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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 9361482" data-attributes="member: 86653">Where the scene breaks down, for me, is the overlap with OC play. You can play OSR games where the characters matter. It's no more difficult than finding out the PCs' goals and dropping those into the game. But, once the characters go from being important, from simply mattering, and become the central focus, things break down. For me.In a weird twist, Professor DM of Dungeon Craft also dropped a video today. His is about the recent Vecna module. I think part of the video is relevant.[MEDIA=youtube]pJA2BBkb-2k[/MEDIA]Around 10:00 is the relevant bit. He brings up two points. First, character stats do not dictate how epic the stories in your game can be. You can have epic stories with low-level characters. Second, things that happen in play, during the actual game, are wildly more relevant, memorable, epic, etc than any bit of lore or backstory will ever be.I agree completely with both of those points. And I think the second one, despite being about villains, also applies to PCs. No villain you tell your players to hate is ever going to be hated as much as the villain your players learned to hate during play. No PC backstory is ever going to be as awesome as playing through those moments at the table.This is one of the reasons despite understanding more about the neo-trad style now (honestly thanks everyone), I don't think it will ever be my style. I don't want a character with a detailed backstory telling me how cool they were before the game even starts. I want to see them be cool during play in a shared moment at the table. This is also why I prefer starting characters weaker than heroes or superheroes. I want to play through the character's backstory, I don't want to read about it. I want to experience it first hand. I want that zero to hero arc to happen in play at the table.</blockquote>

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