DM: Lay off with the "My parents/family/wife died" backstories. Not everyone needs a tragic backstory

Admittedly it does depend on the alignment. That's definitely a very LE viewpoint.

I think kidnapping would be more effective though.

'It makes sense' does not excuse shitty storytelling.

Really?

That definitely depends on the situation.

If they have every reason to suspect it'll happen, whether they anticipate it or not, and it happens, that's only bad storytelling if you're bad at telling it.

>play Human Fighter
>farm hand who married childhood sweetheart and has two young children
>tried the settlers' life but when that didn't work, became sword for hire
>while adventuring, find put family has disappeared
>whole group is invested in finding my wife and kids
>goes on for a couple sessions before finding out wife and kids kidnapped by bandits
>track them down
>fight our way through
>find wife in bandit leader's bedchamber
>DM describes the scene, detailing her as wracked with pleasure as she eagerly bucks against the bandits massive member
>DM grins as he describes my wife begging for the bandit's orc cock as another orgasm overtakes her

By this point we were all in disbelief and didn't know how to proceed. I tried to roleplay through the situation, figuring he was going for some shock value (i think he thought it was funny), but then he started with how my character's wife had been doing this all along and my kids were really the orc dude's, blah blah blah.
The game ended a few sessions after that. I think it just weirded everyone out too much.

>The game ended a few sessions after that.
>a few sessions

This is why every character I play has no surviving family and does not marry. I've yet to meet a GM who won't exploit it.

You should stop playing with Veeky Forums.

For some reason, that picture always makes my eyes drawn to the drink. Never the girl.

Dunno why either, she's quite easy on the eyes.

But on topic, I've never had that happen to me. Most likely because our current party is literally family of Dorfs. I'm the Old Drunken Grandpa Dorf Cleric of the Dorf God of War and Alcohol. Everyone else is either lawful or at least non-chaotic. It's fun being the crazy grandpa.

It's the prominence of the drink in the frame and the fact that her body is positioned such that she's pointing toward it.

This basic impulse to pay attention to what whoever you're observing seems to be paying attention to is how magicians manage to do what they do.

I will never understand DM's that shove their fetish in everyone's face, and I'll also never understand NTR/Cuckold lovers.

>I will never understand DM's that shove their fetish in everyone's face
They're shitty people and this is the only way they can ever do anything even vaguely sexual involving another human being.
>and I'll also never understand NTR/Cuckold lovers.
I think in most cases it's a humiliation fetish that got out of hand.

>you will never get to go on adventures with your whacky dorf family as the grouchy grandpa

why live

Nice post, I'll save that in my 'Things that never happened' folder.

It's that gave it away.

By that time I'm pretty sure we were done.
We had already sat through the crucifixion of a suspected witch. Shit rolls meant we never did know if we got the right person so we sat there while he described the whole gory ordeal.
As I said before, I think he just loved to shock us. We limped through the next little bit, but just ended up getting tired of it.
He's retarded most times, but he's my brother and one of the better DM's we've had.

>gm wants detailed list of what the character can do and has you rigorously pick out gear by his standards at chargen
>session starts with you as a slave in a land far away
>you will never see the gear again
>what you did before is discouraged and npcs will shun you for any attempt to blend in
>like this every game you play because he is the only other person who will run games

Fuck this hobby.

Lucky you.

Waking up and finding everyone you've ever known is dead is not something that'll inspire the average person to greatness, in fact, it does the opposite.

The reason why it's such a shitty thing to do is because you're effectively severing every possible plotline that could've been made during this character's arc just to attain a blip of drama that most people will see coming a mile away and inspires them to never waste their time coming up with that much character detail ever again.

Then you get ready to tell a story of wonder and excitement only to discover that everyone made nameless mercenaries who kill shit for loot and only interact with someone about as far as they prove useful.

I have my characters spontaneously care about them as much as the GM did. "Oh, that's nice. How many pieces? Man, that'll be hard to bury. I guess I'll leave them for the crows."

Wait - was the wife human too? Since your character was human, you'd think he'd notice goddamn half-orc kids.

Run games yourself.

Reaction A: Make all your named family members really badass, so you can at least hope to hear about their rad last stand if they do get killed, if not participate in it yourself.
Raction B: Make your named family members obvious villainous antagonists to your character. I'd expect an adversarial DM to gleefully add them to the party's rogue's gallery rather than kill them off.

I do, he is the only one who runs games besides me so I have a chance to play.

I go out of my way now to run as long as possible and always have game ideas on hand.

Story arcs with family members that don't involve killing them.

>Character's younger sister is dating a guy you secretly suspect/know to be the BBEG, but for some reason you cannot tell anyone.
>Character's family member needs help moving to a new home, but they found some weird things that look magical in the basement and they want the character to check it for traps/possible resale value
>Character's great great grand uncle just died and left his house to the next of kin that can spend the night in the house, but everyone died who spent time in the house
>Character's nephew/little brother has gone away to the big city and joined a dangerous group of political revolutionaries
>Character's mother/grandmother asked you to find and deliver a message to someone before she died
>Character is an orphan, but it turns out one of their parents is still alive an important member of the community
>Character's child is showing signs of a rare type of magical talent and needs to find someone who can educate them properly

She was human...i did mention he (DM) was retarded right?

It's time to sit down with him and have a come to Jesus meeting.
If all else fails, be a real brother and tell you peanuts he's into some fucked up shit.

We did that once. Basically other than another PC, my character wanted to torture/humiliate/murder/enslave every other member of her family. It was a good day after a year and a half when we finally got to break the spirit of my half brother by killing his dragon waifu.

I heard of a Shadowrun game where one player decided to have an NPC mentor who had died in front of them. One who was definitely dead.

The GM decided to spite the player by having the storyline involve two different ghosts of the mentor. One being a regular ghost, another being some digital ghost (I'm not familiar with Shadowrun), with the two ghosts in conflict with each other.

>Putting them in peril, creating tension and building conflict takes more work, but it can be so much more fun in practice.

Indeed. The rule I try to follow is that if I put a PCs friends/loved ones in peril, they can always be saved. But the cost of saving them might not be a price the party is willing to save (depending on the themes I want the campaign to have).

If the loved NPCs keep surviving, I can keep using them. Killing them only works once. If it's a setting with resurrection, then each resurrection will lessen the impact of killing off NPCs as players realise that they can be bought back.

>Why would you/why wouldn't you kill their families?

Taking the family members of a murder hobo hostage can help you control them. Turning the family member into a corpse only adds revenge to their list of reasons for coming after you.

Remember, we are talking about opponents who the BBEGs minions are having trouble killing because, if the BBEG could kill them, they would already be dead.

Should've told him that to his face. At least bring in a human bandit if you're going to play at that sort of thing.

I can almost imagine the poor creature looked at what you'd made - loving childhood sweatheart - and thought, "Oh, he must be into my fetish too!"

>one of the PC's family members turns out to be the BBEG

I wonder if anyone's ever done this.

>for some reason
You're a gay alcoholic, user.

>and I'll also never understand NTR/Cuckold lovers.
Well if you believe such things as evolutionary psychology, seeing your mate getting dicked from someone else is suppose to make you extra horny so you immediately fuck her again, only extra deep and cum extra hard so that your sperm out compete the other guy buy numeric advantage. The horniness serve to facilitate this.

In fact the theory goes human penis has that funny mushroom shape specifically to scrape out semen from the previous guy.

>mfw when this happened in a mutants and Mastermind.
>My parents where hard-core survivalist in the Black Hills, or at least like that crazy gun toting couple from Tremors.
he should have never allowed me to role-player their fucking parents.
only picture i have to what happened.

>players who had almost been broken by GMs like that
My first D&D campaign ever I had some weird shit happen to me. tl;dr a shade ate my soul and became bonded to me. At first me and him discussed implications and it seemed really cool. Eventually, once it got adjusted, it would basically be a manservant who rode in my shadow/personal assassin. It had my soul in it, so I had to be careful not to get it killed, but whatever.
Sessions later all his promises lay shattered, and he railroaded my character's death through the shade.

It was a long time before I felt safe having companion NPCs of any kind.

As a GM, I've never done that.
As a player, I've never had that happen.
I should probably count myself lucky.

I'm actually rather surprised that a GM would reach back into a character's backstory to mess with things. It seems petty, especially when most campaigns will quickly take things far away from a character's backstory.

I actually have had the players stop by their families' residences on occasion, usually on the way to or from some adventure or another. I also throw in little things, like the Warrior Summoner(from a port town) seeing the dusty little ships in her bedroom that her dad made for her each year on her birthday, but with her being off on adventure, he just left them there as a reminder. Or the Mentalist(son of lesser nobles) nearly getting crushed to death in a bearhug from the elderly, heavyset maid that helped raise him whenever the party stops by his parents' farm.

I have and it can work depending on what you do.

>Shadowrun. Characters brother doesn't like that he goes on runs.
>Runner brother doesn't seem to question his younger brothers life at all. Occasionally just asks, "Where is he?" "What is he doing?" and thats it. Never asks him personally what he wants or wants to do.
>Younger brother despises brother runner. Sees all shadowrunners as scum and mercenaries who treat people [even family] as a commodity or tool for use
>Younger Brother is going to school and excelling, has offers from different corporations to work for them already.
>Younger brother has signed on with one, knowing his brother has targeted them before.

They say the loyalty of a dog is by how much delicious raw meat you toss him. Good thing humans are made of nothing but delicious raw meat.

It's a perfect use of assets. He knows his brother's criminal activity, can keep an eye on him and round him up seemingly miraculously when his corp is targeted. He'll go far in the zaibatsu. I can just imagine him practicing "I know who my REAL family is, sir" in the mirror.

But user, I don't like men that way.

Happily married for 43 years now. I wasn't kidding when I said I was the crazy Dorf grandpa. I'm 66.

Indeed

And again his brother isn't questioning him anymore when he "suddenly" takes an interest in what he does.

Especialyl when the others make it seem like its nothing but puberty when he gets irritated or goes around the house, in their private rooms.

Its just a matter of time before he either gets caught, or leaves the house completely and gets his own penthouse on a better corporate lifer contract.

As a GM, I have a different problem:
>players have living parents
>They will inevitably show up at some point and tell embarrassing stories about the character's childhood.
>to the BBEG of all people

Okay, not really. My GMs have been pretty cool about my characters and their family. Of course, that's because I tend to work with them so they can be incorporated into things:

>One of my characters is a mafia child who ran away and made a family with his master and fellow Martial Adepts
>GM has the mafia side of his family try to kill the party while the fellow adept students helped out in quests as guest party members

another GM:
>my PC lost his wife and kid and father is lunatic cyborg (Game was based on Cyberpunk)
>GM makes the father a recurring antagonist, though because they're flipping mental, they've ended up inadvertently bailing the party out of tough spots.

That sounds fucking adorable

>Lich kidnaps Paladin's mother
>Paladins mother is either a full on Jew or Christian mom
>Won't stop talking about how cute he was with his wooden sword during the Lich's monologue.

Speaking as someone from a Jewish family, the last person I'd want my mother to meet would be a potential BBEG

Yes, that is ahead of girlfriends. That isn't as bad as you'd expect

Mourn for the appropriate time, re-marry a bit before confronting the BBEG just to spite your retarded GM.

please give him a complete makeover where he starts slicking his hair back and wearing animated tattoos, snorting powdered spells and generally crying out for attention

Slick back hair is a most likely. Kid is interested in the corporate look.

Then again it all depends on the party. There are a few players who carry the "If you are here to jeopardize the plans, I will chainsaw you in half without a second thought" types.

dude why are you on Veeky Forums holy shit

did you ever see the Grateful Dead in concert is my second question

Holy shit, Grognards are real.

It's honestly awesome to know people like you are here. Party on Dorfbro

>A
That's actually what I did with my character as an explanation for how the hell the guy that crit fumbles every four encounters survived being a nomad for multiple decades, he was an XP leech. Though funnily enough I'm the only guy with a perfect game attendance record, so my character actually has the most experience points out of the whole party.
My current plan for him is to try and track his family down after all this time, but we're going on a bit of an extraplanar adventure with a lot of combat projected in the near future, so hopefully he'll be able to live until then.

I'm socially retarded, don't understand how human interactions work, couldn't realistically roleplay a character with rich and fulfilling relationships.

>be DM
>make cool NPCs for characters to engage with. Oftentimes camaraderie forms quickly and set out for quest
>die during their first excursions to some retarded AoE they really should've saved against.

Everytime.

well im glad i dodged all these bullets.
i am currently running a pathfinder game where the current story arc greatly involves the PC's backstories...one of the PC's family got split up during a large battle and he is currently out to find them. (yes they are all alive but in varrying conditions of health) i feel that by giving the PC's someone to connect to and reliably go to is a good thing..

one of my other PC's (female rogue) had gotten pretty badly hurt in a gruesome fight that left her unable to have children, so she went and adopted this cute little boy and girl who had tried to pickpocket her. while it is difficult on her some times i by no means punish her for her choice nor do i intend on taking them away/killing them because i dont want to discourage noble actions or prevent them from establishing relationships out of fear of the NPC's death...because it no longer becomes fun after the PC's become so worried about connection they avoid social iteration all together

One of my favorite characters was deliberately designed to hit on as many fantasy cliches as I could manage (and some the DM actually ended up making unknowingly happen).
Obviously, every one of his family members minus him and his brother was either dead or evil before he stepped into the first session.

Also, the perspective is kind of off. The table and drink seem almost like they're near the center of a fisheye effect, leading your eyes to the drink, and because this effect of perspective isn't applied in any way to the girl, it makes her less dramatic. Everything about the image is drawing your attention to the drink because of the way it's arranged and drawn.

Because it's a game you fucking goon.

One of my favorite "one guy is missing" sessions is to have on the PCs return to one of their hometowns and everyone does comfy, low risk quests for his friends and family

This is why I make most of my characters orphans.

I can't stand GMs who do this shit: it's not okay. It's okay to put the family in danger and shit, but kill them off screen just because is one of the douchiest things to do, it fucking sucks: I mean... I play the game to get away from reality and all the random deaths that occur, not to just sink in deeper because the GM thought he needed some extra cheap drama or someshit.

I have a tendency to play characters whose family actively wants to kill them. My current character (pathfinder) is a catfolk barbarian/fighter/horizon walker. He's the eldest son of a mighty warlord far in the southern continent (past where the basic map goes). However, he's an abrasive dolt and is considered a poor fit for rulership so his father made up a bullshit "vision quest" that he had to go on and sent two family friends to basically lead him somewhere far away and inaccessible and ditch him. My character being an idiot thinks this is part of the test, then immediately starts going in the opposite direction from his home. His family pronounced him dead and gave his inheritance to his smarter younger brother.

Had it one time when GM was trying to pull us into a plot we were really uninterested in. Turned out the recurring antagonist we were trying REALLY HARD to ignore (he appeared as nothing but GM's attempt at morality wank + Fantasy Batman) kidnapped our character's parents. Reactions:
>edgy AF assassin: "If I ever have to meet my parents again it would be only to MURDER THEM MYSELF they hated me abused me every damn day before selling me off on a slave market for a couple of silver pieces I FUCKING HATE THEM"
>barbarian: "I'm fairly certain that I killed my father. Anyhow - he's dead to me. And women aren't really people, so..."
>sorc: "My parents are dead"
>paladin (me): "Oh. W-wow. They are actually still alive? I mean, I genuinely thought for years now that they just died of old age back in their home. They're gotta be in their late 80s by now. Well, whatever - I haven't seen them in about 20 years and we have more pressing issues to deal with other than saving a couple of senile old folks from a man who SHALT NOT KILL anyway, so - pass"

>"Oh yeah my family is still alive and living in [unspecified location]"
>GM tells you that you receive news that your family was killed
>"Oh I doubt it, the messengers description doesnt sound like them at all"
>BBEG presents you with the disembodied heads of your alleged family
>"Nope, I dont know any of those poor people"

Its nice to see the medic from tf2 take a more offensive role.

>Not going in with an ubersaw+medigun pair

Eeeewww

2 of my players' characters had a family and I used them both to great effect without fridging them
>dwarf was married to a smith who he was afraid of. Would make armour for the party and threaten him.
plot points included
>adopting a goblin while he was out adventuring
>a fetch quest for valentines day
>discovering where his new "son" had gone after a 30 year disappearance.

and an eladrin's family
>don't understand non-fey
>all chaotic neutral at best
>the player character was lawful good
>excellent fighting force in the sense they were a force of nature that crushed any non-eladrin in their path.
>lots of tense situations
you don't have to kill npc to have npc be useful

>I'm fairly certain that I killed my father. Anyhow - he's dead to me. And women aren't really people, so...

Our DM incorporates our backgrounds into the story.

I played a bitch of a Sorceress from old money and older blood who kept finding she had more and more enemies as time went on.
Her family had been using her name to bully other nobles and the upper classes to build up their political capital. She was mad about this and on returning home to sort things out the party found a civil war had been brewing and half the parties families were getting embroiled in it.

Just because you can justify something doesn't make it a good idea to implement it in game.

You can justify via probability the odd BBEG choking on their breakfast and dying before the PCs have their showdown
You can justify a random Avalanche burying the dungeon you were just about to enter
You can justify a gang of Leprechauns jumping out the bushes and kicking you in the balls for no reason.

That doesn't make any of those good ideas to put in a campaign

That was such a shit plot.
I have my baby for a total of twenty minutes before it's gone and my husband is fridged. Literally.
>Ten hours later.
Who the fuck are you?
>I'm your son.
fucking Who?

Absolutely no emotional investment at all.
Miss Journalist secretly being a Cylon would have had a more emotional impact.
And their voice acting and the constant diologue wheel breaks certainly didn't help at all.
If you're going to railroad my fucking character that much, then just give me a fucking cut scene of their reunion and call it done.

stealing this

Now that I've had my little rant to answer your question, yes.
He wasn't the BBEG, we had killed that group just prior.
He was an early plothook that had fallen by the wayside, where my Sorceress and her sister, the Cleric, were being stalked by an unknown figure.

Our characters were orphaned by a fire that killed our rather large family that both of them blamed on my character.

After an argument and being publicly disowned by her sister, my Sorceress went off on her own where her stalker finally caught her.
Said stalker happened to be her brother she thought had died in the fire that claimed everyone else.
He had set the blaze to sacrifice everyone for some demonic ritual which he's postponed because to of his sisters survived.
It was clear our DM desperately wanted to make him the new BBEG and had done a lot of work behind this idea but our party not taking the bait all that time ago had pushed the plan to the wayside. She was winging it by the end and admitted that the only reason he even came back is because we finally were pursuing this plot-hook.

Things got resolved rather anti-climatically as the party caught up and he got beaten into submission before the two sisters decided to take him back home for judgement. Meanwhile there is a pissed-off Demon Lord plotting away in the background.
We toyed with the idea of continuing the campaign, and may actually do so at a later date but for now, it's over.

Seconded.

They are adventurers, it takes a lot of effort to find out who they care about and where they are. It takes more effort to send someone after them (remember you're a BBEG because you're busy - you have more important shit to do than go fuck with some chumps family).

It's less effort to go after the party directly, and it's more likely to result in something you actually want.

And ultimately it's low effort shitty storytelling done by shit dm's who are looking for shit ways to create 'drama'.

>Go the route of saying my character doesn't know his family because I didn't want to make a big backstory
>DM tricks me into an Oedipus situation

That bastard.

>DM is all about muh realism
>playing a gritty, true to life medieval adventure
>with Elves, Orcs and Tieflings
>party consists of: 2 Humans, Dorf and Tiefling cock tease
>first major town hangs Tiefling for witchcraft
>Dorf dies of infection after barely surviving a bear attack
>Human 1 eventually dies of some bowel disease after eating tainted meat and drinking stagnant water
>Human 2 returns home to family
>family died of black plague a month ago

I hate you Kevin.

She was staring at him when he opened the door, he wasn’t surprised. He had spent too many years coming home to find her in that same spot waiting for him, watching as he went about his routine. Hat and jacket off and on the rack, keys in the bowl, check that the door is closed properly. He could still remember her copying him when she was a little girl, before things got in between them, before the split happened.

He knew she would sit and wait for him to talk, she was always stubborn like that so he felt no guilt as he poured himself a glass of whatever he had been drinking last night. ‘She was proud of you you know. She would go around bragging to all the other mothers about how her daughter was a fleet captain, the “Pride of ‘Tulia” was what she use to call you.’ The old man was already refilling the glass as his daughter just sat and listened. He was hoping that his hands would stop shaking soon, there wasn’t much of the bottle left.

‘She was happy you missed the last few months. She didn’t want you to see her in the hospital with tubes keeping her alive, wasn’t her way. Hell the only reason she even let them take her there was because she collapsed in public. She only told me when she couldn’t walk. Needed someone to water her bloody plants I guess’. The memory made him chuckle. The glass was empty again but at least his hands had stopped shaking, it made refilling it easier.

‘I’d offer you one.’ He went on gesturing to the bottle and to the woman across the room. ‘but I imagine you aren’t here to drink and share war stories with the old man. Yours will be better than mine anyway. Your brother’s were sure better than mine, don’t look at me like that you get to fly around in space battling on other planets. My war was simple, easy. One patch of dirt, two trenches and death in between. Your mother never really forgave me for letting him join up you know. She knew what it was like on the ground. I still remember the fight they had when he told her, she damn near broke his legs to get him to stay. I should have tried more to stop him too I guess. I was too proud of my boy being accepted into Jumpers School. Too proud and too stupid.’ Feeling her eyes on him he emptied what was left of the bottle into the glass and decided not to go find another.

‘We weren’t together anymore in any practical sense when it happened. I think your mother knew that it wasn’t going to be like our war. She told me the day he shipped out that he wasn’t coming home. I didn’t believe her of course. Your brother was the best the academy had seen according to his officers.’ Smiling at her he nodded. ‘That must run in the family, just skipped my generation.’

‘You were already in school when they brought him home. Three men, not the usual two. I guess war heros do get special treatment. I was away from the house when they arrived, never forgave myself for that you know. Mothers shouldn’t be handed the flag and told that their son was killed in combat by strangers. By the time I got home she had already left.’ The tears were creeping into his voice now but his eyes remained dry.

‘She took the flag but she left him with me.’ He said waving towards a small wooden box sat on the kitchen table, a metal badge shining up from its lid. ‘I never thanked her for that. They use to bring the boys home you know, back when we only had one planet. Buried them in rows, as if they would one day get up and take parade formation all over again. There is dignity in that, now however the army just ships back a little wooden box filled with your dead kids medals and a note from his commanding officer. Fucking army.’

Silence descended over the room as memories took the old man to far away places in better times. The girl sat there silent as the night, watching her father, waiting for him to speak again.

‘I am sorry I sent you away.’ He went on, the drink was gone now and his head was singing but he needed to finish what he started. ‘I should have kept you here. Protected you from all that was happening. I just couldn’t, I was already a weak old man. I could just hide it better.’ The grin across his face carried no joy or humor.

‘When you got accepted into the fleet I was so proud. My little girl was going to be a ship captain, up there in the stars on board the safest things designed.’

‘I think she was already sick by then. With how widespread it was at the end I doubt she didn’t already know when you finally got deployed.’ The shaking was back now but the old man was beyond noticing.

>GM introduces us to a sea port with all kinds of lovely NPC and we're an established guild and famed local heroes and shit.

>about three games in most of them are killed off by some spider disease and the group disbands.

>GM responds passive aggressively by replacing NPCs lost with assholes, like non LG paladins and a druggie wizard with an undead succcubus wife who held us captive to decide whether or not she should kill him for abandoning her and their daugther.

The encounters are fun at least, but holy shit there is no incentive to role play anymore.

‘I have signed back up you know. Shipping out next month. She told me not to but with her gone there isn’t anything keeping me here anymore. Just an empty house full of bad memories and ghosts of the past.’ Sighing the old man rose from his chair and walked over to his daughter. ‘I am not going to sell the place. I am going to leave it for your brothers son. It's the least I could do for that poor boy.’

Taking his daughter in his hand the old man lead her through the house. ‘While I am gone I want you to take care of everything for me. I can't trust anyone else to watch it who isn’t family.’ Setting down the little wooden box next to its twin he let his fingers trace over the engraved metal on top. ‘I know you will watch over this place the best you can.’

Standing back the old man looked down on what he had left of his children. The two little wooden boxes with their shiny metal badges reflecting the moonlight would be there to haunt him of his failures again in the morning and now he was completely alone.

Just like these American TV show. The family and neighbours only exists to be love interests, victims or culprits.

I wish I could play with cool older dudes, most groups I get are edgy faggots who wanna wank to their PoW character all day.

I hope you gouged your eyes out properly.

>implying this is a bad thing.

I've been waiting to play with my bard for ages now. A half-elf distanced from a family of noble humans (in an elf-ruled world. Dad was mom's boy-toy and he couldn't say anything when the brat was dumped on him, or the realm would strip him of his title).

>Always a wastrel, dodged his duties as the lord's son to party and help in the town
>Argues with his much more serious brother on EVERYTHING
>One day, a violent storm threatens the region
>Landslides wreck the town and bard runs in to help evacuate the people
>Returns home to find the manor's been half-destroyed by another landslide and his father is dead
>Sister, step-mother and brother are still alive
>Brother rages at bard for abandoning his family in a crisis and chases him out
>Bard is wracked by guilt and flees
>Next morning, a servant brings his lyre and a few belongings
>Tells him his brother has assumed lordship and cast the bard out
>Leaves to find adventure and hide his identity, but there's still the matter of the family he left behind

It's just been one thing after another though. First the GM's wife was in hospital, then HE was in hospital, now his kid's started teething... Starting to wonder if we'll EVER start!

>Black plague and executions for witchcraft
>In a setting with FUCKING magic

If you want to be gritty, don't throw this kinda stuff in D&D, I swear to god, your GM is the most special of all special kids.
Use Ravenloft or stuff like that, I don't know.
Or, you know, try a low fantasy / no magic system.

>implying he went to a fucking tabletop game with his guy friends to get off
putting magical realms in your game is like ordering pizza for your friends and making sure to only get toppings you like, then acting proud in your preferences instead of just being a decent human being.

>I bought you a fucking pizza
>You're gonna complain about the toppings I like

Nigga I ain't gonna make you eat it, shit get your own pizza then.

>Hey guys what kinda pizza do you want?
>Pepperonic
>Extra Cheese
>Beef
>Okay, I like anchovies so I'm gonna get that

No, fuck you!

You better pay for that pie yourself faggot.

I don't even like pizzas.

(You)