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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5022004" data-attributes="member: 18280"><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />What does this have to do with background?If Castle Spooky contains 10 ghouls, one of which is Bobby Sue's dad, when those ghouls are dead, the party needs to move on.  If Castle Spooky contains 10 ghouls, none of which is Bobby Sue's dad, when those ghouls are dead, the party needs to move on.Whether or not PC background penetrates setting background has nothing to do with it.Holmes Basic?  Gary Gygax's 1e?  Yes, they suggested the creation of a character.  Gary went so far as to include tables (secondary skills in the 1e DMG, more in UA) to help develop who your character was before he became Joe Swordsman.Do you have any idea how often I've heard the same said about the creation of setting materials?  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />The value of any generated material is based upon how it is used in play.  This is true of setting materials; it is true of PC background.  The history one creates when detailing a setting may not be experienced directly in play, but it is experienced indirectly in the way it influences what is experienced.  It enriches the setting.I find it odd that, on one hand, you sayWhat I tell my players is a good background explains your character's motivation for not staying home and being a tradesman or an accountant or a courtier, and then stops. A background sets up the game; it doesn't intrude upon it.and on the other, you sayWhat happens around the table should always be more interesting and more exciting and more troublesome and more glorious to the players and their characters than stuff that never happened except in one person's imagination.You apparently object to background becoming part of what happens around the table.  Why bother with any background at all, if it has no bearing on what happens around the table?  Why know who built the town, or where the dungeon came from?  Why bother with anything?Don't get mired in the past?  That I can agree with.  Don't get mired in the past to the detriment of what's happening now?  Yup.  Double yup."Depth" (IMHO) is not defined by "how much 'background' the players and the game master force into play", but rather by the level of emotional investment the game generates, regardless of source.  Allowing the PCs to have backgrounds that penetrate the setting does not, in any way, shape, or form, damage the depth that comes from the relationships the adventurers build during the game.  It didn't in 1979; it doesn't today.(And that doesn't mean that a PC can make up any background either; it must be approved by the GM.  Setting-damaging backgrounds are right out.)Upthread, I suggested that the "status quo" setting Hussar described may well be impossible.  This is because I do not believe that it is possible, ever, to fully detail a world prior to play beginning.  Sooner or later, the GM will have to build more, and to extrapolate from what is known about the setting.  There is, IMHO, no way to avoid this.As a result, I do not believe that there is any problem whatsoever with logical extrapolation on the basis of character backgrounds or whathaveyou.  If a character background is intended as a showhog, ("I am pursued by the agents of SPECTRE!") or to give some advantage ("I am the nephew of the King!") then it should be vetoed.  If the character background is intended to tie the character to the world, and to further invest the player in what is happening at the tabletop, then I am all for it.YMMV, and obviously does.RC</blockquote>

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