Because the player is not motivated by nor interested in roleplaying through the hurt, loss, horror and guilt? Because the player wants light escapist entertainment and not an angst-ridden rollercoaster that their PC is strapped into against thier will?
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How much back story for a low-level PC?
- Thread starter Bullgrit
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Because the player is not motivated by nor interested in roleplaying through the hurt, loss, horror and guilt? Because the player wants light escapist entertainment and not an angst-ridden rollercoaster that their PC is strapped into against thier will?
Neonchameleon
Legend
Note that I said "Something that takes most non-adventuring wizards the best part of 50 years, often more. And that's starting when their brains are young - and asuming that the spells are accessible (whihc in the case of lichdom they normally aren't.)"
If there is a 35 year old woman who suddenly starts to learn spells and throw herself into mortal peril because she fears death (wait, what?), then she's going to be the centre of the town's gossip. Such a thing would have massive ripples in the surrounding world. (Set it up like that and it could possibly be done).
And every last one of them is a DM case of Deus Ex Machina or takes a lot of foreshadowing to be met with anything other than eyerolling.
Just because turning the mother into a lich is utterly ridiculous doesn't mean it's a straight choice between the ridiculous and absolutely nothing. Plots that wouldn't be static but that would be fine include town politics, remarriage or affairs, joining cults (including good ones), death, debt, winnings (including betting on kids to succeed), etc. Even learning a little magic is fine.
You're running a false dichotomy.
1: Because the Lich example is ridiculous
2: Because it would involve every single interaction with the PC's mother and those she influenced needing to be re-evaluated. i.e. half the character's life would have just been arbitrarily retconned (seriously, you think every incident goes into the written backstory?)
Genetics. (Unless you mean that the mom was a doppelganger who adopted the PC when the birth mother died in labour when it would be moving into odd territory, but not automatically eyerolled unlike the rest of your suggestions)
Um... you are running a comedy game here with no attempt at immersion, right? Or possibly a parody?
Not when the player knows a hell of a lot more about that character than the DM does. Now if the player and the DM agree the secret, and have it kept from the PC that's fine. If the DM wishes to re-write the core of the character, that's not collaborative. That's the DM throwing a bucket of paint.
Also secrets that don't change who the character is are fine. A secret that the character's mother was having an affair with the local lord wouldn't be one that would colour every single interaction she had. Even a secret that she became pregnant by him and the character is the lord's son (I'd run that one past the player, personally).
In the case of Anakin Skywalker, things weren't this way because all the player knew was that Luke's father was dead - there weren't an entire host of unwritten but still important interactions to revise. And as a player I'd have probably written the hook onto the sheet. "Father: Dead before he was born (or so he believes)."
Or in another game system Background: 2 points, to be determined by DM
DM he he he, I'll make him the son my the BBEG's lieutenant!
Sorry I did not respond sooner, I have been busy with work the last few days.
First off, there was a lot more to the story than her mom instantly becoming a lich. I condensed it on here so I did not have to write a book. It was completely in line with the mother’s background, and the mom had ten years from when the daughter left home to improve on her initial magical ability. If a PC can gain 10-12-14 levels in the course of a few “in game” months, I don’t see why a bitter and hateful woman with access to an evil artifact could not become a powerful evil mage over 10 in-game years? The player in question loved the twist in the story and it was very well received by the players overall.
(BTW, the sister became an ongoing NPC and a strong ally of the party after she realized the PCs were involved in a save the world/epic quest. And, I did not demand a background of her- I had said that since the group was close to her player’s hometown, she was welcome to give me any information on her family. I had honestly expected nothing from her, as her attendance was spotty at the beginning of the campaign. )
And, after the campaign, the players were making jokes about their backgrounds for the next campaign – it was definitely not something where they said, “I don’t want NewJeffCT turning my mom into a lich, so I will give him nothing to work with.” If they had hated how I used their backgrounds, there are plenty of other D&D games around in my neck of the woods that they could have joined afterwards.
So, rather than assuming it was “DM dickery” as I saw in this thread several times, would it not be better to assume that maybe, just maybe, I had not posted every single detail of the story from my 2 1/2 year long campaign here on enworld? I could just as easily say it was “poster dickery” for assuming that what I did was completely out of line and not within the context of the story.
How about this background ? “Talented pilot who longs to leave his boring farm home. He was raised by his aunt and his stern uncle after his father was killed in a war when he was young.” Would you consider George Lucas making Luke’s father Darth Vader an example of “dickery” as well if you were playing Luke Skywalker? (Though, making Jar Jar Binks would certainly qualify as dickery…)
First off, there was a lot more to the story than her mom instantly becoming a lich. I condensed it on here so I did not have to write a book. It was completely in line with the mother’s background, and the mom had ten years from when the daughter left home to improve on her initial magical ability. If a PC can gain 10-12-14 levels in the course of a few “in game” months, I don’t see why a bitter and hateful woman with access to an evil artifact could not become a powerful evil mage over 10 in-game years? The player in question loved the twist in the story and it was very well received by the players overall.
(BTW, the sister became an ongoing NPC and a strong ally of the party after she realized the PCs were involved in a save the world/epic quest. And, I did not demand a background of her- I had said that since the group was close to her player’s hometown, she was welcome to give me any information on her family. I had honestly expected nothing from her, as her attendance was spotty at the beginning of the campaign. )
And, after the campaign, the players were making jokes about their backgrounds for the next campaign – it was definitely not something where they said, “I don’t want NewJeffCT turning my mom into a lich, so I will give him nothing to work with.” If they had hated how I used their backgrounds, there are plenty of other D&D games around in my neck of the woods that they could have joined afterwards.
So, rather than assuming it was “DM dickery” as I saw in this thread several times, would it not be better to assume that maybe, just maybe, I had not posted every single detail of the story from my 2 1/2 year long campaign here on enworld? I could just as easily say it was “poster dickery” for assuming that what I did was completely out of line and not within the context of the story.
How about this background ? “Talented pilot who longs to leave his boring farm home. He was raised by his aunt and his stern uncle after his father was killed in a war when he was young.” Would you consider George Lucas making Luke’s father Darth Vader an example of “dickery” as well if you were playing Luke Skywalker? (Though, making Jar Jar Binks would certainly qualify as dickery…)
I primarily considered it dickery based upon two things: your description as the the players' reaction (which you did not disclose as joking at the time) and the concept that you had posted sufficient detail in the story you did post
1) The player gave no backgound initially
2) The player offerd a small prosaic background with no intimation the mother was a classed charaxter unlike her father who was mentioned as a cleric
3) The mother became a lich that killed her one daughter and 'moved heavena and hell, literally' to kill the other
4) The players, discussing the aftermath swore to give you nothing further to work with either through over-kill mundane backround or nothing at all
You left out a few details in that synopsis like (a) the target player liked it and (b) the initial player background included substantial magical and artefact level capability for you to draw upon.
Done unilaterally through the alteration of the player background, yes.
Are there ways to do it without dickery? Certainly, there are several.
They all generally involve player permission, either tacit or explicit.
1) Player offers the background and DM agrees.
2) DM offers the connection and player agrees.
3) Player provides an 'empty' space in the character design and invites DM to fill it (relatively common in design games like Hero)
4) Play group knows each other very well and the DM believes the player will enjoy the connection. THe DM drops the bomb knowing that he can correct the situation by having it be DV's lie if the player objects.
The Ghost
Explorer
Yes, I believe Hobo and I had already agreed to this point - different groups and different players can accept different levels of abstraction in their games and find it satisfying.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Haha, too slow, Jeff! 'Lich mom' is going to become a thing on these boards, a byword for OTT DM-ing.
Raven Crowking
First Post
As a GM, you can determine how well you dealt with PC background material by a simple expedient: After you reveal your take/twist on the background material, do the other players immediately provide you with more material in the hopes that you will do the same thing for them/to their PCs?
If so, you are doing it right.
But, I still feel that a couple of paragraphs to a page is adequate, and that the PC background should offer potential hooks and reasons to adventure, rather than reasons why that PC should get special treatment in the game world (princess syndrome).
It is fun to riff off of background material, and to use the same to give the PCs connections to the game milieu. It is another thing entirely to have a party consisting of hidden/displaced/unknown royalty just waiting for the GM to uplift them to their "rightful" positions of ultimate power in the campaign world.
Also, I would add that a background should be what the PC knows/believes -- if the PC introduces a "mysterious stranger" in his background, he should not also include the actual identity of that stranger, unless it is also known to the PC. It is okay for the PC background to include a mysterious stranger the PC believes to be Odin wandering the world; it is not necessarily going to turn out to have been Odin, however.
As GM, I reserve the right to tie all PC backgrounds into the milieu in a way that makes sense with the milieu as established. As a player, I automatically grant any GM running a game I am in the same right.
EDIT: One other note: Before dropping a bomb, it is good to foreshadow said bomb and pay attention to player feedback. First off, foreshadowing means that the players get to experience the fun anxiety of knowing something is happening without knowing exactly what. Secondly, it gives the players a chance to acclimatize to the idea that something is going to happen, so it isn't completely out of the blue (although the details can be hidden, and thus shocking). Finally, it gives the GM a chance to look at player feedback, and thus present the bomb without having it explode in his face.
RC
If so, you are doing it right.
But, I still feel that a couple of paragraphs to a page is adequate, and that the PC background should offer potential hooks and reasons to adventure, rather than reasons why that PC should get special treatment in the game world (princess syndrome).
It is fun to riff off of background material, and to use the same to give the PCs connections to the game milieu. It is another thing entirely to have a party consisting of hidden/displaced/unknown royalty just waiting for the GM to uplift them to their "rightful" positions of ultimate power in the campaign world.
Also, I would add that a background should be what the PC knows/believes -- if the PC introduces a "mysterious stranger" in his background, he should not also include the actual identity of that stranger, unless it is also known to the PC. It is okay for the PC background to include a mysterious stranger the PC believes to be Odin wandering the world; it is not necessarily going to turn out to have been Odin, however.
As GM, I reserve the right to tie all PC backgrounds into the milieu in a way that makes sense with the milieu as established. As a player, I automatically grant any GM running a game I am in the same right.
EDIT: One other note: Before dropping a bomb, it is good to foreshadow said bomb and pay attention to player feedback. First off, foreshadowing means that the players get to experience the fun anxiety of knowing something is happening without knowing exactly what. Secondly, it gives the players a chance to acclimatize to the idea that something is going to happen, so it isn't completely out of the blue (although the details can be hidden, and thus shocking). Finally, it gives the GM a chance to look at player feedback, and thus present the bomb without having it explode in his face.
RC
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Neonchameleon
Legend
Um. What level were court wizards in your game? Because level 11 tends to be extremely noticeable in 3e.
This is all new information that reverses the previous version of events. Something being said and something being joked about are very different.
"After the campaign, though, the player who wrote the complex double-agent background said that in order to prevent a lich-mom type scenario, he would write a background so detailed, yet so mundane, that it would be impossible for me to come up with anything bad. On the other side, everybody else said that they would go for the “blank slate” background to prevent a lich-mom scenario."
And if you knew the players well enough to know what sort of tricks that way they would enjoy, and it worked, fair enough. (And it may have gone down better as being the second background - and therefore minor rather than major to the character).
Depends. I've never yet had a DM who didn't annoy me in some way (and that goes double for me when DMing. And there are many motivations for playing with a group. For one you clearly managed to make it tense and challenging - which on its own means you did that part. In short, it was clearly well executed however good or bad the initial idea.
The assumption was based on your words - expanded to say the PCs did not want.
I'd have taken that as a trial baloon. And if the PC hadn't liked it, villains lie.
Nah. Stupidity. Which is often worse. He wasn't doing it to screw anyone over (as far as I know).
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