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1 year ago ::
Jan 06, 2012 - 11:34AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2007
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Then present him with threats that aren't related to his backstory.
This! The above is great advice!
It is likely your friend does not realize that 'bad things' in his backstory are plot hooks and good for the game.
He also may not realize a good player works with the DM to weave a story and help the game move along.
Some players see any DM advice about backstory as 'DM running my charcter for me'
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1 year ago ::
Jan 06, 2012 - 12:00PM
#12
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The problem is that he constructs his backstory and runs his character in such a way that I feel he's purposefully dodging any kind of repurcussions and/or negativity.
So what, really? Why does he have to have shortcomings/repurcussions/negativity from his backstory if he doesn't want to? Just because the other players do? That's sounds like what you are "making" him do that he doesn't like.
As an alternative backstory example: what's wrong with playing a simple farmer who never had any kind of trouble or adventures until an old Wizard came along and recruited him for something?
I wouldn't worry about further fleshing out his past. Besides, he already has given you stuff to work with - just have some elves from his village show up and start chasing him around one adventure...
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1 year ago ::
Jan 06, 2012 - 12:21PM
#13
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2004
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I wouldn't worry about further fleshing out his past. Besides, he already has given you stuff to work with - just have some elves from his village show up and start chasing him around one adventure...
Good advice.
Where so-called "story games" get things right is to use gamers' tendancies to optimize as a way to create interesting situations. For instance, in Spirit of the Century, one way to make sure you have enough FATE points to use the amazing Aspects you picked for your character is to make sure that at least some of those amazing Aspects are double-edged enough for the referee to pay you FATE points to compel you to make interesting choices. Optimizing then becomes a game of trying to be as interesting and involved in the story as possible.
Of course, you can't exactly die in Spirit of the Century.
This guy doesn't want his character to get in trouble. It's not interesting to him, it's more like a personal affront, highlighting an opening he left for people and events to get to him. He's optimized to stay out of trouble, not realizing that the point of the game is to get into trouble that the characters can handle in interesting ways.
I still recommend you ignore the guy. He's given you nothing. If this were Spirit of the Century, he would long ago have used up his FATE points and have no easy way to regain them, so he's basically a non-entity. While he's riding along with the party, make sure some of the backgrounds you have for the others make good things happen to them, and not to him. Once he sees that those hooks catch the good and the bad, he'll be more interested in using them. But don't reward him for unequivocally good hooks and if he pulls back his interesting hooks after getting goodies, then go back to ignoring him.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
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1 year ago ::
Jan 06, 2012 - 5:32PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2008
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He's stated one backstory key point: The murder of his wifes lover and hes on the run. Elves live a long time and birthrate is low- murder is a major crime. Maybe some wanted posted, or bounty hunters?
Also maybe work with him to find a clan name of his making, that does what he wants. However noble or peasant it is.
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Where's the fun in that?
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1 year ago ::
Jan 06, 2012 - 5:54PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2004
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He's stated one backstory key point: The murder of his wifes lover and hes on the run. Elves live a long time and birthrate is low- murder is a major crime. Maybe some wanted posted, or bounty hunters?
I like this idea, but does anyone else figure that this guy will backpedal? "I didn't really kill him," for example.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
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1 year ago ::
Jan 06, 2012 - 9:15PM
#16
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If this were Spirit of the Century, he would long ago have used up his FATE points and have no easy way to regain them, so he's basically a non-entity. While he's riding along with the party, make sure some of the backgrounds you have for the others make good things happen to them, and not to him. Once he sees that those hooks catch the good and the bad, he'll be more interested in using them. But don't reward him for unequivocally good hooks and if he pulls back his interesting hooks after getting goodies, then go back to ignoring him.
To the OP - Centauri brings up another good idea: Spirit of the Century is a fantastic game and the fate system he is talking about is really cool. So much so that I adopted it for 4E (along with another cool idea from MouseGuard). You don't have to run out and go buy Spirit of the Century, but the point is you could come up with some simple house-rule system that rewards players for the behavior you want to encourage...
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1 year ago ::
Jan 07, 2012 - 10:23AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2007
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I'm not sure if anyone but myself would like or even use this idea but - what if everything he says is true?
His character could be slightly unhinged in time. While he himself has lived one set of realities, his memory is crowded with the shadows of all the possible pasts his character could have experienced. So, when he says he is from one tribe of elves, he sort of was - but in a different reality, he was raised in a different tribe, and so he denies being a part of the one he just said he was a part of.
This, of course, would be something you should talk to the player about. It doesn't look like he really wants to have story hooks from his character's past, so maybe it would be best to just ignore his past. But the things he does in gameplay can come back to haunt him - if he deals the killing blow to a certain enemy, perhaps that enemy had powerful friends who come looking for revenge, or the enemy is raised as undead and hunts him down?
Another option is to have the character's future come looking for him. Maybe, one of his possible futures involves him destroying some artifact, and a cult dedicated to the artifact travels back in time to kill him before he can enact that future. Or allies of his from the future come back to help guide him onto the path that leads to the artifacts destruction? Then, without touching his backstory, he becomes sort of a centerpiece for this fantasy time-war.
But I've been writing a campaign for Aberrant that focuses on time travel, so I'm probably being narrow-minded.
What might help is some idea of what the main plot of your game is like. Maybe it would help to weave his backstory into the main plot, so everyone is interested and will take part when someone connected to his past arrives? If he isn't really into role-playing, having situations where the other players help him out might make him more comfortable.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 07, 2012 - 12:11PM
#18
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- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
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He's stated one backstory key point: The murder of his wifes lover and hes on the run. Elves live a long time and birthrate is low- murder is a major crime. Maybe some wanted posted, or bounty hunters?
I like this idea, but does anyone else figure that this guy will backpedal? "I didn't really kill him," for example.
If the player is actually trying to avoid background-related threats to his character, then he might very well resist this approach, true.
What about background-related opportunities? Say, instead of elvish assassins or whatever, he comes across a message from the clergy of Zehir offering him wealth, power, and/or prestige, in exchange for assassinating a key figure. Maybe a corrupt noble or a high cleric of Bane or something. Try saying "Oh, I'm not actually a worshipper of Zehir," to THAT.
I know this sounds like the OP's incentive plan for making up more of a backstory but to be honest, I think you have more than enough of one already from this guy. Least it's a backstory more fleshed out than "my character came from a place and did stuff."
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1 year ago ::
Jan 07, 2012 - 1:13PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2004
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If this were Spirit of the Century, he would long ago have used up his FATE points and have no easy way to regain them, so he's basically a non-entity. While he's riding along with the party, make sure some of the backgrounds you have for the others make good things happen to them, and not to him. Once he sees that those hooks catch the good and the bad, he'll be more interested in using them. But don't reward him for unequivocally good hooks and if he pulls back his interesting hooks after getting goodies, then go back to ignoring him.
To the OP - Centauri brings up another good idea: Spirit of the Century is a fantastic game and the fate system he is talking about is really cool. So much so that I adopted it for 4E (along with another cool idea from MouseGuard). You don't have to run out and go buy Spirit of the Century,
Especially since the SRD is available online: www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate...
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
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1 year ago ::
Jan 09, 2012 - 5:29AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2007
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To recap the essence of the problem: a player won't allow any kind of backstory or roleplaying refinement/exploration that could possibly inconvienence/harm him in any way.
If everybody in the campaign has a back story that is supposed to create problems for the characters, just ask him outright what sort of problems he expects to run into and work with those. What I think happened is that you and the other players had an unspoken expectation that character backgrounds would create campaign complications, but he doesn't. So now your trying to introduce things on the fly to add complications, and he is trying to avoid it.
On a purely mechanical side, work with him to get his background written down so there is less room to tweak it on the fly. This will constrain both of you a bit, but with a player who can't decide on a single background or keeps altering it on the fly, this is the way to go.
Jay
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