>GM kills all player backstory exclusive characters for shock value instead of using them to add much needed depth to the players
>GM kills all player backstory exclusive characters for shock value instead of using them to add much needed depth to the players
I mean, no-one at the table cares about a PC'S backstory anyway, Bob. I especially don't care about your PC's anime elf waifu who loves only you and would never look at another man, or your cute (NBR) sister who has a crush on oniichan.
I had a PC that would get letters from my father. It was always simple cutesy shit like talking about my little brother or how he didnt like that I was traveling and should just come home.
It actually came in handy because I was a noble so he would often send gifts, money, or spell components I was having a hard time finding during my travels.
It was fun actually having those small interactions and everyone at the table benefited from it since he would send the party stuff too as a token of thanks for protecting his son.
That's comfy and based as hell, your GM gets it.
My Referee has used extensively backstory characters as cameos or main characters of several story arcs. It's always been fun and the players loved roleplaying as someone who gets to say "now it's personal!".
>story arcs
revolting.
Your ridiculous posturing has no bearing on our fun. 🙂
Ridiculous posturing is all your storyshitting can ever truly amount to.
>meme forcing homosexual is seething
Sure sign we're doing something right. 🙂
What designation do you use to split up modules in your games, anon?
Oh...... right, I forgot. nogaems.
>modules
lol, lmao
>much needed depth to the players
You’re playing 5e and are under level 5 right?
>noooo everyone has to be le zany self aware ironic deadpool rick and morty guy
I bet you think animal crossing doom guy memes are hilarious
Why write up a 300 page backstory when there's a good chance your character won't make it to level 2?
you can have loved ones from before you went adventuring. games that include the creation of preexisting relationships are great because its just easy plothooks.
>have an estranged younger brother who gets into trouble constantly
>dont talk for 3 years
>he shows up out of the blue pleading for help since he owes a pirate captain 3000 gilders.
>hilarity ensues.
it really is that easy to run a fun game.
No they're not. All you get are sad neckbeards moaning about their waifus and really weird shit.
Feel free to punish anyone who makes a waifu. Kidnap, rape and murder are all acceptable punishments. Or you know, dont play with neckbeards.
Autism, duh.
>Just have zero investment bro
>Don't make a character at all, just make a stat sheet bro
>No bro, don't reflavor anything. Just do everything exactly as it says in the text
>Hey bro did hear about this totally cool glitch with this Peasant railgun
>ew, video games. TTRPGs are so much better
>I bet you think animal crossing doom guy memes are hilarious
I'm floored that autists like you think that joke is meant to be lolsorandum when it's just a "haha isn't it funny how these two thematically opposed games share a release date?"
the fact that you're still mad about a fotm meme from three years ago is pathetic.
>"haha isn't it funny how these two thematically opposed games share a release date?"
No, it isn’t the slightest bit funny.
It's not as funny as your life, I'll say that much
Rekt status: FUKKEN REKT
But what if we had Doomguy and Animalcrossingdog go see Barbenheimer together?!?!?!!??!?! Wouldn't that be le heckin epicerino?!?!?!?!
Happened to me. I said that if he does so again I will just be an uncaring murder hobo and murder all characters that comes unto my path
Then you just don’t get invited Chuck, it’s that easy
Nah, he got the message.
That's what happens when you play with friends
The backstory isn't a part of a game, so it doesn't make sense for a GM, who is assumed to be running a game, to kill such characters off.
But "character depth" really isn't needed in a game, anyway. I'm not sure why you think it is.
Some people like to lean in more on the storytelling aspect of RPGs. Different folks, different strokes.
People are always going on about the "storytelling aspect" of RPGs, but whenever they talk about their !games, there's always a number of heavy inconsistencies to plot or to character.
If the "game" is actually a game, and storytelling is a part of the game, there should be aspects of the game that address decision points using the skill of storytelling. Every time, though, this isn't the case; it's always an inconsistent ruling made on a whim, often going against the nature of the character or contradicting the plot because "muh fun".
It's totally fine if you're just sitting around playing pretend and having fun, but at that point it isn't really storytelling, and it certainly isn't a game.
Uh huh
> Inconsistencies about... character
Usually comes from autists who don't realize the complexity of people. Your kind make cardboard cutouts and insist other people share your stupidity.
> They do things that go against the plot.
You don't know what plot is. You don't get to decide what is storytelling or not. You know less than nothing about storytelling.
>The backstory isn't a part of a game
In a number of systems like Shadowrun and VtM backstory can and should be part of a game. A lot of the merits and flaws are ways to get the backstory of a character to change how the game goes in VtM.
In Shadowrun its qualities and the contact system. In fact I am going to point out that Shadowrun is far more rules heavy of a system yet backstory still matters.
This is why you are a shit GM and can only get people to play 5e D&D, you can only think it fricking numbers.
>The backstory isn't a part of a game,
In most TTRPGs I played, it is.
>>much needed depth to the players
Frick you, I'll kill my backstory characters myself to spite you. My character doesn't need or deserve depth, considering they're almost always the party's schizo blood knight.
My players have wives, servants, coworkers, and customers for their side-hustles. It makes the world more living instead of having them spontaneously appear out of nowhere. Backstory adds flavor to interactions.
When did you start being a schizo? Are there people mad at you for being a schizo blood knight? Did you piss someone off by being such a schizo? Did you do it yourself or is there a bigger Papa Schizo who taught you about being a schizo?
Typical DM mistake. You make backstory characters known to the party, liked by the party, integral their related PC's stability and character, THEN you kill them
I'd be fine with this. But just killing everyone's families for shock value is lazy, irritating and a waste of characters
> Killing my characters is lazy.
Throwing your backstory into the garbage isn't necessarily lazy. Usually, it improves the game. It isn't the GM's fault that you spent plenty of time and effort writing garbage.
Working hard on dumb things isn't admirable, it's stupidity. Learn from your gm.
The game is not about your snowflake character.
Then what's the point of me being here if my character doesn't matter?
You're here to explore dungeons, get loot, and develop a character along the way if they survive long enough. If you want to write a story, just write a fricking novel
If all I'm doing is having a story narrated at me while rolling dice why don't I just put on an audiobook and play yahtzee?
You're here to sit down listening while while your DM reads you a story he wrote, backstories and freedom of choice would disrupt that.
You have been poisoned by linear modules and bad DMs. Good DMs give their players means to tell their own stories through sandbox play, but keep their games lethal enough to promote tension. As such, attachment and backstories should only be developed from level 3 and onward
>GM invented backstory characters for my PC that I now have to protect from another PC who want to kill my new daughter and steal her skin for a feddie psyop campaign
Luv me DM
Feddies out to hurt your daughter Eh? Well, time for Operation British 2. British Harder.
Well they were more of demon summoning deep state glowies employing skinwalkers, but close enough really.
>His backstory was longer than 3 sentences
>It involved any other characters for other purpose than motivation
Does "ignored player backstory entirely" also qualifies for "shock value", you prancing fruitcake?
I swear it's not about shock value, it's so that I don't have to remember them. I already need to mentally juggle several dozens NPCs that will be needed for the game to move forward, so I'm cutting balast on the backward side of things.
nice strawman homosexual, heres mine 🙂
Oh I don't dispute that at all. It's entirely possible bob could be on his seventh iteration but you seem to miss the point.
Bob the fighter is subject to the cruel whims of fate in the ttrpg he playing. Whereas there was never any doubt Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way would eventually kill a god with the agreement and collaboration of the lead storyteller because it fits the story he is telling.
Well no actually, that's not what was posted. The opposite in fact. Ebony darkness explicitly did not get anything they clearly wanted.
>Ebony darkness
Ebony darkness absolutely did want to kill a god it makes the tragic backstory sound even more awesome and when I say awesome I mean unmitigated trash.
but 0e still looks better
Stop wanking to kiddie porn and answer this: What stops you from doing that in all the other editions?
>DNDF beginning
I am DNDF, I fight to avenge my fallen comrades
>DNDF end
I am DNDF, godslayer
>Bob beginning:
I'm gonna rob a grave
> Bob end
I am Bob, grave robber
Are you implying that Bob the fighting man doesn't have an old man Robert the farmer man back in his home village?
PCs at level 1 are more powerful than NPC professionals and veterans. Understand this. They require years of training to reach level 1. Understand this. You are not a farmer, you might have been a farmer, but you have spent at least a couple years as a full time warrior, training if not fighting. Some people reach old age without ever hitting level 1. Make characters that fit the exceptional standard for player characters with class levels, don't make brainless fricking mudcore israelite trash.
>PCs at level 1 are more powerful than NPC professionals and veterans.
If your system sucks and is bad, sure
>PCs at level 1 are more powerful than NPC professionals and veterans.
No they aren't. A "Veteran" is a CR3 NPC from the monster manual. It's way stronger than a level 1 Fighter PC.
>"Don't write complex, deep or any backstory that has anything more grandiose that whatever we're gonna do"
The thing that makes me think you guys don't play is that your complains usually have such simple, non-system related solutions that the only way they could be real is a made up situation in your head.
Your backstory isn't deep or complex. It's garbage. People do not want to read it. Stop trying to roleplay as a novelist.
I made my character's backstory that her father was killed and she fled her only home with her mother to a better life in a small village.
That village was Greenest.
Mom didn't survive the cultist raid.
>shock value
The actual reason is to simply cut any bullshit out of the picture, thus allowing to do whatever and also sometimes providing the equally bullshit "revange" plot.
>Anon why do you always play Orphans?
>every PC at my table is an orphan
this is dungeons and dragons not orphans and urchins
maybe in your world orphans are put into orphanages that train them up to be fodder against the constant monster attacks which create all of these orphans in the first place. no one gets a backstory other than "my parents died when I was a kid and thats sad I guess" though
you gotta spend orphans to make orphans
>play a character with a creator, since its a warforged
>other PC has a barebones "i come from this village" backstory
>DM decides to make my inventor his grandmother, the timeline of her abandoning her gigantic science project to raise a daughter wich then has a son herself does not add up in the least. she also would have had to get a daughter secretly and completely abandon her for some decades. there is no room for stretching my backstory/age a bit, since the mourning is a fixpoint in it and it didn´t happen long ago in our campaign
>but timothy calls my warforged "uncle" now, wich is funny
>homosexual with a reddit account makes a shitty thread
players are, by and large, whiney entitled little b***hes that are too attached to their dumb little characters. They play as people whose profession is highly dangerous, highly lethal, and then act surprised when sometimes those people die.
The culprit is post ad&d 2e game design and wotc tsr acquisition: chargen become a character journaling solo building exercise. Couple that with capeshit (and animeshit) bleeding within anything with slightly larger than life action frame and of fricking course having the precious protag ocdonutsteel dying being the equivalent of a capital sin. It should be noted that the PC aren't the protagonist of a story (in the traditional sense) because there's no story to begin with, just plotlines and a pov following their actions, with most of it being procedurally generated by their decisions, gm adjudications and RGN values. If anything the closest piece of fiction to ttrpg is (early parts of) the fat frick "A Song if Ice and Fire" where the "protagonists" can fricking die any time but the show goes on.
>The only game in existence is DnD and it's different editions
This is the real effect of DnD: it inflicts brain damage to people
>what is the ogl
That model become pervasive because of that shit in the early 2000s.
>closest piece of fiction to ttrpg
In a way that DM just kills characters to be lolrundumb darkedgy?
The premise of ttrpgs is that characters CAN certainly die, but only if the players act stupidly.
Rocks fall is a valid reason to slap your dm for dumbfrickery and take back your charsheet by force.
I said closest not exactly alike. My point is that mortality should be expected and actively avoided only through pc actions and decisions.
> The premise of a hobby that covers any number of genres is...
> No deaths unless dumb!
No, the premise is that anything is possible. If you think violence is appropriate because he pretended in a way you don't like, then getting the police involved or knocking your teeth out is a valid response.
Just add the GM as one of the characters of your character's back story.
I'm writing up a minicampaign right and I'm worried about pulling that shit. My players will draft up some townspeople to play as and the 1st session is gonna be them waking up with the town on fire, goblins murdering everyone and they have to escape.
>they have to escape
You know they're going to try to stand and fight, right?
nahh, my players are smart cookies. they're gonna be level 0, completely unprepared and they got the "it's okay to run" message when the party got eaten by ogres a while back.
if they don't... maybe I'll have them make 2 characters each, just to drive the point home.
>Muh depth
Nobody fricking cares. You're not writing a novel.
You can frick the right off my table if you wrote a "backstory" longer than human fighter, elf wizard or dwarf cleric.
Wow, great job, buddy! Just like you were trained. Here's your (you) for doing the right thing and posting about it here.
Rookie DM, the trick is to brutally murder the PC the moment they start playing and then force them to roll a new character without giving them time to think of a new backstory. That way you get out of reading their garbage thousand page long novel that they dragged into the table.
These kinds of horror stories are memed regularly here, yet I've never run into anyone who has experienced this shit.
Is it exclusive to morons who play with fa/tg/uys?
It’s all fake stories made by people who pretend to play games instead of just actually playing them.
>"the players" need depth
Imagine my shock at a meme-spouting moron being a fricking idiot, publicly.
There's no functional guide to collaborative storytelling in TTRPGS,
Players and G/DMs just show up to the table applying what they know.
>Books, Games, Movies, Tv shows, anime, comics.
>Protagonist & friends fight bad guys, lose NPC allies, so sad.
If one of my players characters went to meet his family I'd give him a bonus to the reaction roll but he could still be hated by a family member.
Random table to discover why.
>player writes out two paragraphs of backstory
>I ignore everything that isn't directly correlated to a current motivation or blunt set up for future plot beats
>Actively ignore shit that isn't directly correlated to a build up or a defined character end goal
Your story is a means to an end, anything about your backstory that doesn't directly inform how your character behaves and what they want to achieve is superflous detail that should be rightly ignored if the GM so chooses.
>much needed depth
This is the funniest shit I read all day
"Much needed depth" for a fricking GAME PIECE lmao
>make character
>write two paragraph backstory to outline how they exist, if they know anyone and motivations
>GM now happy that he has extra things to use as a motivator, an encounter or even just an NPC to give context for something
I’m beginning to think most of you are no games considering Backstories are basically giving the GMs free encounters and plot hooks.
Yeah 1000 pages where you kill gods and achieve things that are beyond a level 1 is unreasonable, but I think just turning up with Character 1 and not even thinking why your character knows how to fight or how to do their skills is unfair to your GM.
You’re not going to immediately lose your mind and start making sparkledog xe/xims if you just thought a little bit more than “my guy fights cause he wants money”.
Your backstory should be no longer than a couple sentences. Keep it simple and don't get attached.
Bullet point background telling what your snoflayk PC was doing before current campaign, if relevant and tied to the campaign then I'll use it, otherwise whatever. Your PC personality and alignment comes out during gameplay, I really don't give a shit what you wrote on your sheet.
>player refuses to compromise on his character’s background
>try to explain it wouldn’t fit
>kill his dog
>for shock value
You sat down at the wrong table.
Player backstories are fricking moronic. Any system where it takes more than 5 minutes to create a PC is terrible
>having a story
>not just a pretext to kill things
How low did we fall?
>player backstory