If you wrote dead parents into your character's backstory because you feared your DM would kill them off to motivate...

If you wrote dead parents into your character's backstory because you feared your DM would kill them off to motivate your character you have a shit DM.

Agree. There is so much a dm can do with family other then kill them off.

It's pretty sick that the only way people think we can emotionally motivate people into an experience is by death. Death, death, killing.

makes u think

perhaps there is too much violence in the media

>DM raises them into the BBEG necromancer's army

Potentially. I have no idea as to the root, but it's a problem.

>be DM
>no PC ever has any family
>ever

It's getting boring. They're always adventuring just to be adventuring. I hope I can get them invested into something more, this time.

We could have family members just be vaguely threatened by the actions of the villain. Say, if they're stuck in a place that the villain is threatening, and would be far worse off if the villain succeeded. That creates stakes, since if the PCs fail, then even if they survive, someone important will be in peril.

We can also have family members acting to bring quest hooks to the PCs. Say if one of them calls or sends a letter recommending the PC looks into some rumor, or asks them to come home to deal with a robber-baron or something.

There's also the possibility of just having nice living relatives who the PC can exchange letters with and visit sometimes. That can help them feel like complete people with families instead of roving murder-robots.

I tend to kill off parents because I just like having characters that aren't tied down to a single location or something. I have a hard time imagining anyone who isn't an asshole running off into dangerous bullshit PC's do if they have a family that gives a shit waiting for them unless the game has been shoehorned into a save the world plot from day 1.

You mean like anyone who has joined the army, or done any foreign aid work/contracting. Shit even look at the crusades.

Writing backstory is lame. I prefer DCC style 0 level character funnel and create my backstory through play events or at least the part in which the character becomes a hero.

We even had Christian people who went into the Barbary piracy trade, spending their time abducting Christians into slavery for the Muslims. It's almost like money is a good motivator.

Yeah, most games don't have you joining the army.

>We even had Christian people who went into the Barbary piracy trade, spending their time abducting Christians into slavery for the Muslims
I didn't know christians always had living parents?
Also
>spending their time abducting Christians into slavery for the Muslims
>. I have a hard time imagining anyone who isn't an asshole running
Even ignoring the religious aspect, selling fuckers into slavery is a pretty dick move.

They had families, user. In one instance, when one of them pulled into the port of his hometown for repairs, the local leaders got his family together in order to dissuade him from being a pirate. Instead, a lot of locals joined his crew.

And nobody at that time thought the institution of slavery was wrong. They didn't like their own being kidnapped into slavery, sure, but these guys did avoid capturing their own countrymen. But they didn't give a fuck about the Irish or Icelandic. We also had rich folk who would pull into North African ports to buy back Christian slaves.

But seriously, the majority of historical people came from large families and had living relatives. And many of them pulled dick moves.

To be honest, I think the whole idea of an extensive backstory is bullshit. All you really need to explain is why you are with this adventuring group right now. The DM shouldn't have to resort to "you have to do this because ur parunts", that's the stupidest reason ever, you're an adventurer risking your life on a regular basis, would you really do that if you were the type to be worried about your parents? And you shouldn't have to resort to "nuh uh, because my parunts are ded, I called it", because if you're vetoing that much of the game then you might as well just declare yourself to have better stats and levels and win that way like the pussy you are. It's beyond mere shittiness and borders on mental handicap assuming you're older than 12.

Players that make sure to tell their DM "My family are all dead and I don't have any real friends outside of the party" are really just communicating that they don't want the story that unfolds as the game is played to include something that might happen with/to them if they are alive.

Sometimes it's because they've had a shit DM that tried to use the family as rail-road bait to force the player to have their character do really stupid shit. Sometimes it's just that they aren't interested in that dynamic of interaction (because having friends/family might mean less action and adventure).

The best thing to do, in my experience, is talk with the player about why they don't want to have family and friends for their character. That way, if their reasons are things you can remedy by not being a shit DM, you can actually earn the player's trust so they are no longer at maximum personal ties avoidance levels with their characters.

My players used to have a shit DM and were scared of including families for their characters because of him. Now they like adding to their family tree as desired throughout a campaign - because sure, you might end up with an uncle that needs a favor, but you also have a good chance at having a cousin who you can stay with and save money on lodging and food.

That doesn't really make them not asses. Just because no one thought it was wrong. There were points in our history were we didn't think marital rape was wrong either.
>But seriously, the majority of historical people came from large families and had living relative
Good thing we're not playing a historical game.

>All you really need to explain is why you are with this adventuring group right now.
THIS
Oh my God, I am so sick of reading several pages upon pages of backstory relating this person's family, their friends, where they grew up, what their previous occupation was, what their favourite rock was in the town they spent the summer in that one time, and on and on and on.
All you need is the immediate events that lead to your character being where they are at the start of the campaign. By all means, keep all of that stuff handy, and I think it's very useful to have a solid backstory, but it only needs to come up when it's relevant.

I do it primarily so my character doesn’t have family as a motivation at all.

This doesn’t always work, sometimes nostalgia, grief, or guilt are still applicable.

The point is that people leave home all the time to do stupid, dangerous, uncertain shit. It's a part of life to leave your family behind and start a life on your own.

>in the final battle, all the PCs families are there as undead servants defending the necromancer