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

[Sacrosanct]

Back in the early 80s, whenever we DMd, we rarely incorporated PC backgrounds into the actual adventure. PCs were pretty generic at level 1, and it was the adventure that created and was the catalyst for the stories. Perhaps it was because the game was more lethal back then, especially at low level, so you really didn’t spend a lot of time creating a background if there was a good chance you’d die. When we DMd, we had a story and adventure in mind. Either from a published adventure or a home brew adventure and world we fleshed out, and we stuck to key NPCs, monsters, and areas as they appeared.

Now I notice I DM much differently. Sure, I have an adventure and plot all in mind, but the players spend a lot more time creating character backgrounds. And I do my best to incorporate them into the game before session one. And in between sessions, I continue to have private conversations with players about their PC specific story arcs. I’ll change NPC names, or add a few NPCs based on the backgrounds I get, and make them core to the adventure. The overall plots stay the same, but what I’ve found by doing this is that it makes no two campaigns the same, even if they are the same adventure I’m DMing. It’s a much more collaborative approach to story telling while still maintaining control of the game world, story, and NPCs

so where do you fall? Do you pretty much run adventures as written, without changing them based on character backstory? Or do you fully let players dictate parts of the game to fit their story? Or somewhere in the middle, like where I’m at currently?

 

[gepetto]

I dont incorporate backstories at all. On the whole I find them generally obnoxious, both as a player and a gm. I tell people that right from the beginning though. Keep it generic, just explain why your character chose to involve themselves in life and death adventures instead of a 9-5 job. You can should use it to guide your characters personality and choices, not to try to co-author the campaign. The campaign develops from choices made during play not before it starts.

But then i hardly ever run a published adventure either. So i dont need to worry about customizing generic content for the characters.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Changing the backstory of the world to account for the PCs runs perilously close to meta-gaming. It's better to just forget about these characters, in order to avoid overstating their importance.

 

[Lanefan]

Back in the early 80s, whenever we DMd, we rarely incorporated PC backgrounds into the actual adventure. PCs were pretty generic at level 1, and it was the adventure that created and was the catalyst for the stories. Perhaps it was because the game was more lethal back then, especially at low level, so you really didn’t spend a lot of time creating a background if there was a good chance you’d die. When we DMd, we had a story and adventure in mind. Either from a published adventure or a home brew adventure and world we fleshed out, and we stuck to key NPCs, monsters, and areas as they appeared.

This is more or less how we still do it.

Once a character has stuck around awhile its player and the DM will sort out a background for it - in some cases; not all players are interested. The player is then free to pull elements of that background into play, but I-as-DM rarely if ever will, preferring instead to either use elements of setting history common to all or things that have come up during adventuring.

 

[Fenris-77]

In a location based game involving background is a great idea. In an exploration game where the party will be sailing off all over the map maybe less so. It depends on what you're running.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

It really depends on the campaign. In some, the player character backgrounds are the campaign. In others, the player character backgrounds have no bearing at all on the campaign.

 

[steenan]

The way we play, the game focuses strongly on the PCs, no matter how powerful and influential they are within the setting. That means that we don't "incorporate their backgrounds into the campaign", because the whole campaign is about them. It does not and cannot exist in separation from the PCs. If something does not resonate with the past, beliefs, goals and relations of at least one PC (preferably more), then it probably has no place in the game.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

It depends on the game, and sometimes on the system. A one-shot or dungeon-crawl requires less investment and prep-work than a narrative game or plot-driven campaign. For the latter, pregens are great, especially for cons, demos, impromptu, and tutorial sessions.

But when I run something more elaborate that requires some long term buy-in, I want to make sure that the players feel that the story plots revolve around their characters, or at the very least, include them in a significant way. This is especially important if I`m using published adventures or similar materials cobbled together from different sources. The trick is to find ways to make sure the player characters become the protagonists in a script that wasn't already tailor-made for them. But rather than crossing my GM fingers and hoping the players will come up with something magically in line with details that they cannot (or should not) predict, I will often work closely with individual players to help build their character concept or background for a particular campaign.

This is usually an ongoing process that takes more than a single conversation and may require a little bit of compromise on both sides. However, my goal has always been to help produce a character that a) the player will absolutely be excited to play for more than just one session, b) will fit better into a storyline that will affect them directly, and vice versa, and c) allow me as the GM to know more about the goals and motives of the players and the characters they wish to play. In my experience, this has been a very good return on investment for the extra work and the additional requirement of mutual trust. Granted, some people are going to scoff and take offense at this level of involvement by a GM with their character ideas. But I'm very upfront about this when I invite people to play and, for the most part, everyone has been pleased with the results.

 

[atanakar]

A favour a strong campaign concept instead of detailed PC backgrounds.

For exemple, in my current game, all the PCs are sibblings of a baron. They rolled randomly to determine the eldest. Then I extrapolated their family tree and how they relate to the King. Part of their background is that they stayed in the capital for a year while training at the King's schools for nobles. The rogue is part of the King's spy network, etc.

The players had never done this before, but once I explained it in detail and talked with them individually via Messenger they were on board.

 

[Ringtail]

I like to incorporate them, but only slightly. This is also because I like a short background. My goal is not to make the character's personal history the source of the adventure, but to make those character feel like a part of the world and not someone removed. Featuring NPCs, Factions or Locations whether prominently or not can make the characters feel like a part of the world.

In my opinion, a Player Character should have at MAX one paragraph of backstory. Maybe a few bullet points to summarize the important proper nouns. I like the details to be vague so its easier to improvise the background connections.

Here is an example from LMoP

Spoiler: LMOP Spoilers, but its been forever really

Player, a Fighter, was leader of a mercenary band. The lieutenant betrayed him and left him for dead on the battlefield to usurp control. I told him they were called the Redbrands and gave the leader a name. Later when he encounters the Redbrands he is upset to see they have become simple bandits. I made a couple of "old hands" sympathetic to him while the majority were new blood who were just bandits. (Hell, it reminds me a lot of the Van der Linde gang now that I think of it.) He struck down the usurper boss, chased off or converted the new recruits and then reformed the Redbrands to become the City Watch of Phandalin. He eventually became Lord of Phandalin to boot. It was a great story, thoroughly focused on the here and now and consisted of a brief paragraph about the mercenary company and 4-5 names for NPCs within it.

Another player in the same group was a Dwarf brewer with a disgraced father who was actually innocent. I had him be framed by the Black Spider so it was very satisfying for that player. Another player was a refugee from Thundertree from the Hotenow eruption. He eventually became a vassal of Player 1 (Who became the Lord of Phandalin) and rebuilt Cragmaw Castle and Thundertree.