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

[JiffyPopTart]

In my current game I am running a modified XP system. 10 XP gets you to the next level. XP is gained by achieving something noteworthy (not just random combats or traps).

One of the primary ways I am trying to get the players to use to get XP is by creating personal goals tied to their backstory and making bite sized increments towards those goals, which earn them an XP.

So, the answer is "More than normal for this campaign."

 

[Numidius]

Let's keep in mind that background and backstory aren't the same thing. The latter could be part of the former, but it's not the whole enchilada.

Can you please elaborate on that?

 

[Fenris-77]

Can you please elaborate on that?

Background can encompass a lot of things. It includes a lot of what you might call character concept, the mechanical rules background (incl flaw, bonds etc), plus NPCs the character might know, plus things like drives, motivations and whatnot. Some of that might be present in a back story, or it might not. Some of those things are also present regardless if a backstory is written or not, which is a solid pice of evidence that they aren't the same thing.

More generally, I would characterize background as the whole set of things that make the character who they are, both in the fiction and in the rules, whereas backstory is a story of things that happened to the character. There are a huge range of variations on this from table to table so it can be tough to really separate the two, and I've taken the liberty of some pretty broad generalizations to do so.

 

[Talltomwright]

I think a really good example of what this looks like in practice is how Matt Mercer DMs. For those who have seen even a dozen episodes, you can see how PC backgrounds pop up at certain times during the campaign. I think it's pretty clear he inserts NPCs and areas at certain times into the game that are related to a particular players' backstory.

But as you say, and as @Saelorn warns, too much metagaming can ruin a campaign because it strips immersion. Going back to CR, look at how frustrated the rest of players and Matt became with Orion and his constant meta gaming.

I haven’t watched much of season 1 but season 2 of CR really feels like Matt Mercer had a loose over-arching plot and then built everything else around the offers the players made him in their (evidently very detailed) backstories. As ever, whatever is fun at someone’s table is great for them, but I do really like this sense that they are making a story together and I try to incorporate it into my games.

 

[Lanefan]

That's the sort of twist which is much more common in a novel, and inserting those elements can make the world feel more like mere fiction rather than a believable place.

While coincidences do happen in real life, that's rarely a satisfying explanation, and it's as important to avoid the appearance of meta-gaming as it is to avoid the actuality of meta-gaming.

As with many things, moderation is the key.

Doing this once or twice in a long campaign is fine, and done right it could really be cool.

Doing it all the time would ruin the effect.

 

[Lanefan]

So what would happen if I made choices during play based off my background? Let's say it's something as simple as "My character became an adventurer because he wants to visit the island of _____.

That'd be cool for roleplay as your next challenge would be to talk the rest of the party into going with you, if your intent was to continue running with them.

And here's a place where player input and DM intention could handily meet in the middle, whether intentionally or not:

You-as-PC: "Hey guys, we're between missions now and you know, I've always wanted to head on over to Paradox Island and check it out. When I was a kid I heard people talk about a tower there, full of gold!"
Other PCs: "Gold?!" "Sounds cool, when do we leave?" [etc.]
DM: <caught off guard, starts quietly rummaging through modules looking for something involving a tower on an island> "It's a six-day walk to the south coast..."

The italicized bit is something you just made up off the cuff which may well be total BS, just like your PC might make stuff up in order to convince the party to join you. The DM might decide (or already know) that no such tower exists, in which case it'll be on you to explain this to your party once you get there and can't find it; or the DM might find or dream up an adventure that to some extent reflects what your PC heard as a kid.

 

[Nytmare]

It depends on the game, the system, and the players for me, though I think that I prefer games where a character's backstory emerges through game play as an explanation and reaction to events.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I let my players know the basic gist of what the campaign will be about and help them come up with a background that ties into our campaign in some way shape or form. The part that I find us using less and less is the ideals/flaws. I think next time somebody has to re-roll, we will ignore that and let it emerge naturally.

 

[Shiroiken]

It really depend on how much effort the player takes into incorporating the background into the campaign. My current campaign, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, has 6 players. One of them is from Saltmarsh, so his background (smuggler) has become a major aspect of the campaign so far. One player's second character needed to be introduced, and she took the knight background, as the party had just found the body of a Knight of the Watch (she was looking for him). One player who played a triton in exile needed to be introduced in the second session (Haunted House), so I had him living with the sea elves that sent him near Saltmarsh looking for Oceanus. One player basically has no real background, while two others have backgrounds that are basically impossible for me to incorporate without drastically changing my campaign concept, so likely none of these will really impact the game at all.

 

[Fenris-77]

The part that I find us using less and less is the ideals/flaws. I think next time somebody has to re-roll, we will ignore that and let it emerge naturally.

Oh yeah. This should have been a fantastic new mechanic for the game but it's ... just meh. It's not awful, it just doesn't matter. People forget to use it, they forget to use the dice, it just isn't tied into the basic mechanics of the game in any kind of interesting way. I want very badly to replace it for my games with something similar but, you know, cool and useful. I think I'm leaning in the direction of something PtbA flavored. There's a bunch of ideas in The Sword, The Crown, and The Unspeakable Power that look like they could be very cool if I can figure out how to port them over properly.