Is it ever okay to subvert a character’s established backstory?

>If your players are more towards passive consumers of your game world, I think they'll appreciate a good twist just like how they'll appreciate a good twist in a movie or a tv show.
To each their own I suppose, but why play a game if you are just passively following the story the GM has written? Why doesn't the "GM" just write the story and let the players read it?

Well presumably for the same reason people play rpgs on computers and the like. Then again, I suppose passive isn't the right word. The players still have agency and their actions still effect the world in the present and the coming future. But you do get the players who prefer to buckle and experience the world the gm has prepared for them. Which is doubly hilarious because I barely prepare anything and most of it is the player's work, whether they know it or not.

Personally though, I don't think there's anything wrong with the gm messing with your backstory. I mean if you think of the backstory as an entry on the character sheet, it's like saying the gm should not mess with your character sheet which can be taken to mean the gm should not hurt your character. It doesn't mean that but if you follow this thread, it can and that's a slippery slope. Way I see it, messing with a character's backstory is just another set of stimulus for your character to react to and if handled well can make for interesting role playing scenarios. My only gripe is that it can get old real fast. So use it sparingly.

>Personally though, I don't think there's anything wrong with the gm messing with your backstory. I mean if you think of the backstory as an entry on the character sheet, it's like saying the gm should not mess with your character sheet which can be taken to mean the gm should not hurt your character.
That is really reaching for straws there. The two things are incomparable.

HP is expected to change.

Your backstory is something that has happened. Retroactively retconning that, is never a good idea.

Worse, and that is really my personal biggest gripe, is that it makes it wasted effort. It means I have no incentive to care about the world, my characters backstory or relations. On the contrary, it actively discourages doing any kind of thinking about your characters background, relatives, friends and former colleagues. Why should I waste even a minute even considering this, if the GM might just completely erase everything and hand me a new backstory? Might as well hand me my backstory right off the bat, and let me play around that.

I dont mind that, I have played with plenty of pre-gen characters for long level 1-20 games, so if the GM wants to do that, fine by me. But don't let me waste time building a character and a background, only to just rewrite it yourself anyway, with no input from me at all.

>Craft a long and detailed backstory
>Make histifications for everything my character does, how he learned his abilities, and a list of commoners he knows from his past, like friends, family and everything.
>GM suddenly rewrites everything and tells me I now have a new background, and everything else was just implanted memories
>Character commits suicide
Suddenly knowing your entire life was a lie, and nobody you thought you knew even existed will make anybody go insane, and the thought of the other player characters might be in on it, or also be imaginary, would not be something any reasonable person would or could deal with.

Nonr of my characters are ever super stoic "I AM FEARLESS AND TAKES ANY OBSTACLES OR CRUSHING REVELATIONS IN STRIDE" cardboard hero cutouts. They are actual people.

Probability is high that they don't value effort and time you spend entertaining them. So why bother with their opinions?

Do I also need their consent and ask should and orc deal them 10 or 5 damage?

If player gives information that information is there to be used. They will usually just mention that info once of twice and then totally leave it to collect dust. Only if player has an active relationship with his background; I will leave it alone and won't fuck with it.

Man, your bait is so blatant I'm not even giving you a (you)

Is it really so far fetched though? I've played with players who get antsy when their characters take even a bit of damage, or when things go even slightly badly for them. These things - damage, status effects, etc - they are just stimulus for you to react to. Way I see it, working with the players' backstory is just another form of stimulus. But let's look at it from another angle. Now, let's take backstories. Say in your backstory you have a family. Is it okay for the gm to kill said family behind the scenes? You'd probably say no. I mean, that's like the gm saying rocks fall, you die. That's not fun. there's no stimulus to react to. But what happens if the gm has been foreshadowing it through rumors/tidbits/nothing direct. And he leaves it at that. An example: you hear the rumor of the dark lord's army having conquered the southern territories. The armies of light are making a valiant stand on the plains of . It's written in your backstory that your family lives in a village not too far. Sessions pass and you don't hear anything. Is this situation acceptable? If not, why? If so, where do you draw the line at "this thing on my character sheet is not to be messed with"?

Why not? That sounds prefectly reasonable and an interesting character arc. Maybe the party members can try to convince the player that while his memories are fake, the ones they spent together are not. Maybe they can go on a quest to find his true memories as well. Fuck man, that kind of situation is ripe for milking right there.

>Nonr of my characters are ever super stoic "I AM FEARLESS AND TAKES ANY OBSTACLES OR CRUSHING REVELATIONS IN STRIDE" cardboard hero cutouts.

I see you aren't cut out to be a Paladin.

There is a difference between this and what OP said. I love the DM expanding on a backstory; my favorite DM ever would take vague aspects of each player's backstory and weave them into each other and/or the main plot, sometimes on the fly.

I also had another DM that simply ignored my entire backstory and gave me a new one, saying what I knew before was all fake memories.

The former is a collaborative effort which is kinda the point of ttrpgs. The latter is ignoring player input which is how you run bad games.

I've actually done this with a GM before. I established the basis of what my PC thought their backstory was, and straight up told the GM 'I have no preference on whether it's true or not, do what you like with it'.

I'd only do that sort of thing with a GM I trusted, but it turned into an extremely fun experience.

Depends.
If its something important for the character, that turn to be the complete opposite, a player can be interested.
The mentor example can be nice, if both feel betrayed :
The mentor expected the disciple to follow and help him achieve the great goal he sacrificied so much for, while the other has a different interpretation of the philosophy and never understood .
both end to fight for it, with maybe a redeeming story at the end.

The false memory idea is tricky. Basically, you destroy the character background. Many players would not like that at all.
For me, i would accept but would probably lose interest in the dmpc created this way.

The best way to have a player leaving your table is to play his character.
So doing this kind of stuff must be made carefully.
Its far easier to introduce an important and lovable npc, then use it for this kind of stuff.

>Do I also need their consent and ask should and orc deal them 10 or 5 damage?
Holy strawman. One you expect to change all the god damn time, the other is the past.

Retcons are always cancerous as fuck. Losing health is not even remotely close to the same.

>Is it really so far fetched though?
Yes, because the background should be set in stone.

>Now, let's take backstories. Say in your backstory you have a family. Is it okay for the gm to kill said family behind the scenes?
This is not changing the backstory. This is making things happen now, during the campaign. This doesn't change the past, the actual events defining who the character started off as.

You are grasping at straws here. You are using completely irrelevant and unrelated points to make an argument.

If you change the background, the past, you are retroactively changing who that character is as a person. The changes could mean the difference between being a good hearted character who wants to better himself, or a bitter asshole who has a nihilistic approach to everything.

>Why not? That sounds prefectly reasonable and an interesting character arc
>Having a player character commit suicide is an interesting character arc
I think you might be retarded.

Or not, because everything else he was sure was real, was apparently retconned just now. No reason these people couldn't be in on it, or more fake shit messing with them.

And honestly, why would you take the chance? Something has a pretty good grab on you right now, to the point of rewriting everything you have ever known.

>The former is a collaborative effort which is kinda the point of ttrpgs. The latter is ignoring player input which is how you run bad games.
Perfect response.

A GM who outright retcons player input is a retard, and should stick to writing stories.

This is fine, because it is a collaboration still.

I had a guy wash ashore. He was pretty sure he used to be a sailor, he was fairly good at that. He also had a picture of a kid with a strong resemblance to himself, and a woman, and he was almost cetain this was his wife.

So as it turned out, my GM spun that into the picture being of me and my characters MOTHER, who had died as a result of my reckless behaviour, and I used to be a pirate wanted in another country, for mass murder, rape and pillaging.

But this was intended. I have a few floating pointers, and let the GM decide what to do with the truth of it, as my character made his own assumptions.

It also turned into a very interesting "what would you tell your younger self" story, as he had gathered items and stories for his "son" in the picture, and really hoped to find him again, and help him become a good man.

Please don't GM anything ever.

>killing PCs families are funny, right guys? Xd

drop hints at it

like increasingly obvious ones.

Build it up slowly, and then do it, its still likely that the player will get pissed but its valid

I've had one. A PC was a magical girl's boyfriend, and very much her knight in shining armor. Since this was a Madoka setting, the big revelation was she'd used her wish to create him.

The PC was absolutely blindsided by that.

>Its It's totally valid, so it is okay if a player gets pissed off and loses interest in the game, and any attachment he may have had to the character
Good God, dont GM please.

That sounds like a fun twist, I don’t see why the player would mind

>I dont see why a player would mind the GM erasing all effort he put into thinking up a background, reasons for his personality and decisions, and friends and family
Probably because you are retarded, user.

I'll be honest, that seems like a fair twist in a Madoka campaign. As much as I would fucking hate a GM for doing this shit in a regular game, a Madoka setting is the exact type of setting where this would seem entirely justifiable.

Or I don’t take my games as seriously as you. It’s a cool twist that puts more importance on my character, why would I mind?

"You were spun whole cloth out of recombined features of the original victims. Your memories are much the same. Everyone in this place shares a parent."

"The eldritch cocoon will not free you. It will carry on pretending to be a world until you die, and then more children will be made out of your flesh."

"There is no time loop, the entity is just rewinding things back to when you first arrived without touching you or your memories. It wants to see what you do with the knowledge, before it introduces subtle nudges."

>Is it okay for the gm to kill said family behind the scenes?
It's not okay not because it's just bad storytelling.
It's plain shit. It's not interesting as a player. You can do SO MUCH MORE and you decide to waste everything by just going "lol your family is dead ur sad rite?"

It's a shallow "wild tweest! teehee!" that is boring even in books and movies.
If you don't give a fuck about your backstory and your character, then go ahead.

When my players make a backstory I ask them what I can do with it.
Can I add something? Can I use X or Y NPC in a different way? Can I create secret that they don't know about? And so on.

Some players say no, and the backstory is set in stone, some players say yes, and the backstory will change wildly. But nobody ever complain, since I ask before the game even start.

Why is your character backstory so sacred and precious? Its just a character in a game. To me the only value in a character is how much fun you get out of their interactions with the world so why oppose a change that spices things up? Do you consider your characters backstory a work of art that this plebeian GM of yours is ruining with his “shallow” and “boring” twists?

That's a bit like watching a TV series and seeing a character grow, develop, and work with the protagonist for season after season, only for them to turn on the protag in the season finale with only a brief flashback for justification. You know it's just because the writers couldn't think of a better hook, i know it, everybody knows it, don't be shitty daytime TV.

the answer is always session 0.
know what you're dealing with when you go in, and get consent before you begin, when the time comes, peer pressure from players who are just glad it wasn't them will do your work for you. if you plan to bladerunner some poor fuck, don't ever come up an hour before the game and say "hey dude, i need to plot gimmick you, everything you know is a lie, cool?" it's cheap, lazy, and nobody enjoys it least of all the player. session 0 though, establish whatever mcguffin's you might need - "memory implants exist and your character might have blocked out existing memories, possibly to create a more convincing cover, possibly unwillingly as someone wanted to erase your memories of a particular event, cool?" that way the players understand this going in, and can even incorporate it into their own character creation.

tl;dr dont deus ex machina a character

I was going to write a post about that.

This problem come from different expectations of what a backstory is

For you, and for a lot of people, what a backstory is a little paragraph, or even one or two sentences, that describe why your character go adventuring. You don't care about it AT ALL, you don't give a shit about it. So yeah, you don't care, so if the GM play with it, no big deal.

For other people, like me, what a backstory is is what you want to PLAY. When I make, or my players make a backstory, they craft the character they want to play. They decide what he is, how he think, how he act, what he wants, what he know and the people he care about.
That makes the backstory a very important part of the character.
Changing the backstory in that case is like saying to your wizard player "hey, you're not a wizard anymore! You're a barbarian!" "But I wanted to play a wizard, not a barbarian?!" "Well, too bad, you're a barbarian now!"

It's silly, and it's a shitty move. You don't want to play in a game with a GM that will force you to play something you don't want to play. For people who make a backstory this way, it's one of the shittiest things you can pull.

And, for you, it's not a shitty move at all, since you don't care in the first place.

So, for people who do like me, we say you don't give a fuck about roleplaying and you don't give a fuck about your character, because we craft a character that we want to play before the game start.
And then, people like you call us "wannabe writers" or some shit because you think we smell each other fart and think our writing is mind blowing.

It's just a matter of different expectations and different way to play.

No, it is BECAUSE I give a shit that it matters.

If it is a weird pre-gen character I dont give a fuck about, then sure. If it is a proper campaign, where we have backstories and relations plotted out and detailed, then it fucking sucks, because you just threw out hours of work.

>Why is your character backstory so sacred and precious? Its just a character in a game.
>I dont give a shit about my character, just let me murderhobo and not give a shit about my characters outside of his ability to better murder people.
Why are you not just playing a video game?

Depends on the game and player. For a beer and pretzels D&D crawl where no one is playing seriously, or Paranoia where the only real rules are "Amuse or die", then yeah, I will deploy false memories without warning or hesitation, because no one gives a shit about the backstory they made for Bill-R-ADD. In more serious games, I'll ask well ahead of time and figure out who might be down for that kind of twist.

I once had a DM retcon so badly that the player had to admit to me that it felt like rape, and that they would have preferred being actually raped instead.

>Why is your character backstory so sacred and precious?
Changing the characters backstory means changing the context for who the character is. When you tell a player "actually this is your PCs backstory", then they either roleplay the PC with the new backstory in mind, and so the player is no longer playing a character they created; they're playing a character you made for them. Alternatively, they don't bother, in which case it was pointless.
Basically, if you want to do a big twist where the hero's backstory is subverted, just write a fucking novel, since you clearly don't care about the players actually contributing to your story in their own way.

What if it's a more serious game but you don't start with a backstory?

>To me the only value in a character is how much fun you get out of their interactions with the world so why oppose a change that spices things up?
Why do you want to throw out all the pre-detailed connections the character has to the world? A proper backstory will have multiple hooks for the GM to use, and instead you throw it out? Why are your story so important, that you want to erase any player feedback from your game? This is a collaborative story, not a GM writing his own story, and forcing it on his players.

>Do you consider your characters backstory a work of art that this plebeian GM of yours is ruining with his “shallow” and “boring” twists?
Do you consider your story a work of art that these plebian players are ruining with their pesky "input" and "player agenda"?

>hey, you're not a wizard anymore! You're a barbarian!" "But I wanted to play a wizard, not a barbarian?!" "Well, too bad, you're a barbarian now!"
Thos is actually a perfect analogy to the retarded idea OP is talking about.

Replace all mentions of backstory with class. Same shit. And honestly, with how my games usually go, I think more about what my character does, and less about how he fights, mostly just concentrating on a weapon or style (magic of some kind).

If you took my archer and said "You're a Rogue now instead of fighter!" I would shrug and, tell my GM that he has to rewrite my character sheet for me, and then continue doing what I do.

Reasonable, but still seems to take a game too seriously. As long as there was an entertaining reason for it that fit the story I wouldn’t mind a class change either though.

It’s not really throwing anything out though. How your character reacts to this revelation should be different than anyone else’s because of that. Your character is still totally shaped by their backstory, even if some/all of is fake it’s real to them.

Do you throw a fit if your character dies to bad rolls?

The entire point of games was s collaborative storytelling. It’s still your character, shaped and influenced by the GM’s world.

Presumably your character isn’t a child? He can still know people in the world and have motivations other than kill the bad guy even with an altered childhood.

If the player doesn't have a backstory, they've tacitly given me free reign to write in whatever I please for their backstory. This is a solemn duty that is to be abused only in ways that make that character miserable. Don't like "You had abusive parents who you murdered in a fit of rage and are a recovering crack addict"? Then give me *something* to work with next time.

>Reasonable, but still seems to take a game too seriously.

It's only because you decide that it's too serious.
Some people like playing seriously. Do you criticize people who want to play football seriously and not fuck around during the match? Do you criticize people who want to play chess competitively with their friends, and that's what they think is fun?

The only reason you think it's too serious is because you can't stop to think "it's just a game!"
So what? That doesn't mean that you can't care about it and invest a lot of time and passion in it. And that's how some people enjoy it. What's wrong in that?

Of course it's OK.

However, this only works when you planned it in such a way that nobody sees this coming/that the resulting event is done in such a way that it won't ruin the character.

You need to plan your campaign in such a manner that the circumstances will both allow you to pull it off and it will be acceptable by the rest of the group.

You’re taking your own contributions more seriously than the GM’s. There’s nothing wrong with taking it seriously, but everyone needs to be on the same level. If the GM wants to alter your backstory to fit the story and provide more intrigue the response should be to consider the twist and if you’d like the direction it’s take the game/character. Not “How fucking dare you”.

You should discuss it with the player.

I'm the GM.

Yes, everyone needs to be on the same level. I don't a player telling me "well, actually your setting is like that, so the prince raped my wife in my backstory!" when I told them the prince was a nice guy.

And the player doesn't want me to tell him "well, actually your father is a dick, and he raped you but you don't remember!" when they told me their father was a nice guy.

I was also talking about it on the basis of a GM doing it without taking the player in consideration. How I roll is there If I want to do something, I ask for it. If my players want to change something in the setting, or add something to it, they ask for it. And we discuss it like reasonable adults.
If I change shit without asking them to, or if they do, then yes, it's a "how fucking dare you", because it's a shitty move.

>The entire point of games was s collaborative storytelling
Exactly my point. If you're going to ignore the story elements I as a player offer you and re-write them, why am I here?
>It’s still your character
Except it fundamentally is not, because my character is defined by how I play them, which itself is guided by the backstory I wrote. Once you change that backstory, it's no longer my character. It's your character that you're telling me to play.

I think we agree, you just assumed the OP was doing it without discussing with the player while I assumed the opposite.

Implanted memories would still shape your character. If you found out today that your memories were implanted you would still act like you. The revelation might shake you to your core, but it isn’t a factory reset.

>I think we agree, you just assumed the OP was doing it without discussing with the player while I assumed the opposite.
Well, a lot of people were going in that direction.
Also, I think it's a moot point if the player agree. If the GM and the player agree, what is there to talk about? They both agreed, so it's cool. Nobody can complain

>Do you throw a fit if your character dies to bad rolls?
No? How is "bad rolls killed my character" even remotely close to "My GM completely rewrite my background without ever even talking to me"?

How is being alright with a GM asking to change an aspect of your character the same as being a murderhobo video game player?

>It’s not really throwing anything out though.
Yes it is.

>Your character is still totally shaped by their backstory, even if some/all of is fake it’s real to them.
No, wrong. If the backstory suddenly turns out to be wrong, and the old backstory is suddenly flooding back to the character, the personality will at best turn into a schizofrenic mess, at worst suicide.

>The entire point of games was s collaborative storytelling. It’s still your character, shaped and influenced by the GM’s world.
What you are proposing is not "collaborative storytelling". It is the GM taking away amy kind of player agenda, and forcing his own shitty story on the players, with no input from the players at all.

Yeah, you can roleplay it, but there are pretty much 3 solid options fod doing So
>Go completely off the tracks, questioning everything and turning on the party who is very likely in on it. PC becomes an antagonist, player has to reroll a new character.
>Character character is overwhelmed with two separate memories. Nothing makes sense, too much overload of information and no grasp on what is real, leading to suicide. Reroll character.
>Character doesnt give a shit, and continues as normal. Nothing happens, everything is pointless.

In all cases, if the player has any kind of interest in his character, you have burned all of his notes, background story and lost of relations, as APPARENTLY, the village he came from didn't exist, nobody you have ij your backstory actually exists, and the effort put into detailing this is now wasted effort.

You’re assuming so damn much and I’m phone posting that I’m not gonna bother, but what made you conclude that any “real” memories exist that could take the place of the implanted ones?

>If the GM wants to alter your backstory to fit the story and provide more intrigue
Then he talks to the player like a fucking adult, and doesn't arbitrarily throw out the players entire backstory, like a passive aggressive asshole.

The right choice is NEVER the one where you take away player agency. You ALWAYS involve them if you want to rewrite events THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

So what would you suggest doing if you DON'T like it, after considering it?

I guess another retcon is possible, since the GM apparently gives 0 fucks about continuity, and lets the plot be a mangled mess with floating events that may or may not have happened.

I still think this entire thing is retarded, because to me, you might as well have said "Remember that dungeon you went through at level 4? I know that was 10 levels ago, but just forget it happened, and remove everything you got from that dungeon, because it didn't happen anymore.

>How is being alright with a GM asking to change an aspect of your character the same as being a murderhobo video game player?
The premise discussed is "Is it okay for a GM to suddenly change the background of a character"

The GM explicitly doesn't ask, but uses it as a retarded "Oh btw, your entire backstory is fake, this is now your backstory, hehe xd So funny lmao." Meme.

... so the memories are just fake, and the real background is unknown to the character?

So effectively it is a *shrug* or "prove it faggot" response. If it turns out everything didnt exist... what's the point exactly? What are you trying to achieve? All you've done is make a characters backstory 100 % pointless as anything but the personality determinator. And for what purpose? You could have used the backstory, but instead you deleted it for no purpose other than "OH WHAT A TWEEEST.", which everybody but you wkll think is extremely fucking lame.

Thats garbage writing 101

Not everything need to be interconnected, that ends up being unrelatable

killing off/retconning a PC's family/loved ones without asking permission or giving the PC some control over these events is basically saying "Oh, so you didn't want to play a sad edgelord? Too bad, your character is now scarred for life just like every protagonist ever." The only story that a player has complete control over is their backstory, and there are some players who wouldn't take kindly to the GM taking control over that as well. In my game, I gave the GM explicit permission to control the outcome/story of my characters father, and certain other small aspects of my backstory so they mesh better with the world he sets up, but that's it, everything else is not to be touched, because that would effect the way I want to play my character.

Basically go for it OP if you want to piss your player off.

Firespitter, is that you? Hold on, it can't be. Say it ain't so, brudda!

I currently have a character for a game that may or may not happen with a really vague fairy tale-ish backstory.

To make it short, basically an old legendary Bard retired to the woods, crafting instruments for those who quest to seek him out. These instruments are basically magic and higher quality than one you'd find anywhere else. In his old age lamented he had no lineage to pass his musical knowledge to. In a dream, a magical bird dropped seeds off to him, which he found his bed as he woke up. Planting the seeds, my PC and his 5 identical brothers grew out of the ground. The Bard spent the last decade or so of his life teaching them everything he knew before he passed away, and now the 6 seed-kids are travelling the world spreading his musical knowledge and talent,

At the bottom of the story is a side-note saying that the above is the story you'd get from the Bard if you asked him where he's from. The only thing people know for a fact is he he's one of six identical children, they have a strange attunement to nature magic, and they have a musical style reminiscent of a past legendary musician. Whether that's because his story is true or not is something the Bard is purposely vague about, because otherwise it's no fun.

Still a lot of room for a DM to add things.

> Probability is high that they don't value effort and time you spend entertaining them.
You either have really dickish players or are the most pessimistic person ever.

When the first KOTOR did this I was pissed.

If you just do whatever you want because "they don't value effort and time you spend entertaining them", then its no fucking wonder they don't.
"I yell at strangers because they didn't value me not yelling at them"