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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8575273" data-attributes="member: 93670">You were not denied, you were told examples of problems with it & given advice  on how those problems could be solved along with the sort of concessions over unworkable levels of worldbuilding by backstory that would be out of your control.  If a player chooses to ignore that knowledge & persist as I've seen more than a few try in modern d&d the rest would be true because of that choice to ignore the GM.You get an extreme amount of say in your character.  That say comes in the form of actions that you take at the table & the results.  Taking an example from my wednesday game, there is a player who chose a  background that includes the words [ispoiler]"You come from a family with hereditary power. Since you’re taking up a life of adventuring, it’s quite likely that you’re a second child or more distant heir with no vast inheritance to look forward to. You’ve got to make your own way in the world with only your years of training from armsmasters and private tutors, your many rich relatives and friends, and your not inconsiderable personal wealth."[/ispoiler]During session zero when he was building his spreadsheet of a character He noted in surprise that it adds to strength & I pointed out that bolded bit  while explaining that it would have resulted in his character being pushed more towards adventuring type stuff to be reliable trustworthy muscle for the elder sibling or similar.  Without pause the player immediately discarded that & said "Yea I'm not going to do that.  My character is the first born, his parents love him & he's set to inherit the entire fortune.  It's my brother that's the reject".... Said player was flatly told that session zero is not a novel pitch & it wouldn't work that wayMoving onto his culture he after looked at what he thought would be a useful bonus wildlings give & asked if he could choose to be a wildling noble since they kinda clash. As the GM my answer was "You can b<s>ut doi"</s>okgreatI'maWildling" doing that will constrain you narratively because they kind of conflict & high society doesn't exactly approve of such tarzan types being around then.>but I can do it right?>yes>ok I'm a wildling, guys I can guide us & stuff during travels.Like your backstory example he attempted to give me all kinds of worldbuilding stuff in his "background" & was even at points flatly told at the table at one point early on that the only way his character makes any sense is if it was as either a fallen house that was once great & fallen on hard times or if it was a big fish in a very small & very distant pond.  To that he responded telling us about the slave trade empire his family owns & how it owns a huge fleet of ships that run most of the global slave trade..... he had been previously told no on both of those things & was immediately reminded no such thing exists at the table.That player has been repeatedly told to investigate why his family keeps borrowing gold from a loanshark* that he himself as a player brought into being a notable opart of things & has instead openly floated the idea of murdering family members in front of said loanshark only to be reminded that actions have consequences & doing that wouldn't solve the problem.  There is very much a reason related to his family's lands & a monster (one of the big epic d&d types like dragons & such) & if he were to look into that he could begin convincing the group to go do what would likely be some pretty cool monster slaying & community rebuilding/protecting.Instead someone else said "my connection is 'Your friend, a traveling merchant whose caravan spreads your fame.'  If he's in the area can I check with him if maybe he has any jobs he might be interested in hiring us for cause I feel like we need money" & the group is now aiding him with that.  Since then the first player has had multiple chances to look into his family & each time refused by citing an ill fitting or inappropriate NPC & their position  related to a backstory he's been told no on that he expects to solve a problem" because none of the other four players care about his novel & the GM certainly doesn't care to work with a player so deeply resistant to working with anyone. The second player recently became a knight in service to a local baron & doesn't seem to have any immediate goals but will no doubt by called upon by said baron & perhaps vice versa.... during the after-ceremony party some NPCs commented about it being a shame what happened to the first player's family  but none of the other players care about mrMainCharacter's story & rather than make any efforts at interacting with the nobles he told the group about his drinking buddies in detail & that he wants to go drink with them so the nobles in question moved on to other matters of discussion like the rumored train line someone is planning to buildA third player is involved in something with his cleric's church & knows about some humanitarian problems.  Coincidentally those will likely lead to the first player's snubbed problems & frankly I don't care if they do or if the rest of the party chooses to go off in other directions they care more about.Yes this is an extreme example of a problematic player who would usually get the boot fast, but booting them is not really an option right now** & I've seen these kinds of behaviors from less problematic would be novelists  at a fairly regular clip over the years.  Your freedom lies in your ability to shape the world & even your history through deeds at the table not by how many pages you can write between sessions or how many soecific details you can load into a short summary of a novel you have in mind  [spoiler="When there is satire videos poking fun at these kind of player:gm conflict it says a lot"][MEDIA=youtube]ZknKIWDA1XU[/MEDIA][MEDIA=youtube]QoO2eI9IioE:97[/MEDIA][/spoiler]In the past players needed quite a lot of things from the gm & through their interest in those things they were incentivized to work with the GM, that is no longer the case & it's made worse with just enough one sided shared narrative looking hooks with incomplete mechanics on the character itself to suggest that worldbuilding is under the player's domain to dictate.The criticism of your original hypothetical backstory wasn't because it was unworkable  & much of it was the kind of advice I would give a player presenting me something like that for how it could be made to work & letting them know the kind of worldbuilding parts that they don't get to decide. If a player is willing to take advice like that & hash out something acceptable to the gm that contains things they are interested in that's great.  More often in modern d&d I find the player who gives me a backstory & gets feedback either digs in their feet or just starts giving me completely different problematic backstory after completely different problematic backstory expecting that I'll take one as dictated till they give up complaining that by the GM  explaining what's wrong with each & how we could make them work that GM is not working with them.* The player in question chose this connection "The crime boss to whom your family is in massive debt."**There are reasons, leave it at that.</blockquote>

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