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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 4955773" data-attributes="member: 22779">The problem I find with character backgrounds, more than anything, is that players create them as a solo endevour.&nbsp; They never sit down as a group and create backgrounds that are interlinked in any way.&nbsp; So, you wind up with four (or whatever) distinct backgrounds that are completely, and utterly divorced from each other.Now, the group has to operate together.&nbsp; It becomes a toss up of whose background gets to get emphasized this session.&nbsp; And, it gets even worse when players want to start doing things based on their backgrounds which pull the group in different, and sometimes completely opposite, directions.I did this with my last long term campaign, and I know that every long term campaign I plan in the future will use the same thing - group backgrounds.&nbsp; Everyone works together, as a group, to come up with backgrounds that have compatible goals.&nbsp; They don't have to have the same goals, but, the goals have to be compatible enough to keep the group together.&nbsp; If Player A wants to raze all the cities because he's a druidic eco terrorist and Player B wants to build towns to colonize the wilderness and extend the borders of his father's kingdom, we're going to have a problem.I've found that using a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/239705-interesting-method-group-chargen-my-players-stay-out.html" target="_blank">Magic Cards Chargen system</a> worked absolutely fantastically for my bunch.&nbsp; People's backgrounds came up time and time again during the game.&nbsp; Really worked.&nbsp; Tying background to Action Point rewards also helped.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 4955773, member: 22779"] The problem I find with character backgrounds, more than anything, is that players create them as a solo endevour. They never sit down as a group and create backgrounds that are interlinked in any way. So, you wind up with four (or whatever) distinct backgrounds that are completely, and utterly divorced from each other. Now, the group has to operate together. It becomes a toss up of whose background gets to get emphasized this session. And, it gets even worse when players want to start doing things based on their backgrounds which pull the group in different, and sometimes completely opposite, directions. I did this with my last long term campaign, and I know that every long term campaign I plan in the future will use the same thing - group backgrounds. Everyone works together, as a group, to come up with backgrounds that have compatible goals. They don't have to have the same goals, but, the goals have to be compatible enough to keep the group together. If Player A wants to raze all the cities because he's a druidic eco terrorist and Player B wants to build towns to colonize the wilderness and extend the borders of his father's kingdom, we're going to have a problem. I've found that using a [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/239705-interesting-method-group-chargen-my-players-stay-out.html]Magic Cards Chargen system[/url] worked absolutely fantastically for my bunch. People's backgrounds came up time and time again during the game. Really worked. Tying background to Action Point rewards also helped. :) [/QUOTE]

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