Gamer Girl
2011-03-31, 01:31 PM
I'm one of the Dm's that likes a player to have a background for their character. I'll work with the play and let them come up with mostly their own background. normally, this works out fine, but in my last two games some background problems have came up.
1.The Vengeance Background-the one that gives the most trouble. It's the classic 'my parents were killed by orcs' and now 'I hate orcs'. so the backstory itself is fine(though a bit over done). The problem comes when we start to game. The plot for the game session is the group helping some halfings find a lost treasure vault. Most of the group is happy and fine with the quest.
Except the vengeance player, they only want to go kill orcs. And kill more orcs and kill more orcs. So they have no interest in helping the halflings, adventuring or even getting experience....they just want to kill orcs. It's almost like they just want to sit back and kill orcs for five hours, but not role-play anything else.
2.The Revenge Background-a lot like the vengeance background, this background has something 'bad' in the past that the character wants to get revenge for. And it's mostly the same problem. The player does not want to adventure, does not want to do anything, except get revenge.
In both cases, the player basically wants to play a solo game. Or at least one where they are the 'star' and everyone else just tags along and does what the one player wants.
I've always seen back stories as a bit more long term. The idea that you would clear your background in the first couple minutes of the first game just sounds boring to me and it's hard to fit it into the game. And if you can 'fix' something in your history in seconds, it becomes boring and pointless.
Take the orc tribe example: The tribe has 100 members. And at 1st level the player wants to go 'kill all the orcs'. How do they plan to do that; well they will just walk up to them and kill them one by one. The player refuses to do anything else, especially things that could give them experience, like adventure.
So in both cases, I had to just ignore both players, and focus on the rest of the group. And the group wanted to go on the 'Halfling Help' adventure, not do a 'one person focus game'. Needless to say both players were mad that they 'made backgrounds and histories for nothing'. The one player just sat back and mumbled the whole game, barely talking or even rolling the dice.
So what does everyone else do? Does this happen to any other DMs?
1.The Vengeance Background-the one that gives the most trouble. It's the classic 'my parents were killed by orcs' and now 'I hate orcs'. so the backstory itself is fine(though a bit over done). The problem comes when we start to game. The plot for the game session is the group helping some halfings find a lost treasure vault. Most of the group is happy and fine with the quest.
Except the vengeance player, they only want to go kill orcs. And kill more orcs and kill more orcs. So they have no interest in helping the halflings, adventuring or even getting experience....they just want to kill orcs. It's almost like they just want to sit back and kill orcs for five hours, but not role-play anything else.
2.The Revenge Background-a lot like the vengeance background, this background has something 'bad' in the past that the character wants to get revenge for. And it's mostly the same problem. The player does not want to adventure, does not want to do anything, except get revenge.
In both cases, the player basically wants to play a solo game. Or at least one where they are the 'star' and everyone else just tags along and does what the one player wants.
I've always seen back stories as a bit more long term. The idea that you would clear your background in the first couple minutes of the first game just sounds boring to me and it's hard to fit it into the game. And if you can 'fix' something in your history in seconds, it becomes boring and pointless.
Take the orc tribe example: The tribe has 100 members. And at 1st level the player wants to go 'kill all the orcs'. How do they plan to do that; well they will just walk up to them and kill them one by one. The player refuses to do anything else, especially things that could give them experience, like adventure.
So in both cases, I had to just ignore both players, and focus on the rest of the group. And the group wanted to go on the 'Halfling Help' adventure, not do a 'one person focus game'. Needless to say both players were mad that they 'made backgrounds and histories for nothing'. The one player just sat back and mumbled the whole game, barely talking or even rolling the dice.
So what does everyone else do? Does this happen to any other DMs?