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<blockquote data-quote="The Dungeon Nazi" data-source="post: 201775" data-attributes="member: 4520">When I get a player who writes up a novella detailing his background, I see it as more trouble than it's worth.&nbsp; In my experience, it usually turns out to be a sign that the character is planning on hijacking the party and telling everyone, &quot;See, such-and-such is my destiny, so we need to go here and do this,&quot; or they'll come to me and say, &quot;You should write up a campaign around me because look how much cool stuff I gave you to work with in my character's background!&quot;So I don't ask for it, and I don't encourage my players to write much of any back story.The way I run my game (and consequently, the way I use the FR materials) is by setting up the world as it appears in the sourcebooks and novels.&nbsp; I tell my PCs, &quot;Okay, here is the state of things in the Realms right now, here is what's going on in Shadowdale right now -- what are you going to do about it?&quot;So the PCs effect some change in this world of Aber-Toril, and that's how they become legendary figures on the scale of Elminster, the Seven Sisters, the Lords of Waterdeep -- not by spending a number of hours before the first adventure writing up a character's unique history, setting themselves up as the one person who can change the world before they even hit first level.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Dungeon Nazi, post: 201775, member: 4520"] When I get a player who writes up a novella detailing his background, I see it as more trouble than it's worth. In my experience, it usually turns out to be a sign that the character is planning on hijacking the party and telling everyone, "See, such-and-such is my destiny, so we need to go here and do this," or they'll come to me and say, "You should write up a campaign around me because look how much cool stuff I gave you to work with in my character's background!" So I don't ask for it, and I don't encourage my players to write much of any back story. The way I run my game (and consequently, the way I use the FR materials) is by setting up the world as it appears in the sourcebooks and novels. I tell my PCs, "Okay, here is the state of things in the Realms right now, here is what's going on in Shadowdale right now -- what are you going to do about it?" So the PCs effect some change in this world of Aber-Toril, and that's how they become legendary figures on the scale of Elminster, the Seven Sisters, the Lords of Waterdeep -- not by spending a number of hours before the first adventure writing up a character's unique history, setting themselves up as the one person who can change the world before they even hit first level. [/QUOTE]

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