>"Describe your character's hometown"
So I presented this to add some world building and so I can incorporate backstories into the game easily. This is what one play brought
>Nothing amazing happens here, everything is ordinary
How do you even work with this?
I'mma post a random setting writeup piece I wrote, once. It might sort of apply.
Peace.
That's the main export of Shaved Oak, a small village at the edge of civilisation - Peace and Dirt.
With the entire population consisting of peaceful human dirt-farmers, selling their harvests to travelling merchants each summer, and telling dull tales over small fires in winter...
not once in living memory has anyone died from unnatural causes.
It's a peaceful town.
It's also home.
You might be a bit different, from the rest. Perhaps different from your parents... a cybernetic body, a pair of fangs, or a skin-tone best described as 'Green',
you've always stood out from the rest. Still, Shaved Oakers don't discriminate.
You had a good upbringing... until now.
Summer. Almost midsummer.
Yesterday, the Blood Moon rose. That's when the moon rises, as usual, except it's red. Like blood.
That's why we call it the Blood Moon.
This morning, a two-headed calf was born, and the damn thing wouldn't stop arguing with itself.
The birds are strangely quiet.
One of the shepherds says he saw a wolf, and wouldn't shut up about it.
Damn fancy folk, not content farming dirt like proper people.
The old hag down by the pond says it's a sign from the dread god-who-is-totally-a-god.
But we don't listen to her, she's off her rocker.
Now, in this land of adventure and adversity, will you take up the challenge, and help bring in the dirt harvest before those merchants show up?
>adventurer wants a taste of life outside of his little bubble
>may come to realize that his little bubble is still the only life he's ever known and must have some people he cares about who were important in his formative years
>ordinary small towns usually feature a lot of gossip and squabbly politics between housewives or commoners who have literally nothing better to do
>might be scared, might be excited
>NPC from similar background can reminisce/commiserate
use ur head 4 more than 2 grow hair on u idiot
You can twist it as,> so many amazing and fantastical things happen here nothing can be considered out of the ordinary
Either have it be a sort of generic town, and dhow the impact of the extraordinary actions of the PCs on that town when they head there.
Make everyone creepily mundane. Nothing out of the ordinary, though.
Or have the player redo it.
Or ask the player to come up with more.
...
Obviously, you have him stalked by a bee woman wielding a guitar. If struck with it, a magic golem explosively grows from his head a few days later and cannot be convinced to leave.
Nothing amazing happened there and everything is ordinary. How is this hard?
"You do some adventuring. Everything is adventurous."
A whole campaign in one session, how lucky is he?
Seriously tell him to take this seriously and fucking write some backstory or don't bother turning up.
Because after all, even if you do just accept it and start the campaign; after a couple other players get cool sub-plots personalised to their characters mister Ordinary is going to start bitching that he doesn't have a backstory=related plotlines.
I'm really turned on by this premise
Do we need to copy and paste the paragraphs describing the Shire from the first chapters of the Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring for you guys? A great hero coming from a humble origin is one of the two most obvious, classic, cliche concepts. Granted, if they can't come up with any details you may need to prod them for more things their character would remember. Running the horses in the fall, sewing crops each spring, the bite of the cold that one winter with the timber shortage, the smell of old lady Damford's apple pie...
Because those details can help flesh out the character, in the off chance they need to delve there, but they can just as well be made on the spot a lot of the time. (This cobbler tastes just like me maw used to make...) In fact, if there are a few frayed edges to what they establish, it's all the better to fill in things situationally like that. There's no better chance at them being a lazy roleplayer with that than any other cliche or common background. It's easy enough that they were always very good at fitting in the astonishingly normal town they're from, and their adventure began when someone/thing unusual ventured in and sparked that little bit of wonderlust and potential they had. And perhaps later on their old dirt hole will become relevant, when a villain makes a pass at it and the Shire is Scourged.
Player wants his town to be safe. PC also wants their decision to leave to be correct.
The player wants lots of time to prevent threats to the town. Think of ordinary things like a bully not getting his way, and inflate it, like: leaving town and vowing to grow stronger and seek revenge.
>Nothing amazing happens here, everything is ordinary
The twist is that all the town had a terrible secret (they're vampires, cultists, a single shapeshifter played all the roles...etc) but the PC didn't ever know because they pretended to be an ordinary town. He'll find about it the worst way possible when they go into the town.
Yes, even his parents were on it.
Although the player might get annoyed if you twist the "I come from a town where nothing happens and everything is peaceful..." into "...it's only like that because of an evil cabal of locals ruthlessly eliminating any threat, perceived or real, to the peace".
Yeah what a weird thing for a wandering adventurer to say about their hometown.
Introduce the boring town to interesting times, have its ordinary residents threatened by extraordinary enemies, have the quaint quiet piece of land become Terror Central Inc.
If you're asking how do you paint the town yourself, just say it's farmland and the PC smells like cow shit because he was a farmer.
Hot fuzz it
>"Man, this outside world is so weird"
>"I can't sleep well without soothing sound of Heart of the town beating beneath the earth"
>sticks his hand before him while entering any door, explains they do that all the time to anchor the door into opening into this reality
>Gets weirdly enthusiastic upon seeing hooded figures, then gets disappointed it's just sorcerors/monks/death cultists
>Has a pet dog. Sometimes in the night the dog starts happily barking and he awakens, then spends an hour or two having pleasant conversation with thin air
>"What? You can't see mr.Chomps? Man, this outside world IS weird."
What are you trying to explain with your post? the OP is the DM, the "my town is boring" guy is the player.
If GM can talk to player, he can suggest all of the above to player, or anything previously written in this thread.
Don't you guys talk to players before the game, offering them suggestions that could go with their backstory?
Just move on and ignore his home town.
Or make something amazing happen there.
Gotcha. Your post reads like suggestions for the OP to impprove his backstory.
I'm fond of characters that have no hometown. A Planescape character concept that I've been sitting on for a while is a human wizard who was born in an interplanar trade caravan and decided to study magic because his parents dealt in magic items, and travelling between planes, he got to see a lot of magic done.
In the player's defense, you don't realize how annoying this is until you try to DM.
>tfw you've done a ton of backstory stuff for all your players and they're really engaged
>one guy won't give you anything to work off of and then says he doesn't feel engaged in the world
just make up something, anything, please
>In the player's defense, you don't realize how annoying this is until you try to DM.
It's not annoying in the slightest, you're just autistic.
Sorry to hear you can't come up with backstories user :^)
you're being a cunt
These "twists" are lame, so is the one a couple posts above this one
the "surprise! there IS shit happening there!" is the laziest thing I have ever seen. I hope to god you guys arent dms.
>railroading players before the game starts
>no no no, your character is THIS
What does that even mean? Thats so random
I swear sometimes you guys say the weirdest shit when trying to insult someone because you're trying to fit in
It's not lazy DMing if the idea is well implemented (not saying it's guaranteed to be well done, though). Conflict and things happening make stories interesting. What else would you expect from an RPG?
>talking to your players about their backstories and making suggestions
>railroading
Its fucking lame
It's not well implemented either.
Honestly this is some bad DM shit.
The number of people who react to
>my hometown was a boring normal place
with outright scorn and hatred, or
ACTUALLY YOUR HOME TOWN IS VAMPIRES
ACTUALLY THATS A SHIT BACKSTORY SO TO PUNISH YOU I MADE YOUR CHARACTER SMELL LIKE COWSHIT XD
ACTUALLY THAT A SHIT BACKSTORY, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY CAMPAIGN
>ACTUALLY HEY MAN YOUR ENTIRE CHARACTER YOU CAME UP WITH IS COMPLETE GARBAGE, YOU SHOULD TRY ACTING LIKE THIS DURING THE CAMPAIGN TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING
guys its soooooo hard to be a DM why dont players understand that describing your hometown as that makes it literally impossible
if a guy doesnt want to have a super intense backstory why are you going to force one on him? im assuming you're at least friends. why are you trying to be a dick? you already know what his life was like by him describing his town as being normal and boring. if you cant do something interesting with that during the campaign then dont dm
What the fuck is this?
First thing to do would be to talk to the player. If they're simply at a loss for how to describe a village of dirt farmers you could give them advice on that. However if they really don't want their backstory to be important at all in the campaign, I wouldn't press the issue. This is one of those "you need to know the person" situations.
That's a pretty big assumption. I don't have much of a backstory for my D&D character and I have no issue with not getting my own special background-related plot.
Alright chuckle fuck, what would a "good" DM do?
Who says it has to be intense?
Boring is fine. It's boring without any details that's bad.
Best friend was [insert name], you grew up on neighbouring farms. You have fond memories of the fruit crumble your mother made for you from the orchard produce, nobody else gets it right. There was a dog on the farm called [insert other name] who was the best dog ever. One time you saw some travelling knights and swore to become a knight.
There, your character has got a contact, a favorite food and now is known to like dogs. And hey, we've explained why they left to become an adventurer too! Still a boring as fuck farming town, but at least there's SOMETHING.