responsible for 100 percent of the world creation is something that went out of fashion decades ago.

 

[Abraxas]

I don't know. No one has seriously postulated that kind of game. Someone said it as a joke, and it wasn't me.

Maybe it wasn't postulated because the OP didn't ask about that? It is, however, my preferred play and DM style.

But the DM being responsible for 100 percent of the world creation is something that went out of fashion decades ago.

No it didn't.

However, not wanting the DM to add elements to the character's background (instead of just using the elements the player put in the background) doesn't make the DM responsible for 100% of the world creation.

I'm curious - do you let players, in the middle of an adventure, declare that they are well known and respected in a town if they hadn't already written it in their background....or create at the spur of the moment an associate who will be willing to hide them in a town when running from the BBEG's men?