D&D 5E DM introducing new elements to PC background post-session 0

[Nevvur]

I'll begin with an example from a past campaign, and get to the questions at the end.

We had a PC who was a career criminal named Renard. The player didn't go into much detail about Ren's past crimes other than to say he had a checkered past. The party acquired a special magical item whose nature was obfuscated with an additional layer of enchantment, so the player asked if Ren knew any contacts who dealt in circumventing magical wards and the like. I went along with this, improvising an NPC I called Gervais, and established they had a generally positive working relationship in the past. However, I went a step further and had the contact inform Ren that another NPC, Gross Ben, had recently been released from prison and was out looking for Renard to settle an old score.

Introducing the contact, Gervais, was an implied permission, as the player asked if Ren knew someone who could help. Introducing the second one involved me taking a lot more liberties. I had conceived of Gross Ben while quietly musing to myself about what the player meant by "checkered past," but I never got around to bringing it up with him. His visit with Gervais was just a convenient time to set this hook. Here we have me creating not only some NPCs to fill in Ren's background, but an entire episode in his past life. Gladly, the player was fully on board and much fun was had when Renard et al eventually ran into Ben and his new gang.

However, I can also see the potential of this approach to storytelling causing problems. It amounts to a variation on "Yes, and..." but I think it risks treading on the intellectual property of players. My questions are thus:

1) As a DM, have you engaged in this kind of storytelling? How did the player(s) react?
2) As a player, has a DM done it to your character? Did you go along with it, or did it become a point of contention, e.g. "That's not how I pictured his past!"

Extra points for examples!

 

[iserith]

As long as what is established doesn't contradict something that was previously established, it's all good in my view. But it doesn't hurt to ask if a particular addition to the backstory the player invented is okay if the DM is not sure. I've done this plenty as a DM and, while I can't recall any specific instances of a DM doing that for me as a player, I'm sure it's happened and I went along with it.

I'm very much of a "Yes, and..." mindset and so are my players. Nothing exists until established and then, once established, it can't be contradicted. It's how you get something from nothing, and quickly, in a way that comes with immediate buy-in from all the people at the table. It makes for both smoother gameplay in my experience and more highly developed and interesting characters and worlds.

 

[Dross]

As along as it is an option that the player does not HAVE to take it should be good.

The other thing to be aware of, "settle a score" is vague enough for the player to fill it in himself. Gross Ben could want to:
Settle a score against Renard
Settle a score with Renard against a third party
Require info from Renard to find a third party.
Ask Renard for help in finding $ or items (the score from a job) that they hid/sent to someone.
Provide Renard his cut (with suitable obstacles) of the score.

Then the DM and player can work out what is most fun for all involved.
Or just forget Gross Ben entirely if they can't work anything out.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Simple answer is if I am the DM then it is my table my rules.

Of course I do not act on that as a jerk, but in reality a player can create a background but he did not chose every person he was related to, associated with, encountered throughout his characters life.

At some point the career criminal ran into someone that feels he owes him a trip to the grave, the character may deserve it, the character may not deserve it. It doesnt really matter, associate with the wrong people long enough and bad things happen that you do not have control over.

As a DM you just have to do it in a way that is fun and doesnt make a player feel like he/she is being picked on.

 

[Ath'kethin]

The backstories of characters in my campaigns often develop more as the campaign progresses. For example, one recent campaign consisted of three brothers (the PCs) all from a barbarian tribe. The two older brothers broke with tribe tradition in rescuing the youngest from a ritual sacrifice and were exiled from the tribe as a result (all this was established in our Session 0).

Adapting modules to the party led to developments later like determining that one of the brothers had been engaged to marry the chieftain's daughter, and there were moments of high drama when the group was unable to prevent said daughter from being blinded by a crazed acolyte later. Similarly, we developed the criminal contact network for the shifty brother as the campaign progressed and more opportunities arose to weave the backstories into the framework of different modules.

Reading ahead a bit and having a good understanding of what adventures you will run in what order is very helpful in connecting all these sorts of dots later in the game.

 

[Iry]

Absolutely. We always do our best to maintain good communication, so people are not getting completely thrown for a loop on big ticket items, but anything that has not been cemented is fair game. If you establish that you never knew your father, then there is a good chance that he might show up a year or two down the road.

The whole thing tends to be a work in progress, either way. Some players can write out massive backgrounds before they even start playing, but many players are more comfortable coming up with their backgrounds as they slowly explore and roleplay their character. That's certainly the way I am, when I am in the player's seat. I have a hard time even thinking up a meaningful background until after I have gotten comfortable with the character and how they act. And that requires weeks or months of play time.

 

[ccs]

My questions are thus:

1) As a DM, have you engaged in this kind of storytelling? How did the player(s) react?

Yes.
Ex: One of my players almost never gives me/us a background beyond a sentence or two. It's a bit irritating.
So in one PF campaign around 5th lv he ends up needing a replacement character. He rolls up a bard he calls Simms and describes him as wearing a KISS style costume & make-up ala Gene Simmons Bat costume. Fine.
He also neglects to spend any of his starting wealth (30-some K if I recall). All he has is non-magical studded leather, a mundane rapier, a guitar & some extra make-up + whatever spell components he'll need. He doesn't even write the rest of the $ on his character sheet.
And this time he has zero background.
The next session:
ME: Did you finish your gear? Do you have any kind of background, even why Simms is here?
Him: Not yet.
The next next session:
ME: Did you finish your gear? Do you have any kind of background, even why Simms is here?
Him: Not yet.
The 3rd next session: Because it'll matter in the next week as the party, now with Simms, will return to town....
ME: Did you finish your gear? Do you have any kind of background, even why Simms is here?
Him: Not yet.
OK....
The 4th next session:
The party returns to town from their successful dungeon crawl & learns that a traveling band of bards known as KISS is in town for a few nights worth of shows. Everyone thinks that's pretty funny. Especially as I have Lego figures of them (including a custom Pharoh). The party goes about their business throughout the day - selling loot/whatever.
Of course the band soon learns that Simms is in town. And ambushes the party. The party gets their asses completely stomped - by 4 bards. By the rules, by dice rolled in the open.
Turns out that they have a bone or three to pick with Simms.
Something to do with him having absconded with almost 30k worth of loot after he was kicked out of the band.... (in RL KISS kicked a member out for undisclosed reasons)
They want it back. + interest.

Well, Simms doesn't have it. Nor can they pry it out of him via torture/magic - because the player doesn't have even a sentence of backstory.
So they do the next best thing a group of evil bards can do. They rob the entire party, drug them, & sell them into slavery to some pirates!
And that's how a group of (formerly fully geared) 5th lv characters came to be playing the Skull & Shackles AP starting with book 1.

The other players have never let Simms player forget that his lack of backstory screwed them all.
Simms player now always gives me something.

2) As a player, has a DM done it to your character? Did you go along with it, or did it become a point of contention, e.g. "That's not how I pictured his past!"

My one DM read my backstory. And then just tried to arbitrarily overwrite it.
It wasn't anything elaborate on my part, other than my entire reason I'd become an adventurer....

See my human wizard/bard came from a wealthy family & was estranged from them. They'd spent a great deal of $ & influence getting me into a very prestigious Elven magic academy. I'd been there since I was a 6 year old child. My parents visited me twice a year.
When I was 22 I quit & hit the road (as a 1st lv bard - you know, a partially trained wizard that incorporates the elven prof with swords etc)).
Reason? Elves live a really really long time. They might not have a problem spending 30 years to graduate just to Wizard lv1.
But I'm a human. By the time I reach lv2 in this system I'll be over 60. And likely dead before 3rd lv!
You know why you see OLD low lv human wizards? Because they were trained by *&%# elves.... No thanks.
So I quit. Before ever reaching lv 1.
This caused my family a great deal of embarrassment/scandal & essentially threw away a fortune in the form of 16 years worth of tuition.
To put it mildly I was disowned & wasn't welcome at home. There's no love lost between my characters parents and him.

Now this background is discussed at the table amongst the group, both in & out of character, since day one. All of our backstories are. With the DM participating.
These details are IMPORTANT to what we're doing & why we're doing it the way we are.
So it came as a pretty big surprise when one session, about 5 months in, the DM just decides to completely ignore pretty much everything in my background - because he'd thought up something he thought would be a cool arc but required me & my family to want to have always gotten along and my father to have taught me the family magic....

This wasn't the DM forgetting something. It wasn't "Oh, the bards been lying about his past all this time". It wasn't mind-control, dopplegangers, illusions, or even encroaching alternate realities.
It was just the DM being an ass & deciding to change something because otherwise he couldn't run x scenario.

Not only did I not go along with this change, none of the other 3 players did either.

 

[Li Shenron]

However, I can also see the potential of this approach to storytelling causing problems. It amounts to a variation on "Yes, and..." but I think it risks treading on the intellectual property of players. My questions are thus:

1) As a DM, have you engaged in this kind of storytelling? How did the player(s) react?
2) As a player, has a DM done it to your character? Did you go along with it, or did it become a point of contention, e.g. "That's not how I pictured his past!"

Extra points for examples!

Definitely something that needs to be agreed beforehand within the gaming group.

There is nothing inherently wrong in having the DM define something about the PCs background, and it is in fact something that many players need a help with. Then obviously, other players prefer full control over their own story, so it's always important that there is an agreement.

Note that the issue exists in both directions. A problematic example: a player wanting her character to be someone important, such as the heir of a rich family - or why not, even the heir to the throne! This has strong implications on the campaign, and forces the DM to adapt to it. Just like the player might not like her character concept to be vetoed, she has to understand that a strongly unfitting PC can jeopardize the whole campaign, or at least invalidate some of the DM's preparation work.

As a DM I don't generally do this, but if I did I would talk about it with the players, and not just the one who the issue directly refers to, but I think all the group should be informed and express opinions.

As a player something like this happened actually the very first time I ever played D&D (BECMI). I rolled up a Dwarf character (mostly because it was the only viable class after rolling ability scores poorly). Another player already had another Dwarf character, with better stats. So I proposed that they would be siblings and that my Dwarf was the younger of the two. The DM vetoed it, and as far as I can remember, did not really explained why. It pissed me off to be starting RPGing with poor rolls and a veto. It could have caused me to hate D&D, but here I am after 20+ years still gaming

 

[iserith]

Yes.
Ex: One of my players almost never gives me/us a background beyond a sentence or two. It's a bit irritating.

I personally find it irritating if the background is more than a sentence of two. I ask players to communicate their backstory in a way that would fit in a Tweet. Just enough to ground the character as a person and give everyone else a glimpse into what you're going for. Then, develop the rest during the session when inspired by the events of play.

I find this works a lot better than writing a long back story and then, commonly in my experience, the player has nowhere to go with it and plays completely flat, as if having left everything on the written page.

 

[redrick]

The example given seems like a no-brainer ok, because it leaves so much interpretation up to the player as to what their character could have done to piss off Gross Ben. Hell, for all you know, the PC doesn't even know Gross Ben, but the player does remember laughing and enjoying a summer day as a group of prisoners were hauled off to the dungeon.

I could imagine something like this happening:

PLAYER: Do I have any criminal contacts in town?
DM: Yeah, your old buddy Gervais who you worked with in the past works out of the slums.
PLAYER: Great, I'm gonna ask him some questions and stuff.
DM: Great. Gervais tells you some stuff and then also mentions that that guy Gross Ben just got out of prison and boy is he pissed.
PLAYER: Gross Ben?
DM: Yeah, man, I don't know what it is you did to piss him off, but he has just gotten out of prison and boy does he have an old score to settle. What did you do to make Gross Ben so angry at you, anyway?
PLAYER: Oh yeah! Of course, Gross Ben. Yeah, back in my checkered past days, I robbed a little old lady and then framed him for it.
DM: Oh, of course, yeah, that was ice cold. What, were you in the town of Baldur's Gate then?
PLAYER: Umm, sure, yeah, guess I was.

etc.

We do that sort of thing a lot at our table. If I want to throw a possible detail to the player, particularly if it involves some world detail that the player might not know about, I might pose it as a question, and then the player can say, "yeah, exactly, we were in the Great Battle between the Hill Elves and the Wood Dwarves of 1532." Or the player can come back with a better idea.