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General Tabletop Discussion
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DM question: how much do you incorporate PC backgrounds into the campaign?
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<blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 7938835" data-attributes="member: 6993955"><p>[USER=6990165]@gepetto[/USER] - If the default assumption is that whatever story the player comes up with vis a vis their backstory is always going to be less cool and less interesting than whatever you as DM have planned then the issue is with you as the DM, and not so much the quality of the player backstory. I'm very much with [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] on this - evocative fiction is character driven, not plot driven. That doesn't mean you don't have a plot, but you also need strong characters and strong ways of connecting those characters to the narrative in multiple ways. You work character driven arcs into the larger plot arcs and make sure everyone gets their moment in the sun. This is much easier if there is some established fiction about how the characters know each other, who they might have in common, and what their core drives and motivations are.</p><p></p><p>All that said, if both you and your party enjoy running backstory free characters dropped into a plot based adventure, that's fine. If you guys are enjoying yourselves you aren't doing something wrong. However, that doesn't mean that using backstory/background in the way other posters are suggesting is <em>bad</em>, it's just not something that you think you want to do.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fenris-77, post: 7938835, member: 6993955"] [USER=6990165]@gepetto[/USER] - If the default assumption is that whatever story the player comes up with vis a vis their backstory is always going to be less cool and less interesting than whatever you as DM have planned then the issue is with you as the DM, and not so much the quality of the player backstory. I'm very much with [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] on this - evocative fiction is character driven, not plot driven. That doesn't mean you don't have a plot, but you also need strong characters and strong ways of connecting those characters to the narrative in multiple ways. You work character driven arcs into the larger plot arcs and make sure everyone gets their moment in the sun. This is much easier if there is some established fiction about how the characters know each other, who they might have in common, and what their core drives and motivations are. All that said, if both you and your party enjoy running backstory free characters dropped into a plot based adventure, that's fine. If you guys are enjoying yourselves you aren't doing something wrong. However, that doesn't mean that using backstory/background in the way other posters are suggesting is [I]bad[/I], it's just not something that you think you want to do. [/QUOTE]
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DM question: how much do you incorporate PC backgrounds into the campaign?
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