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View Full Version : Framing Someone/Player Backstory Inclusion Advice



ElenionAncalima
2014-01-02, 03:05 PM
So I am starting a game with two players, each playing two characters, where the party will be competing in a tournament held by a dragon. For the campaign, one of the players wrote a backstory where his two characters are half brothers and their father has recently been sentenced and imprisoned for a series of crimes, of which he claims to be innocent.

The player left the details of the alleged thefts and whether or not the father is guilty open-ended. It is clear that this is a subplot that he would like me to develop in the game. I have no problem with this in theory, but I have been thinking and thinking and still have no inspiration for how to include it into the game.

I most likely have a lot of time before the players return to their home region. However, I feel like I need to come up with something that:
a) Won't disappoint the player
b) Won't totally derail the story, since helping their father is going to be more important to them that competing in a tournament.

tl;dr - Does anyone have any advice for incorporating player backstories smoothly into their story or any cool ideas for a subplot where a street performer/former thief might be framed or claim to be framed for thefts?

mucat
2014-01-02, 05:18 PM
So I am starting a game with two players, each playing two characters, where the party will be competing in a tournament held by a dragon. For the campaign, one of the players wrote a backstory where his two characters are half brothers and their father has recently been sentenced and imprisoned for a series of crimes, of which he claims to be innocent.

The player left the details of the alleged thefts and whether or not the father is guilty open-ended. It is clear that this is a subplot that he would like me to develop in the game. I have no problem with this in theory, but I have been thinking and thinking and still have no inspiration for how to include it into the game.

I most likely have a lot of time before the players return to their home region. However, I feel like I need to come up with something that:
a) Won't disappoint the player
b) Won't totally derail the story, since helping their father is going to be more important to them that competing in a tournament.

tl;dr - Does anyone have any advice for incorporating player backstories smoothly into their story or any cool ideas for a subplot where a street performer/former thief might be framed or claim to be framed for thefts?
You could subvert their likely expectations by letting them find definitive proof that their father is guilty...then after they stew in that for a while, give them a hint of why he did it, and why he couldn't tell the truth before even to his sons.

Since the father is a former thief, maybe someone from his shady past had resurfaced to make him an offer he couldn't refuse. Do the brothers have any other living family (possibly including someone they don't know about?) Maybe the shady figure was threatening (or had already abducted) that family member, or was threatening the sons themselves. Or maybe the shady figure is someone who the father cares about or owes a debt of honor to (they once saved his life, or his sons' lives?) and he willingly turned back to crime to help that person out of a jam.

Either way, set it up so that the father could never have told his sons any of this, even after he was caught, without bringing down disaster on everyone involved...and now that the sons have discovered it themselves, that same disaster is gonna come crashing down unless they can prevent it!

To keep this from derailing the story of the tournament,..maybe the dragon running the tournament has information or other resources that they need to help their family, and offers it as a bonus prize if they win the tournament?