Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
GMs: Guiding Morals in GMing
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8989252" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>For me as a GM, players preestablishing their characters is valuable for two reasons. One, it's a point in the game where I can ask the player, "What do you want to be true?" and usually take their input without breaking the immersion of play or risking passing meta information that might harm the experience of play. Before play is a great time to allow players to insert myth into the setting. If you wait until play begins, then the players lack of omniscience makes it more difficult to find points where you can hand them narrative control. (An example of doing this in play is Matt Mercer asking the players, "What do you want to be true?" when they've downed the BBEG, which is another useful point where the players have enough information to take up the narrative on their own.)</p><p></p><p>The other reason besides it being a great point to share the narrative with the players, is that when the players establish myth about their characters there are implied story arcs that the backstory suggests would be fun to pursue ("mysterious parentage" is a common fairy tale like trope players choose) and I'm able to inject into my myth secrets, foils, antagonists, mentors, friends and so forth implied by the character's backstory. It gives me both more hooks for luring the players into story arcs I've envisioned and more opportunities to set up stories that are particular to their character and spotlight that character. And this also tends to also give the PC an implied knowledge expertise where I can infer they are more likely than normal to "know" certain things and be able to spout lore about it. "Grew up as a theater brat" for example might give the character a wide informal circumstance bonus to everything pertaining to thespianism. "Pious follower of the sun goddess" for example gives the character a better than normal chance to know things pertaining to her cult. And so forth. In short, it's great to have a PC that is integrated into the myth of the setting and belongs in it.</p><p></p><p>For the player, the value of creating myth for their character is similar to the value of creating myth for the setting to the GM. By establishing facts about their character that constrain their play, they are consciously making a separation between their own beliefs and desires and goals as a player and the characters beliefs, desires, and goals. This helps pull the player mentally out of pawn stance and encourages more complex imaginative role play. Now granted, some players aesthetic of play is something like "I want to win at the game, and get all the stuff", and so they hate this because they don't want to be in a position where the "winning move" is something that their character wouldn't do. But I've always thought that the artful thing to do as a player if that's your aesthetic is not to create no backstory, but to create a backstory that justifies the character having in world goals that are congruent with your out of game goals. And this IMO also makes big moments in the game more powerful, because when the PC makes a choice it's not just some random move made by the player but rather if the PC is being played consistently then either this is something everyone knows and expects the PC to do or else this is some sort of change on the part of the character where we discover something surprising about them. Either way, that makes the player's choices more fun, more literary, and more interesting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8989252, member: 4937"] For me as a GM, players preestablishing their characters is valuable for two reasons. One, it's a point in the game where I can ask the player, "What do you want to be true?" and usually take their input without breaking the immersion of play or risking passing meta information that might harm the experience of play. Before play is a great time to allow players to insert myth into the setting. If you wait until play begins, then the players lack of omniscience makes it more difficult to find points where you can hand them narrative control. (An example of doing this in play is Matt Mercer asking the players, "What do you want to be true?" when they've downed the BBEG, which is another useful point where the players have enough information to take up the narrative on their own.) The other reason besides it being a great point to share the narrative with the players, is that when the players establish myth about their characters there are implied story arcs that the backstory suggests would be fun to pursue ("mysterious parentage" is a common fairy tale like trope players choose) and I'm able to inject into my myth secrets, foils, antagonists, mentors, friends and so forth implied by the character's backstory. It gives me both more hooks for luring the players into story arcs I've envisioned and more opportunities to set up stories that are particular to their character and spotlight that character. And this also tends to also give the PC an implied knowledge expertise where I can infer they are more likely than normal to "know" certain things and be able to spout lore about it. "Grew up as a theater brat" for example might give the character a wide informal circumstance bonus to everything pertaining to thespianism. "Pious follower of the sun goddess" for example gives the character a better than normal chance to know things pertaining to her cult. And so forth. In short, it's great to have a PC that is integrated into the myth of the setting and belongs in it. For the player, the value of creating myth for their character is similar to the value of creating myth for the setting to the GM. By establishing facts about their character that constrain their play, they are consciously making a separation between their own beliefs and desires and goals as a player and the characters beliefs, desires, and goals. This helps pull the player mentally out of pawn stance and encourages more complex imaginative role play. Now granted, some players aesthetic of play is something like "I want to win at the game, and get all the stuff", and so they hate this because they don't want to be in a position where the "winning move" is something that their character wouldn't do. But I've always thought that the artful thing to do as a player if that's your aesthetic is not to create no backstory, but to create a backstory that justifies the character having in world goals that are congruent with your out of game goals. And this IMO also makes big moments in the game more powerful, because when the PC makes a choice it's not just some random move made by the player but rather if the PC is being played consistently then either this is something everyone knows and expects the PC to do or else this is some sort of change on the part of the character where we discover something surprising about them. Either way, that makes the player's choices more fun, more literary, and more interesting. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
GMs: Guiding Morals in GMing
Top