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Do you have a personal life?


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How much I invest in a noncombat persona for a character depends on the setting/genre and GM.

 

Some of our GMs ignore personal details and it's all action. One ignores what players write for character concepts and does major things to characters unilaterally (e.g., urban fantasy campaign, after character was nearly killed and magical healing restored him, the post-healing character was half-demon, without any clue to or input from the player). For those GMs, I don't create much: what I write/think won't be relevant in the game. Others in the group use that stuff well and it is relevant to what occurs in game, and there I'll go to greater depth.

 

Star Wars characters are all one-dimensional. No effort gets spent on those. High fantasy characters I find much more interesting (assuming the setting is fleshed out!!) and I'll write pages. If the world/setting is just a couple of crayon strokes on brown paper, not so much.

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I run ongoing "small group games" focusing on solo heroes and duos. Once in awhile, a trio. The small group size and serial nature allows for a more personalized, character-centric style of play. It also allows one to simulate the kind of stories you more often see on television or in comics that aren't team-focused. Because of this, while I like to keep things moving and my games have a lot of Action! and Drama! they also have a fair number of sub-plotty social interludes aimed at showcasing the character's relationships, lives, and whatnot. It doesn't hurt that my players tend to want to know what their characters wardrobes, cars, domiciles, and whatnot are like as a means of fleshing out their character's aesthetics. I find all of this useful as I can often use them as "left-handed" hooks for investing them in the main plot (when done right). I used to run games for larger groups of 4-7, but at that point, you have a lot less time for individual attention to character detail.

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I've seen hero personal lives come up in two different ways in our group. When one story arc ends and before we start another we tend to have a round-table where the GM asks each of us, "What has your character being doing in their off time?" This gives every character some time in the spotlight, but it can also mean some of us zone out/don't play while we're not the focus of attention. When it's my turn, I prefer off-time activities that might conceivably include my cohorts and give them permission to participate in my personal life. We've gotten some interesting stories and plot hooks from that approach.

 

A character's personal life can also generate adventure seeds for the group. Ideally one character's personal mission becomes the group's mission, but so far all we've had is one character's hunted becoming the group's problem. Frankly, I'd prefer we took turns completing personal missions as a group. We have the story hooks to do it. We could help our wizard become the archmagus. We could help our Jedi yeti recover his memory and find Shangra La. This would require us to be comfortable being the guest star in someone else's solo movie, but I think it would make for some good stories.

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