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TheManicMonocle
2017-10-18, 12:50 PM
Let me start out by saying this is 100% NOT my idea, but I found it very helpful and thought I would share it with you lovely folks. This theory relates to a character's backstory. It's long, so putting it under a spoiler.


My friends and I have something called "Knife Theory"
When writing a character's backstory, it's important to include a certain number of "knives". Knives are essentially anything that the DM can use to raise the stakes of a situation for your character. Anything that can make a conflict personal, like a threatened loved one or the appearance of a sudden enemy. They're called "knives" because the players lovingly forge them and present them to the DM so that the DM can use them to stab the player over and over again.

The more knives a player has, the easier it is for the DM to involve them in the story. So it's important to have them! When breaking down a backstory, it kind of goes like this:

Every named person your character cares about, living or dead (i.e. sibling, spouse, childhood friend) +1 knife
Every phobia or trauma your character experiences/has experienced +1 knife
Every mystery in your character's life (i.e. unknown parents, unexplained powers) +1 knife
Every enemy your character has +1 knife
Every ongoing obligation or loyalty your character has +1 knife
Additionally, every obligation your character has failed +1 knife
Every serious crime your character has committed (i.e. murder, arson) +1 knife
Every crime your character is falsely accused of +1 knife
Alternatively if your character is a serial killer or the leader of a thieves guild, those crimes can be bundled under a +1 BIG knife
Any discrimination experienced (i.e. fantasy racism) +1 knife
Every favored item/heirloom +1 knife
Every secret your character is keeping +1 knife
You kind of get the point. Any part of your backstory that could be used against you is considered a knife. A skilled DM will use these knives to get at your character and get you invested in the story. A really good DM can break your knives into smaller, sharper knives with which to stab you. They can bundle different characters' knives together into one GIANT knife. Because we're all secretly masochists when it comes to D&D, the more knives you hand out often means the more rewarding the story will be.

On the other hand, you don't want to be a sad edgelord with too many knives. An buttload of knives just means that everyone in your party will inadvertently get stabbed by your knives, and eventually that gets annoying. Anything over 15 knives seems excessive. The DM will no doubt get more as time goes on, but you don't want to start out with too many. You also don't want to be the plain, boring character with only two knives. It means the DM has to work harder to give you a personal stake in the story you're telling together. Also, knives are cool!! Get more knives!!!

I always try to incorporate at least 7 knives into my character's backstory, and so far the return has been a stab-ity good time. Going back into previous characters, I've noticed that fewer knives present in my backstory has correlated with fewer direct consequences for my character in game. Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule, it's just something that my friends and I have come up with to help with character creation. We like to challenge each other to make surprising and creative knives. If you think of any that should be included, let me know.

EDIT: I feel I should mention it's important to vary up the type of knives you have. All 7 of your knives shouldn't be family members, nor should they be crimes that you've done in the past. That's a one-way ticket to repetitive gameplay. Part of the fun is making new and interesting knives that could lead to fun surprises in game.


So that's knife theory, here's a link to the original: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/775caq/my_friends_and_i_have_something_called_knife/

What do you guys think?

kyoryu
2017-10-18, 02:18 PM
Aspects in Fate are pretty much this.

Honest Tiefling
2017-10-18, 02:26 PM
Aspects in Fate are pretty much this.

Aspects in Fate have a positive and a negative part to them. I have troubles with systems that are purely negative because my own habit is to try to buck the system. It's a bad habit, but I do think people sometimes have issues trying to 'punish' the character they've carefully created.

Many people react negatively when the backstory is only used against them as well. Why would I ever make NPCs for my backstory if they're only going to die horribly? That's hard to RP with a group (especially early on), and I might not have to deal with the character trying to save the world while their family has been killed and eaten by orcs. I know that people have problems with all adventurers being orphans, but maybe they shouldn't all become orphans DURING the game?

Also, the Aspect can cover some positive traits such as wealth, nobility, or attractiveness that can be problematic for balance if it doesn't come with downsides. Also, having a positive and a negative would do well for Drifter-types, as they wouldn't have a past but also don't have a reputation allowing a bit more flexibility in character creation.

Tinkerer
2017-10-18, 02:28 PM
My first instinct is to try and tweak it but then I remember that it's a guideline not a mechanic. It's decent enough and I do like the analogy, after all who doesn't want knives? I may give it a test in the next campaign I GM.

lunaticfringe
2017-10-18, 02:37 PM
I just call'em hooks. I try to include one or two because I'm a DM and appreciate them.

Like my last character's mentor was murdered by an unknown and he is estranged from his family because they blame him for his uncle's accidental death.

I could work with those 2 things if I wanted to get into personal story arcs. Maybe even combine them with an Evil Cousin or Aunt.

Max_Killjoy
2017-10-18, 02:43 PM
Interesting, but I think it's a mistake to view only those things that can complicate or harm or worry a character, only those things that can used against them, as legitimate hooks. Anything that ties the character into the setting and story is potentially useful.

These lines in particular --
"They're called "knives" because the players lovingly forge them and present them to the DM so that the DM can use them to stab the player over and over again."
"Any part of your backstory that could be used against you is considered a knife."
-- would make me leery as hell to take any more of them than forced to.

And this line --
"Because we're all secretly masochists when it comes to D&D, the more knives you hand out often means the more rewarding the story will be."
-- Guess what... I'm not. Not a masochist, that is. At all.

This is a good example of mismatched expectations that can lead to a bad gaming experience. A GM piling on the "stabs" because they think that makes the game more fun is going to make the game less fun for a player like me.

This "the more stuff that can be used against them the better" / "players are all masochists at heart" thing is the sort of assumption that makes those players who don't share it turn up at the table with wandering orphan friendless drifter antihero characters, because anything they do to try to engage their character in the setting or story ends up being treated as a vulnerability and used against them.

Mato
2017-10-18, 02:48 PM
What do you guys think?
A real flaw that affects those around your character in a significant way, a weakness with serious consequences, not just angst or temporary hurt feelings. But there is a catch, if the character does something no one else likes it can lead to a problem. Most junior novelists, and character creators, instead use a cosmetic flaw. It's victimless and probably barely even hurts its possessor, all it does is get mentioned in speech but otherwise sits in the background so no one can be affected by it.

An example of this is creating a traumatic past history. The creator feels like they did something and that they are a good character creator because the character isn't "perfect", this past may get spoken of a lot to claim some bonus XP but it never affects the creator's decision making in how the character will act. Like maybe you designed a coward and allow your insecurities to play through them but when has the character actually displayed disloyalty?

The subject of tiny "knives" that don't affect the party is nothing more than creating pointless cosmetic flaws and expecting the DM to incorporate your character's back ground into his game and build upon it for you. Like maybe your character made this unseen group of celestial werebadger thieves angry for some reason and so you want the DM to design an entire organization, incorporate them in his game, and a minor parallel story about your character resolving a nonexistent issue, so your character's past history can have a line drawn through it's cosmetic flaw and marked "finished".

You could just try reading about how to make a flawed character and balance action & narration instead and then asking your friends what kind of traits will they be able to handle.

kyoryu
2017-10-18, 02:50 PM
Aspects in Fate have a positive and a negative part to them.

They *can*. Some tend to be more positive, and others (Troubles) tend to be more negative.

But they're still these types of story hooks, and have various mechanical bits associated with them.

Telonius
2017-10-18, 02:54 PM
I think the preferred number of "knives" depends a bit on the style of campaign you're looking for. A more sandbox-y type of adventuring party might want more knives, so there are more opportunities for the DM to play the character against the setting. But if you have an over-arching plot (adventure path-style), the plot itself is the thing that keeps roping in the players. You'd only need a few character hooks to keep everyone caring about what's going on. "Average kid from a modest background with no tragic backstory" is a perfectly fine character to play in a save-the-world-from-the-BBEG plot. He doesn't need a million adventure hooks. He generally likes the world and doesn't want it blown up; that might be enough motivation for him.

kyoryu
2017-10-18, 02:59 PM
I think the preferred number of "knives" depends a bit on the style of campaign you're looking for. A more sandbox-y type of adventuring party might want more knives, so there are more opportunities for the DM to play the character against the setting. But if you have an over-arching plot (adventure path-style), the plot itself is the thing that keeps roping in the players. You'd only need a few character hooks to keep everyone caring about what's going on. "Average kid from a modest background with no tragic backstory" is a perfectly fine character to play in a save-the-world-from-the-BBEG plot. He doesn't need a million adventure hooks. He generally likes the world and doesn't want it blown up; that might be enough motivation for him.

This is reasonable. In an adventure path, or even a megadungeon game, it's not really about the character of the PCs.

Honest Tiefling
2017-10-18, 03:06 PM
This is reasonable. In an adventure path, or even a megadungeon game, it's not really about the character of the PCs.

I'd disagree with this. A character can still be a character, but if there's a portal to the Abyss spewing out demons, they should probably demonstrate that character by focusing on the matter at hand. There can be plenty of moral dilemmas or RP in such a situation, but it's probably going to focus on a particular set of events.

Lord Torath
2017-10-18, 03:26 PM
It's not necessary to threaten/kill family members to draw the PCs into the campaign. An old girlfriend can need help (she's investigating odd occurrences and needs some muscle to back her up). A childhood friend can be a spy who delivers critical information to the party.

I like the idea of calling them "hooks" rather than "knives".

NichG
2017-10-18, 07:11 PM
This is unnecessary and IMO detracting when you're playing a character whose natural state is to be in motion.

What I mean by that is that some characters are made in such a way that if nothing was going on, they'd default to some kind of stable behavior and just repeat it. There's a lovely phrase I've encountered in Chinese fiction for this that I don't know the original form of: 'Eating and waiting for death'. These characters need 'knives'.

On the other hand, if you make a self-motivating character, those knives are actually a hindrance and annoyance. 'I'm busy bringing an industrial revolution to the world, I don't have time to go personally rescue my cousin', etc. Yes, you can still have surprises and set backs and so on, but now rather than forming the bulk of the character's motivation they're asides, and the character will likely seek to get back to what they see as the actual point of the campaign. For such a character, opportunities are more effective than knives. Give an ambitious character a way to step closer to their goals and they will often do surprising things to seize it.

Cluedrew
2017-10-18, 08:50 PM
Yeah, I prefer the idea* of hooks to knives. A knife can only be used to stab the character. A hook can be used to pull them up, down or forward. It is a lot more flexible. Character hooks also play opposite plot hooks. The former gives the GM guidance and opportunities for interaction as the latter does for players.

And of course self motivated character are like the ultimate hook in terms of getting things going.

* or perhaps just imagery.

Anymage
2017-10-18, 09:12 PM
5e already has Ideals, Bonds, Flaws, and an Inspiration mechanic to give these marks on the character sheet some teeth. The fact that nobody here is mentioning that 5e has something close to your system already shows two things. How much attention people actually pay to it, and how much attention Knives would get in practice.

There are two ways I've seen to make this work in practice. The first involves throwing your knives in the garbage. You have to give each player ownership of a small area of the campaign world, and accept a social contract that you won't burn this place down on a whim. You can occasionally offer a distant threat, but remember to make these places a net benefit. (Otherwise, you'll just be incentivizing orphans without any ties.) Once they have a sense of ownership and the downtime to see their corner of the world grow, they'll start to get more invested.

Second involves giving some sort of in-game reward for when a background element provides a hindrance. (XP being common in many systems, but D&D tends to prefer everybody playing around the same point.) Tying this in as an addition to the Inspiration system might be handy; only being able to hold one inspiration at a time limits how many bonds or flaws you can practically benefit from, while at the same time encouraging the player to give the DM hooks.

(Although in the latter case, I strongly recommend reading FATE just to crib some of their ideas.)

(Edit: Could've sworn this was in the 5e subforum when I posted. Since it isn't, I'll note that games like Exalted and Vampire have a flaw system where the whole point of flaws is that if they meaningfully impact your character, you get bonus xp. FATE Aspects and the D&D system are just a few other ways of offering you some sort of reward for making character traits outside of pure optimal combat mode into things that have mechanical heft. Everything else I said, about mechanical benefits and/ or encouraging buy-in through letting the players feel ownership over their little corner of the world, still stands.)

Vitruviansquid
2017-10-18, 10:50 PM
Ehhhh, I don't know about some of these ideas for knives.

Let's say I have a character who is out adventuring, but has a younger sister he is very protective of at home. Then, the GM is going to bring out this knife at some point in the game, and I imagine the conversation goes like this.

GM: "BBEG sends a letter that says 'Vitruviansquid - we have your sister. We will trade her for the MacGuffin, otherwise we start sending fingers and toes.'"

Me: "Uhhh, okay, I guess we need to come up with a plan to rescue my sister."

Other player: "No way, your character had a sister this whole time?!"

Other other player: "Can't we just let her die? I mean, giving the BBEG the MacGuffin will literally cause the end of the world as we know it - some sacrifices have to be made. Surely Vitruviansquid's character can understand that."

Other other other player: "Why do I even care about this character that I've never seen or heard about before?"

And you might say this is a party or a GM who is executing the stabbing in a poor way. But come on, when you're positing at least 7 knives per character, that's a grand total of 35 knives for a party of 5. Nobody can track of that. I'm a really big fan of minimalism in character generation. I'm thinking maybe something like intentionally craft 2 knives per character at creation, then be open-minded about the acquisition of more knives during the campaign.

raygun goth
2017-10-19, 02:21 AM
It's not necessary to threaten/kill family members to draw the PCs into the campaign. An old girlfriend can need help (she's investigating odd occurrences and needs some muscle to back her up). A childhood friend can be a spy who delivers critical information to the party.

I like the idea of calling them "hooks" rather than "knives".

This. So much this. You want a dead villain? Like, dead-dead, no matter how many backup plans they have? Like, burnt to ashes, locked in a lead box, and thrown into Challenger Deep dead? Smashed slowly in an apple press regardless of the PCs' alignments dead? You want laser-guided focus directed at dismantling everything your villain has planned, no matter how inconsequential?

Threaten the PC's family.

Players react with more open hatred to threatened family than they do about getting themselves captured. They will hurl themselves out of your plot and into gonzo whiplash campaign destruction mode if you threaten their family. DMs who abuse family members in a backstory are almost the sole reason there are so many lone badasses with lost family and loved ones out there. Creating a you-hating monster with nothing left to lose is the last thing on any rational bad guy's mind.

Family and friends exist to give hooks or have moral disagreements with your PCs. They could even work with or be the villains (realistically - don't heel-face-turn somebody's brother for no reason, man, that's not cool). If your players list their characters' family to you, use them, don't abuse them.

Mordaedil
2017-10-19, 07:20 AM
This is neat. Used on my current D&D character and rounding the number of knives for family down to 3, I still ended up with 10-11 knives.

Most of my group struggled to reach 5 and had to count every family member to get there.

PersonMan
2017-10-19, 07:37 AM
I think it's something that can work, but only in a situation where you need/want to pull in everyone with some unique thing, and where you have a party of people who want that.

I know I'd be unhappy with it if I wanted to get going and do the plot, but had to wait for stuff to be dredged up from my (this is the worst case scenario, as I generally am very controlling about stuff I've made/thought up and I've never had it go well when something meant to be far away, not relevant and only in my hands gets brought in) or someone else's backstory to add unnecessary buy-in.

Also, what NichG said. I think a lot of my kneejerk 'no' response to this comes from the fact that I always make characters who are going to eagerly grab up the plot and run with it, with zero risk of them saying 'well why not just be safe in this town?' because they don't want to be safe in town.

Samzat
2017-10-19, 09:39 AM
My favorite hook/knife/whatever is the same as character motivation. I play ambitious everymen mostly, and as such the most harmful thing that can be done to them is to crush their dream.

Anonymouswizard
2017-10-19, 10:02 AM
The last character I played had two direct family members (mentioned), that he didn't care enough about to do more than send gold their way, otherwise the point of his backstory was that it was just fairly standard stuff with him having suffered from prejudice but got to a position where he didn't anymore.

It did have a built in hook, his master had died. Not 'had been killed by a villain', but died peacefully in his sleep. He was adventuring to find his master's other students and tell them of their teacher's passing (and likely would have helped them out with a plot hook or two).

He eventually gained a secondary goal, to recover knowledge from before the cataclysm, but I had to leave the game before I could check with the GM if it worked.

My point is, hooks don't have to be negative. Ideally a PC's backstory will include both positive and negative hooks, and that PC will have a goal (even if that goal is 'see new places').

kyoryu
2017-10-19, 11:30 AM
I'd disagree with this. A character can still be a character, but if there's a portal to the Abyss spewing out demons, they should probably demonstrate that character by focusing on the matter at hand. There can be plenty of moral dilemmas or RP in such a situation, but it's probably going to focus on a particular set of events.

It's not about the character being a character or not - it's about "do elements from the character's backstory become significant plot elements?"

In a megadungeon game, they don't, because there's no plot.

In an Adventure Path, they don't, because the plot is already set and doesn't need more elemnts.


This is unnecessary and IMO detracting when you're playing a character whose natural state is to be in motion.

What I mean by that is that some characters are made in such a way that if nothing was going on, they'd default to some kind of stable behavior and just repeat it. There's a lovely phrase I've encountered in Chinese fiction for this that I don't know the original form of: 'Eating and waiting for death'. These characters need 'knives'.

Eh, hopefully that's zero RPG characters, ever. So, this seems more like a bit of a strawman.

In most games I run, the characters have reason to do things. Bad things are happening, oh noes! But I use a lot of these hooks in characters as elements in kind of an iron chef ingredient. Someone specs out an evil organization in their background, and I need an evil organization? There it is. The bad guy? Maybe he knows someone that the PC cares about in some way. All of these things can add investment to what's going on. If the players tell you the things they care about, it can only make the game better to include those things, as then, hey, they'll care about them.


On the other hand, if you make a self-motivating character, those knives are actually a hindrance and annoyance. 'I'm busy bringing an industrial revolution to the world, I don't have time to go personally rescue my cousin', etc. Yes, you can still have surprises and set backs and so on, but now rather than forming the bulk of the character's motivation they're asides, and the character will likely seek to get back to what they see as the actual point of the campaign. For such a character, opportunities are more effective than knives. Give an ambitious character a way to step closer to their goals and they will often do surprising things to seize it.

And yet you still need antagonists. But you're right to an extent - what you're saying is that positive hooks work well. Agreed.

But any hooks should be the things the player has said they're interested in. If the player doesn't show an interest in their cousin, don't put the cousin in the game



My point is, hooks don't have to be negative. Ideally a PC's backstory will include both positive and negative hooks, and that PC will have a goal (even if that goal is 'see new places').

They have to be things the character and player care about.

Leon
2017-10-19, 11:42 PM
I subscribe to the 3x3 Background idea ~ Three Friends, Three Enemies, Three Important Events. Works well and keeps it simple for all involved.

NichG
2017-10-19, 11:50 PM
Eh, hopefully that's zero RPG characters, ever. So, this seems more like a bit of a strawman.

In most games I run, the characters have reason to do things. Bad things are happening, oh noes! But I use a lot of these hooks in characters as elements in kind of an iron chef ingredient. Someone specs out an evil organization in their background, and I need an evil organization? There it is. The bad guy? Maybe he knows someone that the PC cares about in some way. All of these things can add investment to what's going on. If the players tell you the things they care about, it can only make the game better to include those things, as then, hey, they'll care about them.


It's fairly common unfortunately. Newer players are sometimes like this because they're looking for guidance as to what the game is supposed to be about and don't realize when they didn't give themselves much to work with in their character. Certain kinds of motivations look like they'll be self-motivating but have lynch pins that collapse and leave the character adrift ('I want to get rich', 'I want to make my way home', etc). It's not ideal, but since its something that experience helps to avoid and mitigate when it does happen, it at least bears having some strategies for when it happens.

Satinavian
2017-10-20, 01:25 AM
Eh, hopefully that's zero RPG characters, ever. So, this seems more like a bit of a strawman.

In most games I run, the characters have reason to do things. Bad things are happening, oh noes! But I use a lot of these hooks in characters as elements in kind of an iron chef ingredient. Someone specs out an evil organization in their background, and I need an evil organization? There it is. The bad guy? Maybe he knows someone that the PC cares about in some way. All of these things can add investment to what's going on. If the players tell you the things they care about, it can only make the game better to include those things, as then, hey, they'll care about them.
Once created such a character and had problems with him.

The game was meant as some kind of adventure path i knew nothing about content wise but i knew the GM was not particular good with hooks, so i made a character without any intrinsical motivation that would leed him off-script, no afilliations that might not work with whatever side we were supposed to be on and a general willingness to follow whatever stupid and contrieved (and not group-fitting) adventure hook finally would show up. Also willing to work with everyone.

Unfortunately after the first couple of sessions the GM revealed that he didn't have prepared any further plot and switched to pure sandbox gaming (the bad kind of sandbox - without providing extra motivations or conflicts or struggles - just basically taking a setting book and hoping anything else would emerge in play).

It really really failed hard.



But i still don't think making this kind of character was wrong. It is the right kind of character for certain types of games and it is also a kind of character that is easier to include if i severely misjudged the content/tone of a game. I still tend to get in this direction a bit when i join some new group.

kyoryu
2017-10-20, 01:42 AM
the bad kind of sandbox - without providing extra motivations or conflicts or struggles - just basically taking a setting book and hoping anything else would emerge in play

Yeah, that's what I see as the problem.

Anonymouswizard
2017-10-20, 02:55 AM
They have to be things the character and player care about.

Sure, I did make the faulty assumption that all players care about things they put in their character's background.

Personally I'll write a background, work out what bits I want to show up, and give the GM hints with my character goal. If, for example, I feel like I don't want to run off after kidnapped parents I'll write myself as being estranged from them, if I won't mind that I'll write in then I send money and letter home. I don't expect a GM to pick up on the hints, but it's nice when they do.


Certain kinds of motivations look like they'll be self-motivating but have lynch pins that collapse and leave the character adrift ('I want to get rich', 'I want to make my way home', etc). It's not ideal, but since its something that experience helps to avoid and mitigate when it does happen, it at least bears having some strategies for when it happens.

The problem with these motivations is that they have to be actively followed. 'I want to see new places' is one to take, what it means is that the character (and ideally player) will start looking for a reason to leave whatever town they're in for a week or two. Similarly somebody who wants to get rich will be looking for well paying jobs or graves to robdungeons to explore.

This makes these motivations amazing for a linear game because it can give an easy reason to go along with the adventure, but that makes them problematic with more open ended games.

Generally a new player will be having such problems even with a 'better' goal, because no goal is truly self motivating. It's a learning curve, and some players learn it faster than others (I likely took years to get beyond 'wants to adventure' as a motivation, and it took me an entire game to begin coming up with motivations that fit the campaign premise).

Misereor
2017-10-20, 05:18 AM
What do you guys think?

Very cool. Gonna use it.