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

[Sacrosanct]

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.

Perhaps it would help if I gave an example.

A few years ago, I was rerunning a group through ToEE. One of the PCs backgrounds was that he worked in a circus, and he and an orc rival both wanted to be with this one person The orc was evil, violent, and overall not good news, but convinced everyone else he was not a problem. In a fit of jealously, the PC ended up getting into a fight with the orc and killing him (albeit accidentally). He was forced to pay for the Resurrection costs and be exiled from the circus.

In the temple, there's this bandit leader general. So I changed the bandit leader to be this half orc (who left the circus to fulfill his desires of crime and violence). The orc ended up running into the PCs a few times throughout the adventure but didn't reveal himself until later in a typical "big reveal" trope.

In another example:

The PC's background was that their mother will killed by a rival warlock cultist and are hunting him. The adventure main plot is around a bunch of cultists rising a lost god (very Lovecraftian feel). So it was very easy for me to make those cultists responsible for his mother's death and hunt for him, and change some of the NPCs around to fit his background more closely.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

Yeah, that's pretty much how we play. The story is the story OF the PCs. Our next campaign will be about other characters.

I have only a very loose idea of what I'd like to include in the game prior to character creation. It's only once the players have made their PCs that I commit to the setting and incorporate as much of what they've offered as I possibly can.

 

[TwoSix]

I pretty much base all of my campaigns around the PC's initial choices. (Replacement characters, I try, but there's only so much I can change mid-stream.)

Like, in my current Ravnica campaign, I let the players make their PCs, and then decided to focus on the first major plot line around guilds that would be antagonistic to the bulk of the PCs. It helps that my games are primarily improved, and I don't run pre-published adventures. The setting constraints help in that I can improv material without having to explain everything via exposition.

 

[Li Shenron]

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?

Dictate, no. But I do pick stuff from character sheets to "connect" the PC to the fantasy world sometimes. I actually think I should do it more often...

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For the longest time, I loathed extensive backstory as a DM. A first level character showing up with pages of history guaranteed I'd ignore it.

These days, sure, if a player feels that passionately about their PC that they're going to craft some awesome story, I'll totally draw from that into the campaign.

The one thing that old me and current me still agree on is that the backstory needs to keep in mind that your PC is only first level - there's only so much you can justify based on that.

 

[dragoner]

This is not for DnD, as I don't play it much, even though when I do, I usually try to create some sort of back story as character development. I'm fine with character back story as it can help craft the setting, on the gripping hand it also has to get woven into the bread of the game with everyone else's back story. A game with a life path style chargen, you need some sort of back story as to why this person is going on an adventure vs some kid.

 

[Umbran]

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.

It is similar for me - sometimes I use the PC backstories a great deal, sometimes I don't.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I haven't GM'd that much, but when I ran Daring Comics, I did use the background enemies from the players. One caused extensive damage to a shopping-mall (Spatial distortion + illusions = messy stuff)..

As a player, I do like if hooks from the background is included.

 

[Jer]

Depends on the group and the game. For the tables with newer players they don't really want to create much in the way of backgrounds because they're learning how to play. So we mostly they pick some backgrounds, use those traits to figure out "why are you all together and why are you in this adventure" and move forward.

My long-term table (where we're currently playing 13th Age but have previously played 3e, 4e and a few other games) we'll have a session zero where folks will decide what kind of character they want to have and we'll figure out what the world is like based on that. Most of them won't come up with extensive backgrounds, but just enough to motivate "why is your character involved in this group and going on 'adventures'". And then I'll make some improvised changes to the starting scenario I've picked (something generic enough that any set of motives can be made to work with it - low level site-based adventures without much plot around them are perfect for this).

Typically though they'll come up with NPCs and ideas that I will mine for plot hooks for later adventures as well as for the immediate motivation of why they're in that first adventure. NPCs that they come up with become important motivators for exploring various areas or interacting with other NPCs, or the personal goals that they have for their characters will become major plot threads instead of just one-offs. I've been able to improvise whole adventures based on bits of character backstory, for example, which is nice when you've got designer's block. ...

 

[Sacrosanct]

I suppose I should have put this caveat at the beginning. I'm imagining that for one-offs, short campaigns, and AL, backgrounds are probably not incorporated as much. But long running campaigns, they might be a lot more, and we as GMs may be more apt to adjust NPCs, areas, and subplots to fit those backgrounds.