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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9252205" data-attributes="member: 8461">"Background details" and "home or family or connections" are not issues of overturning convention. When the character is presented as the last mage in a world that has lost all magic, that's not "having some details in the backstory," that's their backstory saying why they're special right from the get-go, and recognition as such is warranted (often repeatedly) over the course of play. If we presume that one of the things characters want to achieve is recognition, impact on the game world, or basically anything beyond mechanical rewards, then they're starting out with that, rather than earning it over the course of the campaign.Now, I'll certainly stipulate that such things can be further earned. But a character whose backstory is "I can do the impossible" is giving themselves a massive leg up on that front.This ignores the issue of presentation in the context of the game world, which is what I noted before. If you're a character class in a party that has no other members of that class, you're not overturning the conventions of the game world. If you're the last mage in a world where everyone in the world knows that magic is gone, and you can demonstrate otherwise, then you're going to necessarily make a bigger impact on how NPCs react to you; at that point, you effectively have the same reputation as a high-level character, because you're wielding a power that no one else has (or is supposed to be able to have, for that matter). It's not a question of "balance," but rather making the last mage character become the most important person in the party by default, since their presence becomes outsized.The rest of the party might not, when your character's uniqueness consistently outshines them. That's kind of the central point that people keep raising.Which could conceivably work, if everyone's okay with that idea (but then again, if everyone's okay with a proposition, then there isn't really any problem to begin with). But even then, that can be a burden on the group, in terms of the character drawing in more problems than they'd otherwise have. If the last mage character is pursued by mage hunters everywhere they go, is a pariah that causes people to flee and shopkeepers to close their doors, and causes notoriety to fall on their party, etc., that can also cause issues that the rest of the PCs have to deal with.Now, none of that is necessarily an issue of overturning convention per se; you can have famous, notorious, or hunted characters just fine...but if that's all you want, why do you have to overturn convention to get those things? There are other ways to do so without having to say that you can do the impossible.I'd say the simplicity goes the other way more often than not. My impression is that, for the last two decades or so, there's been a growing tendency towards a player attitude of "my character is entirety mine to make, and no one has the right to say otherwise," which like so many other things is fine in moderation but becomes a problem when taken to an extreme. The GM saying "your character concept doesn't really work for this campaign" is not being overbearing, particularly when the conventions of the campaign have been laid down ahead of time.Players should, I think, consider the group's fun and cohesion when making their characters. While it's entirely possible for them to think that it's benign to come up with a character concept that's different from what would normally work in a given context, they should also be ready to abandon that idea if others express reservations about them...and that includes the GM.</blockquote>

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