Vaalingrade
Legend
Basically the same variety of any other media's backstory, but accentuating the negative because D&D hates anime for not returning all those lovingly placed calls full of heavy breathing D&D sends its way.
D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
I don't know the dirty fighting example (not really a PF player) but I will say I always think feats, spells, abilities all of them should improve on actions PCs can take not give them the action, if it is something anyone can do.
Having said that I may ask a player who always wants to blind or stun or what ever with the pocket sand, why they don't just take the feat? (again I don't know the wordIng)
Thomas Shey
Legend
The reason this tends to crop up is that they're things relating to specialty actions that are usually not spelled out in how they should be resolved otherwise (and in some cases probably are sufficiently difficult without them that no one would bother under normal circumstances, like one-handed climbing so you can have a weapon ready). This convinces some people that they aren't doable at all without an appropriate feat which does not seem supported by any overt statement anywhere except in a couple extremely specific cases.
Helldritch
Hero
You see, there are two schools of thought for this.
The first one is yours. We see it all the time in movies. The character is already powerful, do wonderful, never misses and never ever fail. Guess, what? Series and movies like this get boring pretty quickly, might feel good when they are written but actually perform poorly with the audience and are soon forgotten.
The second one is where the character evolves through the story(ies). Ho the character fails, makes mistakes but means well and tries to improve. Especially good series/movies will have some character die at some point with no coming back. Strangely, these characters can become quite powerful but they will be liked and loved by the audience because the audience will be able to relate to these characters. The possibility of failures is what makes a character interesting.
The best campaigns I ever had were those in which some characters died and were replaced by another. Not a new roll up character, but an henchman or a hireling that got promoted to "player character" status because of the premature death of a character. Whenever people struggle to achieve something, the memory of the struggle is long to fade. Players will not remember the easy times, they will remember when they barely made it but succeeded.
And even more strange, almost universally all the time, the player that took the promoted henchmen/hireling just forget his previous character and love the new one. The dwarven cleric in one of my current group died and was replaced by an NPC cleric of Lathander that the group had saved from petrification in the underdark. The player does not even remember the name of her dwarven cleric! She had rose to 6th level with her previous character but strangely, playing Vala, the cleric of Lathander, rescued from being a statue for eternity feels much more rewarding. She is now 11th level, and the backstory of Vala constantly improve as the player is asking questions on the background, brings more to table than she ever did because she wants to discover what was Vala before all this.
When the backstory of a new 1st level character is so ludicrous that even a 5th or 10th level character would have trouble doing the same thing; do not be surprised when a player feels let down when the character isn't able to do the same thing as is written on his/her character sheet background. When the backstory is made this way, no wonder that some players take failure with so much hard feeling. But MY character should not die! IT DID ALL THIS AT FIRST LEVEL! Well, that was in your impossible story my friend. Not in the game itself. Try making a nobody that becomes somebody! That will be, my friend, a story you will remember all your life.
Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ (He/Him)
You must not have watched a lot of anime or played with modern gamers.
Remathilis
Legend
Will Turner was the son of a pirate, an orphan saved from a shipwreck, became a master blacksmith and accomplished fencer, and he had 0 xp when Jack Sparrow snuck into his shop
Luke Skywalker was the son of The greatest Jedi in history, an accomplished brush pilot and excellent droid mechanic when he chased Artoo into the desert and met ObiWan. Luke still had 0 xp.
Harry Potter was the child of two wizards who were slain by the BBEG, and who gave him a foretelling scar. When Hagrid came through the door to advise "The Boy who Lived' he was a wizard, Harry had 0 xp.
I guess you can make an argument that based on origins, Will, Luke and Harry should be more than 1st level. Will crossed blades with a notorious pirate and held his own. Luke could bullseye 2 meter wamp rats with his T-16. Harry already defeated the BBEG once! But the point is a lot of heroes have great deeds before their story ever started. I don't see why D&D characters can't either.
Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ (He/Him)
Depends on the genre, tone, and focus of the anime. Pretty much like any other media.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
You are free to believe what you like but your obvious inability to believe that a player can craft a level appropriate backstory is blind spot for you.
Here you go, poke holes in mine. I'll give you my last three characters.
1. I am a native of the jungles of Chult. When my ancestors began to rise from their graves my village decided we needed to send someone to the "big city" to investigate what was happening. I volunteered to go. (1st level monk reskinned as an agile nature based fighter)
2. I am the captain of a sailing ship. When this adventuring crew took ownership of it and turned its purpose to pirate hunting I was eager to lend my services to rid the seas of them. (7th level storm sorcerer)
3. With my best asset being my hard head and not so much the contents within my church sent me to assist the sages in their quest to uncover hidden spells and other magics. My primary purpose seems to be going first into the newly opened tombs and "dealing with" the traps and denizens within. (10th level Hill Dwarf Arcane Cleric with a LOT of HP)
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
This is something I try to convey, but often fail at miserably.
What's more satisfying: looking at a map of places someone else discovered or being the one to discover those places?
Actively doing the discovery yourself. When it's done in the background, or backstory, it's bland and hollow. It's like looking at a map of places already discovered. That's boring. When it's done in the moment, during active play, it's wondrous and memorable.
Put another way: the map isn't the terrain. The pre-written backstory mode is the passive, bland map. The play-through your story mode is the active, memorable terrain.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Wrong on both counts, I'm afraid.
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