Random Musing about PC Concepts

[Labrat]

Has anyone toyed with the idea of pre-writing PC 'birth conditions' for new characters? More specifically:

 

Argument: I believe that there should be an element of tragedy to every superhero (I think Green Goblin said that in Spider-Man, but I can't be sure...) HOWEVER I don't think I can take each fantasy PC having a murdered father/family in their background anymore. Just once, in my 25+ years of RPGing, I would like to be approached with a PC concept that had nothing to do with family-tied-vengance or family-tied-disgrace.

 

Proposed Solution: I may be a control-freak, but people are born out of circumstances beyond thier control. I was thinking of starting a PC applicant off by saying something like "Ok, you are the second son of a family of six, you can tell me who else is in the family. You are from a shepherding community. Your mother is overbearing and your father is addicted to tobacco. Your grandfather was a priest of the local diety, and so zealous that your mother rebelled and turned into an anti-theist of that same diety. Since your grandfather was a temple warden, it had minimal impact on your upbringing. Both mom and dad come from shepherding families themselves and only have seen a real city maybe three times in their entire life..." On one hand that may be too controling, but on the other it may inspire some untapped creativity as opposed to allowing the player to fabricate their entire history. Now I, being a control freak, may not like this approach myself but it sure would be a welcome change.

 

Would you think that these would work? Has anyone had success in doing it this way? Would you tend to play in a game that imposed such restrictions? I'm currently on the fence with this type of proposal.

 

I also think that it may be the gaming company I keep, is such narrow-minded PC conception universal? I hope not.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Some people would have no problem with it, or even welcome it, since in many cases, their character concept is a little sketchy, and some fleshing out along those lines would be nice, as long as it doesn't contradict what the player already has in mind.

 

Like swearing vengeance on his father's killer...

[Archangel Gabri]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

I've always been a firm believer in the GM getting involved in character conception from the ground floor. The player shouldn't get past, "I think it'd be fun to play a " without the GM having some awareness of and input on what he's thinking. That being the case, the restrictions you describe can be worked out in advance for anyone.

[Guest joen00b]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

One of the characters in my campaign became a merc to prevent a civil war. She is the daughter of a Baron of an influential barony. The neighboring barony doesn't like to be under the rule of the current king. Since she was betrothed to the Baron of the neighboring barony, he is going to use this as validation to cecede from the rule of the King. Her bloodline is an old bloodline of royalty and through a successful coup her great grandfather lost cotnrol of the kingdom, and only after her grandfather promised fealty to the new king would he be able to retain lands and such in the newly formed kingdom.

 

She was very piolitcally active in her realms, and putting 2 and 2 together, figured this would not be in the best interest of the kingdom as it could ripple out to other bordering baronies. Most of her life, she secretly trained the sword so she was more than equipped for life as a Merc in the battle sense, having had some of the best teachers around, but not all of a Mercs life is in battle.

 

She is having trouble grasping the politics of the mercenary life, but did ok, gaining the rank of Corporal before their leader was killed and the Company disbanded. Street smarts are very foreign to her and she still has a problem with inadvertantly belittling people of lesser birth. She's not racist, she just 'knows' they are born of a lesser stock and couldn't possibly become more than they already are. It sounds kind of racist, and maybe that's the easiest way to explain it, but that's the realities of fuedal kingdoms ways of thinking.

 

This of course made it easy for disadvantages as bounty hunters are trying to return her to her betrothed and her attitude towards common folks. Great role playing elements. Oh yes, and she comes from a long line of great undead slayers, which is how her great-great-great grandfather was able to wrest control of the country for his family many, many years before.

 

It's still up in the air for the rest of it, but that's what the player and I came up with so far.

[lemming]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Sam & I once sat down and wrote up a large geneology chart of the shared universe we had. Time travel really makes those things complicated...

[Labrat]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Yes, I agree, GM involvement is key... but left to their (our) own devices, many players seem to default to backgrounds that aren't only old and played out, but not very original at best. Only the names and places change.

 

And those are the ones who even bother fleshing out their PCs by filling in the 'background' boxes.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

I don't like the idea of being that "controlling" of a PC's background; I'll suggest, limit, or endorse, but I don't make it my business to take that much control away from the player. And if I were a player in that position, I'd be pretty darn unhappy. Of course, the players I have always present me with interesting backgrounds, so I guess maybe I've just been incredibly lucky over the years.

 

Of the last half-dozen fantasy characters I've either created for myself, seen created by a co-player, or been the GM of the campaign for which they were created, not one of them was out to avenge a murdered parent or other relative.

 

My most recent fantasy character left home in the Isles of the Sun because (1) he was a restless spirit, (2) he doesn't like politics, and the Isles are like Tortuga, Port Royale, and the worst of Borgia politics rolled into one, and (3) before his mother could arrange to marry him off to some girl to advance the family status.

 

Turns out there's a good chance he's been framed for the murder of his brother-in-law after he left home -- by his dear and loving mother and sister -- but he doesn't know that yet. I don't know for sure about that one, because it's the GM's machinations that have hinted to the player (me) that may be the case, but the character doesn't have any indications of that at all yet.

 

The other characters I mentioned are a half-demon who, after escaping from her childhood captor, was taken in by the temple of the goddess of Night, and became a paladin of that goddess; a half-dragon who fled her decaying family estate after a violent disagreement with her witch-mother; and so on. Not one vengance-seeker in the bunch.

[Labrat]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Of the last half-dozen fantasy characters I've either created for myself' date=' seen created by a co-player, or been the GM of the campaign for which they were created, not one of them was out to avenge a murdered parent or other relative.[/quote']

 

Amazing. I knew you people were out there somewhere. Can I play with you guys???

 

Maybe there's just more emphasis on personal-family strife where I've lived. I've seen almost nothing but PC concepts that involve paternal grief in one way or another. It sounds like it would make for an interesting sociological study... if only I were a sociologist...

[Guest joen00b]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Admittedly, one of the players, who is playing a martial artist, and myself are in the middle of cooking up a good revenge background. He wanted to get a full on badly dubbed martial arts movie type of good guy going in the campaign.

 

It's loosely that he is being trained by the man who killed his father. He does not know this, and his blood brother came to exact revenge on the master and he killed his own brother because his master said to. Of course he did not know this was his brother, but he will find out.

 

In effect he will kill (who he believes to be) his own father for murdering his father and tricking him into killing his brother, which also means he will have to kill his own master who is corrupt. We're trying to weave all angles of the 'revenge' stereotype into one big clusterf*ck... mind you this is out of boredom and to see if it could be done.

 

I will post final results when they are hashed out.

[Curufea]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Hmm, I've never come across family revenge either. Family plot hooks do occur - but to date it is usually only one or sometimes two players per game that have them - and they're usually along the lines of helping out relatives, or family in trouble drags them in.

Currently I've got a noble's son who escaped political calamity by becoming a mercenary in a foreign land, a summoned earth elemental with no memories (or tasks) and an ex-swashbuckler who was helped by Loki to steal a magical spell from the druids (of Frigg) and now spends his time as an assassin and poisoner.

 

Our groups have never had any trouble with backgrounds - all of them are fairly well read, and many of them are writers. Only occasionally do they lapse into laziness and decide to not bother being original, just churning out "cookie-cutter" clones.

[CourtFool]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

I feel your frustration, but I think writing your PC's background is heavy handed. I do not think I would play in a game where my background was handed to me. I certainly do not mind input from the GM, in fact I expect it.

 

I would ask your group why they use the same backgrounds. There could be any number of reasons why. Better to address the ailment than the symptom. Then I would try to encourage more original backgrounds either through xp bonuses and/or in game coolness (specifically #5 & #6).

[Nolgroth]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

I've seen the only/orphaned child syndrome way too often myself. From what I gathered, even before my players knew what a DNPC was, they detested the very idea of having somebody that might rely on them. On the heavy handed control approach, I tend to both agree and disagree.

 

On the one hand, giving the player a firm background lets the GM have access to a whole lot of plot hooks that are not available when a player throws the whole orphaned thing at you. For instance, I once wanted to run an adventure where one of the character's uncles left him a piece of property. Of course, the adventure was a micro-dungeon crawl, but it would leave the character (and the group) a base of operations. Problem was that every one of the characters was either a) orphaned or from far distant lands blah blah blah. I got over that one by having a close and childless friend of the character's deceased uncle be the one leaving him an inheritance.

 

On the other hand, I tend to treat my players as I would hope to be treated. I try to get creative with my character background and I wouldn't want a terribly intrusive amount of GM involvement in my characters' backgrounds.

 

Maybe the compromise is to state that you will only accept one background that includes orphanage from the entire group. If more than one person wants that background, then they dice for it. All the rest are required to give you at least a brief overview of parents and siblings and possibly a few members of the extended family. That allows for the potential for one vengeance driven character in the campaign and the remainder as relatively normal.

 

Just my thoughts.

[CourtFool]

No living relatives?

 

Maybe the compromise is to state that you will only accept one background that includes orphanage from the entire group.

 

This made me think that the entire party can be from an orphanage. Then you could use the Patron/Matron of the orphanage just as you would parents.

[lemming]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Just because the PC doesn't have a sibling/parent/etc... doesn't mean there can't be a long lost sibling/parent/clone...

[Labrat]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

There's been some good discussion here, thanks.

 

Historically, I would have preferred to give total free reign to the players to PC type, background, etc. Only recently have I started to 'pre-assemble' the PCs into some related group just to get the game underway. For example I ran one game that the PCs were all just awakening in a military base and soon learned that they were all experimental soldiers with individual psychic powers. It was a cyberhero game so the 'power level' was low, but the 'pre-assembled' background let me write a few sessions ahead even before the character sheets were approved. That also let me get away with handing out a loose PC-wide package deal that related them.

 

I'm not about to be a tyrant about backgrounds, I say if the players want to have the maximum fun they should have the maximum (allowable) control over their PC creation. I'm just wondering why certain backgrounds are such a recurring phenomenon.

 

It's not like it's a non-issue, the background defines the character from the point of concept. I always encourage my players to start with the character's story and pile on the game mechanics afterwards, it seems to work best that way. The 'hero-born-from-tragedy' is an absolute staple of the fantasy genre (as well as sci-fi, and especially superhero), it just seems to manifest itself in parental-separation somehow almost by default in my experience.

 

Well, after all, not everyone wants to become a hero that herded cows up until he had an inkling to leave the ranch, but there's so many more options that seems outside of casual consideration. This casual lack of creativity seems to be independent of age, sex, playing experience and education in my experience... but like Curufea said, a wider appreciation for the scope of the genre seems to be the key to finding an interesting 'road less travelled' for a PC concept. I'm not really surrounded by people with the time or the drive to expand those horizons for themselves (RL issues, etc), and if you find that you are, then you should consider yourselves fortunate! Either way I can totally sympathize and this shouldn't detract from the game, I'm willing to work with any concepts that fit into the overall structure.

 

Strange, though, even the PBeM players I tend to attract have the same issues. I am now able to look at this more introspectively in order to see if I'm somehow attracting these people with the games I put together (all of them excellent players btw), or somehow else subliminally suppressing innovative concepts... Nah! Next step: required background applications! Thanks for the link, CourtFool.

[Nyrath]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

I am facinated by the Dramatic Hook mechanism. However, since it is driven by the players, it would not solve your problem with every player having a murdered father/family in their background.

 

You might want to look into the "Relationship Map" concept found in "The Sorceror's Soul" (supplement to the Sorceror RPG). There are some extended notes on campaign preparation here

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Hello. My name is Egedio Montegna. You sold my father a defective oil lamp. Prepare to buy it back!

[Curufea]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Tell me, oh merchant, do you by chance have six fingers on your right hand?

Do you always start haggling this way?

 

And of course, there are the Retailers Of Unusual Sales.

 

Not the Fire Sale!

Nonsense, you just saying no one ever got a bargain, because no one ever has..

 

Well, that was an adventure ... shortchanged a bit were you?

[keithcurtis]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

people are born out of circumstances beyond thier control.

While this is true of real world people, it is not true of fictional characters, who are created according to dramatic and literary need. Or in the case of an RPG, you could add the needs of play balance and enjoyment of portrayal.

 

I have no problem with a player and a GM collaberating on the background of a new character, in fact, I think it's essential to creating a workable PC. I can even understand a player that might like the challenge of being presented with pregenerated elements. But I think it's a heavy handed approach to force upon players.

 

I sympathize with the number of tragedians it seems populate your local group. It is not a universal phenomenon, fortunately. It is almost nonexistent in our local group. Perhaps a middle approach might be appreciated. Offer an XP incentive to original concepts. If they submit a new concept, give them an extra five or ten points to build with.

 

Keith "my 2¢" Curtis

[Labrat]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

I have no problem with a player and a GM collaberating on the background of a new character, in fact, I think it's essential to creating a workable PC. I can even understand a player that might like the challenge of being presented with pregenerated elements. But I think it's a heavy handed approach to force upon players.

 

Meh... it isn't really about 'forcing' it upon players as much as it is intended to be an experiment to see how well players would do with using a pre-generated background hook that's vague enough to allow for creative tinkering. If they don't like it then they can chuck it. I wouldn't want it to be a heavy-handed attempt to 'please the GM's needs', it would be an exercise in providing a more realistic starting place in the world the GM will spring the PCs out of. There's no intention of being a dictator about it.

 

I'm still on the fence though.

[tancred]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Interesting discussion.

 

I'm almost on the fence here, too. While I value the idea of a detailed character background (the more detailed, the better), I wouldn't care for having a background handed to me, most of the time.

 

Although I could see the fun and challenge in figuring out a character based on a background that was given to me.

 

As a GM, I could see making up additional background for a player, if his background wasn't sufficiently detailed, or if it would improve the game (by adding additional plot hooks).

This actually happened to me as a player; the GM added lots of background detail based on the outline I had given him. This one character was a revenge-driven character, unlike most of those I've played and seen.

 

To sum up, I would always prefer that the background for a character be either the player's creation or a collaboration with the GM. A less-desirable choice would be for the GM to make it up, if that's the way the player wants it. (Although the second choice feels much like giving the player a former NPC to play.)

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts

 

Really depends on the campaign and the GM. If the game's going to be strictly dungeon-crawl, family or lack thereof really doesn't matter much. If it's going to be centered around a small farming town where everyone grew up, families should be important.

 

Some of my more memorable characters and families in fantasy settings:

*Younger son of a baron. Parents alive, older brother. Big Plot was spilling into our area (northern marches) first, so family/duty was his motivation for getting into the campaign. Campaign took place far away from home, so family didn't ever play direct part in game.

 

*Orphan. But campaign began centered around orphanage and all PC's were orphans, so PC's and the NPC's running the orphanage were "family" to each other.

 

*Noble, started as 4th in line for the throne. Family/duty again motivation for getting into the campaign. Parents alive, older brother, younger sister. Campaign spent a good bit of time in the capital and dealing with politics, so family involved directly from time-to-time.

 

*Mother alive, but most of campaign took place away from homeland. Unknown father. Some contact w/mother during campaign, but limited. Mentor as father figure directly involved in campaign, good then later turned evil. No siblings.

 

I don't think I've ever really done a "goblins destroyed my village, they must pay!" fantasy PC that I can remember.