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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 9418372" data-attributes="member: 11">It sometimes feel like nearly every thread on these boards eventually become the same argument.Anyway, I encourage my players to develop as little or as much* backstory as they like, as long as they understand (and I try to make it clear) that I will pick and choose and twist from what they provide in order to integrate it into the campaign with no promise to use all or even most of it.My campaigns usually have a loose theme I present to the players before character creation, so that helps keep things in a ballpark.During the campaign, they might also help generate fiction through the indication of their interest, "I plan to ask around in the next town if anyone has seen my brother."  Now I as DM can develop subplot about said sightings making use of whatever level of detail the player decided to include in the backstory. They might not have said anything aside from "I have a missing brother," which I interpret as "I am willing to go in any direction to follow the brother plot." On the other hand, if they wrote "I have a brother who went missing when he joined the circus," that is giving me details to work with.However, they might say that but for pacing reasons or to avoid one player becoming too much the spotlight, I may have that town be a dead end in the big picture search for the brother.I also try to be generous in saying yes to the "is there a ladder around?" kind of questions, but only if it makes sense in the established fiction and the described reality of the place the characters are inhabiting. So maybe a secure town with an old wall constantly in need of repair but not serving any immediate value might have some ladders hanging around, a militaristic place or place on high alert would likely have a stricter protocol for climbing on or building near the wall, for example.*"as much" comes with the caveat that I may not read it all or very closely, if it gets ridiculously long (i.e. anything more than a page or two).</blockquote>

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