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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4492689" data-attributes="member: 4937">Some of those things are not like the other.#1: Very often before starting a campaign, I think up some big 'campaign secrets' - surprises which are to be revealed in play.  Too much input by the players over the nature of the cosmology risks invalidating the campaigns big reveals.  Frankly, I wouldn't play in a campaign without big reveals of this sort.  It's one of the best parts of playing RPG's.  I want the DM to invent something I didn't imagine and wow me with it.  If I wanted to have sufficient narrative control to think up the campaign world's cosmology, I'd also want to run the game from behind the DM's screen.#2: On the other hand, this isn't about the game world's background so much as the player's background.  For example, I've always embarassed wide open polytheism - my campaign world has '1000 gods' (actually, the exact count is something I'd treat as campaign secret) - precisely to allow virtually any sort of deity to be created on the fly as needed.  If the player had a deity concept in mind, I'd be very open to including it provided it fit with the larger cosmology (certain concepts are inherently male and female, for example).  Likewise, the wizarding world is very diverse and virtually any sort of wizarding background could be made to fit - from was educated in a massive college, to was the sole apprentice of a wild illiterate mage from barbarian lands where mages must hide their profession or be burned at the stack.  Where I'd have to draw the line though is with a character concept that invalidates the rest of the world - deity of the one true god, member of the world's sole wizarding school, graduate of Hogwart's, etc.  #3: And this is about as dymetrically opposed to #1 as you can be.  Where as item #1 was all about the big cosmology of the world, this is all about intimate details of the characters lives.  I've insisted on this for about 20 years now.  I want the players to create as many interesting hooks as possible for their character.  I might veto big unimaginative and arrogant claims ('I'm the King's long lost heir!') in favor of smaller more reasonable claims, ('I'm the illegitimate son of a promenent noble.', 'My father is the Harbormaster of a major seaport', 'My mother is the village wise woman', etc.) but on the whole I'm perfectly willing to let my players run wild and sketch out a dozen or more relatives, friends, mentors and enemies before the game starts.  These sorts of ideas are easily incorporated into just about any setting and so long as you gently redirect big ego driven ideas they never interfere with the game and indeed enhance it.#4:  Why in Hades would you want that as a player????  If I wanted to just make up the appearance of prominent NPC's, I WOULDN'T EVEN NEED TO PLAY D&D.  I could do that by myself.   What's a DM for if not to hold information you don't have and more importantly don't want to have because having it would reduce your enjoyment of the game.  If I'm going to meet the head of the local theives guild, part of the fun - indeed maybe most of the fun - is not knowing what he's going to be like.  Most of the fun of being a player is discovering things you wouldn't have thought up on your own.  When I put down the DM's screen it's so I don't have imagine every blasted NPC but instead can sit back and be entertained by a DM with a good imagination.#5:  Again, what's the fun in knowing what is going to happen?  The best part of the game is when you suddenly figure out that what you first thought was going on, isn't actually what is going on.  The best part of being a player is the same as the best part of being a reader - the twist, the big reveal, the secrets.  A campaign without secrets is just dull.  I'm perfectly willing to head off in directions that the player's through there actions hint that they want to go, but as far as preparing particular scenes - sometimes even when I'm the DM I don't know exactly what is going to happen.</blockquote>

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