Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Scribe]

I get that. I can’t stand listening to most people, outside of immediate family and friends. But I love me some useful information dense video essays.

The gist is that the PC’s backstory is for the player to realize the character and they should not expect the referee to read any of it at all. And that the backstory should set the PC up for being free to adventure, not include plot elements the player wants to force on the referee.

I can for sure agree with all that!

 

[Staffan]

I get that. I can’t stand listening to most people, outside of immediate family and friends. But I love me some useful information dense video essays.

The gist is that the PC’s backstory is for the player to realize the character and they should not expect the referee to read any of it at all. And that the backstory should set the PC up for being free to adventure, not include plot elements the player wants to force on the referee.

I think my issue with it is that it presumes that character creation, including background, is something done in isolation. As in "We're playing Draw Steel on Wednesday, bring a 1st level character, none of the weird ancestries." And I get how that might vibe with Matt's general ethos of "stop faffing about and get to the adventure!"

But to me, character creation is much more satisfying as a group activity. Partially because it helps you explore mechanical group synergies and identify weak spots ("Hey, does anyone have any healing?"), but also because it helps establish a common background. Some games even make that an explicit part of character creation – the Troubleshooters, for example, has a character creation step where you start with a pairing of two characters and determine what their first adventure together was, and then add one character at a time for a new adventure until the group is complete.

That also covers the "Don't force plot elements" angle. Since you're doing this together, there's no force. If someone wants to play a deposed noble, they can talk it over with the GM and together decide whether that's a no-go, whether it's fine as a background element but it won't be a main plot in the campaign, or if the GM wants to do something later to resolve it.

 

[overgeeked]

I think my issue with it is that it presumes that character creation, including background, is something done in isolation. As in "We're playing Draw Steel on Wednesday, bring a 1st level character, none of the weird ancestries." And I get how that might vibe with Matt's general ethos of "stop faffing about and get to the adventure!"

Possibly, I think it's also a matter of practicality. Not everyone is going to start playing at the same time. Just because you start a campaign with these 4-6 players does not mean those will be the same 4-6 players in a year, two, three, four...etc. But I absolutely agree with the attitude of stop faffing about and get on with it.

But to me, character creation is much more satisfying as a group activity. Partially because it helps you explore mechanical group synergies and identify weak spots ("Hey, does anyone have any healing?"), but also because it helps establish a common background. Some games even make that an explicit part of character creation – the Troubleshooters, for example, has a character creation step where you start with a pairing of two characters and determine what their first adventure together was, and then add one character at a time for a new adventure until the group is complete.

In ideal circumstances, sure. But things so rarely happen in ideal circumstances. As above, players drop out and join regularly.

That also covers the "Don't force plot elements" angle. Since you're doing this together, there's no force. If someone wants to play a deposed noble, they can talk it over with the GM and together decide whether that's a no-go, whether it's fine as a background element but it won't be a main plot in the campaign, or if the GM wants to do something later to resolve it.

All it takes is talking with the referee about it, you don't need full-on group character creation to achieve that.

That's also one bit I partially disagree with Matt on this one. I'd much rather a player and their PC show up with some goals. They need to fit the game the referee wants to run and the table wants to play in, but it's so much easier to get things going and keep things going if the players and PCs have goals that fit the game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, I've read about a third of the 232 entries in the Appendix N Jam -- sorry, people who are charging for the PDFs during the judging period, I'm skipping yours -- and while it's a lot of work, even at four pages each, it's been really helpful.

I'm learning a lot about things I want to do differently when publishing my own PDFs, but I'm also seeing how often background, etc., just doesn't matter. Some of the best adventures waste one of their four pages with background that never impacts the adventure at all.

And cutting generally is a good idea for adventure writers. There are tons of people who clearly feel constrained by the four A5 pages limit and turn their font size waaaay down and have almost no margins, so they can cram in text that is almost completely superfluous.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of writers who can evoke exciting adventures with just a relative handful of words, printed at a decent size, with plenty of white space. I am going to be going back and seeing what I can trim from my entry and my previously published stuff, after this. Super-inspirational.

While buying and reading hundreds of adventures is cost prohibitive for most of us, this jam, where almost all of it is going to be free through at least Aug. 15 -- I'll be raising my price to $1 after that and also publishing it on DriveThruRPG -- is a huge opportunity to read a lot of really good stuff at one time. Highly recommended way to spend some free time this weekend.

 

[Scribe]

So, I've read about a third of the 232 entries in the Appendix N Jam -- sorry, people who are charging for the PDFs during the judging period, I'm skipping yours -- and while it's a lot of work, even at four pages each, it's been really helpful.

I'm learning a lot about things I want to do differently when publishing my own PDFs, but I'm also seeing how often background, etc., just doesn't matter. Some of the best adventures waste one of their four pages with background that never impacts the adventure at all.

And cutting generally is a good idea for adventure writers. There are tons of people who clearly feel constrained by the four A5 pages limit and turn their font size waaaay down and have almost no margins, so they can cram in text that is almost completely superfluous.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of writers who can evoke exciting adventures with just a relative handful of words, printed at a decent size, with plenty of white space. I am going to be going back and seeing what I can trim from my entry and my previously published stuff, after this. Super-inspirational.

While buying and reading hundreds of adventures is cost prohibitive for most of us, this jam, where almost all of it is going to be free through at least Aug. 15 -- I'll be raising my price to $1 after that and also publishing it on DriveThruRPG -- is a huge opportunity to read a lot of really good stuff at one time. Highly recommended way to spend some free time this weekend.

I might just make a folder and start saving to read later!

--

Elsewhere.

The lack of understanding on display in this community is mind blowing. Educate yourselves.

 

[trappedslider]

I still strongly stand by the statement that the internet should have stayed as Arpanet. The world would be a better place if it had.

 

[Ryujin]

I still strongly stand by the statement that the internet should have stayed as Arpanet. The world would be a better place if it had.

Things really started to get toxic when the newsgroups hit big, publicly.

 

[Deset Gled]

Things really started to get toxic when the newsgroups hit big, publicly.

Is it still September?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Man, that is not a political litmus test that I would have expected so many people to have responded to, especially so unanimously or with such conviction.

 

[trappedslider]

Things really started to get toxic when the newsgroups hit big, publicly.

Once the plebeians got a hold of it,it went downhill quickly