How to stop my players from doing these things?

[Sargon the Kassadian]

My DM has made this campaign successful, we started out with a bang from the start. We didn't have great backgrounds (we had to make them up on the spot), but we started in "the hulks", or prison ships where they throw food down through a hatch. Escaping the hulk took intelligence, teamwork, and was also quite fun. After that we sort of went seperate ways in Freeport, but we still stay together. My character is becoming more interesting all the time, as I am kind of working against/without the others. Last session (gj SAM! ) made the party's dynamic even wierder, as one character had a demon arm grafted on. So now the other two (assassin and demon arm guy) are working for the cops and backstabbing the Halfling Mafia, the one with the demon arm is going (darn sam) to be possessed by it, and the evil assassin is using the excuse of trying to kill demondude to get weapons from the Mafia. Meanwhile I am spying for the soon-to-be invading army of ninja/samurai!

All that came from characters whose backgrounds were nonexistent (almost), with the only detail being that I work for my ninja clan and how we all got thrown into the hulks. I wrote this whole story to illustrate the fact that a good DM can bond the group together without backgrounds, and make a campaign interesting through a couple careful manipulations.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

The Universe, my GM at present, doesn't let the "my parents are dead" thing get in the way of messing around with our family trees. He seems to have great fun with making the PCs in the campaign related to good and evil NPCs and each other.

True that...

But, do remember: Dead is just one step closer to UNdead...

Don't let the dead parents thing get in the way, at all!

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

To take away the "getting to know you" phase of PC interaction removes one of the major sources of party bonding and role-play. It removes perhaps the greatest source of compelling plot to be found in the game. [..] The PC interactions you get based upon history the palyers didn't actually play through are generally hollow by comparison. IMHO.

My experience, interestingly enough, has been the polar opposite of this.

We switched over to having a more collaborative character creation process precisely because the "getting to know you" phase wasn't particularly enjoyable and felt painfully hollow to most of us, plus it tended to derail all the interesting plots at the beginning of the game. Getting everyone together before the game begins to talk about what we want to play, what kind of group we want to have, what sort of things we want to do, etc., all helps steer the game to be something we're all going to have fun with, and then when we actually start play, we get to hit the ground running.

We also get better PC interactions than we did under the other system, because we know where everyone's buttons are. Plus, most of our players are really good at making up an old argument on the spot and just running with it, which is really amusing.

--
so now we're all huge fans of collaborative backgrounds and working together
ryan

 

[leporidae]

Managing outliers

Generally I like to run a freewheeling campaign and do my best to encourage original thinking (though I like it better if they warn me ahead of time about their original thinking so I have something prepared). After gaming with the same people for twenty odd years anything we can do to keep it fresh...

Still there's one guy (not to rip on him - he brings the fun) but he always wants a character that doesn't fit - for example a Drow in a world with no elves (and the lack of elves was important to the overall plot). So I let him play a human who really wanted to be a Drow - eventually he got a favor from someone powerful enough to wish him dark and pointy. (Which had the side affect of reawakening Lloth, providing lots of good plot juice.) The funny thing is he eventually pissed off a good diety who cursed him by turning him into a normal elf.

In another campaign the starting parameter was that you were from a small town in 1920s Wisconsin. He wanted to play a Mexican Bandito, (Mexican wasn't so much the problem, as he needed to be well known and tolerated by the townsfolk), so we settled on a guy who ran away to Mexico, then returned a few years later, dressed and acting like a Bandito - but everyone in town recognized him as that odd Lagerfeld boy.

Maybe other GMs don't have patience for such shenanigans, but remember, just because they make you laugh, doesn't mean you can't kill them.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

An Obscure Past Clouds Dark Deeds

accidental post (sorry)

 

[The Thayan Menace]

An Obscure Past Clouds Dark Deeds

accidental post

 

[The Thayan Menace]

An Obscure Past Clouds Dark Deeds

accidental post

 

[The Thayan Menace]

An Obscure Past Clouds Dark Deeds

"What? You say that your character has no significant history? No problem, we'll work something out."

Our DM, bless his sadistic black heart, is quite adept at managing PCs with little background. His method is similiar to the "elastic background" descriptions already mentioned in this post (e.g., strange family relations, jilted lovers, plot-hook relatives), but with a more sinister tone.

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For example:

1. The PC is actually a notorious psychopath who suffers from memory lapses.

2. The PC's twin brother is a notorious psychopath.

3. The PC used to serve an evil organization (wittingly or unwittingly) and is now trying to go straight. Unfortunately, his old enemies might not be of the merciful variety.

4. The PC miserably failed his initiation ritual at a monastery of a local deity several years ago. Now members of that god's faith refuse to grant him (or anyone associated with him) any services, regardless of payment offered.

[Note! This twist is so much better, if the PC's old church is the primary religious institution in your current campaign.]

5. The PC is wanted for arson, heresy, murder, and/or some unspeakable act.

6. The PC's family members are infamous arsonists, heretics, murderers, and/or vile fiends. Although the PC is nothing like his wayward family, most of the locals assume that he is.

7. The PC is afflicted with a strange curse that causes people to forget who he is, unless he maintains contact with them in a fairly consistent fashion. Thus, the party might know who their good friend is, but all NPCs will forget the PC's existence in a manner of days, hours, or minutes.

8. The PC suffers from a disease (terminal or otherwise).

9. The PC is physically allergic to gold and/or silver (see #8).

10. The PC is a notorious black-out drunkard and has unknowingly sired several half-orc children.

11. The PC is not a true mortal creature. He was actually born in a vat of eldritch protoplasm. Furthermore, his father, the mad alchemist, is now bent on "fixing" his mistake.

12. The PC suffers from a curse that causes all of his lovers to denounce and/or humiliate him.

13. The PC is the continual target of pranks by evil faeries (you know, the ones that stole his memory and removed all traces of his background).
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Ah, yes ... our DM has a million of them; he's quite the creative guy.

 

[Steve Jung]

Well you could determine which PCs know whom, randomly or non-randomly. i.e. A knows B. C knows B. D knows A. Then the players can come up with the hows and whys of the relationship. I can't remember where I picked this up.

 

[Thotas]

Yeah, those people who can't play a human fighter 'cause it's "too boring". I don't know what to do about them either. The problem I have is that I like having a wide range of races and classes available, but I hate what I call "freak-show D&D", where you've got a group of 6 or 7 people and not one of 'em is using a race from the Players Handbook. And of course, they always think that a random group of a minotaur, an orc, a drow and something else that regular folks in the village have no idea what it is should be able to come into town a buy a horse without anyone who lives there batting an eye. Much less attacking on sight, like they would if they encountered the group. I find that people who ALWAYS have to play those characters this think it's a valid substitute for actually creating an interesting character.