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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6063876" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I can't speak for @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> on that but I think I can throw a little bit of insight into how its done generally and specifically how it might be done in 4e.  I wrote on this in another thread and people were none-too-keen and felt it was "player entitlement gaming" or something.Much of this is done in character creation but it might go on during the week just chatting with pals now and again.  As an example:A friend wants to play an enormously successful naval veteran (with a glorious history of pirate hunting) who lost all of his crew in a skirmish with pirates, fought valiantly against overwhelming odds but was ultimately taken prisoner, lost his precious cargo and ship, and lived as captive in the awful conditions of the ship's hold for a few months until the pirates' bartered a suitable ransom for him.  After a tribunal, he got off but was decommissioned as a naval officer, stripped of rank, but given a deed to a nice out of the way piece of property to live out his days.  Unsurprisingly, he was a tortured soul.  He crawled inside of a bottle for the next 2 years of his life and spent his days moving from tavern to tavern, city to city, gambling, wenching, and boozing himself to oblivion.So.  We discuss all of the potential thematic elements of this character beforehand and how we can make them manifest in the game.  We outline (roughly) the aim for his future; - a story of redemption...but wrought in a ruthless, borderline nihilist, way- kill every pirate involved (the God of Justice sponsors him without him even knowing it.)- locate the precious cargo that he lost and give it back to the ivory tower beaurocrats that he protected with his blood and the lives of his men...who stripped him of all of his honor and dignity and gave little to the fallen mens' families.- he becomes a secret benefactor (his adventuring spoils) for the families of all of his fallen men which he arranges through a proxy.  So now I know the thematic and crunchy elements of his character.  We discuss how we will accomplish the above directives, from the color to the minor and major quests for him and how milestones will be awarded.  Now we both know, explicitly what we expect from each other and the metagame carrots are out in the open, completely transparent.  Together we build his character;- class (Rogue)- multi-class (Avenger)- theme and background (Mariner)- thematic feat and power assemblage to fit his background and his single-minded mission- paragon path (Relentless Slayer - a mechanically altered hybrid of the Avenger paragon path + Rogue path)Now, when the opening scene of the game comes about (two of the pirates who captured him enter a dockside tavern in a cutthroat port town that he has been staking out), I know that a ruthless, Jack Boweresque scene is going to unfold...and off we go.  I do the same with the rest of the players and, in total, we discuss precisely the type of game that we want to play;- genre conventions/tropes and all the expectations therein- over-arcing campaign theme- explicitly discuss meta-game tools, props and transparency- all other relevant social contract stuff (making characters that make some sense together; a coherent whole with some overlap in theme/interest).As play unfolds throughout the campaign, we will individually revisit these things, confirm we're on the same page and eyeball a future.  Nothing too specific, just a direction so I know what they want and so my scene-framing, the adversity I put them under, and the thematic buttons I push manifest transparently and our expectations of each other are met.Yup.  That's about it.  That's too much for most folks (clearly, given the visceral reaction in the other thread)...but that is how I do it and I expect pemerton is not too terribly far from that.</blockquote>

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