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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nevvur" data-source="post: 7262038" data-attributes="member: 6783882">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!</blockquote>

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