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Tech Boy
2010-12-03, 09:53 PM
I just have a quick question for all of you playgrounders out there.

I am in a campaign now. My friend and I are connected players that went through life normally and now are in our twenties and on our own.

Every single other character is an oprhan. Why is this? Even in my other campaigns, everyone is an orphan. Either their parent's couldn't take care of them and dumped them on the side of the road, or the parents just hated them as kids.

WHY?!

To me, it seems very un original and pretty flipping boring...
Any ideas on why this seems to be a default for everyone?

Scoot
2010-12-03, 09:55 PM
Because it's easier. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientlyAnOrphan)

And it's just one less way the DM can mess with you.


The only time I've ever had dead parents was with my one evil character. But that was actually rather crucial to why he was evil.

Meek
2010-12-03, 09:56 PM
The less family you have, the less family your GM can kidnap and hold ransom and/or murder and etc. To actually answer your question – most fantasy societies are based on time periods that were very patriarchal, and everybody was beholden to their dad. There's a lot of stories about exceptional and independent orphans because it's generally easier to be exceptional and independent when Daddy is dead and can't boss you around or marry you to someone or make you work his trade and so on.

Tech Boy
2010-12-03, 09:59 PM
Because it's easier. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientlyAnOrphan)

And it's just one less way the DM can mess with you.


The only time I've ever had dead parents was with my one evil character. But that was actually rather crucial to why he was evil.


Not to be mean, but still! Just because it is easy, doesn't mean it is fun...

I think that if the DM has a tie to you, or your friends, it can be used in the campaign. I just don't like to play an orphaned adventurer. Oh well.

Alleine
2010-12-03, 10:01 PM
in 99% of the characters I've seen, the backstory isn't really used. Sure it could be, but it isn't. And not everyone thinks having an interesting backstory is fun.

Rixx
2010-12-03, 10:03 PM
Having no parents is a good device for having to become self-sufficient at an early age, a convenient trait for adventurers

Psyren
2010-12-03, 10:07 PM
It provides a ready explanation as to why an otherwise well-adjusted individual might pursue the questionable career choice of the adventurer.

If you don't like orphan adventurers, just don't be one.


Because it's easier. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientlyAnOrphan)

And it's just one less way the DM can mess with you.

It dovetails nicely with other tropes too, e.g. this one (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoomedHometown) and this one. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LukeIAmYourFather)

Violet Octopus
2010-12-03, 10:11 PM
I don't think the desire to avoid DM plot twists explains the general prevalence of orphan characters.

Other possibilities:

* Player alienation from RL parents, in that stereotypical "spoiled teenager" way.
* Easy (if not effective) way to generate drama/character depth, in a half-hearted attempt to make the character more than a statblock. Related to True Art Is Angsty. Maybe a player can only think of two parent-related angsts: orphan or their parent is an evil overlord. Because the latter crosses over into defining the DM's world rather than just their character, players might be reluctant to do so.

thubby
2010-12-03, 10:11 PM
Having no parents is a good device for having to become self-sufficient at an early age, a convenient trait for adventurers

more or less this.

adventurers aren't made like most people, or they'd be a lot more common. for any adventurer, there has to be something that happened that drove them to follow a life of mortal danger, frequent isolation, and constant change.

comicshorse
2010-12-03, 10:13 PM
It means pirates won't attack you

Dr.Epic
2010-12-03, 10:14 PM
It apparently gives your character a dark, dramatic story which makes other interested and sympathetic. Personally, I think, unless it's done right, is extremely cliche and lazy writing.

Kalaska'Agathas
2010-12-03, 10:15 PM
It means pirates won't attack you

I, quite literally, loled.

AnswersQuestion
2010-12-03, 10:23 PM
As said, orphaning is a convenient way to explain why your character doesn't want to settle and have a peaceful life...

Face it, adventurers are freaks, always seeking to leave their own comfort zones to deal with deadly problems or create them!

That said, family ties make for interesting story twists.
One of my characters was sired by a dragon who happened to entertain himself by secretly manipulating an entire country's court.
The other had no relatives left because she was immortal and they weren't, but she had a Brachina lover who took part in her immortalization (human -> half fiend elan) who also supplied the cohorts and followers of her Leadership feat.

Both were masterfully used by the dm to:
1) Give the group a place to return to after the adventure is over
2) Give the group someone to get pissed at because the #1 place was burned down
3) Give the group a higher (or different) influence to lead into new quests
4) Squick the rogue as he realized his fire-forged buddy got it on regularly with a pleasure devil
5) Give the group enemies by proxy

rubycona
2010-12-03, 10:23 PM
more or less this.

adventurers aren't made like most people, or they'd be a lot more common. for any adventurer, there has to be something that happened that drove them to follow a life of mortal danger, frequent isolation, and constant change.

Agreed.

I tried to avoid making my character an orphan, but I was trying to get a certain feeling with my character, to give her the drive necessary to adventure at the risk of her own life. She didn't know her father too much, but loved her mother, and her mother was... how to summarize... basically, killed by the system, the social order. My character is, as a result, intent on overthrowing the social order, into one of freedom and equality, so people like her mother wouldn't be killed or enslaved (part of the campaign setting, not a personal background bit) as a matter of principle. Her father was killed, too. This was just before the adventure started.

Without parents, without their pressure to be good, be normal, have a life, she was free to strive and literally throw her life away if she felt so inclined, in pursuit of her dreams and goals.

Mind, I'd love for the DM to pull out cousins or aunts or whatever to pull her in more, so it's not about tying up loose ends, but the orphan thing just worked so damned well.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-12-03, 10:28 PM
Orphans as kids; violent, grave-robbing hobos as adults :smallbiggrin:

urbanpirate
2010-12-03, 10:34 PM
sets the charachter up as a classic hero. I believe it was joseph campbell who wrote and spoke extensively on the hero archetype, jesus, luke skywalker, waterbaby..... most myths and legends play on the orphan or son of absent diety being not quite of the culture they are born (or adopted into very young) into. it sets the charachter up as somthing special by default

Gensh
2010-12-03, 10:54 PM
It apparently gives your character a dark, dramatic story which makes other interested and sympathetic. Personally, I think, unless it's done right, is extremely cliche and lazy writing.

I've only ever seen it done as this, with the exception of the one time I made that campy dread necromancer who kept his parents around as zombies and interacted with them like they weren't mindless. "But Mooooooom..."

elpollo
2010-12-03, 11:04 PM
* Player alienation from RL parents, in that stereotypical "spoiled teenager" way.

I think you're reading way too much into this.

Fiery Diamond
2010-12-03, 11:05 PM
I've only ever seen it done as this, with the exception of the one time I made that campy dread necromancer who kept his parents around as zombies and interacted with them like they weren't mindless. "But Mooooooom..."

That's highly disturbing.

I'm also kind of intrigued.

I think something's wrong with me.

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-12-03, 11:06 PM
It means pirates won't attack you

It does! Hurrah for the orphan boy!
And it is sometimes a helpful thing to be an orphan boy.
It is! Hurrah for the orphan boy, hurrah for the orphan boy!

Severus
2010-12-03, 11:24 PM
I am a sad panda to think that so many people have GMs they can't trust to tell the right story.

I have great GMs, and I always have family and if they get messed with, I know it's going to be well worth the pain because the story is going to be great.

AslanCross
2010-12-03, 11:34 PM
Having no parents is a good device for having to become self-sufficient at an early age, a convenient trait for adventurers

I think this is a good point. If you have a family that's still around, chances are you're going to end up as just another baker or dirt farmer to try to support your poor family, just like most other people.

Dr.Epic
2010-12-03, 11:50 PM
I've only ever seen it done as this, with the exception of the one time I made that campy dread necromancer who kept his parents around as zombies and interacted with them like they weren't mindless. "But Mooooooom..."

I wasn't talking tabletop RPGs. I was talking fiction in general. Seriously, how many protagonists lost both (or at least one of their) parents at a young age? Off the top of my head let's see how many I can name:

Superman
Batman
Spiderman
Wolverine (pretty much any X-Men too)
Kick-Ass
Hit Girl
Probably the vast majority of superheroes (but I'm too inexperienced with comics so I can't really say)
Luke Skywalker
Anakin Skywalker
Too many Final Fantasy characters to name
Frodo Baggins
Finn from Adventure Time

the list goes on

mootoall
2010-12-03, 11:53 PM
I just think the oddest part of it is how, once they're dead, they just ... never come up again. It'd be a fine day when all of them sit down and this happens:

"It's the anniversary of my parents' death today."
"Really? Mine too!"
"No way! How were yours killed?"
"Marauding orcs!"
"Marauding kobolds!"
"Oh my gods, we should go get revenge on our now-ridiculously-low CR enemies together!"
"Alright!"

druid91
2010-12-04, 12:00 AM
The obvious reason is so your wizard with an itchy trigger finger can blow up the orphanage and have a legitimate reason to do so...


...I have never once done this.
Unfortunately.

thubby
2010-12-04, 12:05 AM
superman didn't (not in any meaningful sense anyway), and he's a marty-stu.

lightningcat
2010-12-04, 12:05 AM
I've only had one PC that was an orphan. He was a half-elf that was left on a monastary doorstep when he was a baby. It was a good reason for him to hate elves, but otherwise in never came up in game.

Coidzor
2010-12-04, 12:08 AM
It means pirates won't attack you
I, quite literally, loled.
What?

That's highly disturbing.

I'm also kind of intrigued.

I think something's wrong with me.

*shrug* I came up with the idea of using undead as pots for gardening soil to grow floral vines over the mobile frames. There's just something about undead. :smallbiggrin:

Galileo
2010-12-04, 12:27 AM
As far as backstory devices for explaining the character's decision to enter a life of murderous vagrancy go, I always preferred having alive parents who were ex-adventurers. It has the added bonus of offering an alternative explanation for why a character who starts at higher level has a ton of magic gear: cause his folks let him dig around in the attic before setting off.

Otacon17
2010-12-04, 12:29 AM
superman didn't (not in any meaningful sense anyway), and he's a marty-stu.

How is it not meaningful? The whole 'orphaned alien' thing is a pretty major part of Superman.

Kalaska'Agathas
2010-12-04, 12:37 AM
What?

comicshorse is making reference to one of Gilbert & Sullivan's classics, namely The Pirates of Penzance.

Edit: I guess I should explain. In Pirates, the Major General lies to the eponymous pirates about his being an orphan boy ("Oh Men of Dark and Dismal Fate"). They are sympathetic, being themselves orphans, and let him go. Pirates, being a comic opera, a show I have worked on, and which is very dear to me, tends to elicit feelings of humor in me. Hence, when comicshorse referenced it, I laughed, literally, out loud.

Artemis97
2010-12-04, 12:43 AM
Well, in the case of the ... darker classes. It's unlikely a well adjusted young person with a supportive family is going to go around stealing, stabbing people in the back, wandering far from home, summoning dread creatures... you get the idea. And I'm pretty much reiterating what others have said before.

In response to the orphans in fiction question... it's fairlu well recognized that Disney seems to have something against parents. (Bambi's mother getting shot, anyone? I think I'd still cry if Iw atched it again today.) And beyond any strange patterns or ulterior motives, I think it gives the main character a need to be more independent, or a strong motivation to do right by their lost parent(s), both which get them out the door and on the road to adventure.

Either way, it's certainly a more interesting tale than "Susie went home to have dinner with her folks." Charming as that image is, it's just not very gripping.

Strife Warzeal
2010-12-04, 12:57 AM
I've only ever seen it done as this, with the exception of the one time I made that campy dread necromancer who kept his parents around as zombies and interacted with them like they weren't mindless. "But Mooooooom..."

If I ever play a necromancer character (at one point probably), would you mind if I borrowed that idea? It seems like it could be really fun and creep others out.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-12-04, 12:59 AM
What?

I think they're referencing Dr. McNinja. It's a hilarious webcomic that can be found here. (http://www.drmcninja.com)

Dr.Epic
2010-12-04, 01:01 AM
superman didn't (not in any meaningful sense anyway), and he's a marty-stu.

Superman's home planet (as well as his biological parents) were destroyed. He's an orphan regardless of anything else.

Zeful
2010-12-04, 01:12 AM
And it's just one less way the DM can mess with you.

That is a myth. Making the character an Orphan gives the DM free reign to create that character's family. Have a recurring, beautiful female NPC? Your Sister/Mother, bonus points if the DM springs this on you after you "sample the wine". The evil archmage? Your Father. Little girl raising Zombies and Skeletons? Your Uncle (Soul Jar shenanigans)/Sister.

Having a family means that the DM loses one way of messing with you in exchange for another. The same goes for the other way round.

Gensh
2010-12-04, 01:15 AM
If I ever play a necromancer character (at one point probably), would you mind if I borrowed that idea? It seems like it could be really fun and creep others out.

Go ahead. I can't remember any right now, but there are actually a few examples in fiction that you could probably get some good ideas for the character dynamics from. As far as this guy goes, it was even worse since he graduated from a prestigious all-boys religious school and still ended up neutral evil and completely crazy...

mucat
2010-12-04, 01:22 AM
I don't think I've ever played an orphan (unless you count middle-aged or older characters whose parents have died of natural causes.) But for about half the characters I play, something has happened to cut them off from their former network of social ties and obligations: exile, war, criminal charges, financial collapse, or just personal fallings-out.

The other half, though, are still perfectly at home in society, with families and obligations, and their "adventures" make sense in that context. They are scholars doing field work, soldiers on a mission, merchants plying trade routes, or druids watching over their forests...and then surprising stuff happens to sidetrack them for a while, but they still have every intention of going home when it's all cleared up.

Actually, now that I think of it, I've played one character with the classic "abandoned at a monastery as an infant" origin. Not necessarily an orphan, but he doesn't know who his parents are/were. And damned if it didn't immediately come back to bite him when the party's truenamer needed his family tree for her research. :smallconfused:

JadedDM
2010-12-04, 02:56 AM
Actually, at least in my experience, the main reason so many PCs are orphans in my games is more laziness than anything else. Instead of explaining who your parents and siblings are, what they are like, what they do, what role they played in your upbringing...etc...you just said, "Oh, they all died when I was young."

Coidzor
2010-12-04, 03:05 AM
It's a convenient and quick way to explain your Xth cleric of pelor that you've been roped into playing because you didn't have another build handy when you got pressganged into play.

That and adoptive Gnome Parents/Guardians can explain all kinds of oddities about a PC.

Yora
2010-12-04, 06:46 AM
In our current campaign, we have a new player who never played any RPGs before, and when it came to creating characters, he immediately went for orphan.
But then, his character is a rogue who's wandering the roads to where ever they lead them and grew up alone in the streets of some city without knowing his family.
As a character background, that's okay, and for a first time player, it's quite easy to come up with. It's just convenient.

Back when we were playing Neverwinter Nights online with about 50 people, my character was a sorcerer who had a happy life with his mother, his sorcerer father, and his four sorcerer siblings, and some nephews and nieces. People always seemed rather suprised at a character with a family and a sorcerer who wasn't an angsty outcast. :smallbiggrin:

mistformsquirrl
2010-12-04, 07:32 AM
I'm sure a lot of this has already been covered, but I'll just chime in with my POV:

1) It's just plain old common in fiction; and most gamers are not writers themselves to begin with. Thus a lot of people's characters draw heavily on what they read in books and watch on TV or at the theater. Even ignoring every other reason why being an orphan is useful in a storytelling sense - you're just flat out going to get a lot of orphans based on imitation.

Games too now that I think of it - look at Dragon Age, NWN2, Baldur's Gate, etc... You're an orphan or otherwise abandoned by your parents in a LOT of said games. If they aren't dead when you start the game, they're likely not going to last past Act 1.

2) Secondly - It makes life simpler. This isn't just about the DM using a parent to boss the PC around; it's also about the fact that the more characters in your backstory that are not dead at the end of that backstory, means more characters you essentially have to create.

For example: If both of my parents are still alive, and I have a still-living little sister too, then I as a player need:

A) To decide at least some loose personalities and looks for these people; because otherwise if the DM brings them up, they're going to be as foreign and strange to me as if I'd just walked into someone's house at random. Except now they're calling me 'son' or 'daughter'.

B) To give each of them at least a smidge of backstory so the DM has something to go off of unless again, I want to run into someone who's going to be confusing and surprising to my character. It gets awkward when the DM decides to bring up "the story about the time we..." and it's something you as a player have no idea about; so you just have to nod along as your character's history is filled in for you.

C) Establish what kind of relationship you have with your family. What do they think about your adventuring? Do they know about it? What about the usual duties of a young person in your family, like learning a trade or taking up the family farm?

D) Come up with a reason your character is adventuring despite having a family. Again, in the setting most D&D adventures take place in, you're looking at a place where people usually follow in their parent's footsteps or take up a trade. (This depends as much on location: ie what's available nearby, as anything though). Questions like "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Are fairly recent developments.

E) Finally if you've got all of that down... you have to accept that the DM may very well never, ever use your family at all; so all that work you may have done is just up in smoke.

3) Pathos - "Dead parents" is an oooooooooold ooooooold trope, and part of that is because well, it IS a tragedy, and one most of us can understand and empathize with even if we've still got both of ours. I mean it's fairly easy to imagine "my parents are gone" and how you'd feel about it - so understandably it's one of, if not THE stock "angsty loner" background. Obviously not everyone who's an orphan is going to be angsty, but because it's common in pop culture for such characters to be fairly popular, it's also going to be fairly common around the game table.

----

Summed up:

It simultaneously gives you a reason to brood, keeps the DM from screwing with you, and saves you a lot of work.

Now: "Is it fun?"

That really, really, really depends on a ton of variables. What's your gaming group like? What kind of game are you running? What are the other major traits of the character? How good a roleplayer is the player in question? Etc...

---

Now don't get me wrong, for someone who's very creative and likes to write, creating a character who avoids this situation can be a rewarding exercise on it's own - and I try at least to avoid the "I'm an orphan" cliche myself for precisely that reason. I - personally - do find enjoyment in really fleshing out my characters where I can.

However again, most D&D players aren't writers - they're gamers; and while they might be somewhat creative, you really can't expect people to push toward any sort of literary goal beyond "this is my character, and I like them".

Aotrs Commander
2010-12-04, 08:05 AM
I wasn't talking tabletop RPGs. I was talking fiction in general. Seriously, how many protagonists lost both (or at least one of their) parents at a young age?

This gets me too. Perhaps because I come from a happy, well-adjusted family (I'm, Evil by choice, not by circumstances). I once realised that every single character in Star Trek the next generation had lost one or both parents; except Geordie LaForge, and I noticed because they killed his mother off in-season. Seriously, this is freakin' Star Trek, the utopian future and still everybody's parents are tragically dead because it gives them somethine to angst about.

(Kudos to Babylon 5 - as per usual - for having at least Sheridan's parents alive and well and together...)

By this point, it's SO. Terribly. BORING and unimaginative by this point. I like varity for varities' sake, and the same tired of every-one-is-an-orphan-rehash is just mind-numbingly dull at this point1.

Having got it on my mind at the moment (having just re-read it), at least I can say of Harry Potter that Harry was at least the stand-out statistic, as most of his friends (and even many of his enemies) had families and at least the reason for him was actually central to the plot, rather than soley as the means to give him something to angst about.



Very few of my own characters are orphans. Though to be fair, many of them don't have their families mentioned in the backgrounds even if they have them. Backgrounds are not something that we always require in our games, due to many being module-based. The ones I write myself generally do though.

There is one who technically is (she's an ex-time-traveller, now living in the future, but her life before that I've never addressed; she's not angsty about it, and her origional concept was based around Jubilee from the X-Men, so I'd say she probably was). Tanavark "Samurai Flapjack" the Psionic Warrior might be, but that's because it's, what, a 50/50 chnace he bumped them off himself... GLA (comedy) Terrorist Jarmin Kuld is, as part of his hilarious silly background. I know at least one does have both parents alive and well, in his home village, but I don't think the issue has ever arisen on any of the others.



1Thought not NEARLY as annoying as the current "the heroes must be tortured silly, while the bad guys get away with, at worse, mere death, and nobody can ever be happy and everyone has to die" trend in basically every media, which annoys the crap out of me so much I've found I need to retreat to the likes of things like Biggles and Lensman, because despite the sometimes bowel-churningly casual sexist and racism that is a product of their times, at least it's not totally depressing... (And one can laugh at it in a sort of incredulous way and think, "oooh, you couldn't say that now!") But I digress.

Also, I'm cranky and more snippy than usual because I had to miss the first wargames convention in 20 years because of the expletive snow.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-04, 08:39 AM
I can only think of one character I've ever played (and am playing right now) who was explicitly an orphan...and even he kinda averts the trope. He's a necromancy-focused cleric who was raised by his retired soldier grandfather (I forget what happened to his parents), and when the old geezer keeled over of age, the toddler was taken in by a local priestly group. Their teachings include a non-evil manner of animating the mindless dead, to either honor heroes by allowing them to keep fighting evil after death, or punishing the wicked with posthumous 'community service'. When he came of age and left, the cleric had to pick a companion to go with him, and chose Grandpa.:smallsmile: So I dunno where he fits in to the trend.

some guy
2010-12-04, 08:58 AM
I have created an orphanage in which the administrator trains her wards to be rogues. At a certain age the orphans are sent away to become adventurers. This in the hope of at least one succesful and thankful orphan who will reward the orphanage with undreamt riches.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-04, 08:59 AM
I have created an orphanage in which the administrator trains her wards to be rogues. At a certain age the orphans are sent away to become adventurers. This in the hope of at least one succesful and thankful orphan who will reward the orphanage with undreamt riches.

Did two of them turn out to be brothers, putting maximum ranks in Perform
(Blues)?

some guy
2010-12-04, 09:17 AM
Did two of them turn out to be brothers, putting maximum ranks in Perform
(Blues)?

Oh, god. And here I thought I was being original. Must have stored that movie somewhere in my subconscious.
Oh, well. Might as well roll with with it now. As from this moment two halflings named Jake and Elwood will perform at local taverns and inns.

DisgruntledDM
2010-12-04, 11:28 AM
I can understand one or two PCs being orphans, but THE WHOLE PARTY? Unless they come up with some interesting collective back story, like they formed a group with each other as children for protection or something, that is just lazy.

There's nothing wrong with making an adventurer with a perfectly normal family. Imagine; your character goes home for the holidays. Your siblings tell their stories of what's going on with their careers, then your mother turns to you. "Oh me? Well, I looted the temple of Elemental Evil."

Greenish
2010-12-04, 11:35 AM
I can understand one or two PCs being orphans, but THE WHOLE PARTY? Unless they come up with some interesting collective back story, like they formed a group with each other as children for protection or something, that is just lazy.A player only makes her own PC, usually. I don't know who you're blaming for laziness if making your character an orphan is okay unless others do it too.


There's nothing wrong with making an adventurer with a perfectly normal family.No one has claimed that.

hayabusa
2010-12-04, 11:40 AM
In all of my characters I don't think that I've ever played an orphan. Most them, I never really cared all that much about parents in the backstory, anyway...

Most recently, however, I have noticed that a lot of my newly created characters have a lot of father issues.

WarKitty
2010-12-04, 11:44 AM
There's nothing wrong with making an adventurer with a perfectly normal family. Imagine; your character goes home for the holidays. Your siblings tell their stories of what's going on with their careers, then your mother turns to you. "Oh me? Well, I looted the temple of Elemental Evil."

Although, as some people have mentioned, it's a lot harder to explain why a character with a normal, well-adjusted family would be out adventuring. If I'm the blacksmith's son in a medieval society, I'm going to take up blacksmithing if I can, otherwise I'm going to learn leatherworking or farming or something. And it's easier for those of us who don't do complicated backstories well (which I don't; I need to have the character in play for a session or two before I can build the personality well enough to do a good backstory) than trying to figure out what kind of weird stuff led to an adventuring life.

pffh
2010-12-04, 11:44 AM
We embrace this in my group. An ex player (RIP) even founded a religious organization in our world that deals with it.
The Orphan army takes in all orphans and unwanted children from at least three kingdoms and trains them to become warrior, priests or mages or if a life of adventure is not for them they can become scholars and if they don't want that either they can always work in one of the gentlemen's clubs* that the army has close connections with.

And now (and probably for the next few campaigns) we're playing members of that group.

*One of them is a holy site the rest are sort of temples and shrines. It's a long story.

mint
2010-12-04, 12:42 PM
I have a this theory:
You put yourself in your work. The initial state of the first character is a mary sue. Because you write what you know and you know yourself first. So your first character will have a lot of yourself in it.
That's just the outset. Obviously you move away from this and only inject parts of yourself in your characters. You find ways to make what you create interesting to write and think about, without being about an idealized version of yourself or someone you'd like to be.
Otherwise all fiction would be just awful.

I think it follows that if you import some iteration of yourself into a fantasy of your own creation, the contents of that fantasy won't contain limiting factors like parents. Its too mundane and doesn't make sense in a fantasy where the character you have created like... leads an army or learns magic.
I think a lot of stories are like this, or start out like this. And the good ones move away from being the authors wish fulfilment fantasy.

When you make a character to play, parents feel like a limiting factor when you want your character to be independent.
Orphans feel, perhaps mistakenly, like a clean slate.

But hey, I said something about a mary sue right? Mary sue has super important and powerful family. Orphans don't.
Except for all those orphans who are secretly heir the throne etc.

That's roughly what I think is happening with the orphans.


My last two characters were orphans. Though the premise of the campaign was that all the PCs were orphans with one level in rogue, living in an orphanage in the slums. Who... then turned out to be children of the BBEG.

Family is a really great back-story framework though. Or at least I think its a lot of fun.
For the campaign I'm playing now, all us PCs are part of the same family. The family happens to be the conning and swindling branch of a crime syndicate.
We travel around as a balkan-ish circus that changes names frequently.
We have a mausoleum wagon where diseased family members are mummified lenin-style.
It is somewhat survival horror. One of the players has a plan for if/when his char dies. He is going to play a necropolitan ancestor, risen from the grave to defend the family. With a sickle and hammer.

snoopy13a
2010-12-04, 01:11 PM
Orphans make perfect sense for the stereotypical raised on the streets rogue. There was even news today about a child pickpocket ring broken up in Paris (apparently these children were sold by the parents to the adult criminals running the ring though).

However, there are many reasons why someone from a "good" family would become an adventurer. The main one is simply because they aren't the eldest child.

Traditionally, the eldest son would take over the farm, the trade, inherit the title, etc (in DnD this can be changed to eldest child in a more gender-equal society). The later sons would either have to hope the eldest died off, that another tradesman in town didn't have a son (and thus had room for an apprentice) or pursue other paths.

These other paths can include: clergy (cleric), the military (fighters and paladins), running off to sea (fighters or rogues with some sailor-specific skills), headed off to the big city (fighters, rogues, and if they have musical talent, rogues). If they are smart then maybe the local wizard (if the local wizard is childless) will take them on as an apprenctice. Or perhaps they just say good riddance to society and head off in the woods to live off nature (druid and ranger).

The more prestigious classes (wizard, paladin, cleric) will likely come from the younger children of the middle and upper classes. If a wizard is only taking one apprentice and the local noble offers a large tuition fee to place a younger child with them, then the noble's child will be picked over the penniless orphan.

PersonMan
2010-12-04, 01:11 PM
That is a myth. Making the character an Orphan gives the DM free reign to create that character's family. Have a recurring, beautiful female NPC? Your Sister/Mother, bonus points if the DM springs this on you after you "sample the wine". The evil archmage? Your Father. Little girl raising Zombies and Skeletons? Your Uncle (Soul Jar shenanigans)/Sister.

I wish my DMs would do something that awesome.

For the most part, I don't bother deciding whether or not my characters are orphans(or making much of a backstory at all, actually) unless part of the character concept is related to it. A good portion of the time I define my character's family they're rather powerful(one example is a pair of wizards who met while adventuring, and thought it would be great for their son to "experience the world" for a few years).

If I don't define a character's past, however, I tend to assume that the family is alive in some village rather than dead/scattered/whatever.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-04, 01:57 PM
I have a this theory:
You put yourself in your work. The initial state of the first character is a mary sue. Because you write what you know and you know yourself first. So your first character will have a lot of yourself in it.
That's just the outset. Obviously you move away from this and only inject parts of yourself in your characters. You find ways to make what you create interesting to write and think about, without being about an idealized version of yourself or someone you'd like to be.
Otherwise all fiction would be just awful.

I think it follows that if you import some iteration of yourself into a fantasy of your own creation, the contents of that fantasy won't contain limiting factors like parents. Its too mundane and doesn't make sense in a fantasy where the character you have created like... leads an army or learns magic.
I think a lot of stories are like this, or start out like this. And the good ones move away from being the authors wish fulfilment fantasy.

When you make a character to play, parents feel like a limiting factor when you want your character to be independent.
Orphans feel, perhaps mistakenly, like a clean slate.

But hey, I said something about a mary sue right? Mary sue has super important and powerful family. Orphans don't.
Except for all those orphans who are secretly heir the throne etc.

That's roughly what I think is happening with the orphans.


My last two characters were orphans. Though the premise of the campaign was that all the PCs were orphans with one level in rogue, living in an orphanage in the slums. Who... then turned out to be children of the BBEG.


Mary Sue wish-fulfillment characters are a completely different thing. 99% of the time, the PC isn't the one who decides that his character is the lost heir to the throne/child of the BBEG/living MacGuffin of the epic plot spell...that's the DM's doing. It's more like a Possession Sue, where the DM is the one writing his fanfic and adding details to your character in the process.

mint
2010-12-04, 06:12 PM
Mary Sue wish-fulfillment characters are a completely different thing. 99% of the time, the PC isn't the one who decides that his character is the lost heir to the throne/child of the BBEG/living MacGuffin of the epic plot spell...that's the DM's doing. It's more like a Possession Sue, where the DM is the one writing his fanfic and adding details to your character in the process.

Oh I agree. I was trying to get at a connection between creating a general fantasy character and specifically creating a PC.

The part about Mary Sue's family was just an afterthought that struck me as lulzy.

doctor_wu
2010-12-04, 06:23 PM
I have used an orphan character to get starting gear that I inherited from my mother and we started at level 2.

Anyway I could do this. It would be funny to think your father is dead and find him petrified in a dungeon and have him not be dead after all. I have also made ones where the father has left. Half orcs if they end up growing up with humans might not have their orc parents living with them either.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-04, 06:25 PM
Oh I agree. I was trying to get at a connection between creating a general fantasy character and specifically creating a PC.

The part about Mary Sue's family was just an afterthought that struck me as lulzy.

Well, if wanting your parents to be dead is part of putting yourself into a fantasy character, there might be some underlying issues.:smalleek:

mint
2010-12-04, 06:30 PM
Not dead, they just don't exist in the scope of the fantasy.
Does that make sense?

The Glyphstone
2010-12-04, 06:34 PM
Not dead, they just don't exist in the scope of the fantasy.
Does that make sense?

It's a little less dysfunctional, sure. Still seems a bit juvenile, or at least teenagerish.

mint
2010-12-04, 06:46 PM
Sure, yes, that's what I was getting at.
It is juvenile or at least in some sense an underdeveloped decision to choose for your character to be an orphan.
I think what is really happening is you want something with no strings attached.
I guess part of that is just "uhh... backstory... maybe later" though.

WarKitty
2010-12-04, 06:47 PM
I guess part of that is just "uhh... backstory... maybe later" though.

To be fair, that is how some of us operate. I can't figure out a character well enough to write a decent backstory without seeing the character in play for a session or two. And yes I've tried those question lists, it doesn't help.

Greenish
2010-12-04, 06:49 PM
It is juvenile or at least in some sense an underdeveloped decision to choose for your character to be an orphan.:smallconfused: That seems like a rather snobbish attitude.

Zeful
2010-12-04, 07:02 PM
I wish my DMs would do something that awesome.You can talk to them, both in, and out of game. Tell them your going to have a character who doesn't know his family, that your character will look into their history, try and find that family then show them this thread. Or if you are comfortable DMing do this to your players (though do make sure to note that unless the character is an orphan because he watched his family die, even if by his own hand, potential families are fair game to be messed with).

PersonMan
2010-12-04, 07:18 PM
You can talk to them, both in, and out of game. Tell them your going to have a character who doesn't know his family, that your character will look into their history, try and find that family then show them this thread. Or if you are comfortable DMing do this to your players (though do make sure to note that unless the character is an orphan because he watched his family die, even if by his own hand, potential families are fair game to be messed with).

Normally I would, but I'm currently in a situation that makes it a bit more difficult to do so than it normally is.

Thanks for the motivation, though. I'm the kind of person who needs a "well, do it then!" every now and then to break the inertia.

mint
2010-12-04, 07:38 PM
To be fair, that is how some of us operate. I can't figure out a character well enough to write a decent backstory without seeing the character in play for a session or two. And yes I've tried those question lists, it doesn't help.

And that should be fine. It is fine. Even if I'd say it wasn't, I have no say in how anyone plays their game.
Backstory schmackstory.


:smallconfused: That seems like a rather snobbish attitude.

I... probably. I was vague about what I was referring to. When you make a character in general, like something you write, not something you play, I think it is more fair to call it juvenile and I am probably fine with being pejorative in that case.
For a PC, I don't really mean to cast judgement.
I do think choosing for your char to be an orphan is often something done out of convenience, without considering what being an orphan would really mean. What you really want is a way to explain why your char is like a fringe citizen or whatever and I do not think being an orphan needs to be the go to candidate there.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-04, 07:39 PM
Sure, yes, that's what I was getting at.
It is juvenile or at least in some sense an underdeveloped decision to choose for your character to be an orphan.
I think what is really happening is you want something with no strings attached.
I guess part of that is just "uhh... backstory... maybe later" though.


:smallconfused: That seems like a rather snobbish attitude.

Indeed. I was referring specifically to 'I want my fantasy character to be free of attachments, so he's an orphan!'. Not so much juvenile in the prejorative sense, as literally juvenile - it's a desire that would be most likely to show up in characters created by kids or teenagers, since that's the age bracket stereotypically known for rebellion or the desire to be free of their oppressive parents. Simply being an orphan isn't juvenile or underdeveloped, it's all in the circumstances. Depending on the DM, it may be a smart decision, or otherwise it's simply ease of convenient, as the trope and many people here have noted.

Surfing HalfOrc
2010-12-04, 08:26 PM
I liked the concept in Dragon Quest V. You start off as a little boy, about age eight. Spoilered for those who haven't played it yet.

You start off as a boy of about eight or so, travelling with your father. Later, you join up with a little girl of about six. You explore around, random battles in typical Dragon Quest fashion, and eventually end up as a friend to another little boy your father is hired to be a bodyguard for. You and the other boy are kidnapped, your father gives up his life to protect your lives, then you are taken to be slaves for a cult for the BBEG.

So, yeah, orphan again.

At age 18, you and he escape, and eventually you meet up with the girl who is now 16. More eplorations, and eventually you reach a point where you have to marry one of three girls: your friend Bianca, or the daughters of a wealthy man. (Almost everyone I knew picked Bianca, because you had the longest relationship with her. The other two were sort of dropped on you.) Later you have children with her, and you are turned into a statue. Eventually, you are released from the statue, and recover your kids, and adventure with them to the end of the game.

Three generations of adventure, and three age groups for yourself: eight year old boy, 18 year old man, 28 year old father.

So while you become an orphan during the game, you don't start off as one. And your children remain by your side until the very end.


Hmm... Maybe I should play it again! Still waiting on an anouncement for the U.S. release of DQ VI...

Kerrin
2010-12-05, 12:05 AM
I can't seem to create characters that are orphans because whenever I try to all I end up with in my mind is a blank background. For me it is easier to choose a non-orphan background when creating a character. I find them easier to flesh out,

Zeful
2010-12-05, 01:14 AM
I can't seem to create characters that are orphans because whenever I try to all I end up with in my mind is a blank background. For me it is easier to choose a non-orphan background when creating a character. I find them easier to flesh out,

Why? The only difference between a normal character and an orphaned character is that his parents are dead. Have you made a character that's estranged from his family (perhaps because of burgeoning powers that nearly kill his infant half-sister)? Essentially an orphan.

HalfTangible
2010-12-05, 01:19 AM
Orphans have no set frame of reference in their developmental cycle, which makes them a blank slate as far as motivations go. This allows one to utterly ignore obvious cultural and species-al cues to perform different actions. A hobgoblin would not automatically hate humans, for example.

Aotrs Commander
2010-12-05, 07:53 AM
I have a this theory:
You put yourself in your work. The initial state of the first character is a mary sue. Because you write what you know and you know yourself first. So your first character will have a lot of yourself in it.
That's just the outset. Obviously you move away from this and only inject parts of yourself in your characters. You find ways to make what you create interesting to write and think about, without being about an idealized version of yourself or someone you'd like to be.
Otherwise all fiction would be just awful.

I can say, hand on ribcage, that I have never, not even when I first started roleplaying at the age of ten, thought of a character as an avatar of myself. (For one thing, even Epic-level play couldn't do me justice...) While I'll grant you, many of my characters have some similar traits to me (most of which can be attributed to adventuer's paranoia), I have never had any problems in seperating myself from my characters.

(This may be attributable to the fact that since the first moment I was able to as a child, I always used to tell myself stories, and a) got that out of my system even if it was present and b) already understood the basic concept of something being "not-me". After all, there was no "me" in the pitched battle between Optimus Prime' Autobots and Starscream's Decepticons (I never had Megatron...), nor between Cobra Commander and Stalker (and the A-Team.) So roleplaying was just an extention of that concept, with the only difference there was now rules to adjudicate the back-and-forth combat. (Even then, the good guys didn't always win.))

Jubal_Barca
2010-12-05, 09:03 AM
I've only ever played in 2 campaigns, one Shadowrun and one WHFRP.

My Shadowrun character I just never went there, since almost by definition a shadowrunner has few to no remaining ties to the normal world.

My WHFRP character was a halfling political agitator from Tilea, whose father was adventuring in places unknown and whose mother was working in the kitchens of the duke of... Tobaro, I think. A character can get split off from family without them dying.

mint
2010-12-05, 09:29 AM
I can say, hand on ribcage, that I have never, not even when I first started roleplaying at the age of ten, thought of a character as an avatar of myself. (For one thing, even Epic-level play couldn't do me justice...) While I'll grant you, many of my characters have some similar traits to me (most of which can be attributed to adventuer's paranoia), I have never had any problems in seperating myself from my characters.

Right, the connection between creating a narrative like say writing a story and specifically making a PC feels tenuous.
But as you said, some of your characters share traits with you.
Perhaps there is a corollary between writing what you know and playing what you know.

Shadowleaf
2010-12-05, 09:50 AM
(Haven't read the entire thread, so this may already have been brought up)

Are all adventurers orphans, or.. Are all orphans adventurers?

Think about it. If you are orphaned at a young age, you do not have your father's/mother's craft to go into. You do not learn any real skills from your parents - you only learn what you need to know.

Continuing this thought, you probably won't have a future job waiting for you - your father's smith is nonexistant. What job is always hiring? Adventurers. Seeing as you have no one holding you back, it's a done deal.

Callista
2010-12-05, 12:11 PM
Well, I made my current character an orphan so she'd have a reason to be an atheist... or as close as you can get when it's obvious (especially with seven ranks of Knowledge:Religion) that the gods are real. Faithless, I suppose, would be the word for it.

Jenna (human wizard) grew up in your basic small peasant village, and her father was much older than her mother; but her mother had a difficult time giving birth to her and had been weak ever since she was born. During the winter when Jenna was eleven, sickness swept the community; and Jenna and her sister recovered, but her parents did not (her father was older and her mother already had a poor constitution).

The village priest and his assistants had been trying to heal people; but they didn't have enough healing to go around, and Jenna's parents were some of many who didn't get a share. Jenna became angry that the gods didn't give the priests enough power to save everyone. She couldn't deny that the priests were trying their best, but she could only conclude that the gods either didn't care or weren't powerful enough to protect people who believed in them. Either way, she wasn't going to follow them anymore.

Jenna moved in with her sister, who had recently been married, and helped raise her sister's children. As a precocious magic-user who had cast her first spells at the age of eight, Jenna has since been of the belief that you can't trust the gods to protect the ones you love; you have to gather the power yourself and make your own way. This was reinforced by her judicious use of a Grease spell to save the family from bandits when she was a teenager; at the time, with her sister's husband busy trying to keep the horses from bolting and her sister nine months pregnant, Jenna and her magic were the edge that kept everyone alive.

So I needed to make her an orphan in order to give her a good reason for her current personality--self-reliant to the extent of having rejected the gods, somewhat paranoid, and having assigned herself the responsibility for protecting everyone around her. And it also gave me a reason for her to have been randomly plane-shifted into the situation where she met the party: She was trying to duplicate clerical magic at the time, and either triggered some kind of wild magic or annoyed the wrong deity. Unfortunately she's nowhere near Evil and can't become an ur-priest; that would be a logical choice for her.

Greenish
2010-12-05, 12:15 PM
Well, I made my current character an orphan so she'd have a reason to be an atheist... or as close as you can get when it's obvious (especially with seven ranks of Knowledge:Religion) that the gods are real. Faithless, I suppose, would be the word for it.Misotheist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism) is the word, I believe. Known for tropers as "nay theist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NayTheist)".

Hyudra
2010-12-05, 01:22 PM
Orphan is one of the most common backstory traits. It happens in fiction a great deal too, for reasons already stated. It's easy for a character to have a dramatic rise to greatness, if s/he starts on the lowest rung of society... no family name, title, land, occupation or valuable marriage waiting for him/her.

Amnesiac is an extension of this issue. Orphans come about because people don't want to put in the effort (that Aotrs Commander (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9893207&postcount=43) outlined so well), or because they don't want the DM to screw with them through their family. Amnesiacs come about because they want to put in the bare minimum of effort and/or leave zero ways for the DM to screw with them. Ironically, this makes it easier for the creative DM, since the DM can make up whatever he wants.

I have, quite honestly, had a game start in a tavern, with the DM saying (to paraphrase) "[Hyudra] already sits at a corner table, perusing the job offer", and had four amnesiac adventurers walk to other corners and sit there to brood and wait for the group to come to them. Five cornered tavern? Wut? The game fell apart 2 weeks later because my character (in part due to an actual background & personality, I think) stole the show and there was resentment because I'd apparently hogged too much of the spotlight.

One of my favorite things to do when building a character is to reverse the most common tendencies. One can reverse the orphan thing by having parents play a vital role in the backstory, which can make for a character that really stands out when set against a backdrop of brooding orphans and amnesiacs. Some basic ideas:

The daughter of an isolated-tower-dwelling enchantress who dominated a handsome lad from the nearby town to serve as father. Daughter realizes, almost too late, that dear old Mater planned to switch bodies with her daughter, as part of a 300 year old cycle, all intended to stave off mom's mortal fear of growing old. Flees, with Mom using schemes and a constant supply of dominated/suggested monsters, minions and allies to try and get her back.

Son of a fallen paladin. Was old enough to watch in quiet horror as Dad ordered the burning of a city struck by plague. Hundreds of innocent and healthy, young and old died as part of an undeniable greater good. Where his father was once a hero, he is now a broken man, drinking himself to death as memories of what would be called the Scouring replay constantly in his mind. The son strives to redeem the family name, when the memory of the Scouring is still too fresh in some minds. He gets spat on when his last name is mentioned, or refused service when the crest on his shield is seen, but he perseveres.

The son of a local despot, watches as dad gets deposed by a band of adventurers. Gets married off to the daughter of the adventurers as part of a deal to keep his crippled father in the lap of luxury (and giving the adventurers legitimacy of rule, as they take over). Grows to loathe his wife who actually loves him, is six years his junior and is constantly forced into his presence in an artificial attempt to foster love. When he discovers he (or his wife) won't be named successor, he leaves the city in a smoldering fury, with the intention of building up enough power, experience and contacts to off the in-laws and assume control of the town. The wife might send letters, or start off after her husband, arriving at a destination days after the adventure concluded. The in laws might send an inevitable after him to enforce the bargain they struck with Dad.

Lass is sole daughter of the 'Don' of the halfling mafia (Say, the Littlefingers). Where other adventurers have no family to speak of, she's got too much. Six uncles (two deceased), three aunts, six brothers, nearly fifty cousins. It seems every halfling rogue she runs into is either a relative, someone trying to win her heart to get in good graces with the Don, or trying to kill/kidnap/maim/ruin her to get revenge on her father. Even non-rogue halflings are often connected to the Littlefingers in one way or another (say, a baker married to her second cousin, or laundering money, etc.), and while she likely wouldn't merit a second glance from your usual stranger, she's instantly recognizable to anyone with hair on their feet. She just can't escape. It's the young Lass's desire to shine by her own merit, without the help of family. A shame, then, that her family won't listen, and will often try to help, for better or for worse.

PersonMan
2010-12-05, 01:32 PM
Unfortunately she's nowhere near Evil and can't become an ur-priest; that would be a logical choice for her.

I've always wondered why Ur-Priest was evil-only. I mean, it's evil to steal magic from gods, even evil ones?

Callista
2010-12-05, 01:57 PM
Yeah, I agree; it shouldn't be evil. They didn't think about the fact that a good ur-priest would steal from evil deities when they created the class. The flavor of the Ur-Priest is evil, of course; but the abilities aren't. Similarly, assassins shouldn't have an alignment restriction; the abilities of an assassin aren't evil, though the flavor is (and the pre-requisite to kill someone just because the assassins' guild told you to, rather than because he deserves death--which could be easily re-worked as a mission to kill someone who really did deserve death, but that the normal authorities couldn't get at because he's too powerful/sneaky/etc. At least assassins have a non-evil PrC option).

Psyren
2010-12-05, 03:09 PM
At least assassins have a non-evil PrC option.

So do Ur-Priests... it just happens to be nearly useless. :smallfrown:

PersonMan
2010-12-05, 03:57 PM
So do Ur-Priests... it just happens to be nearly useless. :smallfrown:

They do? Where?

Toliudar
2010-12-05, 04:39 PM
What?

Explanation of pirates and orphans. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUg1mvbNcSc)

TheBlackShadow
2010-12-05, 04:40 PM
Personally, even when I make a character who happens to be an orphan, I still try to give them personal connections and backstory beyond "he's an orphan".


For instance, while my first character, a Wizard, never knew his mother or father, and didn't have any siblings, cousins &c, he had a lot of connections with old fellow students, rivals, and mentors from the Mages Guild Guildhouse that took him in after he manifested his powers in a fight with another boy when he was twelve, and he had some enemies and acquaintances from his time on the streets. All of these played some role in the campaign, major or minor.

The boy he got into a fistfight with was horribly scarred both mentally and physically, and was rendered nearly vegetative, but recovered enough to more-or-less function on his own, and returned nearly a decade later as an Axe Crazy Chaotic Evil Barbarian (think Gregor/Sandor Clegane (The Mountain That Moves/The Hound) from the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series), and the Brute of the Five Bad Band of the campaign (although, ironically, the DM had to explain this after his death, as I didn't put two and two together and we had no reason to recognise each other after all those years, and he ended up as the thematic adversary of the female Steal-From-The-Rich-And-Give-To-The-Poor-After-Reasonable-Expenses Rogue Lancer of the party).

His acquintances at the Guild who'd moved away to the guild headquarters were a resource for researching spells and obscure knowledge, and also a source of mostly minor adversaries, although his greatest rival from his years as a student presented quite a challenging adversary who clashed with him on multiple occasions, though rarely through combat and far more often she challenged him on academic and bureaucratic grounds (interestingly, that particular conflict was not solved through violence, as the two eventually settled their differences). His old mentors and friends still living at the Guildhall also provided most of his motivation to accompany the party back to protect the town from an invading army partway through the campaign, as otherwise he had a pretty low opinion of the place. His advancement through the Guild too was an important part of his storyline - his entire motivation to go adventuring was because he felt he wasn't ready to become a full Wizard (in the official sense rather than the practical), and felt that only by travelling could he expand his knowledge and develop as a person until he felt ready.

His old enemies from his time as a street kid were less important in the practical sense. His experiences from that time had a considerable effect on his personality, and even in adulthood he harboured extreme resentment towards them and found memories of them distressing. Such that, when he returned to the town to defend it from invaders, every night he took great care to hunt down one of the worst of them, and kill them. Painfully, over a period of several minutes, and in full knowledge of who he was, what was going to happen, and why he was doing it. Yeah, that was during a very dark phase of his development.


So, yeah, being an orphan does not mean being completely without connections or backstory. I was aware of the clicheedness of orphanhood in fiction when I was creating him, but mostly his essential character took shape almost at once. I would go into more detail about his mother and father and the role they played (or didn't play) in the story, but this post has been way too verbose as it is, and those of you still reading are probably losing the will to live at this point (there's also the fact that I'm meant to be going out in half an hour, but that's mostly irrelevant).


As a footnote, let me say that I find it mildly ironic that orphans have been identified as more likely to turn out as Rogues, since the only Rogue I ever made actually had a family, but ran away from home because he had a glimpse of how the other half lived and didn't want to be a miner like his father. Instead he decided to become an adventurer, partly to make his fortune and in so doing earn a more comfortable living for himself, but also to strike back at what he saw as an oppressive, overly aristocratic society and improve life for the lower classes as a whole.

...Yeah, verbosity. :smallamused:

Greenish
2010-12-05, 05:17 PM
They do? Where?BoED's Apostle of Peace (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031004b).

CN the Logos
2010-12-05, 05:32 PM
I've always wondered why Ur-Priest was evil-only. I mean, it's evil to steal magic from gods, even evil ones?


Yeah, I agree; it shouldn't be evil. They didn't think about the fact that a good ur-priest would steal from evil deities when they created the class. The flavor of the Ur-Priest is evil, of course; but the abilities aren't. Similarly, assassins shouldn't have an alignment restriction; the abilities of an assassin aren't evil, though the flavor is (and the pre-requisite to kill someone just because the assassins' guild told you to, rather than because he deserves death--which could be easily re-worked as a mission to kill someone who really did deserve death, but that the normal authorities couldn't get at because he's too powerful/sneaky/etc. At least assassins have a non-evil PrC option).

The most likely reason that ur-priest is evil-only has nothing to do with flavor. It's because it hands out 9th level cleric spellcasting in ten levels with negligible prereqs. The PrC looks like it was designed to create a BBEG who could use some of those really awesome 8th and 9th level spells at mid levels instead of high ones. Since the game designers apparently felt that games with an evil party were an aberration and that evil = cartoonish supervillainy (at least, that's been the vibe I've gotten from the 3.5 supplements I've read), they figured that they could slap "must be evil" on the requirements and that would make things balanced.


They do? Where?

If I'm right, that would be the apostle of peace, which gives a similar spell progression to ur-priest, but requires that your character never kill or hurt a sapient being to gain and keep his powers. And getting someone else to kill people for you, IIRC is mentioned as being a no-no somewhere in that book too, so unless you've got some really good battlefield control (it's been a while since I looked at the apostle's spell list, so I don't know), you might as well get out the rubber suit, because you are gimped.

ETA: I actually did have something to say on topic, just sort of forgot to add it.:smalleek:

I've been interested in playing an orphan exactly once, when the backstory was that everyone else in the character's village died of ebola and that only an instictive ability to bind Naberius saved the young PC from a horrible, bloody death. The RP fallout from this would have been (I never got to play the guy) that the character was actually raised and educated by the vestiges, and was therefore... slightly off. I've also thrown around ideas for a kobold sorcerer driven to the adventurer's lifestyle by the adventurer-related slaughter of everyone else in his tribe, wife and children included.

In both cases, the backstories were an effort to explain why someone who otherwise would have lived a stable, happy, unremarkable life decided to go walking the earth, throwing themselves into deadly situations. Because let's face it guys. The life of an adventuring hero is weird, deadly, and the job likely has a high mortality rate for people who aren't genre savvy. No one who was completely well-adjusted would want to do it without great reason.

Callista
2010-12-05, 05:41 PM
The most likely reason that ur-priest is evil-only has nothing to do with flavor. It's because it hands out 9th level cleric spellcasting in ten levels with negligible prereqs. The PrC looks like it was designed to create a BBEG who could use some of those really awesome 8th and 9th level spells at mid levels instead of high ones. Since the game designers apparently felt that games with an evil party were an aberration and that evil = cartoonish supervillainy (at least, that's been the vibe I've gotten from the 3.5 supplements I've read), they figured that they could slap "must be evil" on the requirements and that would make things balanced.Surely they realized that people like to play an Evil party once in a while?

And actually, the 9th level cleric spellcasting starts at level 9, not 10; total character level 14. Did they really think that removing domains was going to balance it? Still, if you go into Ur-Priest a little later, it's not overpowered, and all you have to do to fix that is require a few more Knowledge(Religion) ranks.


If I'm right, that would be the apostle of peace, which gives a similar spell progression to ur-priest, but requires that your character never kill or hurt a sapient being to gain and keep his powers. And getting someone else to kill people for you, IIRC is mentioned as being a no-no somewhere in that book too, so unless you've got some really good battlefield control (it's been a while since I looked at the apostle's spell list, so I don't know), you might as well get out the rubber suit, because you are gimped.Not so much in an Exalted-Good party where your friends won't mind your pacifism and some of them may have "no killing" as one of their own personal rules. If the entire party's good at RP, diplomacy, and subduing without killing enemies, then the Apostle of Peace fits right in. But it's not going to be a normal campaign.

So both classes do require a specialized party to fit into them; one because it's evil (though really it shouldn't be) and the other because it's only going to fit into a group of people who don't resort to violence, at least not until absolutely necessary.

CN the Logos
2010-12-05, 06:24 PM
Surely they realized that people like to play an Evil party once in a while?

The thing is, I'm not sure they did. The way playing an evil party is discussed in the official books seems to be that it happens but is unusual, whereas every other group I see forming here is evil-aligned (I personally blame Grand Theft Auto :smallamused:). And theirs is a viewpoint I can sympathize with; I don't like to play with an entirely evil party, because if they lose they lose and if they win the world is a terrible place.

For someone using that logic and not thinking about the fact that some people won't feel the same way, dividing up potential classes, class features, feats, spells, items, etc... according to their morality makes sense. And it's actually okay to make the bad guys stronger than the good guys for the sake of dramatic tension, which I think was the goal of the ur-priest class, so designers who think that way are going to want to give their baddies some extras. Just to make them scarier. Because unless you're in a comedy, the bad guys should be intimidating.

All of that falls apart the second someone says "I want to be evil," at which point all those neat creepy abilities that were going to be the exclusive purview of your antagonist are in the hands of your PCs, and things suddenly become a lot more broken. For example, Love's Pain wasn't meant to be used to kill the BBEG, it was more likely meant to kill the NPC's you gotten attached to over the course of the campaign or something like that, thus making you hate the bad guy more.


And actually, the 9th level cleric spellcasting starts at level 9, not 10; total character level 14. Did they really think that removing domains was going to balance it? Still, if you go into Ur-Priest a little later, it's not overpowered, and all you have to do to fix that is require a few more Knowledge(Religion) ranks.

It's still pretty damn good when you can put those other ten levels in Crusader or something, but yeah, later entry makes the PrC less game-breaking.


Not so much in an Exalted-Good party where your friends won't mind your pacifism and some of them may have "no killing" as one of their own personal rules. If the entire party's good at RP, diplomacy, and subduing without killing enemies, then the Apostle of Peace fits right in. But it's not going to be a normal campaign.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind playing an apostle in a campaign where it fit, but that's not going to be most campaigns, which is the whole problem with the class. Unless the DM is writing for you, you're useless.


So both classes do require a specialized party to fit into them; one because it's evil (though really it shouldn't be)

This depends on the nature of the gods and how theft of their powers affects them. If you're stealing from the chaotic evil god of entropy, but in doing so you're slowly eroding the laws of thermodynamics, then it doesn't matter that the god is evil, you're still a jerk. This may have been what the designers were thinking, but they didn't specify, so by RAW we have no reason that the ur-priest is any different than a "cleric of a cause." Isn't the idea pretty much the same (cleric powers minus religion)?

EvilJames
2010-12-05, 07:17 PM
I wasn't talking tabletop RPGs. I was talking fiction in general. Seriously, how many protagonists lost both (or at least one of their) parents at a young age? Off the top of my head let's see how many I can name:

Superman
Batman
Spiderman
Wolverine (pretty much any X-Men too)
Kick-Ass
Hit Girl
Probably the vast majority of superheroes (but I'm too inexperienced with comics so I can't really say)
Luke Skywalker
Anakin Skywalker
Too many Final Fantasy characters to name
Frodo Baggins
Finn from Adventure Time

the list goes on
Many fairy tails had the main character have no mother if not be an orphan, the idea being that a good parent would not allow such horrible things to happen to their children.

ps. I don't think wolverine should count as he is so old that his parents would be dead now anyway even if they hadn't died untimely deaths. (and it was never an integral part of his story anyway)

The final fantasy ones would very likely be the results of lazy writing. Probably the star wars ones as well.

Although not as many superheroes are orphaned at a young age, as you would think. A lot of modern ones just become superheroes because the opportunity presented itself or something happened to them late in life.

Robin 3, for an outdated example, became robin because he just wanted to. Although his died died later anyway.

ZeroGear
2010-12-05, 09:48 PM
While having no family means less chances for the dm to screw with you, it also means fewer plot hooks.
Take my character for example:
Sigfried is combat bard who entered the military (where he met everyone else) because he was worried about his sister and her daughter. He loves his niece, gets along fine with the husband, who is a hunter of draconic animals (rarely dragons though), and is just the goofy brother to his sorceress sister.
His father is dead, killed by a dragon, and his mother lives with her relatives.
He has an uncle named Murry (and will often referance misfortunes that happened to him), and a aunt/uncle named Millic who is also a bard, and a hermaphrodite, that sleeps with anyone shi can get hir hands on.
All who have a direct bloodline share dragon blood, inherited from his great-great-great-grandmother Lycea, who was a song dragon.
He often worries about his family, in light of him being marked by a black dragon as a target of revenge, as his father had killed it's father and crafted one of the fangs into a longsword. Sig still carries the heirloom with him.

Granted, this background is very detailed, and far from done, but it allows a character to experience multiple plot twists and gives a fuller character developement. I mean, it is more satisfying to kill the Orcs who captured your cute niece than just destroying another camp and getting gold?

dspeyer
2010-12-06, 12:43 AM
I guess I tend to play pretty young characters, but I've always found if a parent, mentor or close childhood friend is still alive, it's hard to explain why they aren't around. And nothing kills a campaign like a pair of higher-level NPCs following the party to protect one member. I'm as likely to have estranged parents as actual dead ones.

Hironomus
2010-12-06, 01:09 AM
What a coincidence! I was just talking about this the other day!
Everyone I play with seems to love playing orphans and I confess I have played my fair share :smallredface:
The reason is somewhere between, I don't want to create my family background/ Have loser little brothers hanging around hitting me up for cash and I want to be a super cool brooding type whose happy home life was torn away from me in one tragic moment (batman).
However my favorite character thus far had an estranged father who maintained a position of power and occasionally entered the story as a benefactor or an enemy.
I want to encourage everyone out there to have living parents! It really can enhance your character. At the very least don't be an Orphan ALL the time.

WarKitty
2010-12-06, 01:10 AM
I guess I tend to play pretty young characters, but I've always found if a parent, mentor or close childhood friend is still alive, it's hard to explain why they aren't around. And nothing kills a campaign like a pair of higher-level NPCs following the party to protect one member. I'm as likely to have estranged parents as actual dead ones.

This might also be related to the teen thing earlier. I've found a lot of people want to play adventurers close to or younger than their own age. Really, what 16 year old kid with a healthy family is going to be out wandering on her own?

Halae
2010-12-06, 01:24 AM
For the most part, my characters come in three varieties: Warforged, Half-Ogre, and Nobility. occasionally I mix the nobility and Half-Ogre ones

what that means is that my characters are one of the following:
1) Has no parents to begin with. He was created, not born, and honestly that means he has no family at all to worry about. perhaps I'll throw in some close friends into the backstory, but that's as close as it gets. near as I can tell, the Warforged is the closest thing you can find to a fully-roleplayed stereotypical adventurer

2) One parent is already estranged, if he wasn't killed shortly after raping the character's mother or something. whether that means it's the ogre one or the human one is up for grabs, but generally it means that it's that much easier to disconnect yourself from that parent, becfause there's only one tie instead of two. and who wouldn't feel like leaving with your entire home village/city looking at you like a monster?

3) Now, the nobility origin has a lot more versatility for this sort of thing. I once had a character who hated his parents and ran out on them as soon as he could. then, there was another who was forced from his home after his parents had been killed. there was another where only one parent was alive, and another where he loved both but had to refill the house coffers through any means available

Eldan
2010-12-06, 03:37 AM
This might also be related to the teen thing earlier. I've found a lot of people want to play adventurers close to or younger than their own age. Really, what 16 year old kid with a healthy family is going to be out wandering on her own?

In a medieval-inspired world? A lot of them. At least in some countries it wasn't very unusual to become a page at around age 6-9, and a squire at around 12. Fourteen year old knights weren't impossible either.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-12-06, 04:10 AM
I actually like making powerful relatives. Sure, my character can get yanked around a bit because of it, and I need a little extra backstory legwork to justify the whole 'adventurer' deal, but when the feces hits the wind blowing unit my character has some support other than his potentially untrustworthy adventuring companions.

Of course, my most recent character's parents "disappeared mysteriously" in his teen years, but they were at least briefly described, and it's a bit different considering "Disappeared mysteriously" = "Please mess with my character"

FelixG
2010-12-06, 05:42 AM
Why Orphan? Because with all the psychotic spell casters out there and all the cut throat GMs surviving so many orphanages burning down around you already qualifies you as an adventurer!

LordBlades
2010-12-06, 05:47 AM
I've done my fair share of orphans, but never for the sake of simplicity. At least not after I've begun to like writing character backstories.

Sometimes I've wanted to play a char that did not choose an adventurer's life, but rather has been brutally torn away from his confy little lifestyle and now has to fight for his life, and seek revenge/or justice.

At other times I've played a spoiled little brat, that had got into a position of power (and wealth) long before he had the experience to handle it and therefore screw up. And a very easy way to achieve that is to have him be the heir of an ereditary position and have his father pass away.


However, I also play characters with strong family ties often enough . My current char for example is an elf wizard that tries to rise to the name of his family(father is commander of the king's guard in the country he comes from, and uncle, a former char of mine is a 15th-ish level druid that was instrumental in vanquishing the last great evil that threatened the world)

Psyx
2010-12-06, 08:47 AM
Too many players basically 'fear' the GM writing meta-plot for them and the GM having leverage on their character. Thus: All PCs are vat-grown ninjas, with no childhood, family, or in-depth background for the GM to shaft them with. Have nothing, and you have nothing to take away.

To be fair, a lot of this is due to poor GMs casually killing off families, or using them as leverage far too often. But a lot of it is also players simply wanting a simple life, and to live in some kind of my-little-pony-land, where any violence and blackmail is being directed BY them, rather than AT them. To many players, a GM pulling back-story strings is somehow a bad thing that they dislike.

Psyx
2010-12-06, 08:49 AM
And personally: I find that there's always a stick that the GM can find to hit you with, so you might as well give them a good back-story and a wide selection of them to choose from. Plot is fun. Action films need a bit of angst.

Stephen Seagul wouldn't be able to go on vengeance killing sprees if he wasn't avenging anyone.

Yora
2010-12-06, 08:59 AM
In out current BESM game, all characters have some Defects to gain additional charater points. But most of these drawbacks don't have any mechanical effect but are purely social.
The gain in additional abilities is minimal, but they seemed to have a lot of fun making up new details for their backstories that justify the Defects.

Most of the characters have pissed of quite some powerful people even befrore the game started. :smallbiggrin:

Morithias
2010-12-06, 09:03 AM
I believe I figured it out.

Having a PC have a family in dnd in terms of the DM is like spices on food. When used in proper amounts and properly they make a good meal great, however if used incorrectly they either ruin the food (families used as hostages too often) or don't do anything at all (families never used). Most people find that rather then spend weeks figuring out the proper amounts that they are content with their 'good' meal.

Hence we have orphans everywhere.

Wulfram
2010-12-06, 09:29 AM
If DM wants lengthy backstory for a level 1 character - who by definition hasn't done anything interesting - then killing off a parent or two gives you something to write about

Morithias
2010-12-06, 09:34 AM
If DM wants lengthy backstory for a level 1 character - who by definition hasn't done anything interesting - then killing off a parent or two gives you something to write about

True, but I find often one can do decent backstories without needing super high levels. For example I have a level 3 (not much higher) person who isn't an orphan with a decent backstory. Basically he grew up in a middle class family, but became obsessed with the arena games in town, so he joined randomly and became like a gladiator in training, which is where he got his Feral template. (The claws are actually just him knowing martial arts). When the arenas got shut down due to the starting war, well our good Mr. Ace took up his shield, took the costume he was going to use and travels across the ocean to the battlefield under his new name the "Ultramarine" (thumbs up to anyone who gets the pun).

And yes, he is a Captain America Expy, I've been watching a lot of Avengers cartoons lately. XD

Telonius
2010-12-06, 09:39 AM
I think it's a bit of a mix of things that have been said earlier. If you're going to have a family, would it really make sense that the local barrel-maker's son is going to have an affinity for taking a character class? It might make some amount of sense for a Sorcerer (latent magic re-awakened) or a Cleric (just happened to be really devout), or maybe even a Paladin (again with being devout). But Bard? Rogue? Druid? Fighter? Monk? Wizard? Ranger? Barbarian? Yeah, you could cobble together some sort of background that made sense. Maybe he just really hated the rats that got into the barrels, so he has favored enemy: Vermin, or had a tendency to throw barrels when he got mad, so Barbarian. But that feels kind of forced. An "ordinary" family background really isn't conducive to producing most character classes, and if you have a good relationship with them you're probably not going to want to go off and do things likely to get you killed.

If you make your character have some sort of a wealthy family background, there's more of a chance that you could have whatever class seems to fit. But then you run a lot of risks for spotlight-stealing and Mary Sue-ism. There's a big impulse against characters being princelings and royalty, unless there's a seriously good reason for it and it doesn't give one player too much of an advantage over the rest. (i.e. You want people who help? Take Leadership like everybody else).

Morithias
2010-12-06, 09:50 AM
I think it's a bit of a mix of things that have been said earlier. If you're going to have a family, would it really make sense that the local barrel-maker's son is going to have an affinity for taking a character class? It might make some amount of sense for a Sorcerer (latent magic re-awakened) or a Cleric (just happened to be really devout), or maybe even a Paladin (again with being devout). But Bard? Rogue? Druid? Fighter? Monk? Wizard? Ranger? Barbarian? Yeah, you could cobble together some sort of background that made sense. Maybe he just really hated the rats that got into the barrels, so he has favored enemy: Vermin, or had a tendency to throw barrels when he got mad, so Barbarian. But that feels kind of forced. An "ordinary" family background really isn't conducive to producing most character classes, and if you have a good relationship with them you're probably not going to want to go off and do things likely to get you killed.

If you make your character have some sort of a wealthy family background, there's more of a chance that you could have whatever class seems to fit. But then you run a lot of risks for spotlight-stealing and Mary Sue-ism. There's a big impulse against characters being princelings and royalty, unless there's a seriously good reason for it and it doesn't give one player too much of an advantage over the rest. (i.e. You want people who help? Take Leadership like everybody else).

I would go all "Strawman" and point out the endless famous people who came from normal families due to talent and such (although I do admit having rich parents with contacts helps), but I'm going to avoid the huge argument and just let people google it themselves if they need evidence.

Although yes, you do make good points. Paladins are often more of calling. As for a rich family? Well usually I go "high money family = high upkeep", plus abusing the power tends to equal "Dm gets mad and screws you over only this time you deserve it" type thing.

Bard? Loves singing? Rogue? Well they're really just next-tier experts. Druid? Spends a lot of time in the forest working with lumber? Fighter? Got a summer job as a town guard? Monk? Tended to wrestle with the old-man and eventually got a nice reputation as a streetfighter? Wizard? Found an old spellbook and found it tantalizing (magic IS addictive). Barbarian? Some people just have a temper. lol

Ok those are just cliche examples, but I say you can make anything work. Check PHB2, it actually has a lot of good stuff in it people. :D

Duke of URL
2010-12-06, 10:16 AM
I've made orphans and non-orphans... really depends on the character.

Of course, recently I've taken to playing... less traditional characters, so "family" is a bit of a foreign concept to start with. (A few Warforged and, more recently, an awakened gelatinous cube.)

But for some of my more favorite characters (including those who I create multiple times in slightly different ways for PbP), the gamut varies:

Jolly - Halfling swashbuckler/marshal. Comes from a large family, where he's a third son and also a bit of a misfit. Family's still alive, but he ran of to join the circus.

Zug - Half-giant (homebrewed... far more like a Half-Ogre than the psionic half-Giant) fighter/barbarian. Father unknown, (human) mom alive. No siblings.

Trevor Nightshade - Human warlock. Both parents still alive (but long-since estranged).

Jack Sheppard - Human fighter/rogue. Large family, all dead (very setting-specific... Jack comes from a plague area and is one of the very few survivors from an entire village).

Taia D'rea - Pixie rouge (sometimes warlock). Parents and siblings alive.

Morithias
2010-12-06, 10:19 AM
I've made orphans and non-orphans... really depends on the character.

Of course, recently I've taken to playing... less traditional characters, so "family" is a bit of a foreign concept to start with. (A few Warforged and, more recently, an awakened gelatinous cube.)

One of my characters was based on Trakeena from Lost Galaxy, we kinda had two good reasons to make her an orphan (besides the fact it fit in with the plot), a. Antro-scorpion people aren't common in dnd, and b. Her Power Rangers Father looked like something out of a live-action anime-porn movie so none of us really wanted to use the canon father.

Otherworld Odd
2010-12-06, 10:28 AM
Just the fact that a lot of people would rather put their effort elsewhere rather then coming up with a backstory for parents. I don't think I would be playing with a DM for very much longer if he actually used my character's backstory against me. That's like saying "Thank you for coming up with a story for your character to make him believable, now I'm going to punish you for it."


My most recent character actually killed his own father during the quest of our campaign arc.

Edit: On a side note, I don't allow orphans in my campaign unless the player gives just as detailed an explanation about the family as someone who has living family. Everyone had "family" at some point, whether it be an orphanage, a teacher, or a blood-line family. I find a lot of players just say "I'm an orphan so I don't have to do the family part of the backstory."

Morithias
2010-12-06, 10:30 AM
Just the fact that a lot of people would rather put their effort elsewhere rather then coming up with a backstory for parents. I don't think I would be playing with a DM for very much longer if he actually used my character's backstory against me. That's like saying "Thank you for coming up with a story for your character to make him believable, now I'm going to punish you for it."


My most recent character actually killed his own father during the quest of our campaign arc.

To be fair, I know next to nothing about my parent's back stories in real life.

Like I said earlier, good Dms can use the backstories right and make the games a lot better. Bad Dms just piss people off.

Person_Man
2010-12-06, 10:30 AM
Laziness. Pure laziness. It takes 5 minutes to come up with a real motivation for adventuring and a basic back story for your parents, siblings, friends, and home town. It takes 5 seconds to write down that you're an orphan.

Honestly, can anyone even name a popular main character with a good (or at least believable) relationship with their parents? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of one.

Telonius
2010-12-06, 11:34 AM
Laziness. Pure laziness. It takes 5 minutes to come up with a real motivation for adventuring and a basic back story for your parents, siblings, friends, and home town. It takes 5 seconds to write down that you're an orphan.

Honestly, can anyone even name a popular main character with a good (or at least believable) relationship with their parents? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of one.

The only ones I'm coming up with are Roy and James T. Kirk, possibly Indiana Jones as well. (Jones might only count half since his mother is dead, and he does have an occasionally tense relationship with his father).

EDIT: Side note, I'm finding it extremely interesting to compare Roy to Campbell's idea of the monomyth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth#The_17_Stages_of_the_Monomyth). Wonder if Elan will pick up on that...

Duke of URL
2010-12-06, 11:47 AM
Honestly, can anyone even name a popular main character with a good (or at least believable) relationship with their parents? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of one.

Goes back a few years but both John Sheridan from Babylon 5 and Ben Sisko from Deep Space 9 were very close to their fathers, despite being deployed far from home.

And since I've brought up Bruce Boxhoweverititsspelled, the upcoming Tron Legacy is basically predicated on the main character finding his missing father.

On the other hand, pretty much every other Disney hero/heroine is either an orphan or comes from a home with only one parent. (or, in the case of Cinderella, both, as she lives with her un-remarried step mother.)

chiasaur11
2010-12-06, 11:51 AM
Laziness. Pure laziness. It takes 5 minutes to come up with a real motivation for adventuring and a basic back story for your parents, siblings, friends, and home town. It takes 5 seconds to write down that you're an orphan.

Honestly, can anyone even name a popular main character with a good (or at least believable) relationship with their parents? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of one.

Carrot Ironfoundson and Superman have good relations.

Alright, it's foster families, but foster families they've known their whole lives and treated as their real parents.

Oh!

Scott Pilgrim has a perfectly fine relationship with his folks. His tolerably normal, well adjusted, loving folks. So that's one non orphan.

Telonius
2010-12-06, 11:57 AM
For counter-examples, popular or famous orphan (or orphan-ish) characters:

King Arthur
Frodo Baggins
Luke Skywalker
(For that matter, Anakin Skywalker)
Hercules
Oedipus
Batman
Superman
Spider-man
Harry Potter
Tom Sawyer
Like, half of Dickens



Carrot Ironfoundson and Superman have good relations.

Alright, it's foster families, but foster families they've known their whole lives and treated as their real parents.


That's part of the drama, though. Basically a big set-up as to why they go on their own Hero's Journeys. Being in that situation forces you to confront a lot of the "Big Questions" either a lot earlier (if you've always known) or serves as a dramatic "break point" (if you find out suddenly).

WarKitty
2010-12-06, 12:07 PM
In a medieval-inspired world? A lot of them. At least in some countries it wasn't very unusual to become a page at around age 6-9, and a squire at around 12. Fourteen year old knights weren't impossible either.

May be true, but a lot of games are in medieval lite, or at least the players are still somewhat looking through a modern lens.

Dsurion
2010-12-06, 12:21 PM
In a medieval-inspired world? A lot of them. At least in some countries it wasn't very unusual to become a page at around age 6-9, and a squire at around 12. Fourteen year old knights weren't impossible either.
Not just that, but parents simply abandoning their children in the middle of the night, and packing up to go elsewhere, was surprisingly common. Most often this was due simply to the farmers simply not having enough resource to raise children, not wanting to deal with children, or whatever. We, of course, have to remember that the concept of childhood as we know it didn't exist at the time, so to most people it was like leaving a cat or dog in the forest.

Telonius
2010-12-06, 12:27 PM
Not just that, but parents simply abandoning their children in the middle of the night, and packing up to go elsewhere, was surprisingly common. Most often this was due simply to the farmers simply not having enough resource to raise children, not wanting to deal with children, or whatever.

I actually played with this idea once in a campaign (Shackled City). I was playing a VoP Monk, who used his share of the treasure to fund the local orphanage. By the time he reached level 15, the orphanage was so extensive (due to the massive amounts of loot he'd been donating) that a good 50% of the children in the town were now posing as orphans to try to get in.

The fact that he had the Leadership feat and basically an army of street urchins at his command added to the hilarity.

Person_Man
2010-12-06, 12:41 PM
Response to counter-examples:

Roy: Father is dead. He has a relationship with him via ghost form and in the after life, but he's still dead. I can't recall if his mother is still alive, but I don't think she's gotten any "screen time" and Roy certainly hasn't spent much time talking about his relationship with her.
Indiana Jones: This is in fact an excellent counter example, as his relationship with his father is central to the (really good) movie.
James T. Kirk: In the new time warp retcon his Father was killed to make him more angry/angsty, with disastrous results (I hated the new "fratboy" Kirk).
John Sheridan: I can't recall any episodes where his parents were discussed or featured, but I'm not a huge Babylon 5 fan, so I can't intelligently respond. Although putting your main characters on the other side of the galaxy from their families seems a bit like cheating to me.
Ben Sisko on the other hand, had a very interesting relationship with his father. Family relationships were actually a huge deal on DS9 - Ben's Dad/Ben/Jake, Quark/Nog, Odo/Collective, etc. And now that I think of it, DS9 is one of the better written sci-fi shows specifically because it didn't hand wave away all of the family relationships.
Superman: Pretty much the Ur example of the orphan (except maybe Moses) - his whole planet blew up. The whole "Last Son of Krypton" thing drives his characterization.


I loves me some Joe Campbell. I'm just saying, there are alternatives to killing the main character's parents. I wish they were used more often.

Duke of URL
2010-12-06, 12:56 PM
Response to counter-examples:
Roy: Father is dead. He has a relationship with him via ghost form and in the after life, but he's still dead. I can't recall if his mother is still alive, but I don't think she's gotten any "screen time" and Roy certainly hasn't spent much time talking about his relationship with her.
Mom is dead, lives in Celestia* -- she get's "screen time" during Roy's own dead period.


John Sheridan: I can't recall any episodes where his parents were discussed or featured, but I'm not a huge Babylon 5 fan, so I can't intelligently respond. Although putting your main characters on the other side of the galaxy from their families seems a bit like cheating to me.

Refers to his father frequently (specifically, his experiences as growing up as the child of an ambassador). Pretty much the last thing he does before going rebel against his own government is call his dad, who then has to go into hiding. Sheridan's eventual capture was the result of Garibaldi's "Judas" moment where he tells the enemy how to get to Sheridan -- through his father.

--

* Only in the D&D cosmology (or something similar) does that statement make any sense whatsoever.

Ormur
2010-12-06, 01:22 PM
I've only played two characters seriously and neither have been orphans but their parents haven't featured in the story. I'm really not very comfortable playing out encounters with people my character should have an intimate relationship with when I haven't actually established that in character. It's hard to pretend to care for people, especially when you're kind of allergic to sentimentality like me.

So, I don't really understand that motive for playing orphans, not having your DM killing them. I as a player wouldn't have a big emotional investment in characters I hadn't actually interacted with. That would actually be my primary reason for playing an orphan, not having to deal with actually meeting my family in character. Although playing an orphan might also come with some angst I wouldn't like to role play much.

Yeah, I'm a bit repressed.


We, of course, have to remember that the concept of childhood didn't exist at the time, so to most people it was like leaving a cat or dog in the forest.

From what little I've read about the history of families that view has come under a lot of attack recently. Of course in periods of famine and very high child mortality it might have been necessary to avoid some level of emotional connection to your children and households couldn't afford for kids to be idle but just like now there were parents who cared for their children and expressed sorrow and loss when they died or when they couldn't care for them. Emotional defense mechanisms and difficult conditions shouldn't be confused with not having a concept of childhood.

chiasaur11
2010-12-06, 01:30 PM
Response to counter-examples:

Roy: Father is dead. He has a relationship with him via ghost form and in the after life, but he's still dead. I can't recall if his mother is still alive, but I don't think she's gotten any "screen time" and Roy certainly hasn't spent much time talking about his relationship with her.
Indiana Jones: This is in fact an excellent counter example, as his relationship with his father is central to the (really good) movie.
James T. Kirk: In the new time warp retcon his Father was killed to make him more angry/angsty, with disastrous results (I hated the new "fratboy" Kirk).
John Sheridan: I can't recall any episodes where his parents were discussed or featured, but I'm not a huge Babylon 5 fan, so I can't intelligently respond. Although putting your main characters on the other side of the galaxy from their families seems a bit like cheating to me.
Ben Sisko on the other hand, had a very interesting relationship with his father. Family relationships were actually a huge deal on DS9 - Ben's Dad/Ben/Jake, Quark/Nog, Odo/Collective, etc. And now that I think of it, DS9 is one of the better written sci-fi shows specifically because it didn't hand wave away all of the family relationships.
Superman: Pretty much the Ur example of the orphan (except maybe Moses) - his whole planet blew up. The whole "Last Son of Krypton" thing drives his characterization.


I loves me some Joe Campbell. I'm just saying, there are alternatives to killing the main character's parents. I wish they were used more often.

And Scott Pilgrim?

Dsurion
2010-12-06, 01:30 PM
Emotional defense mechanisms and difficult conditions shouldn't be confused with not having a concept of childhood.
My mistake, I wasn't clear on that. I could swear I typed "as we know it today" somewhere in there. I'll go ahead and edit that... I'm going on bits and pieces of research and understanding of both history and psychology from college, so I admit I could very well be wrong, myself.

Zeful
2010-12-06, 02:49 PM
Too many players basically 'fear' the GM writing meta-plot for them and the GM having leverage on their character. Thus: All PCs are vat-grown ninjas, with no childhood, family, or in-depth background for the GM to shaft them with. Have nothing, and you have nothing to take away.

To be fair, a lot of this is due to poor GMs casually killing off families, or using them as leverage far too often. But a lot of it is also players simply wanting a simple life, and to live in some kind of my-little-pony-land, where any violence and blackmail is being directed BY them, rather than AT them. To many players, a GM pulling back-story strings is somehow a bad thing that they dislike.

Because it's still relevant. A quote from myself.

That is a myth. Making the character an Orphan gives the DM free reign to create that character's family. Have a recurring, beautiful female NPC? Your Sister/Mother, bonus points if the DM springs this on you after you "sample the wine". The evil archmage? Your Father. Little girl raising Zombies and Skeletons? Your Uncle (Soul Jar shenanigans)/Sister.

Having a family means that the DM loses one way of messing with you in exchange for another. The same goes for the other way round.


Just the fact that a lot of people would rather put their effort elsewhere rather then coming up with a backstory for parents. I don't think I would be playing with a DM for very much longer if he actually used my character's backstory against me. That's like saying "Thank you for coming up with a story for your character to make him believable, now I'm going to punish you for it."I'm sorry, what? Using the hero's family as leverage is a literary practice predating Chainmail, the Wargame D&D is based on. Complaining about it makes just as much sense as complaining about having a climactic battle that determines the fate of the world. If you don't want to deal with it talk to the DM about it. If he's reasonable, he'll try to avoid it (note that your character's behaviour could cause someone to abduct/threaten your family, at which point complaining marks you as one of those players that think their preferences should dictate the game, which is not a good thing).


Edit: On a side note, I don't allow orphans in my campaign unless the player gives just as detailed an explanation about the family as someone who has living family. Everyone had "family" at some point, whether it be an orphanage, a teacher, or a blood-line family. I find a lot of players just say "I'm an orphan so I don't have to do the family part of the backstory."So you don't allow raised by wolves characters like Romulos and Remus?


Laziness. Pure laziness. It takes 5 minutes to come up with a real motivation for adventuring and a basic back story for your parents, siblings, friends, and home town. It takes 5 seconds to write down that you're an orphan.

No, it's not. It's more of a lack of inspiration. My first character didn't have a backstory at all, the next few managed to have something of a goal, but none of them had backstories. I hadn't thought to make one until it was required, and even then it was sparce (I could probably fit it on an index card).

V: It's fixed now.

PersonMan
2010-12-06, 03:29 PM
a climactic fattle that determines the fate of the world.

I agree with the rest, but I've never had a fattle before.

Personally, I only really want to write up a backstory if there's a good chance it's actually going to be used somehow. Otherwise, I don't really see why it would really matter where XY came from since it probably won't affect the personality I have come up with for them.

mucat
2010-12-06, 03:46 PM
Personally, I only really want to write up a backstory if there's a good chance it's actually going to be used somehow. Otherwise, I don't really see why it would really matter where XY came from since it probably won't affect the personality I have come up with for them.
"Used" by who?

I like to know details about my characters' lives before the story starts, not because the DM might use these details as plot hooks -- though it's great fun when they do -- but because it helps me play the character more vividly. Most campaigns throw the PCs into some crazy situations, and the way a person reacts to those situations would depend on their past experiences -- what have they been through before that resembles this? What kinds of things are they confident they can handle? What are they afraid of? What things are utterly new and confusing to them? What or who do they hate?

Even if no one else "uses" the character's past, the player uses it every time they decide how to react to the present.

Otacon17
2010-12-06, 04:26 PM
Superman: Pretty much the Ur example of the orphan (except maybe Moses) - his whole planet blew up. The whole "Last Son of Krypton" thing drives his characterization.

Equally important, though, is his devotion to truth, justice, and the American way, traits he learned from the Kents, who he had a very strong, healthy relationship with. The plot of Superman is driven by him being the Last Son of Krypton; the character of Superman is driven by the morals instilled in him by his (foster) parents.

Otherworld Odd
2010-12-06, 04:43 PM
To be fair, I know next to nothing about my parent's back stories in real life.

Like I said earlier, good Dms can use the backstories right and make the games a lot better. Bad Dms just piss people off.

I wasn't saying that, I was saying that even if you don't know your parents (even their names, not even their whole back-story and life), orphans grow up among someone and know them and they act as family, blood or not.


Because it's still relevant. A quote from myself.


I'm sorry, what? Using the hero's family as leverage is a literary practice predating Chainmail, the Wargame D&D is based on. Complaining about it makes just as much sense as complaining about having a climactic fattle that determines the fate of the world. If you don't want to deal with it talk to the DM about it. If he's reasonable, he'll try to avoid it (note that your character's behaviour could cause someone to abduct/threaten your family, at which point complaining marks you as one of those players that think their preferences should dictate the game, which is not a good thing).

So you don't allow raised by wolves characters like Romulos and Remus?

1.) If the most creative thing a DM can come up with is kidnapping my family, then fine. I'm just sayin'. Not going to like it very much. Personal preference.

2.) I do. Because the wolves were their family and they were raised. I don't allow characters that say "I'm an orphan, I grew up all alone and here I am, alone, because there was absolutely no one in my life ever that's worth mentioning." That's what I don't allow.

Slipperychicken
2010-12-06, 05:06 PM
If nothing else, it could be attributed to the fact that reasonable, well-adjusted people with loving/supportive families don't Adventure the way PCs want to.

Think about it: Mr. Jurgis Swings-his-Sword isn't going to jump half-naked into a pit full of bears if that means that his family will have to resort to beggary/prostitution to make ends meet.

There's also the (already mentioned) fact that it's more convenient to write "no parents". However, everyone has *some* kind of family: be they mom&dad, siblings, gramps, Aunt May, a gang of children, clergy, mentors, the list goes on. And the whole "not letting the DM f*ck with my character" thing. Even if the parents are dead and ignored/neglected the character as a child, they still had an impact on his development.

Making up one or two details about what characters did for survival/fun/money before adventuring does wonders for fleshing those characters out, even if they magically never ever had anyone who ever loved them ever. It's also a good idea to answer questions relating to those details (i.e.if he liked riding; how did he get access to horses?, if he liked playing with magic, who bought the spellbooks? if he got angry and broke stuff a lot, how did he deal with the obvious consequences?). A little off-topic here, but it's sort of like a Socratic method for character development, asking questions relating to aspects of the character's life. Eventually you get a good idea of how this person supported his/her lifestyle, and will most likely wind up with some kind of guardian/mentor with whom your character regularly interacted.

Zeful
2010-12-06, 05:16 PM
1.) If the most creative thing a DM can come up with is kidnapping my family, then fine. I'm just sayin'. Not going to like it very much. Personal preference.What? Everyone has to start somewhere. I mean one could start with a sister/mother being "inducted"1 into a cult and used as nothing but a sexual slave, but there are comfort issues with it. Kidnappings are the easiest way to judge player comfort without spoiling anything by allowing them to fill in the details themselves. Short of the families being villains, there's going to be some form of kidnapping.

1: Dang, that can be used as a euphamisim for Kidnapped.


2.) I do. Because the wolves were their family and they were raised. I don't allow characters that say "I'm an orphan, I grew up all alone and here I am, alone, because there was absolutely no one in my life ever that's worth mentioning." That's what I don't allow.
Why not? There's nothing really wrong with a character being abandoned in the wood on his own and surviving for 5/10 years in a cave as a hermit before eventually confronting civilization again.

Person_Man
2010-12-06, 05:35 PM
And Scott Pilgrim?

I've not read or seen. Is it any good?

Starbuck_II
2010-12-06, 05:49 PM
1.) If the most creative thing a DM can come up with is kidnapping my family, then fine. I'm just sayin'. Not going to like it very much. Personal preference.

2.) I do. Because the wolves were their family and they were raised. I don't allow characters that say "I'm an orphan, I grew up all alone and here I am, alone, because there was absolutely no one in my life ever that's worth mentioning." That's what I don't allow.

But Wedge was a important Star Wars Character: Yes, he is an orphan. He had no contact with any other family. He did become friends with biggs though.

chiasaur11
2010-12-06, 06:33 PM
I've not read or seen. Is it any good?

Yes. Very.

Film doesn't mention family as much as the books do, though.

Scott's family, other than his kid sister, does to spend the majority of the book away, but it's just a vacation in Rome.

Oh, a better example, though?

Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle.

Parents both alive, well, and occasionally helpful.

Otherworld Odd
2010-12-06, 07:50 PM
What? Everyone has to start somewhere. I mean one could start with a sister/mother being "inducted"1 into a cult and used as nothing but a sexual slave, but there are comfort issues with it. Kidnappings are the easiest way to judge player comfort without spoiling anything by allowing them to fill in the details themselves. Short of the families being villains, there's going to be some form of kidnapping.

1: Dang, that can be used as a euphamisim for Kidnapped.


Why not? There's nothing really wrong with a character being abandoned in the wood on his own and surviving for 5/10 years in a cave as a hermit before eventually confronting civilization again.

I guess I'm just being too vague because you're clearly not getting what I'm saying. I give up, nothing against you, I just don't feel like defending my personal opinions any further. -.-.

Edit: I changed my mind. I guess I was a little harsh in saying I'd quit playing with a DM who did that, because I wouldn't, but I was really saying it for dramatic effect. (But still, making a character so your DM can't do that to you is a little silly.)

Mainly, it's because I like to think a little realistically and the chances that the random kidnapped sex slave is the hero's mother is a little low. Now if it's a big bad guy and he does it to smite you because he hates you, sure. That's believable. But that's also why you don't run around broadcasting who your family is if you're in a point of power that people might resent. (Lawbringer, mercenary, Hero.

If he were abandoned, he was abandoned by somebody. You're the player, you're the *God* to your character. You create him, and if you don't know who his parents are then that's a little lazy. That's all I'm saying. Write it in the backstory, your orphan didn't pop out of nowhere.

Hope that's a little clearer.

Zeful
2010-12-06, 09:02 PM
I guess I'm just being too vague because you're clearly not getting what I'm saying.The reason I ask is because I'm curious, I want to understand your point of view because it is so different from my own.


Edit: I changed my mind. I guess I was a little harsh in saying I'd quit playing with a DM who did that, because I wouldn't, but I was really saying it for dramatic effect. (But still, making a character so your DM can't do that to you is a little silly.)I'd probably quit if that's all the DM ever did to character's families, sure, because he's not innovating. I'd talk to him about first, give him a chance to understand what he's doing wrong, but eventually I'd quit. It's just not worth it.


Mainly, it's because I like to think a little realistically and the chances that the random kidnapped sex slave is the hero's mother is a little low. Now if it's a big bad guy and he does it to smite you because he hates you, sure. That's believable. But that's also why you don't run around broadcasting who your family is if you're in a point of power that people might resent. (Lawbringer, mercenary, Hero).All true, but stuff like this is the reason players don't include families in their backstory, and they don't make friends. If the DM is simply going to kill them why bother. But if that's the player's attitude then the DM has done something wrong.


If he were abandoned, he was abandoned by somebody. You're the player, you're the *God* to your character. You create him, and if you don't know who his parents are then that's a little lazy. That's all I'm saying. Write it in the backstory, your orphan didn't pop out of nowhere.But that ruins the suspense. If I write a character orphaned by his parents in the woods, and lived as a hermit for 10 years before being found by civilizaiton, I'm going to have him look into his family as part of the character's motivation, knowing the answer before hand ruins the journey, because I know where and how to look for them. If I leave it vauge, say his mother was a redhead or he have necklace, that leaves room for the DM to throw me a curve-ball. A good DM will run with it, and give me something satisfying for an end. A great DM will keep me guessing until the climax for the character arc.


Hope that's a little clearer.It is. Thank you for indulging this one's curiosity.

PersonMan
2010-12-07, 01:33 AM
"Used" by who?

I like to know details about my characters' lives before the story starts, not because the DM might use these details as plot hooks -- though it's great fun when they do -- but because it helps me play the character more vividly. Most campaigns throw the PCs into some crazy situations, and the way a person reacts to those situations would depend on their past experiences -- what have they been through before that resembles this? What kinds of things are they confident they can handle? What are they afraid of? What things are utterly new and confusing to them? What or who do they hate?

Even if no one else "uses" the character's past, the player uses it every time they decide how to react to the present.

Eh. Personally, I don't think that I could somehow use the backstory to determine my character's reaction in a situation, I just don't really think like that, I guess.

It could be the way I create characters. I get a mental image, of sorts, containing the appearance, abilities and personality of the character, which I then build with mechanics that suit them. Sometimes this changes over the course of play, but usually(primarily because I've never playing in a very long-term game) it stays in line with the starting person. Writing up a detailed backstory means I need to check for their hometown rather than going "In flubbajubba we did X". Which I don't like.

Otherworld Odd
2010-12-07, 01:46 AM
But that ruins the suspense. If I write a character orphaned by his parents in the woods, and lived as a hermit for 10 years before being found by civilizaiton, I'm going to have him look into his family as part of the character's motivation, knowing the answer before hand ruins the journey, because I know where and how to look for them. If I leave it vauge, say his mother was a redhead or he have necklace, that leaves room for the DM to throw me a curve-ball. A good DM will run with it, and give me something satisfying for an end. A great DM will keep me guessing until the climax for the character arc.


This is true. Admittedly, I didn't think of letting the DM come up with part of a character's story to give you a good time. I guess I'm just used to coming up with everything myself as I've never had a DM who's done that. If your DM is like that, orphan away in my opinion.

Brom
2010-12-07, 01:50 AM
I just have a quick question for all of you playgrounders out there.
WHY?!

To me, it seems very un original and pretty flipping boring...
Any ideas on why this seems to be a default for everyone?

So I don't get quests like this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0338.html), or something like this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0131.html), or so I don't have to deal with things like this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0629.html) >_<

It makes for good storytelling, I admit...and I absolutely hate that crap. When the DM does this to me, I don't go, ''Oh gosh'' and flip out about how my level 1 commoner family members are going to be killed and it's my character's fault.

I get annoyed.

I LIKE the normal plots about the end of the world and all things. I like working against dark and mysterious forces.

Subplots dealing with saving family members feel mundane, and as a roleplayer, you're all but coerced into dealing with them immediately, derailing any momentum you might have had.

For me, it steals from the drama of the story.

These subplots and quests to deal with family detract from the game. Which is why all my characters are orphans, or have reason not to give a crap about their family, or are otherwise helpless to help their family. (I admit, the orphan thing is cliche, and rarely do I sink that far. My first serious character's dad was a great warrior, who ran off to deal with some mysterious power. It was quickly confirmed that he was very much alive, but otherwise occupied. My second serious character was born into slavery. My third serious character's parents sacrificed themselves to Nerull when he was 10 to bestow blessings upon him so the Reaper would favor him.)

Coidzor
2010-12-07, 02:55 AM
Certainly drains one's momentum by changing tracks quickly.

Also, OP, so Jack Slenderman can eat them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj6F_piB_HE). :smallcool: