Players, GMs, and "My character"...

[Edvamp]

To me, the overarching core element is the character conception: everything else is subordinate to that. Every decision about race, class, power, skill, weapon, etc. follows from that. When you edit my background, you run the risk of excising or altering what I consider essential.

And that is KEY. What you consider incidental may not be to your player, so overruling a creative decision over an expressed objection is, again, disrespectful to some extent, unless you can successfully convince the player otherwise. And if you can't, back off.

That's a bit of a stretch, IMHO. A kid raised to adulthood by wolves is probably NOT going to be able to fit seamlessly into high society on Day 1, even if he were the long lost child of Lord Whitehunter, what with wolves being unlikely to teach their man-child when to raise the pinky while drinking or when not to sniff butts.

I edited your post (no pun intended) to focus on these points.

Let me ask you, do you come up with character conception before you roll for stats? What happens if you come up with the idea of the massive, muscled Grag the Almighty and then roll a strength of 6?

Second, you state that a change the DM makes that might to him seem incidental could be a big deal to you. But the example of a character that you wanted to be high society and the DM decides to be raised by wolves is hardly incidental to anyone's notion. Yes, if you wrote up a Cavalier who you envisioned to be high born, snooty, sophisticated, cultured, etc. and I, as the DM, made him raised by wolves, then you would definitely have a point.

If the DM needed a character to have that drastic of a background, then he should have announced to the players before character creation and maybe asked for a volunteer, or something of that nature.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To expand on your halfling vs minotaur example, I am writing up a campaign for players to be working for the Church. The PCs for this particular campaign must be Good aligned, with at least one Cleric. The players will know this when I ask them if they want to play in this campaign (Step 1).

Now if a player asks if he can play a Chaotic Evil Assassin, I would have to say no. There is no way I could fit that into this campaign (although I might make a second campaign in the same game world for an Evil party). If the player asks if he can be a Chaotic Good Thief, that I can work with. Maybe someone working for the Church to make up for past misdeeds, like Leverage.

We're pretty much in agreement there, though I can think of a couple of ways to work the Assassin in...at least for a short time.

Ultimately, the question is where is the line between what the DM should rightfully control and what he should leave to the players. Where that line lies can only be discovered by communicating with each other.

When one party or the other says, "NO!" is a pretty good indicator, IMHO, and should only be crossed with great care. And neither side should be surprised if, when that line is crossed, feelings get hurt.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Let me ask you, do you come up with character conception before you roll for stats? What happens if you come up with the idea of the massive, muscled Grag the Almighty and then roll a strength of 6?

Depends upon the campaign. When the DM uses point-buy, its not an issue. Ditto rolled stats when you can choose their distribution.

If, as you posit, we're rolling up stats applied in order- a rare campaign- I'll simply come up with a different PC concept and go from there, and make a different series of decisions.

Second, you state that a change the DM makes that might to him seem incidental could be a big deal to you.

Absolutely.

But the example of a character that you wanted to be high society and the DM decides to be raised by wolves is hardly incidental to anyone's notion. Yes, if you wrote up a Cavalier who you envisioned to be high born, snooty, sophisticated, cultured, etc. and I, as the DM, made him raised by wolves, then you would definitely have a point.

That example was in response to your bald assertion:

As for personality, you should be able to justify any type of character archetype or personality regardless of his background.

Which really isn't the case, at least not on Campaign day 1, when PCs are low-level and just starting out. An experienced PC, OTOH, may indeed have a history like that. Would you really say that a Wolf-boy raised to adulthood in the wild could start off as a Cavalier...even if that was the player's design?

Amazing as it may seem, I wouldn't. Its too much of a stretch to say that Wolf-Boy, at lvl 1, has been in high society long enough to get a full grasp of the niceties of the cultured lifestyle. If/when he reaches 2nd level and takes a level of Cavalier, I'm cool with that. (See Brave New World, for instance.)

If the DM needed a character to have that drastic of a background, then he should have announced to the players before character creation and maybe asked for a volunteer, or something of that nature.

Yep, and if nobody steps up, its time for him to come up with a new plan instead of forcing someone to take that background.

 

[Lanefan]

Let me ask you, do you come up with character conception before you roll for stats? What happens if you come up with the idea of the massive, muscled Grag the Almighty and then roll a strength of 6?

So many people (not including me) use point-buy these days it's not so much of an issue as it once was. That said, I've had this happen too - come up with a character idea then have the dice demolish it before takeoff...usually by rolling a bunch of very average stats instead of something with highs and lows I can work with.

Second, you state that a change the DM makes that might to him seem incidental could be a big deal to you. But the example of a character that you wanted to be high society and the DM decides to be raised by wolves is hardly incidental to anyone's notion. Yes, if you wrote up a Cavalier who you envisioned to be high born, snooty, sophisticated, cultured, etc. and I, as the DM, made him raised by wolves, then you would definitely have a point.

If the DM needed a character to have that drastic of a background, then he should have announced to the players before character creation and maybe asked for a volunteer, or something of that nature.

With very few exceptions, this is part of the reason why we don't usually worry about character backgrounds at all until they've survived a few adventures and become relevant. The rest of the reason mostly revolves around spending ages on an elaborate background only to have the character get killed in its first significant battle...why bother?

If background becomes relevant during play - e.g. a PC gets teleported to her birthplace by a random effect and we now need to know where said birthplace is - we spend 30 seconds on dice-rolling and come up with it then and there. Otherwise, once a character becomes relevant I'll sit down with its player and hash out a rough background if asked.

Otherwise, if a player wants to make stuff up about their family, background, etc. I'm cool with it - unless the background tries to overlap with known game elements. Arbitrarily deciding "My father was a farmer, that farm was his kingdom and he was a tyrant; I couldn't wait to run away" is great. But I'm going to step on* an arbitrary "My father is Borneus II, Emperor of [the land where the PCs are]", in part because one's chance of being (or being related to) nobility is something determined during initial roll-up.

* - I won't step on a character saying it, but I will step on it being true.

======================

On a different tangent, and wondering if I've perhaps been mis-representing our fun bunch of people, I ran the gist of this discussion - the reaction-to-romance-in-game branch of it - past some of my crew last night and got back what amounted to a collective "what is their problem?!"; which only serves to make it clearer than ever to me that my/our gaming community must be considerably different from many of yours.

Lanefan

 

[Celebrim]

Huh. Why are ascribing motives to any of the players?

Huh, indeed.

How is it any different that I can play a character that I KNOW makes another player uncomfortable to the point where that other player might actually leave the game, but I can't play a character that takes away someone's imaginary friend's imaginary sword?

Huh?

But, it's not okay for me to play a character that takes away someone's magic sword?

Why not?

Huh?

I'm afraid you are just confused, and little is going to be gained by attempting to correct you.

My standard with regards to backgrounds is pretty simple, and I've outlined it several times before. If it's not clear now, I have little hope it will ever be clear to you. But, once again:

I won't let you create a background that implies or requires explicitly or implicitly any interaction, association, or action on the part of another players character. You don't get to determine how some one else's character behaved in the past any more than you get to determine how another character will behave in the future. Thus, you don't get to create a background that involves a relationship with another PC - whether sibling, lover, or simply just friend - without that PC's permission. Players are encouraged to work together to come up with ties between their characters, but I won't approve a background like that without the consent of both parties regardless of the motives and intentions of the players.

Now, if you wanted to create a background that involved a purely unidirectional relationship - you don't know the character but you've always admired some other character at a distance - then that might not be the wisest idea but it is at least in your rights as a player. Indeed, such a one directional relationship is not something I as a DM have much control over, because it can just as easily be an in play artifact as it could be a background and as the DM I can't tell anyone how to play there character because that would be overstepping my authority.

A 'secret' sibling that you never knew about skirts the line here. Technically the relationship is unidirectional, but blood ties like that are so personal that I'd probably nix it without consent of all parties. On the other hand, I might create a secret background that neither player knew about that made them both related if I think their backgrounds warranted it and it would make for an interesting story. If you can immagine the Star Wars characters as a PC party, the Darth Vader character and the relationship between Luke and Leia is a secret background of this sort. Hense, the reason that if you really don't want me to 'mess' with you, create a family - don't create think that you are going to get away from story complications by being an orphan.

The rest of my standards on character background aren't really relevant to the thread, but just for the record.

a) You have to play a character who is willing to have adventures.
b) You have to play a character who can get along with the rest of the party at least sufficiently well that the party doesn't split.
c) Your character has to work in the setting of the campaign.
d) Your character can't draw any significant benefit from his background without spending a trait to gain the appropriate advantage. You can be the King's son, but you have to either pay for it or expect to gain no benefit from it (you've been disowned and you are an outcast in a foreign land, whatever).

As far as rewriting someone's background goes, well, if someone has written that their family was killed, that's a pretty strong signal that they're not interested in playing out family relations in the game. Now, let's say that's the background. Bob's character has no family because they were eaten by vampiric wombats.

You introduce an NPC family member.

If you write a background in which your family is killed by vampiric wombats, it almost 100% certain that some point I'll introduce a vampiric wombat to the game that just happens to be one of your dead relatives. If you write that background, I'll see it as practically begging for that plot line. It's like hanging a rifle on the wall in scene 1. You ought to know that its going to be fired by scene 3.

Bob, after the session, because he's a good player and doesn't want to derail things, says, "Dude, I'm so not into this. I don't want to do this. This whole plot line you've introduced that contradicts my character background does not interest me in the slightest. Can we stop?"

What is your response?

a) "Thanks Bob for waiting after the session to discuss this. Now we can talk about this at length without boring everyone else."

b) "First of all, I haven't done anything that contridicts your background. I'm simply filling in blanks in the story based on cues in your player background. I'm doing this to help you develop your character, and not for any other reason."

c) "Secondly, if you are really not interested in it, I'll drop the story line quickly and we can move on to something else. I'm sorry this plot development doesn't interest you. I thought based on what we'd talked about before the campaign regarding your goals and character conception and based on how you filled out the campaign questionaire that you'd really be into this, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe we should talk some more about what sort of stories you are interested in."

 

[Remathilis]

It sounds like you're leaving yourself some wiggle room to edit over objections...and it's just that circumstances have worked out in such a way that you haven't needed to.

Here is where I go back to trust. So far, my players have trusted me that when I make an edit to a backstory by introducing a twist, its for the better of the campaign and the game. If I ever find a player uncomfortable with this, then I would simply never edit his background, cept to fix obvious contradictions with the game world (IE cyberknights in a low-magic feudal world). The net gain is that you will have the backstory and PC you want; the net loss is I will never introduce a plot-hook focusing on said backstory. Fair trade, IMHO.

(For the record, I usually don't change things willy-nilly. Its probably happened only 1/2 a dozen times in 15 years and dozens of campaigns, and always with player permission).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here is where I go back to trust.

Which, as I've said, is earned, and still won't get you carte blanche. Even my favorite DM isn't going to win this one every time. There are simply aspects of each PC that I won't compromise on...and its different for each PC.

I would simply never edit his background, cept to fix obvious contradictions with the game world (IE cyberknights in a low-magic feudal world).

With which I agree.

 

[Edvamp]

We're pretty much in agreement there, though I can think of a couple of ways to work the Assassin in...at least for a short time.

Short term, it could work. A PC needs time to recover from injury or is off on a solo quest, so the player plays the assassin for a session or two since his goals temporarily coincide with the party, or some such.

Ultimately, the question is where is the line between what the DM should rightfully control and what he should leave to the players. Where that line lies can only be discovered by communicating with each other.

When one party or the other says, "NO!" is a pretty good indicator, IMHO, and should only be crossed with great care. And neither side should be surprised if, when that line is crossed, feelings get hurt.

Obviously each group is going to be different. When I was gaming as a teenager we had virtually no character backgrounds, we were essentially 'born' that first session and took it from there. Now that I am older I would add a little more flavor.

 

[Edvamp]

That example was in response to your bald assertion:

Which really isn't the case, at least not on Campaign day 1, when PCs are low-level and just starting out. An experienced PC, OTOH, may indeed have a history like that. Would you really say that a Wolf-boy raised to adulthood in the wild could start off as a Cavalier...even if that was the player's design?

Amazing as it may seem, I wouldn't. Its too much of a stretch to say that Wolf-Boy, at lvl 1, has been in high society long enough to get a full grasp of the niceties of the cultured lifestyle. If/when he reaches 2nd level and takes a level of Cavalier, I'm cool with that. (See Brave New World, for instance.)

I see what you are saying, and I didn't edit what you were replying to as a way to get one over on you, I was just going with the overall idea that we are discussing DM meddling in character backgrounds.

If the DM does it right, the changes or meddling to a PC's background should not affect how you roleplay the character. If a DM wants to insert a sibling into the campaign, and your background heavily emphasizes that you were an only child growing up, then saying you grew up with a brother would change your character's dynamic. However, he could introduce a long-lost brother you never knew you had. So, to you, your background is unchanged but the DM still introduces his plot device.

As for the wolf-boy scenario, taking a PC background of the rich, spoiled, cultured kid who becomes a cavalier and suddenly deciding he was raised by wolves would be bad DM meddling in my opinion, and shouldn't be done. If I were that DM I would see if another player was rolling a barbarian or ranger and see if that would be of interest to them.

Yep, and if nobody steps up, its time for him to come up with a new plan instead of forcing someone to take that background.

Something that drastic should not be forced on a player. If nobody wants to play wolf-boy then he would probably be introduced as an NPC that the party adopts or something.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Short term, it could work. A PC needs time to recover from injury or is off on a solo quest, so the player plays the assassin for a session or two since his goals temporarily coincide with the party, or some such.

Or:

1. He's a spy
2. He's questioning his moral compass (is possibly going to make an alignment change)
3. He is under some kind of compulsion
4. He has made a vow that is strong enough to be an exception to his otherwise chaotic nature
5. It's a job- he's the proverbial devil with whom a deal was made
6. He's been sentenced to community service/rehabilitation under the guidance of the group in question