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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quentin3212" data-source="post: 6280227" data-attributes="member: 6775101">Ok, so I am running a campaign on a regular though not weekly basis,using the 5e play test packets with a home brew setting I've establishedover a number of campaigns which differs heavily from the WotC realmsin lore, but adheres to the general mechanics of the WotC universes for simplicity sake and to cut down on unnecessary house ruling.In my campaign I have attempted to promote players spending extratime filling out their character's backstories, both through working very closely with them to ensure what they create fits the world, and through implementing policies such as having to have a reason whyyour character would have learned exotic languages (draconic, infernal,etc.). Here is where my problem comes in, my player lets call him Bob createda character, let's call it Stormageddon when his previous character optedby choice to leave the campaign when it began to become disruptive tothe party, and my NPC's were unwilling to overlook its behavior.Now Bob has kept me pretty much completely in the dark about Stormageddonbeyond telling me the basic name, race, class combo that you pretty muchhave to tell the DM, as well as the fact that he was a slave. Which didn't really fit the setting, but a quick change to the country's views on slavery(from illegal to legal but frowned upon) made that something that I waswilling to overlook. Until today's session where Bob informed me thatStormageddon can speak Abyssal, Infernal, and Supernal all of which areexotic languages requiring explanations for your character knowing them,and when I asked bob where Stormageddon had learned the languagesI was told they were part of his character's backstory and nothing I neededto know. At the same time he also informed me that he had created his own background (sans a trait) which he also refused to name or elaborate ondespite my telling him he should have run it by me first.Lastly before he left the session Bob announced that he was fairly sure hehad created a new villain for the world through his backstory, but once again refused to elaborate, stating it wasn't something I needed to know.My immediate responses to this were threefold, and as follows;Firstly, Bob is something of a notorious power gamer in our group, and is known to really enjoy abusing the mechanics of games to produce overlypowerful characters, and I worry this vague background was built solely withthat purpose in mind. Second, I dislike that he is refusing to tell me anything about his character, andI suspect he has done so in order to have a trump card to any possible plothook I may attempt to implement with his character. He can never really besusceptible to the claim that actions taken are out of character because hey wedon't actually know anything about him, and he can never be used to driveany story because it could be hypothetically vetoed with a "that doesn't workbecause [insert backstory/motivation/etc. that contradicts current event]"Third I dislike that he won't tell me anything because I have gone through a lotof work to ensure everyone's characters work in the universe and the universeworks with what they want to do, it's pretty much my baby and I have spentan inordinate amount of time filling it in so that campaigns set within it don'tfeel like they are being run in a vacuum. He hasn't bothered to consult me whatsoever on any aspect of the character so not only do I find his blatant lack of cooperation a bit of a middle finger considering the information is accessibleto any player upon request, but I also feel like it likely won't mesh well with thepre-established lore, and could cause issues down the road when/if it ever does come to light. I'm not sure what to do with this situation as Bob can be something of a difficultperson both at and away from the table, but I also don't want to tell him to notbother coming back as he is a friend, and I have a hard time justifying booting him over a backstory. If you were faced with a similar situation and didn't want toremove the player how would you respond to try and resolve everything. Also, so sorry about the weird formatting of my paragraphs, the machine I'm on doesn't like the website and continues writing beyond the edge of the text box so Ihave to preemptively hit enter every time to ensure I can reread what I've written.</blockquote>

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