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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6121562" data-attributes="member: 6681948">See, I'm considerably more free form than this.  My basic pemise is that the player has a responsibility for creating an engaging, interesting and valuable character to bring to the party, so that, regardless of any shared backstory, the rest of the team perceives him as a "net positive" to the team.  That has the added meaning that, the more negatives you want that character to bring (he's an unhygenic anti-social jackass?), the more plusses he nees to bring to the table (ie the adventuring team, not the gaming table) for the other PCs to have any interest in a continued working relationship!  That comes out in play, not in backstory. My barbarian character isn't a supporter of Glarn, the Wild Mage (despite his spells sometimes failing or even blowing up in his face) because we wrote down somewhere that we grew up together and we're buddies (so no matter how unhygenic, anti-social, incompetent, disruptive, dangerous, etc. his character gets, mine will suport him through thick and thin).   At first, he simply viewed him as a mystery - a worker of arcane arts - that brings something I cannot bring, so of course he should join us.  Then, he viewed him as a dangerous incompetent - "Och, laddie, ye need tae go back tae Spell Skuil and get it right!", but by then we're knee deep in dangerous territory, so there's nothing to be done until we're back in safety - then we can punt him (assuming we and he survive, that is) and recruit someone closer to the top of the class.But when, in the middle of the adventure, as the rest of us (mired in debate on how we're going to get past a pair of guard towers full of Bugbears) notice Glarn's not here - just in time for him to come tearing back in, half a dozen Bugbear guards hot on his tail.  What happened? He had slipped out, webbed up one guard tower of Bugbear guards and taunted the others into chasing him back here - outside their fortified tower.  "The wee wizard tied up half the guards for easy killing and tempted the rest out where they can be easier dealt with?  While the warriors TALKED!  Ye have a problem wi' Glarn, then ye've a problem with ME!  His magicks may not always be reliable, but he's got courage and heart - he's part o' this team!"By the same token, some PC's that mae a much better first impression didn't impress him nearly as much over the course of the adventure.Again, we come back to trust in the GM.  Does he drop it in the first scene?  I'd hope not.  Seems to me that offer from the Cult doesn't come because the PC's haven't already proven themselves a credible threat.  And DID the cultist drop that big reveal?  Do you trust every word the evil cultist says?  Maybe he's telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Maybe he's embellishing a harsh reality for greater effect.  Maybe he's twisting the truth to suit his own ends.  And maybe it's just a bald faced lie to split our loyalties to the end of slitting our throats.  And, whichever it is, we layers need to decide what our PC's believe and how they react.  And we have to do so rapidly - the cultists won't just stand around while we deliberate for a few hours.  We don't get to decide after several months of considering "how will my character react if/when the big reveal comes out?" - the bombshell just got dropped, and we have to deal with it now!  We don't get the benefit of knowing the extent to which the cultist is twisting the truth because we know which elements of his claims actually are in Bob's background and which aren't - we have to assess the likely veractity of the claims without the benefit of omniscience.To me, at least, that makes for much greater rama and excitement than replying "HA!  We have seen BobPC's background, and we know it to be truth!  You cannot bluff us, Evil Cultist, for we know with certainty that which we have never seen, experienced or even had BobPC claim!"Email, phone calls and note passing can accomplish quite a bit, actually.  We didn't play out my purchase of a new sword and suit of armor, so why would we expect to play out everthing else that happens on our down time?Do you know everything about your family and friends?  I suspect you do not.  Yet I suspect you would  very much care when/if certain secrets came out.  Make them as dramatic as the typical gaming secrets and I suspect you would care quite a bit.  "YOU are the Dread Pirate Roberts?!?"You mean like when pretty much everyone is enjying a scene, situation or scenario until one guy pipes up "Hey, this isn't doing it for me - can we fast forward over it to something I might like better?"  To me, that's just as much "hijacking the game" as a player advancing his character's agenda outside the knowledge of the other players.  At least he's not asking me to skip over the rest of the group's fun just for him.  Ideally, he's dealing with anything that takes more than a few minutes during a break (whether a dinner break at the game or the days that pass between Game Days), and not interfering with the actual group game play.So I should decide when the cultists show up, what their exact objectives are today, and how they act to implement them?  Or is it the GM's job to take all these elements of PC, setting, etc. and mix them to create an exciting and enjoyable game?  I suggest the latter.Or you have to engage them in the mystery.  I've never seen this "it's not all about my backstory so I'll just tune out now" attitude you seem to seem to not only expect, but take as a given.What would they do if it weren't part of Bob's backstory?  That's pretty much what should happen here - especially as they don't KNOW it's part of Bob's backstory.  Rather than say "OK, I the player know this cult is part of  Bob's backstory, even though my character has no idea, and just sees these random bad guys keep showing up for some reason that is never brought to light because BobPC doesn't reveal, so my character certainly won't take any action on his own to discover what's really going on here.  Let Bob rule the game!"  That's certainly not a player hijacking the game, is it?I would expect the PC's to investigate why these cultists keep targeting them.  And Bob/BobPC needs to weigh the desire to keep his sordid past a secret against the consequences if it comes to light by some other means.  The cultists have information which they will use if they  believe it will serve their interests - just as BobPC is not immune to being eaten by a Bulette, his secrets are not immune to discovery or revelation by others in the game, PC or NPC.Or we have the hooks and backstories that the loudest, most insensitive player in the group wanted to engage in, because he shuts down less vocal, more reasonable players.  I'm not sure why I would believe that a player whose goal is to "hijack the game" will be deterred from doing so in pre-play rather than in actual play.  If one or more players are selfish twits, then that will play out regardless of the model you put in place to prevent it.  The answer is not to play with selfish twits whose definition of "win" is hijacking the game to the detriment of the other players' enjoyment, not to try to design systems that will frustrate the selfish twit's objectives.  It is impossible to design a foolproof system - fools are much too ingenious an creative for that.  Better to just weed out the fools!I see no guarantee, nor have I seen non-collaborative character creation result in games where the players are disengaged because it's not their PC who happens to be in the spotlight today, whether because someone else's hooks are the focus of today's adventure, or because (heaven forfend!) NO ONE'S hooks are front and center today!  I can say we don't spend (waste) a gaming session or three debating what our characters can and cannot be.  We bring our characters to Game Night and let the action begin.  STORY NOW?  STORY NOW!!</blockquote>

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