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Red Lantern
2013-02-19, 05:26 PM
Sooner or later every GM might need to just show this to a player:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d25/tanhauser/motivator39950c200e61a64fd041d8f183249f8b20812ec2_ zps1684df1e.jpg

Calmar
2013-02-19, 06:44 PM
:biggrin:

Yeah, I love those oddball characters that seem to be crazy for no other reason than not to fit with th esetting. :smallbiggrin:

Rorrik
2013-02-19, 06:52 PM
It's cute when players write a backstory they will never live, like claiming to be highly religious to gain the advantages of a deity's support when you know their character is just going to grab all the magic he can and forget the god at the first sign of a fight.

I also love the backstories that are so long I facepalm, but only at first, then I keep reading and realize they have made the lore of the world for me and once their long lost prince is put in his place (ie finds out his kingdom has no chance of revival) the game can proceed normally.

Deathkeeper
2013-02-21, 12:44 AM
In my first campaign the party cleric proposed a backstory that not only was filled with cliches (and a terrible character build. 8 Str in Medium armor. I'm not kidding.), but essentially proposed its own campaign in of itself (players do not have the right to make their own elder evils). The GM responded by approving it, and forging said character's personal sidequest with a ridiculous number of moral traps at a point of the game where we would never afford Atonement. He lost his powers when he decided that killing a young gold dragon was a good idea.
Advice: Never make a completely idiotic backstory along with a character wasting literally every character resource possible, and then continuously antagonize the GM and party by insisting that you're the most important person in the party.

Bhaakon
2013-02-21, 08:47 AM
The answer is simple. Take the other players aside and tell them that ridiculously involved backstory character is actually the delusional offspring of the local cobbler. It's up to them as to whether they want to tilt at windmills with Don Quixote.

Jay R
2013-02-21, 11:43 AM
if you want the DM to consider your character's backstory a part of her world, then she needs to be in on the writing of it.

BlckDv
2013-02-21, 12:39 PM
In line with the Don Quixote comment above, my general rule is you can write anything you want as your back story, and your PC will earnestly believe it. It may or may not align with observable facts or the beliefs of other characters. I will be happy to point out or not point out elements which may be unlikely to be objectively true as you desire.

I had a PC who was "The Green Knight, heir to a Barony across the Sea" Who was seeking allies to overthrow the evil warrior who had stolen his families lands and enslaved the people. Except the ruler of said Barony was in fact the rightful Baron, and the PCs family had led a revolt which had been put down a generation ago and raised him on a very false retelling of the events. The player knew his backstory was not objectively true, but had asked for me to not tell him any details so that he could better react IC as events unfolded.

Rorrik
2013-02-21, 06:25 PM
Now the writing of a Don Quixote character on purpose and wanting to be in character delusional: that sounds like a lot of fun.

My player realizes his hopes of restoring his kingdom are never going to happen, and he wrote his character's personality so his arrogance is (in character, not out of character) alienating the other members of the party. It's actually really fun having his character think he's an expert and seeing things unfold differently. It's fun having him think he's a prince while the others leave him behind to help the "wretched masses."

But let's not be biased, there are plenty of characters that go wrong in the other direction. My wife is currently playing a half-desert elf druid whose only ambition is to bring her new-found knowledge of plants back to her people. In-character, she basically just wants to get out of the current situation and go home.

Guizonde
2013-02-21, 06:26 PM
it seems as if pious characters are prone to this.

first time gaming with my DnDm, i built a halfling paladin (it worked based on small size bonuses. i did cruddy damage, but was never hit. i was a tarpit). my dm banged his head against the walls trying to explain to me that halfling paladins can't exist for two reasons. halflings aren't that martial, and halflings aren't that pious.
we proceeded, and inevitably when the campaign fell through due to having lousy players (untrustworthy irl, and their builds weren't coherent with the setting), he said "your paladin will suffer". it was a sore point between us, especially since that rankled for nigh on a year.

he starts the campaign fresh again, i roll a dwarven cleric of pelor, so incredibly devout it astounds my dm, the stats are pretty darn good, and i play him like a radiant servant of pelor from day 1, but with a chaotic streak to him, occasionally going into the scourging of the flesh the more he sees horror. the dm has just told me i might not be welcomed in every church of pelor, since i'm shy of low-end heresy (despite being firmly planted in good alignment, the chaotic comes from my manifestation of faith). you know what? so be it, it's really interesting to play.
then, he made me meet my old paladin, turned into a necropolitan. ouch. ooc, i couldn't bring my cleric to kill her, and so she fled with a wild elf barbarian's specter. he could have made me fall for that (letting two undead critters go unharmed, with the blessing of pelor!), but he understood that it hurt too much for me to actually do that without crushing my spirit.

my new mission now is to make my old paladin live anew as a necropolitan, but paladin is banned (yup, even greyguard). what's with me and oddball religious types?

tl;dr: i make religious characters, dm crushes their spirit with grimdark overdose, doesn't make them fall because character development becomes more interesting between my playstyle and interaction with whatever the gm throws at them.

edit:

Now the writing of a Don Quixote character on purpose and wanting to be in character delusional: that sounds like a lot of fun.

My player realizes his hopes of restoring his kingdom are never going to happen, and he wrote his character's personality so his arrogance is (in character, not out of character) alienating the other members of the party. It's actually really fun having his character think he's an expert and seeing things unfold differently. It's fun having him think he's a prince while the others leave him behind to help the "wretched masses."


my dm is a pc in a whfrp campaign, where he's convinced he's the greatest wizard the world has ever known. it's side-burstingly funny to see in action. except he's so lucky with bluff checks that we're all in character convinced he is! and warhammer just went from grimdark to hilariously epic, even if mood whiplash is abundant.
ooc, he's just starting to see how dangerous magic is in the warhammer world, so he's reigning it back a bit, muttering things like "the strings of magic are in the sewers right now, not a good idea for me to pluck the fiddle". yes, he's absolutely incoherent, but we love playing it that way.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-02-22, 12:47 PM
if you want the DM to consider your character's backstory a part of her world, then she needs to be in on the writing of it.

Yeah, this. I never just write a backstory and send it to the DM, I always try to make it a collaborative thing so the character can fit into the world better.