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<blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5476703" data-attributes="member: 3820">Contrariwise, I find a world a little less realistic if I always know from a meta perspective that nothing in my character's life before Game Night One will ever prove relevant in the greater world.&nbsp; To me, it's a very meta presence to have that cut-off point always sitting right there, knowing that everything that happened to the left of the line &quot;didn't really happen&quot; but everything that happens to the right of the line did -- which isn't at all the perspective my character would have. Sure, he'll look back at the events of Game Night One and say &quot;that's where everything really changed,&quot; but it just feels strange that only the faces he talked to after that point will ever be at all relevant to his life going forward.Which is not to downplay the strength of shared connections made in gameplay, mind. It just feels odd when those are all there are to me, particularly when background happenings move into the play space and successfully become shared connections made in gameplay. Prior to her appearance, I just knew that my tiefling mage-thief had had a series of disastrous relationships, the most recent of which was a particularly dangerous lady more fiendish than he was. When the DM actually brought her forward into play, she became significant to the whole group: but there was an emotional context that simply wouldn't have been present if nobody in the group had ever had any previous contact with her before. Of course, ex-girlfriends and romantic interests are a particularly difficult sort of contact to try invoking in the entire group the way that you can &quot;the benevolent bartender.&quot; Unless you're running the Mahabharata, of course. Then everybody in the party can marry her.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Barastrondo, post: 5476703, member: 3820"] Contrariwise, I find a world a little less realistic if I always know from a meta perspective that nothing in my character's life before Game Night One will ever prove relevant in the greater world. To me, it's a very meta presence to have that cut-off point always sitting right there, knowing that everything that happened to the left of the line "didn't really happen" but everything that happens to the right of the line did -- which isn't at all the perspective my character would have. Sure, he'll look back at the events of Game Night One and say "that's where everything really changed," but it just feels strange that only the faces he talked to after that point will ever be at all relevant to his life going forward. Which is not to downplay the strength of shared connections made in gameplay, mind. It just feels odd when those are all there are to me, particularly when background happenings move into the play space and successfully become shared connections made in gameplay. Prior to her appearance, I just knew that my tiefling mage-thief had had a series of disastrous relationships, the most recent of which was a particularly dangerous lady more fiendish than he was. When the DM actually brought her forward into play, she became significant to the whole group: but there was an emotional context that simply wouldn't have been present if nobody in the group had ever had any previous contact with her before. Of course, ex-girlfriends and romantic interests are a particularly difficult sort of contact to try invoking in the entire group the way that you can "the benevolent bartender." Unless you're running the Mahabharata, of course. Then everybody in the party can marry her. [/QUOTE]

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