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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Warehouse23" data-source="post: 2516741" data-attributes="member: 27941">One key to moving gaming beyond the state of a simple combat simulator is recognizing that the onus is on the players to create characters who have goals beyond "kick in the door, kill the monsters, take their loot." If every player brought to the table even a paragraph of backstory with plothooks, DMs would have a lot more to work with in terms of crafting an adventure (without such character motivation, the DM is left with the old motivators of fear, greed, and lust, which, although they never fail, tend to get a bit stale after a while). Two keys for players are to provide what I call "hooks" and "markers." Hooks are plot hooks--we all know about them (my character gets a kick out of liberating the innocent, or undoing ancient evils, or discovering truly novel things--these are all standard fantasy tropes, but picking one or two will let your DM know what kind of goodies to seed the adventure with--e.g., innocent prisoners, elder gods, or enchanted caverns). Markers are a little bit tougher. They are non-mechanical signals of character advancement which mean something to the player (and character). A marker could be a new name (e.g., "The villagers start calling you Bob the Valiant" or, for imfamy, "You are now known in town as Endzenda--the goat-sucker"), a title (e.g., "For your valiant fight against the dragon, the duke has asked you to become his shire-reeve"), membership (e.g., "The coven of witches decides to take you in as a member," or "The mariner's guild elects you to their college"), or even something material (e.g., "A statue depicting your party slaying the Ooze of Bathsgate now stands at the entrance to the town"). A new level makes for a tougher piece of paper (yay, +1 to BAB and fort saves). Achievement of a marker makes for character advancement. In this manner, gaming can move away from hack'n'slash, and into something more enjoyable.</blockquote>

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