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

[FrozenNorth]

I honestly wonder at times how Saelorn's exceptionally narrow perspective on roleplaying actually plays out in practice and how the hobby would look if his radical views were somehow the norm.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game?

 

[Aldarc]

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game?

Probably not enough thespianism for Saelorn. Also, I'm sure that card games are somehow metagaming.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And there are writers who endeavor to treat their characters as much as though they're real as possible.

That seems doubtful, given their ulterior motive of writing a story. Making a character seem realistic can be a goal of writing, but it isn't integral to the process of writing, the way it's absolutely integral to the process of role-playing.

 

[prabe]

That seems doubtful, given their ulterior motive of writing a story. Making a character seem realistic can be a goal of writing, but it isn't integral to the process of writing, the way it's absolutely integral to the process of role-playing.

For the writers I'm thinking of, having the characters behave realistically, for reasons inherent to the characters, is integral as integral to their process of writing as not-meta-gaming is to your process of TRPGs. Writers are surprised by their characters, sometimes, in roughly the same way DMs are by the PCs. It's an aesthetic decision/preference, nothing more or less.

 

[Aldarc]

That seems doubtful, given their ulterior motive of writing a story. Making a character seem realistic can be a goal of writing, but it isn't integral to the process of writing, the way it's absolutely integral to the process of role-playing.

Except it absolutely isn't integral. You are just imposing your arbitrary preferences about role-playing.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Except it absolutely isn't integral. You are just imposing your arbitrary preferences about role-playing.

Is he meta-gaming?!?

 

[Aldarc]

Is he meta-gaming?!?

Life is a meta-game.

 

[prabe]

Is he meta-gaming?!?

If you decide not to do something because it's too meta-gamey, I'd be inclined to say yes. You're explicitly taking the game, and your aesthetic preferences for it, into account. I think the DMs who just aren't interested (for any of a number of reasons) are more consistent, here.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Life is a meta-game.

I've heard it's random dice mechanics aren't.

 

[Aldarc]

I've heard it's random dice mechanics aren't.

Indeed, which is why real life would be far more realistic if it was randomly determined by Saelorn's dice resolution mechanics.