# Do Your PCs Make Your World?



## am181d (Aug 8, 2013)

This is generally how I create campaign worlds these days.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 8, 2013)

> So I want to hear from you: what elements of PC’s have you spun out into world or story elements? Or, what story elements have you embedded in your PC’s? Has your knowledge of what the PC’s are capable of translated into a compelling game, or not?




Best campaign I ever ran was a Champions game set in 1900 as imagined by the likes of HG Wells and Jules Verne...but slightly more wahoo.

I used elements from the PCs backgrounds- both fluff and mechanical things like Hunteds or Rivalries- to round out the setting, including directly mining them for adventures.  One of the reasons the campaign worked so well, one of the keys to its success was that the players bought into the setting soooooo completely that their own imaginative character elements were a real gold mine.

As a player, I've tried to find things in the campaign my PCs can hook into.  If the main foes of a campaign were "the Shadows", my Ranger took "shadow-creatures" as his favored enemies.  Sometimes, I try to ADD things like that to the setting, for the GM to use or ignore as he sees fit- my 4Ed Dwarven Starlock/Psion was a member of a reclusive clan whose chosen role in the world was standing as sentinels against incursions from The Far Realms.

On a less grandiose scale, I often try to have baked-in relationships with at least one other PC (or occasionally, an NPC) in the group.  So I have played buddies, rivals, and even one half of a set of adventuring identical twins in a party.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Aug 8, 2013)

My players have never been big on backstory for their PC's.  As in virtually none, EVER, and when they do make efforts along those lines little if any of it survives actual contact with live play.  I do, however, still endeavor to provide campaign world hooks for players to utilize as desired and clearly announce that if ever anyone wants to do something wildly creative like... play a kobold or a pixie, or a minor noble involved in politics, or something just totally, mind-blowingly off-the-hook like that then I am more than willing to work with them.

I've always had players who are quite content to just play fighters, magic-users, or whatever and don't need to have pieces of the game world built around them.  Their enjoyment (and my own) seems to come from ingratiating their ever-developing PC's into the game world as it unfolds during play rather than it having been intentionally molded at the outset just to mesh each players detailed concept and backstory with a special future just for them.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 8, 2013)

Your players must come geared to explore! Most folks I've played with fall too easily into the "Meh" camp. I figure, someone gives me "just a fighter," I've got blacksmiths who make their swords and armor, I've got breeders who sell their horses, I've got town guards who have tricks they can learn...it's impossible NOT to be embedded in the games I run. They are a part of the world, which means the world is affected by them in turn.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 8, 2013)

I've been that "Meh" guy...but wfter 30+ years in the hobby, I got tired of it.  So now I'm looking for the unusual in fluff, mechanical and reskinning terms.

My 2 most recent 3.5Ed PCs are a Geomancer and a Sorcerer.

The Geomancer is taking all plant-based Drift effects, so he's kind of like Swamp Thing.  When he takes it, his Brew Potion feat will result in magical fruity growths upon his body..."Eat of me, and be healed!"  But right now, his wonkiest feature is using the original Sacred Healing Feat to burn a Turn Undead attempt to do an AoE Fast Healing 3.  It doesn't sound like much, but it has kept a medium level party in fairly high HP.  Because of the ability being AoE, the intended recipients must come close to him to receive the blessing.  He really _feels_ connected to the divine in game play.

The Sorcerer is built entirely around the idea of his being of Draconic descent.  He's the son of a whore who grew up to be a bouncer in the brothel.  One day, he killed a slumming nobleman's son who raped who he thought was one of the brothel's whores, but was really a seamstress...and the Sorc's girlfriend- he is now wanted on the run, a la _Kung Fu_.  Because of his background, his spells are mostly utility type spells...but in combat, he channels them into his electrical breath weapon.  He also wears scale mail and wields a Maul (non-proficiently*).

I do stuff like that because it gives me a lot of structure to work with- a mental scaffolding to support the kinds of decisions such a PC would make.  It also gives any GM who cares a lot to work with.








* the campaign died very quickly- he was supposed to multiclass into Fighter or Marshal.


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## Ratskinner (Aug 8, 2013)

This very much reflects the process recommended in the "Game Creation" chapter of FATE Core. Which, if we're playing FATE or some other rules-lighter game, is very much the way to go. I'd imagine its much more difficult with a system like D&D where whipping up an NPC or monster on-the-fly is much more problematic.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 8, 2013)

Ratskinner said:
			
		

> I'd imagine its much more difficult with a system like D&D where whipping up an NPC or monster on-the-fly is much more problematic.




To me, this doesn't necessarily mean a large mechanical investment. A fighter with platemail implies the existence of a really good armorer who made that platemail, and that armorer can then need things ("Kobolds in the mines, go kill 'em so I can make more awesome armor") without needing much in the way of a mechanical scaffold. 

Though while I was writing the bit about "your creativity is there to be played with!" I was really thinking of FATE's character history creation, which does this really well (though I forget the jargon-y term they use for it), requiring you to take someone else's back story, and weave in how your character was involved.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 8, 2013)

Oh yeah, and this:


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## Ratskinner (Aug 8, 2013)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> To me, this doesn't necessarily mean a large mechanical investment. A fighter with platemail implies the existence of a really good armorer who made that platemail, and that armorer can then need things ("Kobolds in the mines, go kill 'em so I can make more awesome armor") without needing much in the way of a mechanical scaffold.




Sure. If you've got Kobolds, make Kobold-ade....wait, no.

I agree that it doesn't _necessarily _involve a large mechanical investment, but it _can_ put you on the spot. I mean, if your weaving a new world from tidbits the players are talking about during character creation, its not too hard to imagine a situation where they've wandered far afield of whatever initial prep you had going.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Though while I was writing the bit about "your creativity is there to be played with!" I was really thinking of FATE's character history creation, which does this really well (though I forget the jargon-y term they use for it), requiring you to take someone else's back story, and weave in how your character was involved.




I'm not sure it has a special term other than "3 phases". Ahh, FATE Core calls it the "Phase Trio". It is something that I really wish "ported" to D&D more effectively.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 9, 2013)

Ratskinner said:
			
		

> I agree that it doesn't necessarily involve a large mechanical investment, but it can put you on the spot. I mean, if your weaving a new world from tidbits the players are talking about during character creation, its not too hard to imagine a situation where they've wandered far afield of whatever initial prep you had going.




True, but there are things going for you. First, since the conflicts and setting elements directly correspond to PC's, each PC has a more natural path to follow into those conflicts and setting elements than they otherwise would. Second, character-creation aspects like Goals, either formalized or in a more informal "Why do you go on adventures?" kind of way, help the players basically GIVE the DM things that they WANT to be hooked by. 

None of that mandates that the players follow that path (it doesn't remove their choice), but it lays down some pretty solid breadcrumbs along a trail for them, giving them a "path of least resistance" to follow that doesn't demand any more willing suspension than any other "here is tonight's adventure!" set-up, and often significantly less.


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## Connorsrpg (Aug 9, 2013)

I have found that most of my players prefer the setting basics first. We always roll and very rarely does anyone have a PC in mind until they roll stats and THEN look at what is available in the setting.

However, this doesn't stop me, as the GM, from implementing a lot of what you just said. Anything to help ground the PCs is great (and the Icon idea of 13th Age looks inspiring and something I think I will adapt to organisations).

An eg from one of our games. An elf druid was seeking a sacred stone (from their BG). From that the setting included Heart Stones or Spirit Stones. Large gems that were associated with the different verdant areas of the world. (So there literally was a 'heart of the forest). The wastes in the setting were examples of what happens when a Heart Stone is removed/destroyed. During the campaign the druid's forest started changing, but we never took this angle far enough. But this cool setting idea came from one PC's BG. I try to do this as often as possible (after a frame work has been established I am more than willing to mess with it ).

I think your most important point is that you need to be willing to actually allow the PCs to change what you have/have an impact on the setting. This is the shared story we seem to like.


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## Mishihari Lord (Aug 9, 2013)

I generally prefer exactly the opposite of what the OP describes.  When it comes to setting history, "I'm not the guy that says "Meh" or "cool," I'm the guy that says "AWESOME!"  I like to explore the world and feel that it's not being made up for my personal benefit.  

That said, as I DM I do make setting elements to fit with what the players want.  As one example, a player wanted to be a magic-user who was a member of a continent wide conspiracy striving for political domination.  Awesome, every campaign needs one of those.  Probably less than 5% of my material comes from such input though.


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## howandwhy99 (Aug 9, 2013)

It sounds like you're taking the "Custom" option and asking that it be the only option in D&D. I like that DMs are going to -->generate a campaign setting as we play and the elements we as players add will be woven into the world. 

But there has to be something to start. Maybe this comes up in the First Session. Maybe we suggest all sorts of elements of the campaign world we want to play in as a group as well as adventures. That covers a huge array of suggestions, not just anything and everything in a universe, but all of what it is doing. 

And for quick and easy games I have no problem with preset options, those presets are most of what some folks consider D&D. "Custom" always doesn't stop being an option. And this way we can sit down and play right away without requiring the referee to stop and prep between sessions in order to construct all those wondrous custom descriptions we just suggested into game design. We can start a standard setting right away and add other elements as we go. Races, Subclasses, NPCs, locations, history, all of that. Homebrew is my go to method, but it doesn't have to have absolutely no D&D defaults.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 9, 2013)

Mishihari Lord said:
			
		

> When it comes to setting history, "I'm not the guy that says "Meh" or "cool," I'm the guy that says "AWESOME!"




I think it's key to realize that this is kind of unusual. As big fans on a message board, we're obviously into tossing ourselves into the thing, but a lot of players need more incentive than "it exists" to go explore it in play. It's gotta be relevant somehow to be interesting.  

And it's almost always MORE interesting to explore something relevant to your character than to just explore. Okay, there's a distant savage jungle, awesome. Oh, that distant savage jungle hides the yuan-ti tribe that hides secret psionic arts that my psionic character might learn? Extra awesome.


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## I'm A Banana (Aug 9, 2013)

Mishihari Lord said:
			
		

> When it comes to setting history, "I'm not the guy that says "Meh" or "cool," I'm the guy that says "AWESOME!"




I think it's key to realize that this is kind of unusual. As big fans on a message board, we're obviously into tossing ourselves into the thing, but a lot of players need more incentive than "it exists" to go explore it in play. It's gotta be relevant somehow to be interesting.  

And it's almost always MORE interesting to explore something relevant to your character than to just explore. Okay, there's a distant savage jungle, awesome. Oh, that distant savage jungle hides the yuan-ti tribe that hides secret psionic arts that my psionic character might learn? Extra awesome.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 9, 2013)

Not mine, but cute:


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## Janx (Aug 9, 2013)

This article is kind of an expansion on the last one where you deal with a party that's missing certain roles.

If your party is 2 wizards and 2 rogues, you don't go forcing them into a standard dungeon crawl.  Instead, you make up stuff to do that revolves around 2 wizards and rogues.

So when 2 players say they want to be wizards, you chime in with "can they be in the same guild?"  Now you just invented wizard guilds.

When the players say "yes." then you invent rival guilds and internal guild politics for them to get embroiled in.

A key part from the OP is inventing oppositional forces for the PC.  So if I build a Half-Orc Barbarian, the DM invents something that opposes me (or that I would be opposed to).

I sort of already do this approach by building adventures around the PCs and what they want to do next.

I certainly prefer it over the style of "we're going to play a Forgotten Realms campaign based in the Dales.  You'll need to build a party that can handle the Ruins of the Undermountain..."

Screw that.  If I build a half-elven rogue who stalks the rooftops of Candlekeep, then that's what we should be doing.


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## Gilladian (Aug 10, 2013)

You know, Dungeon World does this whole sort of thing as part of the game. DM's create NOTHING before the first game session; characters are built, bonds are formed, and the DM asks questions. Then the DM establishes some situation in which the players find themselves, and the game begins. EVERYthing spins out from the bonds the characters have with each other, and from the initial situation. And how the players react to it. Once the first session has ended, the DM uses what happened to build his first set of adventure "fronts" for the campaign. And so on.


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## Herobizkit (Aug 11, 2013)

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION]: Please move to Canada and teach my fellow players how to think.  They're both much younger than me and relatively new to tabletop; they're okay with "whatever" characters and fairly oblivious to setting.  Being the oldest in the group, I usually (though not always) get saddled with being the Leader/spokesperson, and we usually end up following the campaign around rather than explore characters and NPCs...

It does not help that I also have silly amounts of tabletop xp and am always looking for more interesting and unusual settings, where the others are content with whatever is placed before them.  The DM is very decent, puts a lot of work into the presentation of his campaign settings and NPC's relevant to the players... but there's just something... well.  Sandboxing doesn't lend well to RP and it's hard to be RP-intensive when you have a (4e) Goliath Sentinel who wants to avoid ever meeting his tribe and a Thri-Kreen Fist Weaponmaster [though this guy is in LOVE with the Thri-Kreen and he's designing their whole ecology as we go, so he's doing alright].  I've opted for a bard-like Human Hexblade with a focus on languages and rituals and more thief than magical.

I'm veering towards rant mode, but bottom line, yes.  PC-centric games work.  Sandboxing also works, but there needs to be a balance, I think.  I just don't know what balance I'm looking for.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 11, 2013)

Heh- I don't know if it can be taught!

I had been a gamer for about 15 years before it clicked for me, but it was something that occurred at a deep level.  I can't even point with any precision at when I changed my style.  All I can say is that I was tired of playing the same-old same-old...but still wanted to play what I wanted to play.  I just played the PC a little differently.  After that campaign died, the next PC- same group, but different system and genre- was different from the ground up.  

_That_ PC was for a supers game.  PAX was a P.A.G. (power armor goon)* who, unlike most of this archetype, was designed from the ground up to defeat other P.A.G.s, AIs, rogue computers, and do less-lethal crowd control...and not necessarily by slugging it out, either.  His nastiest trick against P.A.G.s was actually overriding their control of the armor they inhabited, shutting them down or making them stack their allies.  He could also make enemy armor brittle, create huge patches of super-slick ice, and had an Autofire gun that fired rounds similar to RW beanbag rounds on steroids.  He had the usual suite of P.A.G. powers, but not enough to go toe-to-toe in combat with other P.A.G.s in melee, and his armor was less durable than theirs as well.

He had a single lethal attack: a last-resort weapon that launched a swarm of High-energy AP explosive rounds.  (Never got used.)






* any Super who wears Iron Man-style powered battle armor.


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## Enkhidu (Aug 11, 2013)

I disagree that sandboxing and PC centric play don't mix. 

The first two sessions in our current campaign were 1) party building and 2) region building. For #1, we had a group character creation session where people could talk both mechanics and backgrounds in order to riff off one another. For session #2, we sat down, I drew a regional map, placed a region-wide landmark, and plopped a city in the middle of it. Then I started asking leading questions based on previous history - "so you're playing a halfling - where do you live in the city, and did you always live there?" That one gave me a Hobtown (a quarter of the city sized for halflings) and Greenacre (a village about a week's worth of travel away). I did this with all the players, with each giving PC-specific hooks in this urban centric region.

So basically everything on the regional map was a "known quantity" that included not only the characters backstories but also themes that the players themselves wanted to include. Everything _outside_ of the region, however was unknown territory. So basically anytime the PCs stay on the map it's PC centric, and when they stray from the map, well it's definitely "here there be monsters" territory and that lends itself well to site-based, sandboxy campaigns.

I like to think that our method works really well for giving us both.


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## sheadunne (Aug 12, 2013)

In my current game (homebrew game system) background is developed during play. Each session players get a background point that they can use to say they're proficient at a task, know someone, or are familiar with a place. In D&D terms, this might be like players assigning skill points during play, rather than prior to play or when they level up. The rogue doesn't put points into Forgery until it comes up in play. It feels more organic to me. 

I'm also not a fan of siloed PC creation or advancement.  I don't care if your PC's father was killed by bandits. If you don't have at least one other PC buying into it, it's not going to come up during play. One of the biggest challenges to gaming in general is that character creation and leveling aren't part of game play. They happen outside of the game.

I find that the following things are the most useful for character creation (more so than background story).
- Profession (what was her place in society)
- Personality (what are her key personality traits)
- Physical, mental, social characteristics (biology)

After that, everything else can be developed during game play. Why not wait until you meet an NPC bandit before deciding that your character's father was killed by bandits? Why not wait until you're fishing on the river before you decide to have fishing as a skill? Why not wait until you find the Crossbow of Shooting-Really-Good before deciding that you have some skill with shooting a crossbow? It just feels more organic to me. 

Always a good discussion.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 12, 2013)

Why not?

Sometimes, to know where you want to go, you have to know where you have been.


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## sheadunne (Aug 12, 2013)

Once you know where you've been, you can't change it. It's just there interfering with your choices, limiting your options. That just feels like a bad way to play a game. Instead, why not wait until a choice adds something to the game, whether it's complicating it or assisting it? 

If a character makes the choice prior to the start of the game that he wants his character to be on the run from the law, he's forcing the game to go down his path. It doesn't add to the game, to forces it to do his bidding or he won't have any fun. 

The other option is to wait until "running from the law" becomes an interesting development to the story of the game. The player doesn't need to request that the game be focused on his character's backstory, he waits until the backstory presents itself and then the background becomes an interesting complication to the evolving story.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 12, 2013)

> Once you know where you've been, you can't change it. It's just there interfering with your choices, limiting your options.




That's certainly one way of looking at it.

OTOH, I see it as more realistic: like a RW living being, each bit of the PC's past informs how he reacts to events going forward.  It provides a mental framework to the question of "what would this guy do in this circumstance?"

And that can matter.  If another player- or the DM- asks you why you did X instead of Y, there is an extant groundwork you can point at.

Having that background in hand from the beginning has also helped me decide language, skill, spell, feat, weapon & armor choices- things you definitely need before the first initiative die is rolled.


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## Argyle King (Aug 12, 2013)

I agree that players tend to be more engaged when their character is tied to the game world.  I also highly enjoy some of the things described in the OP.  However, that is not the only way; nor do I feel it should be because not every player is going to fit into the same style of play.

In one of the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy games I ran, the only part of the world I had created was one town.  At the beginning of the campaign, I gave the PCs general info about the town -the things everyone there would know.  That town is where the campaign would begin, but, beyond that, I told them to create their backstories, and I would build the rest of the world around that.  It worked very similar to some of what the OP describes.  Two members of the group decided to be dwarven brothers who came from mountains west of town; as such, it was established that there was a dwarven clan and mountains to the west.  One member of the group decided to be a priest from a church in town; as such, it was established that that particular faith was in town.  ...and so on, and so on.  I highly enjoyed doing things that way, and I liked that everyone was invested in the game.  

Currently, I am a player in a Star Wars game.  My choices during character creation didn't change the universe or what was in it.  However, the game system did give me hooks to tie myself into what was going on.  In this case, the campaign world was not build around me; instead, my character was built around the campaign world.  I feel that is an entirely valid way to do things as well.  In many cases, when I've been a DM for some players who needed some structure to be nudged forward, and they have preferred experiences in which they could build something which was given definition by what was already established.  

I believe -a lot of the time- a group will have some mix of both.  There are going to be players who thrive on the idea of being able to add something to the world with their choices, and by that I mean filling in some of the blanks left by the GM.  There are also going to be players who prefer more structure; they don't want to change the world and fill in blanks, but they do want to be a part of the world and explore what is in it; interact with it.  The latter might very well still have a desire to fill in some blanks, but possibly on a scale which is more organic and grows from play rather than being predestined before the game begins.  Neither approach is right or wrong; simply different, and in no circumstance would I ever suggest these are the only two styles of play.  

There are some who prefer to engage the game as a game first, and maybe -maybe- get involved in the creative endeavor second.  The numbers of the game, and a sense of winning by using those numbers is what intrigues them.  As with above, I do not believe this is right or wrong.  It is certainly not my preference, and I very much prefer a different style, but what I like and dislike is not the same as what someone else likes or dislikes.  It is also my opinion that there are systems which encourage (or are at least better suited) to certain approaches.

Some of my most frustrating times with D&D have been when what I wanted to do with a character -what I felt I should do when considering the investment I had in the story and the fiction and my character- was at odds with what the game system said I should do, and there was little I could do to reconcile the two.  The less a system's structure causes me to feel that way, the more I find I can enjoy the rpg experience.  Note, this isn't the same as saying I cannot enjoy the experience; I simply prefer that a game's fluff and crunch have a coherent enough relationship that conflicts like the one's I'm mentioning here do not happen often.  The same thing occasionally happens from the GM side of the table as well; there have been times when I've felt that what I was trying to build didn't make sense in the context of the game I was using at the time.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 12, 2013)

> Some of my most frustrating times with D&D have been when what I wanted to do with a character -what I felt I should do when considering the investment I had in the story and the fiction and my character- was at odds with what the game system said I should do, and there was little I could do to reconcile the two. The less a system's structure causes me to feel that way, the more I find I can enjoy the rpg experience. Note, this isn't the same as saying I cannot enjoy the experience; I simply prefer that a game's fluff and crunch have a coherent enough relationship that conflicts like the one's I'm mentioning here do not happen often. The same thing occasionally happens from the GM side of the table as well; there have been times when I've felt that what I was trying to build didn't make sense in the context of the game I was using at the time.




Yep.

That's why, even though HERO is my favorite system bar none, I sometimes prefer to play in other systems for particular campaigns.  While HERO is super flexible, and I have yet to come up with a PC I couldn't design with it, I have found that the play experience can be better in campaigns in which a genre-specific mechanical system is used.


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## Herobizkit (Aug 12, 2013)

One setting I've always wanted to try is role-playing players playing an online RPG (qv .hack, Sword Art Online, even Mega Man NT Warrior/Exe.  Shadowrun doesn't technically count, though I've played 2e and 3e), having a persona both outside and inside a game world.  I'd like to be able to play modern and fantasy at the same time, but not necessarily fusing them into a Shadowrun-type gestalt.

I even pitched to the players a game where they are actors role-playing characters in a TV show that features the above... so role-players playing role-players playing role-players playing an RPG.

It got too meta for them.


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## sheadunne (Aug 12, 2013)

> OTOH, I see it as more realistic: like a RW living being, each bit of the PC's past informs how he reacts to events going forward. It provides a mental framework to the question of "what would this guy do in this circumstance?"




That's why players develop personality for their character. If someone is grumpy, the reason why he's always grumpy only matters when the background can be leveraged in play. If the player waits to develop that background until it fits within the game world, then he gains more options and choice to make the background work for the story, not against it. He might decided once they players enter the town of HereYouAre that the reason his player is grumpy is because when he visited the town before, people made fun of him. That's now something that adds to the story. If he had chosen it before the game started, it would have been possible that the PCs never went to the town and the background doesn't become part of the story. It's just the math on the paper than leads to = grumpy.



> Having that background in hand from the beginning has also helped me decide language, skill, spell, feat, weapon & armor choices- things you definitely need before the first initiative die is rolled.




I find they don't need to be decided before initiative is rolled. They can be decided during play, when they matter to game play. I chose Goblin for my character because my Granddaddy taught it to me, which he learned during the Goblin war 30 years ago. If there aren't any Goblins in the game, did that choice really matter at all?  Am I now limited in choosing even more Goblin related spells, feats, skills, because my background is influencing my character? 

Does my character use a sword or an axe? Does it matter until I roll dice or need to leverage the weapon in some way? What if I chose sword before we started playing, but several opportunities arose before I even used the sword that suggested axe would have been a better choice? Did I miss opportunities and choices because of a choice I made prior to even playing the game? If I had waited, wouldn't I have been able to participate even more fully in the game? 

I don't know, but it's where my thinking is at and where I am right now when it comes to background, character creation, advancement and game play.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 12, 2013)

> > Having that background in hand from the beginning has also helped me decide language, skill, spell, feat, weapon & armor choices- things you definitely need before the first initiative die is rolled.
> 
> 
> 
> I find they don't need to be decided before initiative is rolled. They can be decided during play, when they matter to game play. I chose Goblin for my character because my Granddaddy taught it to me, which he learned during the Goblin war 30 years ago. If there aren't any Goblins in the game, did that choice really matter at all? Am I now limited in choosing even more Goblin related spells, feats, skills, because my background is influencing my character?




If you sat down to play a game of D&D in our group and didn't have your spells, armor, weapons and feats picked before initiative was rolled, you'd catch a LOT of stink-eye.  We would NOT wait for you.

As for the Goblin thing: if there are to be obvious major variances between a standard D&D setting and what the DM's running- a lack of goblins being a good example- then it is up to the DM tell you that.  And if that didn't happen, I would expect to work with the DM to resolve and revise my PC to be in conformity...or revise the game world to make my choices make sense.


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## sheadunne (Aug 12, 2013)

> If you sat down to play a game of D&D in our group and didn't have your spells, armor, weapons and feats picked before initiative was rolled, you'd catch a LOT of stink-eye.  We would NOT wait for you.




I thought we were talking theory here, not practice. But it's pretty norm in the games I run now. You'd be pretty disappointed making choices upfront and miss a lot of fun opportunities to grow your character in the game world. 



> As for the Goblin thing: if there are to be obvious major variances between a standard D&D setting and what the DM's running- a lack of goblins being a good example- then it is up to the DM tell you that.  And if that didn't happen, I would expect to work with the DM to resolve and revise my PC to be in conformity...or revise the game world to make my choices make sense.




None of which would be required by waiting until game play for those decisions to be made. 

I will say that most versions of D&D do not lend themselves to this style of character background and development. It requires system mastery and bending to make it work. I tend to not run many D&D games these days for that reason. But I would love to see D&D evolve into an organic RPG experience.


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## Janx (Aug 12, 2013)

sheadunne said:


> After that, everything else can be developed during game play. Why not wait until you meet an NPC bandit before deciding that your character's father was killed by bandits? Why not wait until you're fishing on the river before you decide to have fishing as a skill? Why not wait until you find the Crossbow of Shooting-Really-Good before deciding that you have some skill with shooting a crossbow? It just feels more organic to me.




Using D&D 3e as my example, deciding what feats, skills, etc your PC has right when it matters becomes an interuption in game play to make sure you have enough skill points, etc.  Doing the math, making sure you have enough free Feat slots, calculating attack bonuses is all stuff that I prefer to be done on your sheet before the game actually starts.

Further, getting to pick you skills right when you need one in the game feels too much like Johnny RightTool, who always happens to have the right tool for the job, rather than solving the problem with the tools he has, not the tools he wants.



sheadunne said:


> Once you know where you've been, you can't change it. It's just there interfering with your choices, limiting your options. That just feels like a bad way to play a game. Instead, why not wait until a choice adds something to the game, whether it's complicating it or assisting it?




I subscribe to the definition of role playing that you are defining a character and then choosing to restrict yourself to that character's definition when you play the game.  So if you choose to play a Lawful Good Fighter, you are choosing to restrict yourself from wanton slaughter of villages as a means to Restless Native Pacification.

So, what you know how to do, what equipment you start with, who your parents are, what your PC is like is all starting state decisions.

What your PC grows into is a different matter of course.

It may be a bad way to play a GAME, but it may be one of the correct ways to play a ROLE PLAYING game.

An RPG is more about player's screwing themselves with initial character restrictions and trying to optimize from there, than a regular game of Monopoly or Poker where you'd never choose starting from any restriction if you could.


Where you may see my choosing Swimming as a skill before the game starts as not adding to the game, versus picking it when my PC really needs to cross that river, in fact, it shapes the game because my PC is going to seek out solutions where his ability to Swim is an advantage over NPCs who can't.

So a non-swimming NPC being chased by PCs is going to blow up the bridge to thwart pursuit.  A PC with an empty skill slot is just going to pick swimming to bypass the challenge.  A PC who actually took swimming originally is going to come up with swimming across the river as his solution.  A PC who didn't take swimming is going to come up with something different.

I actually get more organic game play by virtue of the "locked in" choices the PCs made during character creation that were independent of the actual adventure.


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## JamesonCourage (Aug 12, 2013)

sheadunne said:


> You'd be pretty disappointed making choices upfront and miss a lot of fun opportunities to grow your character in the game world.



I can't speak for Danny, but I most certainly would not be disappointed by making my decisions beforehand. It's _necessary_ for me to make them beforehand, even.

I have negative interest in making up my backstory as I go along. That pulls me so far out of immersion that it's not something I ever want to engage in. I want to know who I am, and experience has shown me that if I want to know that, I want to know where I've come from. Heck, it's why I made an optional Life Course for my RPG that lets you roll out random events (shaped by a few custom, pre-selected character traits). You can see what events have happened for your character, so that you have some hooks, know some NPCs (good or bad), have some history, and see how it shaped who you are now.

I'm not going to be disappointed by writing "sword" down, instead of leaving it blank until having a sword is convenient. I'm going to be happy when I write "sword" down, and then my sword being useful comes up, or when I improvise something because I don't have that axe.

I'm not going to be disappointed by making my decisions beforehand, and, if I'm running a game, it's not going to keep my players from having "fun opportunities to grow their character in the game world." They, like me, want a chance to have their characters connect with the world and the setting. They don't want to say "I knew this language all along" when it's convenient; they'd rather pantomime, look for translators, or the like, _and see how things grow out of those interactions_.

I get that you enjoy your style, but both your post (especially the bit I quoted above) and this article come off as a bit one-true-way ish, in my opinion. And both of those opinions, when taken to the extreme (one-true-way), are wrong. They definitely work for a lot of players, but I have negative interest in that style of game, and I'd probably bow out after the first session if I showed up and that was how things went down.

That's not to say that my way is objectively better, or anything. But I 100% object you statement, above. I'm going to be disappointed if we do it your way, not the other way around. Because, very simply, your way isn't right for me. And, perhaps predictably, KM's way isn't right for me, either. I'd much rather make explicit choices for my character before play, and do so based on explicit setting facts presented to me before play that I had no hand in making. I want the worlds and setting there, _prior_ to me making my character. I want my background fleshed out, _prior_ to me playing my character, so that I can immerse in my character (since that's what works for _me_).

Your way isn't bad, or wrong, or not-fun, or anything. I mean, for me it is, but it's not objectively so. And I hope people on both sides can at least see that it's simply preference, and that just because you found something revolutionary for you and your group at some point, it doesn't mean I'm missing out on fun (as you pretty explicitly said in the bit I quoted) because I don't like it. It just means that I don't like it. As always, play what you like


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 12, 2013)

> You'd be pretty disappointed making choices upfront and miss a lot of fun opportunities to grow your character in the game world.




Not at all- its just that my PC's choices going forward would be made in light of the PC's past, just like those I make in my own.


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## sheadunne (Aug 13, 2013)

JamesonCourage said:


> I can't speak for Danny, but I most certainly would not be disappointed by making my decisions beforehand. It's _necessary_ for me to make them beforehand, even.






Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not at all- its just that my PC's choices going forward would be made in light of the PC's past, just like those I make in my own.




I find it interesting that you both have taken that quote out of context which directly refers to games I run, which are a home brew system and plays quite differently than other games. The game requires you not to make those types of discussions ahead of time in order to advance your character. So yes, if you make those decisions ahead of time you're going to be disappointed because they won't come up in play. It has nothing to do with play style, it's mechanical in the game. 

Please try not to make it seem like I'm against anyones preferences. I'm suggesting alternatives and ones that I both enjoy and prefer.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 13, 2013)

> So yes, if you make those decisions ahead of time you're going to be disappointed because they won't come up in play.




You seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying: I make those decisions before gameplay because, when presented with a choice of actions, I want to have a PC framework in my mind when I ask myself "What would ______ do in this situation?"  

That way, I am making decisions based on what the PC- not I- would do in a given situation.  The PC background is thus the fulcrum upon which my lever (PC) pivots, allowing me to move the world.


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## sheadunne (Aug 13, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying: I make those decisions before gameplay because, when presented with a choice of actions, I want to have a PC framework in my mind when I ask myself "What would ______ do in this situation?"
> 
> That way, I am making decisions based on what the PC- not I- would do in a given situation.  The PC background is thus the fulcrum upon which my lever (PC) pivots, allowing me to move the world.




I understand. In my game that isn't possible. Or rather, its possible through personality, profession and biology, but not background story. That's all I'm saying. You have the end result of your background story, just not the details.  I'm not saying you won't be disappointed that its not available to you. But mechanically speaking having it leads to being unable to advance beyond the equivalent of a level one character. It's built into the game because I enjoy it and find my players like it, although it requires thinking differently about background and how it plays out in their characters lives. 

As I said in a previous post it doesn't work well with D&D which almost completely ignores background and focuses a great deal on the detail of items like feats, class abilities and spells and uses level to balance them rather than the abilities themselves. Wish isn't balanced with toughness which isn't balanced with a barbarians rage. The character level attempts to balance those items. 

Since D&D ignores background, or rather only really cares about it at first level rather than the characters entire career, it doesn't lend itself to a system that makes background a continuous source of discovery about the character. It implies that I learned fishing between level 10 and 11 when i took the skill, rather than something I learned fishing with my dad 15 years ago and it just hasn't presented itself in the game until now, because there was no need to fish. And it certainly wasn't something I thought about taking at level one because I had no idea I wanted my character to learned fishing and I know my character better now that I've played him for 10 levels.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 13, 2013)

> I understand. In my game that isn't possible. Or rather, its possible through personality, profession and biology, but not background story. That's all I'm saying. You have the end result of your background story, just not the details. I'm not saying you won't be disappointed that its not available to you. But mechanically speaking having it leads to being unable to advance beyond the equivalent of a level one character. It's built into the game because I enjoy it and find my players like it, although it requires thinking differently about background and how it plays out in their characters lives.




This whole tangent would have also been interesting in that "how much does system matter to player enjoyment" thread!

While I probably would not find such a system enjoyable, it's cool that you & your fellow players do- viva la difference!


> It implies that I learned fishing between level 10 and 11 when i took the skill, rather than something I learned fishing with my dad 15 years ago and it just hasn't presented itself in the game until now, because there was no need to fish.




Well, yes- if you only allocated points to fishing skill between 10th & 11th, the implication is that that is the implication, and that if you wanted to be proficient in fishing since childhood, you had to allocate SPs at 1st.

However, that is only an implication.  It could just as easily be said that you hadn't fished in so long, your skills had atrophied from disuse, and it wasn't until between 10th and 11th that you shook the rust off and started fishing proficiently again.

D&D doesn't care about background if you don't.


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## JamesonCourage (Aug 13, 2013)

sheadunne said:


> I find it interesting that you both have taken that quote out of context which directly refers to games I run, which are a home brew system and plays quite differently than other games.



I didn't feel like it was out of context, but I'm sorry it came across that way. You seemed to explicitly say how someone else would feel if they didn't play in your theoretical style. That is what I was responding to. Sorry for any offense.


sheadunne said:


> The game requires you not to make those types of discussions ahead of time in order to advance your character.



So it's not a game I'd want to play long term, but it'd be fun for one-shots, maybe. I like branching into other styles in the short term.


sheadunne said:


> So yes, if you make those decisions ahead of time you're going to be disappointed because they won't come up in play. It has nothing to do with play style, it's mechanical in the game.



Um, it's still play style, to me. Pretty clearly play style, at that. I'm totally okay with giving up convenient bonuses if it helps me immerse in the game. And for me, that has meant knowing my character's history, equipment, etc.

I also understand I'd be giving up mechanical advancement. I might even do that, if it meant I'd be able to play long term with a group of people I liked. I most certainly couldn't play long term if I accepted your background method, so I might accept being level 1 forever just to play, provided I liked the group. To _me_, it's better than the alternative.


sheadunne said:


> Please try not to make it seem like I'm against anyones preferences. I'm suggesting alternatives and ones that I both enjoy and prefer.



Cool, no worries, then. I thought you were saying I'd have less fun if I didn't do things your way. If that's not what you meant, then we're good. I'm glad you like your thing, man, and I have no problem with you advocating it. Lots of other people like your method, and many others out there. As always, play what you like


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## Greg K (Aug 13, 2013)

As a player and a GM, I am not interested in campaign creation described by the OP. I will, actually, walk out as a player.  
Tell me your setting basics: your races, cultures, your nations, your deities, etc. If it interests me, I'll make a character that fits in. If it does not, I will politely decline to participate (for published settings, I will decline participating in Eberron, Planescape, Spelljammer, and the default 4e setting) (Note: along with the setting, I want to know the house rules before the first adventure).

As a GM, I will provide the setting basics. If you want to participate, great! Give me a character that fits within the established limits of the setting and table rules (the latter includes limits on the optimization and charop stuff). Follow that rule and we can discuss its back story and I'll work with you to tailor it to the setting. 

Want a paladin raised in an temple and adventuring to find a lost sibling while another character is a knight from a neighboring kingdom seeking the people that ambushed his patrol and two others are from a northern kingdom seeking to find and rescue their abducted princess?  No problem. There is only one deity with paladins.  The three major temples are located here, here and here. Throughout the campaign, I will throw in hooks and full night adventures revolving around them.  

Want a drow? Sorry, there are no drow. However, there are these island dwelling elves that look like drow. Mechanically, they are your standard elves and favor these classes.

Want to play a ninja that throws shurriken and does all the classic ninja stuff? Sorry, there are no ninjas, asian martial arts, or asian weapons in this campaign.  What is it about ninja that interests you?  Spying? Being stealthy, acrobatic, dressed in black and thrown weapons?  Being stealthy and casting spells?  My actual suggestion will depend on the campaign. It might be that there are very few magic users and, therefore, no organizations that blend stealth and spellcasting. Another campaign, might find me suggesting a class that blends magic and stealth
.
At the same time, the characters, through their actions, make their own enemies and allies throughout the campaign.  If they grab on to  hooks leading to potential major villains I have provided great. If not, they there are many other possibilities and directions.  

So, ultimately, when I run, the players shape the campaign, because I react to the characters I have and their actions.  However, the characters are grounded into the setting  because they built them to fit within the preestablished limits and I have enough prebuilt to adapt on the fly while running a setting that interests me.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 13, 2013)

sheadunne said:


> It implies that I learned fishing between level 10 and 11 when i took the skill, rather than something I learned fishing with my dad 15 years ago and it just hasn't presented itself in the game until now, because there was no need to fish. And it certainly wasn't something I thought about taking at level one because I had no idea I wanted my character to learned fishing and I know my character better now that I've played him for 10 levels.



Well, late in 3e and as a standard rule in 4e the concept of retraining was introduced in D&D. If you use it a bit more loosely, you can use it in a very similar way to have characters 'remember' 'forgotten' skills, feats or powers by 'forgetting' something else.

In my 4e campaign I allowed my players to retrain everything, as often as they wanted, but only between sessions. This was because of two things: 1) to keep them from negating challenges by suddenly 'remembering' a forgotten skill or power and 2) to avoid the hassle of recalculating modifiers.

But I could definitely see the attraction of a game that _expects_ players to solve problems in such a way. It reminds me of several novels, with the protagonist suffering from amnesia and having to discover who he truly is by encountering challenges that reveal things about himself. It's an intriguing approach and would make a fun change.


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## SkidAce (Aug 13, 2013)

sheadunne said:


> But it's pretty norm in the games I run now. You'd be pretty disappointed making choices upfront and miss a lot of fun opportunities to grow your character in the game world.




We do both.  It's not an either or.*

edit: in generic DnD games, your custom game framework may work fine of course.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 14, 2013)

SkidAce said:


> We do both.  It's not an either or.*




Ditto that.


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## SchlieffenPlan (Aug 18, 2013)

I would love to play in a game like this. I am not sure how I would react as a DM. I would have to dial the way I normally think about DMing back and hand more creative control over to the players. I feel like this could get very silly if people were in the wrong mindset for even one session, especially toward the beginning. 

But I would like to try it the next time I start a game with players more experienced than my next game.


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