GMs of Veeky Forums, do you like it when your players have characters with definite goals and plot hooks in their backstory they'd like addressed or involved in the story in some way? Do you think it's helpful and makes sure everyone is invested, or do you feel like it's stepping on your toes and demanding the spotlight?
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Yes of course. It makes me feel as though I'm making a campaign they're actually invested in. Players who don't make a backstory with plot hooks are content to go along with anything but that's not necessarily a good thing since it infers they're going to be largely apathetic to whatever you put out.
yeah, I encourage it. It will not always pay off, but even when it doesn't it will passively have already left its mark in the story, making my job easier.
Not only do I support that, but I demand it out of my players. They need to have some sort of quest in their backstory.
This is basically the exact opposite of the opinion I've encountered in the wild. Nearly every DM I've played with gets really pissy if you have anything other than a perfectly generic backstory (Under the logic of "you're just starting out", even if we're starting at above level one or a system that sort of expects your character to have history/accomplishments) and you definitely can't have goals other than "complete the current quest", because that's demanding unfair attention and being a snowflake faggot. In either case the dudes I've played with have taken great joy in monkey's pawing whatever plot hook or goal you came up with into a form of punishment or mockery
>Want to recover your family heirloom sword that was stolen? Well here it is right off the bat, but oops! It's a -7 cursed sword that makes you retarded.
>Want to find your long lost sister? Well here she is, she's that barmaid I made you sleep with! And she has syphilis!
>Your wife was killed by brigands? Well they came back to finish the job. They're level 18 btw. Have fun!
Well that's not my fault. You are just running into people who don't have much experience. I probably would have had the same response when I was 16.
All of them were 20+ and had been DMing for years. One of them was the 46 year old owner of my local game store. People loved his games, too, despite the fact that they were railroady as fuck and full of dumb "gotcha" shit like that
Grogs are like that. You are just starting and if you have a goal it is to get loot and later is to build a fort/castle/tower of magic
Yes. It means I have something to build the plot around, and farms some plot out to their brains.
Shit DMs, the lot of them.
You're like the players that specifically search for every single type of trap in every single room because a DM has conditioned them to by way of one suddenly being there if they missed anything.
Oh man I hate DMing for players coming from a killer grog GM. They're like battered wives combined with conspiracy theorists. Everything is a trap or an ambush or something, and everyone is out to betray them, and then you can't actually use traps/ambushes/etc because it just confirms their suspicions and they double down on paranoia
These sorts of people don't get the point of role playing
If you want to make your own story, just write a fucking book
Roleplaying is about the adventure that the players go on, not the story that the GM wants to tell
I was at the event OP's photo was taken. I know this guy IRL. He works for a famous British comics company as his dayjob. This is fucking weird.
Who are you, OP?
>Do you think it's helpful and makes sure everyone is invested, or do you feel like it's stepping on your toes and demanding the spotlight?
Players usually don't give a flying fuck about each other's backstories or don't remember them. As long as it's not something directly tied to the character's family but rather a general nemesis there's a chance they won't even figure out what's going on if the adventure is entertaining.
If it's something they want set in stone like "my great grandfather the legendary heroes' sword is at this location and I want to get it" fuck no
If it's something vague I can actually work with like "I have a brother who doesn't like me" or "Someone murdered my parents and I wanna get back at them" I will definitely think about it and find a way to work it in.
tl;dr if they try to do my work for me, I'd rather them not. If they give me ideas to work on, definitely yes.
I usually have a general outline for a big over-arching plot for the campaign, and then I use my player's goals and plot hooks to help fill in the blanks. It keeps the story personal while also ensuring that it stays focused.
I encourage my players to give me plot hooks in their backstories, but I'd prefer they come to me with a vague character idea and work it through with me rather than creating it in a vacuum and presenting it to me as a complete package. Without it being so rigidly defined, it's easier to negotiate and figure out cool ways to fit their character into the world. I struggle more if someone brings me something entirely finished that they're unwilling to budge on, as opposed to someone who has a framework that we can then work together to fill in.
Yeaaah those DMs are That DMs who probably dont want any focus taken off of their "work of art worldbuilding". I demand that players have a legit backstory and real characters
>characters with definite goals
If I can't figure out what your character's goal is from reading over your character sheet/one paragraph bio I'm going to ask you why that character is even there.
>plot hooks in their backstory
These help a lot, they let me write stories in which the characters are going to get involved because "it's [character]'s [thing]!"
>demanding the spotlight
You won't get far with that shit with me. I move the spotlight around a lot, and even occasionally put the watcher-type players on the spot.
I like players with characters who have hooks and goals. The only problem becomes when some players have hooks and others don't.
>I kill X NPC!
>W-what? Why?
>Because I'm sure they'll try to fuck us over!
>Okay. After a short struggle you kill X who dies with a blood curdling scream.
>The clamor attracts a pair of paroling guardmen. Roll for initiative.
>Ha! I KNEW X was going to screw us!
Depends on the game.
Do it in a "I've written a dungeon crawl that we're going to play through" and get pissy that I totally ignored your half-dragon prince's long-lost, twin brother? Get the fuck out.
But if we're playing anything WOD and all creating characters, then it's nearly mandatory that you work out your backgrounds and we hook it into the game.
I'm just some guy. Found the picture on pintrest while looking for cool 15th/16th century larp/cosplay stuff.