Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9343807" data-attributes="member: 6915329">OK, let's talk about worldbuilding for a moment. First, how much impact will they actually have? How often will a Noble PC try to get an audience with a noble that's vastly different from them? How often will a Criminal PC try to get in touch with their contact? How will it actually affect your world if the Noble can use their feature to get an audience with another noble on a regular basis, or if the Criminal can get in touch with their contact frequently? I'm not talking about your (un)willingness to suspend your disbelief for a few minutes of gametime; I'm talking about the world itself.Second, how hard is it to actually worldbuild using a background? You have what, four, five PCs? Surely you can take a few minutes for each of them to figure out how their background will interact with the world--less time, possibly, if you get the PC to help you figure that out. The PC is a criminal. Ask them how big the criminal underground is and how big a name does the criminal contact have? The bigger the contact, the more likely they are to have people far afield know about them--and more importantly, the more plot hooks you can get out of it. Your world is not set in stone. You can modify aspects to it. I had to include the presence of many more heritages than I had originally thought or wanted to have (my preference is for as few sentient beings as possible), and that's a lot bigger of an impact than a background will ever have.So, impact? Sure, maybe. A problem? Highly unlikely.This suddenly reminded me. Waaaay back in college, my gaming club was doing a fundraiser/recruitment drive. I was sitting at the table with another member, and she saw someone go by and said, "Wait a minute. That guy is totally a gamer. He should have stopped here." She didn't know him personally and had never even seen him before, and he wasn't wearing any gamer clothes. To me, he looked like a regular guy. But yes, it turned out that yes, he did play. He just was already in a couple of games and didn't want to join another. She just knew.You know the local messengers. That doesn't mean you have to know them personally. You can look at someone and just know that they're the type who would be willing--perhaps with a little coin, perhaps with a threat--to carry a message for you.</blockquote>

Verification