Sociopathic PCs -- an epidemic?

[Mercule]

My players all have a backstory that could be generally summed up as "Orphaned only child with no friends or extended family of note." There are variations, like the noble who studied magic from her (deceased) father, was married off, widowed, and now leaves her duties to an advisor while she stays as far from home as possible. But it's just a variation on a theme.

Honestly, I find it a bit frustrating. I'm just not sure how people that have no connection to the rest of the world are going to be particularly heroic. In truth, it sounds like a recipe for a band of wandering sociopaths.

Am I alone in this frustration? Anyone feel like they've got some good techniques to promote socialization of PCs?

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Heee...band of wandering sociopaths. Isn't that pretty much any PC party?

I used to have a player many years ago that EVERY character he had came with a personal vendetta (the word he used was bandana, until we figured out what the hell he meant. That has become part of our gaming lexicon now for over 16 years...anyway) against someone who either killed his family, killed his mentor, or killed his horse (yes...horse). It became just the most cliche' thing you can imagine.

In my current campaign, I've not had this problem. In the last 10 years, I've only had one character with the "street urchin" background, and he grew up to discover he was the lost son of a minor noble, whose real mother died at birth and the stepmother had him "removed" to insure her own son's inheritance (but that storyline was my doing, not his). My players are really good about coming up with detailed and varied backgrounds, and nearly all of them have something in them that I can use for adventure fodder.

But of course, they all become wandering sociopaths at some point.

 

[robberbaron]

Sounds to me like your players don't have much imagination.
OK, I know it's not compulsory but, without it, all characters become just a set of items and feats.

Talk to them during character creation. Have them create their characters together. Maybe have an open discussion about it.

Do you have ongoing events in your world or just a series of encounters?
You might find that if you give them more information about what is going on around them they will get more and better ideas for their characters.

 

[der_kluge]

I think someone on here said it best, a while back, when they [paraphrasing here] said that all PCs have social issues.

My wife is a social worker. I know the terminology.

Most PCs have attachment disorder, many should suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as well. I suspect many wizards would fall on the asberger's spectrum on the autism scale. Still many others would have oppositional defiant disorder. And I suspect many barbarians would have learning disability, disographia, and perhaps others suffer from attention deficit disorder.

I'm sure there are a host of others that I'm missing.

 

[DanMcS]

My players all have a backstory that could be generally summed up as "Orphaned only child with no friends or extended family of note." There are variations, like the noble who studied magic from her (deceased) father, was married off, widowed, and now leaves her duties to an advisor while she stays as far from home as possible. But it's just a variation on a theme.

Honestly, I find it a bit frustrating. I'm just not sure how people that have no connection to the rest of the world are going to be particularly heroic. In truth, it sounds like a recipe for a band of wandering sociopaths.

Am I alone in this frustration? Anyone feel like they've got some good techniques to promote socialization of PCs?

Having a background of "orphan" doesn't make the PC a sociopath, it makes them an orphan. Honestly, many players make backgrounds like this because of sociopathic DMs- any NPC mentioned in a PC background is immediately siezed upon by the DM, kidnapped, decided to be evil, secretly a pit fiend, bent, folded, spindled or mutilated. Players don't like that kind of thing, so they start making characters that don't have those kinds of attachments.

 

[der_kluge]

Our last GM used a product called Central Casting, by Task Force Games. There were three such products, but all are over 10 years old at this point. But basically, you roll dice and go from table to table to generate a character from scratch, complete with fleshed-out history.

I generated a sorceress, and by the time we were done, we knew what kind of trouble she had gotten into as a teenager, how many siblings she had, what her father did for a living, and even her birthday.

There are some free history generators on the net. Search around, I'm sure you'll find some.

 

[Umbran]

Am I alone in this frustration? Anyone feel like they've got some good techniques to promote socialization of PCs?

Well, there's a bit of a bind here. If a character has many and strong connections to the world, they are less likely to take on so hazardous a career as adventuring. Adventuring is dangerous, beyond the levels seen in modern police, firefighting, or normal military work. Not something taken on by folks who have a happy, comfortable life to lose.

Even if they are dedicated enough to take the risk of death themselves, typically adventurers make lots of nasty enemies, who would use family and friends agaisnt them without a second thought. If you love your family, do you take on a line of work where angry necromancers are likely to come knocking on your sister's door?

Not to mention that it commonly involves a whole lot of killing and vigilante justice. There's a pretty decent argument there that PC are (by modern standards) of borderline or arguable sanity

So, the problem is that you're asking the player to take on a connection that's traditionally a liability for an adventurer. So, if you want to promiote it, you either have to make it mandatory, or make sure that the players understand that they'll get something back from it.

 

[Squire James]

There are different reasons this might happen. Maybe they can't really imagine someone who has a family going adventuring. Perhaps they simply want to be "free spirits" who wander at will. They might like Batman a little too much. Perhaps all those cool heroes they read about are similarly unconnected to their world. Maybe they're playing D&D to dodge their own family life, and don't want to deal with it in-game. Finally, some DM may have overused the PC's families (killed them off, took them hostage, etc.) to the extent that they don't want to bother with them anymore.

The best thing to do is simply talk to the players about it. Let them tell you their reasons. Forcing them to play the way you want to will just make for unhappy players, but you are entitled to have fun too!

 

[Some guy from Ohio]

My players all have a backstory that could be generally summed up as "Orphaned only child with no friends or extended family of note." There are variations, like the noble who studied magic from her (deceased) father, was married off, widowed, and now leaves her duties to an advisor while she stays as far from home as possible. But it's just a variation on a theme.

Honestly, I find it a bit frustrating. I'm just not sure how people that have no connection to the rest of the world are going to be particularly heroic. In truth, it sounds like a recipe for a band of wandering sociopaths.

Am I alone in this frustration? Anyone feel like they've got some good techniques to promote socialization of PCs?

It sounds like the "Wolverine syndrome" (as in the X-men). A loner with no past (that he can recall), no family, and few friends. Check out the early new X-men comics or the first movie and you have the template. It's not a bad plot device for one character, but an entire party? I can't imagine why they would even stay together. Sorry, but I too, am also stumped on how to handle your problem.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I say, as long as the characters have a good reason for being together, everything is OK.

AR