Do you prefer your character to be connected or unconnected to the adventure hook?

[pemerton]

I like having a personal stake in the story. In my experience, it has been rare for it to feel heavy-handed or like we're all being dragged onto the GM's plot locomotive.

In my experience this is the opposite of railroading.

If the GM is framing situations that speak to the player-authored PCs - in terms of backstory elements, motivations, etc - then it is the players who are "hooking" the GM, not vice versa.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If the GM is framing situations that speak to the player-authored PCs - in terms of backstory elements, motivations, etc - then it is the players who are "hooking" the GM, not vice versa.

When I talked about "taking vengeance on the murderer of your PC's parents" I was imagining a PC similar to Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride. The parents' deaths would be backstory created by the player. The GM could then use rumours of a 'six-fingered man' (or similar clues) as an adventure hook for that player. You're right that it could be seen as hooking the GM, because the initial idea is coming from the player.

In a traditional rpg I think the GM would feel they ought to give the player these clues but they would have freedom over when that happens.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I was a player in an Amber campaign where one PC's sister was kidnapped either as backstory or at the start of play. I think the idea came from the GM. At the time I thought that was a good story-driving technique. However no mention was made of it in later sessions (though the campaign folded prematurely, I think after around six sessions). That particular GM liked everything to happen very slowly - he really eked out his plots - so it's possible that plot hook may never have been resolved even if the campaign had lasted a lot longer.

 

[Cadence]

I think some of my favorite campaigns have been ones where the DM has asked us to come up with proposed backgrounds for our characters and things the characters would like to work towards (avenging dad, becoming an avatar of vengeance to take down the slavers in the north, breaking with the families wishes and becoming successful as a bard). They were never main plot points for the party or adventure, but they got woven in. And if other motivation failed to get in character on a given night, those were there.

 

[ccs]

As a player, in any sort of on-going game, I prefer to make a character with some kind of backstory. Some ties to the world, some motivation to be an adventurer. Some reason to be wherever things are starting from. But I don't necessarily have to start off specifically tied to the adventure/campaign to come.
The DM & other players will come to know these background details. I'll discuss it with the DM, & I'll type them up a few paragraphs. They can use this info any way they see fit. But if I get a response that indicates that they don't care & don't see the details of my character as being important? Well then, I hope they aren't intending for me to care about their plot details....
The other players will learn these background details because I will talk about them in-character. And just in general conversation.

As the DM? I ask the players for background info. I love it when they provide detail. Afterall, the stories about to be told are the stories of these characters. So why wouldn't you want to know about the characters in the story?

 

[Nytmare]

It depends on the game and the premise. I personally am all for the players and GM starting off on the same foot, either with the GM building a world around the group's story, or the group building their story off the GM's world. There are some systems where that's more important to me, and some where it's not; but even for the adventuring party, I greatly prefer the party to be made as a whole by the players with a central backstory over 5 random flavors of character with 5 random backstories all shuffled together and jockeying for position. A holy order escorting a relic across demon haunted plains. A cadre of cut throats on the lam, being chased by the Ogre Mage crime boss they stabbed in the back. The only survivors of a airship-wreck, marooned on a floating desert island.

Nothing bores me more than a wasted evening of 4 lonely strangers, each sitting in a darker corner of the tavern than the next, trying to be super cool and aloof whilst ignoring the call to adventure.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I ran a superhero campaign where the motivation was exactly that in the OP - the PCs' parents had all been murdered by a group of supervillains. This motivation had been decided by me beforehand and I told the players about it upfront.

I didn't like it. It was probably the least satisfyingly structured campaign I've ever run. I think the problem was that everything was too predictable. The game at the start was clearly about tracking down and confronting these villains and that's exactly what happened, with some side quests along the way.

Another problem with it is that I got the tone wrong. It was an uncomfortable mixture of dark and comedic that didn't work at all.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Nothing bores me more than a wasted evening of 4 lonely strangers, each sitting in a darker corner of the tavern than the next, trying to be super cool and aloof whilst ignoring the call to adventure.

I've played in a game that was that but the PCs are on different planes of existence - the same Amber campaign I mentioned upthread.

That kind of thing was very popular for a while in my gaming circle in the early noughties. It's potentially a very big problem with Amber if you allow PCs from Amber, Chaos, and random places in shadow (the rest of the multiverse in Amber) all in the same game.

 

[Lanefan]

In my experience this is the opposite of railroading.

If the GM is framing situations that speak to the player-authored PCs - in terms of backstory elements, motivations, etc - then it is the players who are "hooking" the GM, not vice versa.

To me it's exactly the same as railroading, only in this case the players are railroading themselves and more or less dragging the GM along with them.

In a more traditional game it's the same as when a GM has 'read' the characters (and the way their players are playing them) such that when she presents a plot point or story idea she already knows exactly how they'll react. She doesn't need to railroad them as they've already done it for her.

 

[Lanefan]

As a player, in any sort of on-going game, I prefer to make a character with some kind of backstory. Some ties to the world, some motivation to be an adventurer. Some reason to be wherever things are starting from. But I don't necessarily have to start off specifically tied to the adventure/campaign to come.
The DM & other players will come to know these background details. I'll discuss it with the DM, & I'll type them up a few paragraphs. They can use this info any way they see fit. But if I get a response that indicates that they don't care & don't see the details of my character as being important? Well then, I hope they aren't intending for me to care about their plot details....
The other players will learn these background details because I will talk about them in-character. And just in general conversation.

Very well put.

If-when I come up with a background and-or long-term motivations for my characters I do so without expectation that the DM should or will incorporate these into the played campaign. My only expectation is that if-when I want to pursue these things out-of-game I'm allowed to do so, even if it means spending a night in the pub with the DM in a one-on-one session now and then.

As the DM? I ask the players for background info. I love it when they provide detail. Afterall, the stories about to be told are the stories of these characters. So why wouldn't you want to know about the characters in the story?

I don't mind some background if a player wants to provide it but I'm not going to demand it; and nor am I going to change anything significant regarding the campaign based on it. Harsh, perhaps, but there's reasons:

- my games usually have high character turnover, particularly at low levels when out-of-game background can be greater volume than in-game background (meaning that tying something to a specific PC's background may or may not quickly end up being pointless)
- I prefer to put more focus on in-game background as the campaign develops, which allows me to tie things to played-party history rather than specific PC history that the other players might not even know about.