DM question: how much do you incorporate PC backgrounds into the campaign?

[Lanefan]

It is not an unpleasant position. Request backstories, tell them why. If they do not wish that, they don't need to participate. If they see how it's affecting the characters that did and want to submit it, let them - there's no due date - this is all fun.

Still leaves the players on an unequal footing, and I-as-DM am bound to end up eventually torquing someone off - either those who submitted backstories if I don't use them, or those who didn't submit backstories if I do use them.

It's as if someone only shows up every other session and you're worried your favoring the players who are left with more attention.

Unless there's a good reason for it, someone who only shows up every other session eventually >punt< won't be showing up for any sessions at all.

 

[Lanefan]

If that player can sell the rest of the party on chasing down their personal demons then by all means sure. But I'm not making that sales pitch for them and I'm certainly not forcing anyone else to do it.

This is the key thing right here.

It's on the player to roleplay the PC's attempt(s) to convince the rest of the party to go along, and then on the rest of the party to decide in character whether they'll do it now, do it later, or not do it at all.

 

[Lanefan]

And that prior mining is the primary complaint from players that are reluctant to provide backstories. Their histories were modified, sometimes quite heavily by DMs without their knowledge or consent. And the DMs changed things that for the DM seemed appropriate, but which impacted how the players felt about their PC and backstory.

It's not that shocking that if you ask for me to produce X and I in fact produce X and expect that X is true with respect to my character, changing it to Y may meet with resistance. The greater the introduction/change associated with X and by necessity the ripples those changes should cause, the greater the resistance.

Try this one on: after playing a character for years and slowly building up her backstory, the DM and I finally got around to rolling up her family (he has tables for this).

Little did I-as-player know that he, via the unknowing actions of the party, had already long since set the wheels in motion for a complete reset of the world's history via some sort of alternate-universe schtick. Three or four real-world months later the reset took effect, wiping out her entire backstory and family history as her homeland was punted 250 years backward in time. Other areas were less affected, and some not at all; but if you're from one particular southern continent - as it happens, the continent of my henchperson's homeland and the place where I hired her - it's now under an ocean.

A few other PCs were affected to some extent but only one other - from the same homeland as I and with an even more elaborate backstory than mine - got hit like I did.

Lessone I learned: I will never play poker with that DM. He kept a straight face the whole time we were doing up my PC's family.

Side benefit: I guess I don't need to worry about my backstory being used against me.

 

[gepetto]

Obviously, what works at one table isn't necessarily going to work at another, but ...



I see using the backstories as a way to tie the PCs to the campaign and the setting. These characters came from somewhere before campaign started. Once they've done some things together, I start having their backstories lead to adventures, and they get to choose the order. Note the plural, there.



Did you note the plural above? Here's where it pays off. There are multiple backstories paying off at different levels at once. Also, since the backstories start cropping up as adventure hooks after the party is actually a party, they're tied-enough to each other that they're willing to work to help with one another's backstories.



If they're tied together, and they're choosing the sequence in a way that makes sense to the party as a whole, these two things are one thing, and away you go. It's not less work, but it doesn't feel like more work to me, either.

Yes it is more work. Much, much more work. And annoyance. And requires enough cheese to choke a packers fan. And I'm entirely lactose intolerant when it comes to my campaigns.

No ridiculously unlikely coincidences, no nonsensical forced relationships, no cliched C list plot devices, and definitely no clearly forced meta interactions to shoehorn in some players fan fic story about why he's not a turnip farmer.

After seeing everyones ideas about what it supposedly ads to the game I am not only utterly unmoved, but having thought about it more now I'm even further entrenched in my position not to incorporate these things one second beyond the first 20 minutes of game time. When I run a game I have a particular story scenario in mind for it and I'm not interested in twisting it into a pretzel to cater to some minor nonsense in the characters background.

I dont want to read them and if you need more then 90 seconds to explain it I've already drifted off to the next player. Like alignment, keep it to yourself. Its part of your roleplaying choices not part of my campaign arc.

 

[gepetto]

Please, replace the word "need" with "have the opportunity to".

No its need. If its not built up then no one cares, its not fun and we're all wasting our time sitting around the table doing it. Because the only point to playing a game is to be having fun.

You acknowledge in the same sentence that you build up the adventure in the first place to motivate the characters. It is just flat out wrong to say "I can have all my normal tools for doing this" or "I can have all my normaal tools for doing this plus one more" and prtetend that the second one is inferior. It may be the same or better, but it is never worse.

Except that its NOT a tool. Its a complication. In the same way that a screwdriver is a tool and a having to use it to ram in a nail is a complication. Its an added factor that makes the original job harder rather then easier and results in an inferior final product.

See my answer to the previous one. Unless all of the characters you run are bland cookie cutters that haqve exactly the same motivations, you are already doing this. Claiming "I have to do the same thing I do now" isn't more work.

No its not like that at all, and NO i do NOT need to think about anyones backstory to get them invested in an adventure. Many adventures are mainly dealing with the consequences of past adventures, that the whole WHOLE GROUP was in on. Its not episodic in most cases with distinct beginnings and ends. Its a continuation of life. Which very, very quickly becomes much bigger and involves much more important things then the do nothing villagers of your boring little town, that had so little going on that you left it for life on the highway.

For instance I'm running a modern horror game right now where the players were members of ghost hunting group that met on the internet to do the stuff people on TV shows do. They eventually discover a lovecraftian conspiracy and a hidden world of real supernatural. All of which is far above their heads and dangerous in ways they arent prepared for.

The campaign is about a group of people who had a lighthearted hobby in common being thrust into dark and dangerous doings that are beyond their control and how they try to cope and survive a world they werent prepared for.

I dont need to know about your sick aunts diabetese, why you got fired from your last job or anything about how your first crush went wrong (newsflash, they all do eventually. its not that interesting). I can invest you in not getting murdered by the supernatural horrors who are hunting you or in trying to control the dark and byzantine politics of the inhuman world thats drawing you in one way or another just fine without any of that information.

Nor would knowing all about how you always wanted to find the daddy who ran out on you and momma many years ago measurably ad anything to the drama of the situation.

 

[Imaculata]

It kind of differs from campaign to campaign how much I do with character backstories. With large scale campaigns, character backgrounds mostly serve for the players to flesh out their own characters. But bits and pieces of the character's background may eventually make their way into the story. However, I don't bend over backwards to force backstories into the plot. I tend to discuss my plans for a characters' background with the player. I respect my players and their agency over their own characters. I don't want to be the annoying DM who kills off characters from player backstories, or transforms them into villains, without the players themselves having any say in that. Nor do I want to add things to their backstory that the players don't agree with. It is kind of a given that details will need to be added, in order to make the backstory feature into the campaign plot, but I always talk this over with the player.

On the other hand, I also have shorter campaigns that put a heavy focus on character backstories and plot. With these sort of campaigns I inform my players up front that their backstory will be featured in the campaign, and ask them to write their backstory accordingly. For example, if I'm running a Call of Cthulhu campaign, I ask my players to come up with fears and shocking secrets that can mess with their characters during the campaign.

 

[hawkeyefan]

As long as there some sort of implied guarantee that each PC's goals or background will get a chance at vaguely equal airplay, all is good.

But if it's the same PC, or the same few PCs, whose backgrounds keep coming up in play and-or even driving play, that's not good for the long-term health of the game; particularly if other players' PCs have goals and backgrounds that aren't getting any airtime, or they feel they have to fight for said airtime.

Favouritism is bad.

It depends, I think. I agree that you don’t want to exclude anyone else. But if one player opts to create some material I can use as GM and another doesn’t...why shouldn’t I use the material given?

It doesn’t mean that everything has to revolve around that one PC to the exclusion of the others. It’s not about punishing anyone.

Now, I understand this may not work for every group. Some may see it as more work for the GM, or they don’t like how it implies there’s something meaningful or unique about the PCs or something....okay. I’ve found it to be quite the opposite. It makes my job easier as GM by giving me some avenues for story ideas and material to draw from. It helps make the PCs a part of the world instead of these man-with-no-name types who wander from place to place and get involved in adventures.

My group has this expectation built in that they should craft some details about their PC. I don’t need a novella worth of detail or anything, and it doesn't have to be elaborate....just a few details that give a sense of where they’ve been and what they might’ve gotten up to until the start of the game.

 

[Lanefan]

No ridiculously unlikely coincidences,

I actually don't mind the occasional ridiculous coincidence, in fact sometimes I'll play it up for the amusement.

Me-as-DM: "Your party is down a Ranger, and Bob, you're down a character, but OH LOOK Bob, your retired Ranger JUST HAPPENS to be in town right now even though when last seen she was 1500 miles away! What are the odds of that?!"

When I run a game I have a particular story scenario in mind for it

Absent any qualifiers this is a bit of a red flag, in that what if your players decide, in character during play, to take things completely off-story? Would you let it happen?

and I'm not interested in twisting it into a pretzel to cater to some minor nonsense in the characters background.

You don't have to.

I dont want to read them and if you need more then 90 seconds to explain it I've already drifted off to the next player. Like alignment, keep it to yourself. Its part of your roleplaying choices not part of my campaign arc.

I'm somewhere in between.

I don't ask that players develop backgrounds for their characters but if one does so anyway I'd like to have at least a vague idea of what's in it; not so I can bend the game toward it but so I can incorporate it if the game otherwise happens to run on to it:

<party has to travel through a somewhat-dangerous mountain pass en route to their next adventure>
"Aloysius, you did time in the 7th Legion before you took up adventuring, didn't you? They were stationed in this pass for a few seasons during that time, meaning you know the area at least a bit and probably have a few local contacts in the villages. The 9th hold the pass these days..."

 

[Lanefan]

It depends, I think. I agree that you don’t want to exclude anyone else. But if one player opts to create some material I can use as GM and another doesn’t...why shouldn’t I use the material given?

As mentioned in my post just above, there's a difference between forcing the material into the game (which is bad) and simply using it as background if the game happens to run on to it naturally (which is fine).

It doesn’t mean that everything has to revolve around that one PC to the exclusion of the others.

Depends on scale, too.

If the party happens to be passing through a PC's hometown and she takes them to introduce to her family, who cares? Roleplay it out, enjoy it, and move on. No extra work for me-as-GM whatsoever.

But when someone's backstory suggests - or forces, or causes a player to expect/demand - one or more entire adventures be centered on that PC, there's trouble a-brewing.

Now, I understand this may not work for every group. Some may see it as more work for the GM, or they don’t like how it implies there’s something meaningful or unique about the PCs or something....okay. I’ve found it to be quite the opposite. It makes my job easier as GM by giving me some avenues for story ideas and material to draw from.

Heh - my problem right now is I've already got too much story* and nowhere near enough time to play through it all.

* - over and above whatever red herrings the players/PCs themselves might introduce and-or follow.

It helps make the PCs a part of the world instead of these man-with-no-name types who wander from place to place and get involved in adventures.

Fair enough, if the adventuring takes place in the same general region as where the character's background is set.

Which raises another slight headache: parties of disparate races and-or cultures are quite likely to hail from widely different places - you can only use the "cosmopolitan port town" trope so many times. Which means if the adventuring tends to happen in one area it's not happening in all the others, thus only those PCs who are from the adventuring area are likely to see their backgrounds come into play.

 

[gepetto]

I actually don't mind the occasional ridiculous coincidence, in fact sometimes I'll play it up for the amusement.

Sometimes we'll do more lighthearted campaigns. They're short though. I like a good 6-8 session space opera for that sort of thing. Not in my regular serious game though.

Absent any qualifiers this is a bit of a red flag, in that what if your players decide, in character during play, to take things completely off-story? Would you let it happen?

Not usually no. When i start a new campaign I tell the group what the theme and general shape is going to be and usually I dont want to get too far off of that. Not every session is story either though. There are pauses where theres nothing really related to the overall plot going on and the PC's have a little breathing room to try to take control of their own destinies again. Kind of like how a season of a tv show will have a general theme and a climax in mind for the finale but not every episode involves that plot. Some of them are just random monster of the week type stuff.

There have been exceptions where they came up with an idea that seemed really cool at the moment and I went with it. But thats rare. An example I can think of was my last changeling game. First time any of us had played that one and the theme is generally kidnap victims of the fey find their way back to the mortal world and deal with their new altered life circumstances.

Most of the time you start after the characters return to the real world. But I decided for this one it would be fun to have them meet up in fairy and escape together. Unfortunately they threw a wrench in the works by deciding to cut a deal with their fairy master to go be hunters for the fey in the mortal world capturing slaves and working their will. Here I'm thinking they plan to break the deal and I've just been handed a BBEG. Nope. They honored the deal and went through a 9 month campaign as evil fey kidnappers and spies manipulating mortals into being part of the feys insane plans.

Not at all what I had in mind and I had to improv a ton in every session. But it was a group mainly of friends that I had played with for years and the new people seemed like good players so I trusted their direction and went with it. It was a fun campaign until they all got killed by the men in black, but I still kinda miss the original idea I had.

That was a rare exception though because I knew the other players well and we werent deep into the campaign. They put it off the rails right in the first session and when i told them that meant I was going to have to make up a lot of stuff as we went they were okay with that.

The challenge seemed kind of fun for me. Its not something I want to do every time though.

I'm somewhere in between.

I don't ask that players develop backgrounds for their characters but if one does so anyway I'd like to have at least a vague idea of what's in it; not so I can bend the game toward it but so I can incorporate it if the game otherwise happens to run on to it:

<party has to travel through a somewhat-dangerous mountain pass en route to their next adventure>
"Aloysius, you did time in the 7th Legion before you took up adventuring, didn't you? They were stationed in this pass for a few seasons during that time, meaning you know the area at least a bit and probably have a few local contacts in the villages. The 9th hold the pass these days..."

I want your elevator pitch. Sort of a cross between what you would put in your intro paragraph on a dating site and a job interview.

" I'm 37, divorced, have some kids, did a few years in the army and then was a traveling sales consultant for 15 years. Grew up a little rough but got straightened out in the service and now I'm a socially conservative Asatru pagan whose a recovering workaholic and whose kids are old enough not to want to hang out with dad on the weekends so I'm back on the road".

Tells a GM all sorts of things about how they can expect my character to react in various circumstances, and why I'm out searching for adventure. If they wanted to use me for various local info like you said then sure, i traveled around a lot and talked to people for a living. I'll play exposition tool for your narrator if you want. But I'm not filling out who all these people were or where i went ahead of time. And if someone did I wouldnt feel obligated in the slightest to use those details as a GM. Or to reshape one of my towns compositions because you wrote down that your buddy buddy with the mayor of said town.

If I were a player I wouldnt appreciate the GM dragging that characters ex-wife or children into an adventure as some sort of hook. So I wont do it to them. I make my characters backstories short and relatively devoid of details but whats there is mine and i dont want it altered or screwed with. So again, I dont do something to a player that I wouldnt want done to me if the roles were reversed.