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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7086561" data-attributes="member: 6778044">OK, if that's what you're referring to, then I totally agree. I do think it's very important to pull the characters into the campaign world and the adventure. Which is exactly what I mean when I say the players/characters write the story. Luke's motivation was to go to university. His goals didn't include joining the alliance and fighting the empire.A separate story was occurring in the same vicinity. A droid had a message to get to Obi-Wan. This story is entirely independent of Luke's, and doesn't address his motivations at all, although it does tie into his backstory (even if the whole backstory wasn't written yet - typical of my approach too).When the two stories intersect, though, a new motivation is given to Luke by the story when his family is killed.A lot of the time, I'm tying into unwritten or unknown parts of the PCs backstory. For example, one player indicated his character is divorced. So I added an ex-brother-in-law, who was (not so) secretly the cause of the divorce, who also happens to be a lycanthrope and part of an evil organization, which he didn't know. What he chooses to do with that new information is up to him.Another's ranger was "estranged" from his family, no specifics yet. As it turns out, he was sold into slavery by his older brother, after he killed their father. He later found out that his "brother" was a doppelgänger, and that his brother was very likely sold into slavery as well. In addition, he had a very disturbing encounter when he found himself battling the zombie of his father.The druid was given the family Moonblade in part for safekeeping. She later found she (and the sword) were being hunted by a distant uncle, and following the battle between them where the uncle was killed, that he was being controlled by an evil artifact. So she made it a mission to return his body to Evereska to clear his name and give him a proper burial, along with looking for a way to destroy the artifact. I didn't have to directly address her motivations to learn how to use the Moonblade or find her way home, since she took actions to accomplish those.Not everybody has such motivations, or hooks in their backstories, though. Just like I don't want every story to be a "save the world" epic, I don't want every character to have a dark secret, or family with ties to evil organizations, or to great power. For most of the characters, I want them to simply be normal people, working to help their family have a place to live and food to eat. Essentially, a Bilbo-type character. One that has no initial desire to be part of the dramatic stories of the world, that finds them drawn in by other events. Sure, Gandalf selected Bilbo for specific reasons, but in many cases it's not even a selection.A character that's a farmer in a village, that is attacked by giants. In the process of helping to hunt down the giants, they find friends and adventure along the way. After which they decide to look for more. Deep backstories, and ties to sinister plots need not always apply. One of the reasons I really like this approach is it gives experienced RPG players and opportunity to let the story unfold for the characters in much the same way it does when you're a first time RPG player. So I get it, the initial hook is protecting what's important to the farmer. But it's a simple hook, and really, that's often  all you need.</blockquote>

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