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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6121508" data-attributes="member: 6681948">To many players, I believe it is very different.  Genre and setting are "the group", and "the setting" - the same "the setting" that @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=22779" target="_blank">Hussar</a> doesn't really care much about.  But it's MY character, not the group's.  You are now restricting MY character.It does constrain what a player can do in play.  He cannot maintain a secret.  Let's say that a new secret arises in play.  Bob's character  (since Hussar and I both seem to like Bob) is tired of that Cult (since we've established that as a reasonable example), so Bob cuts a deal with the High Priest.  It's an unsavoury deal, and maybe one that some of the other PC's (or players) would not be happy about.  Now, I am assuming that Bob is not permitted to restrict the other players' access to this information.  His characters' interactions with the High Priest cannot be kept from the other players.  That is a constraint on what the player can do in play.  And it is no different from that secret deal being part of the backstory.  If Bob wants to take his character (or a riff on that character) to a different group, it IS part of the backstory he brings in.Fair enough.There is no reveal if everything is open book as it happens.  There can be no mystery as to why the change.  If my character is secretive because of that cult chasing him, I'm required to lay that on the table in character generation.  If he falls in love, changes religion or what have you, am I not required to also lay that on the table?  And if not, why is something that would be background (full disclosure required) if we started the game now no longer "full disclosure required" in game?  I think "if not" is not an issue, as it would allow the same issues you are concerned with to appear simply by bringing my character in as a cipher and having him "find himself" over the course of the first few sessions (converting religions; falling in love; changing his attitudes), so I haven't gone any deeper into that possibility.So you get to have off the table secrets, but no one else does.  To be clear, my issue is with the latter, not the former,  but much of the criticism levied against GM's on this thread has been about their insistence on maintaining, and exerting, a power over the game which the players lack.  I find this a "similar but different" issue.Maybe they have no idea why the cult is attacking them.  @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a>, above, notes that the GM may not dole out all the background information.  I am uncertain, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=22779" target="_blank">Hussar</a>, whether you take the same position, or whether you would level the playing field and the GM must also make full disclosure.  Assuming the former (and this is relevant to Pemerton even if Hussar takes the latter approach), how do the players know the cult is attacking them because of Bob, or because of some other background element of which they are unaware?  Clearly they are aware of the actions of the cult, which take place in play.  Bob's character (BobPC) might decide he needs to disclose, even if only because his secret is putting his friends in danger.  Or he might not.  It's Bob's character, so Bob gets to decide.  It might start to come out in play subtly - funny, the cult sometimes acts against us in our entirety, sometimes against smaller groups, but never against a subset that excludes Bob; or maybe they always seem to target BobPC.  Or maybe, by protecting BobPC (purposefully or just by being in the way), the rest of the group also attracts the Cult's enmity.  Gosh, very much like they might if no one were connected to the cult, but their investigations and play lead them to a plot connected to an evil cult and they interfered with it.  Or they might start questioning BobPC - imagine that, some actual intraparty role play!Or it might come out very blatantly.  Maybe a cultist, or a cult leader, makes it CRYSTAL CLEAR they are after BobPC.  "We have no quarrel with the rest of you.  Turn over BobPC, and I swear you will be allowed to go free.  I wonder, how much has he told you?  If you knew what he had done, what he truly is, would you be so eager to lay down your lives in his defense?"  That's not much of a reveal if the players already know all about BobPC.[Hugh's boring reminiscence]I recall a campaign a long time back where one player had the idea his character was pretty bright, but played stupid as a defense mechanism.  His initial thought was that, after an adventure or three, he'd come to trust his teammates and let them in on the secret.  But a combination of issues, mainly the player schedule becoming erratic and the player coming to like his little secret (not always a good thing, I agree) lead to the secret getting kept a lot longer (and the issue becoming something of a running joke for the players - but none of them knew the character was a lot smarter than he pretended).  Until we came to a scenario that incorporated magical evil twins (great scenario; old 1e one whose name escapes me - the PC's were aged into dotage by the process, which was also entertaining as one PC had been designed as a crotchety old man rather than a young wet behind the ears whippersnapper who didn't even know HOW to adventure yet - RESPECT YOUR ELDERS! - but I digress).  It was a mouth dropping event for the players when this character duplicate, from a rampart, said something like "Well done, my doppelganger - our pretense of idiocy has tricked them all and lead them to their doom!" Several jaws on the table from the reveal (and the lack of certainty just how much of the reveal was true) and one because the player never dreamed his secret might come out like this - challenging intraparty role play ahead - assuming we survive this trap![/boring reminiscence]Because the GM (alone or with the player) works to make the cult an interesting opposing force even if the players don't have a pre-existing connection?  Because by the time the issue arises in serious depth, BobPC is more than just a travelling companion with some useful skills, but a fleshed out interesting character who the other PC's count as a friend? I'll ask the reverse question momentarily.So how does that transform the cult from a boring waste of time to an intriguing force to be reckoned with?  My character has been forced into a religion that opposes this cult because SOMEONE had to have a direct connection to Bob's problem, and Ted's character isn't permitted to rethink his relationship with Bob when he discovers Bob's secret past because SOMEONE had to havea past that lead to a loyalty to BobPC.   But we're still sick of this boring cult, Mr. GM.Or we're not engaged.  "ho hum, here comes that same old boring cult to attack BobPC one more time.  Maybe if we just let them HAVE BobPC, the GM might consider coming up with a different plot for a change."  The fact that the PC's don't have either BobPC or the Cult written into their background in no way prevents them becoming loyal to their friend and companion BobPC (you know, the guy who broke the Charge of the Orcish Shaman and saved all our lives, THAT BobPC, who now needs our help?) and/or finding the Dark Cult has earned their enmity ("thine actions show thee to be vile and without honour - have at thee, evil Cultists").  The events of the campaign need not be inextricably tied to the backstory elements.[boring aside]Remember the first Michael Keaton Batman movie?  Why did Jack Nicholson's Joker have to be the Joe Chill figure who killed Bruce Wayne's parents?  Just so everything ties oh so neatly together for the moviegoing audience?  Would Bats not have been motivated to go after a psychopathic killer in a clown suit without that personal connection?  Will he lack the will and motivation to go after the rest of his rogues' gallery as they get introduced in later movies?  It was cute, but unnecessary, and detracted from the movie for those familiar with the source material.[/boring aside]Or they won't.  "I'm sick of evil cults."  I'm really not THAT attached to my friend from childhood."  "Hey, I'm Player 4 - this doesn't even link to my backstory!"  "Gee, wouldn't it be refreshing to actually have a NEW enemy once in a while?"I think that, if the players don't become invested in the game, that indicates  the GM has seriously screwed up and totally botched the scenario regardless, or that the players don't really bring much to the table.Now maybe this deep dark cult will be the centerpiece to the entire campaign, so having each PC have some link to the Cult would add to the game.  I'm OK with that.  But that still doesn't mean I want my character to have no background, personality, goals or objectives not directly linked to this cult, nor that I want those to be ignored.  Neither does it mean that I need to know every, or even any, other PC's connection to the Cult, nor they mine, nor even that we all have a connection, at the outset of the game.</blockquote>

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