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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7660174" data-attributes="member: 42582">This caught my attention:Character Story Arc
These scenes illustrate or develop some aspect of one of the player characters' personal stories. Usually, these grow out of the character's bond to the world, or out of previous events or interactions. They are personally relevant to an individual character (or maybe a couple of characters) but don't usually tie into the primary ongoing narrative of the campaign.The implication of this is that there is a &quot;primary ongoing narrative of the campaign&quot; that is separate from the arcs and personal stories of the PCs. I'm not sure that this is good advice. I tend to find that the players get more involved in the game when the &quot;primary ongoing narrative&quot; is built around the personal stories of their PCs.The examples given are:* A player character receives a letter from a dying relative.

* The party comes across refugees from a player character's home town.

* The player character overhears a rumour concerning the whereabouts of his or her archnemesis.In each case, it seems that the most natural response for the player of the PC in question is to follow the lead: visit, and perhaps try and save, the relative; find out what is happening in his/her home town and try to liberate it; track down his/her archnemesis.If the PC ignores these things because the campaign is &quot;about&quot; something else, that seems counterproductive to me. How is it &quot;developing some aspect of one of the player characters' personal stories&quot;?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7660174, member: 42582"] This caught my attention: [indent][U]Character Story Arc[/U] These scenes illustrate or develop some aspect of one of the player characters' personal stories. Usually, these grow out of the character's bond to the world, or out of previous events or interactions. They are personally relevant to an individual character (or maybe a couple of characters) but don't usually tie into the primary ongoing narrative of the campaign.[/indent] The implication of this is that there is a "primary ongoing narrative of the campaign" that is separate from the arcs and personal stories of the PCs. I'm not sure that this is good advice. I tend to find that the players get more involved in the game when the "primary ongoing narrative" is built around the personal stories of their PCs. The examples given are: [indent]* A player character receives a letter from a dying relative. * The party comes across refugees from a player character's home town. * The player character overhears a rumour concerning the whereabouts of his or her archnemesis.[/indent] In each case, it seems that the most natural response for the player of the PC in question is to follow the lead: visit, and perhaps try and save, the relative; find out what is happening in his/her home town and try to liberate it; track down his/her archnemesis. If the PC ignores these things because the campaign is "about" something else, that seems counterproductive to me. How is it "developing some aspect of one of the player characters' personal stories"? [/QUOTE]

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