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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greg K" data-source="post: 7267913" data-attributes="member: 5038">Not everything needs to be accurate. Common knowledge is not always right.  I take into account where characters are from and backgrounds. I also use culture skills. Characters start off with knowledge of their culture including myths, stories, rumors. Certain things they just don't need to roll for and I wlll feed them to them.  If common belief is the the elves eat babies and the players are from within that region, they will know the rumors as  I will have a note about it and it in current history, rumors, etc.  The same section will be different for someone from a different culture or region. Characters in the party will know different thing, correct or wrongly assumed. However, if I give the individual players some of the knowledge ahead of time, it gives them possible hooks or ideas for background elements (e.g., my  character's sister disappeared near the forest, the elves must have taken her) or simply reason to distrust elves.[wuoyr]Rural-based characters might not know much of what goes on beyond their own village and those close by it.  City-bred characters might know some stuff about a few guilds and various laws but might not know where the borders of the realm are.  Dwarves might not know squat about what goes on on the surface.</blockquote>Exactly.  The rural characters might have other information about their area that the urban character and the dwearf won't have. The dwarf might know about other creatures  inhabiting the mountains and if the party travels in the mountains or underground, he is going to have knowledge they need about the culture and customs. Outside the mountains, he is going to be a fish out of water which is an interesting from a roleplaying perspective. He might have misconceptions about what the surface races are like or find his cultural norms at odds with others. Correct.  I am saying think about each area from which various PC's can start and come up with some common things for a player to know for his or her character growing up in the area. They can serve as ideas for background elements, goals, hooks or just pieces of information unique to that character. It might also give the character an idea for slight tweaks to run by you prior to the campaign starting.  In one of my games, there was mention of an attack by wizards on the jarl and the druids of one of the northern areas. Based upon the information and culture, one player asked if the jarl could have a daughter that was abducted so he can rescue her. I told him yes. The other player whom wanted a character from the same culture wantedto be a young druidic prodigy and asked if most of the order could have been killed in the attack. It was more severe of a result than I had intended, but it sounded cool and didn't change much so I agreed.Depends on the group. I know some players that are going to be upset to find that the character whom they wanted to play at the start was off limits, but is later legal.[/QUOTE]

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