Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
That’s… odd. I mean, IME, those who lack connections by virtue of being “not from around here” tend to be the ones most likely to be trying to connect to / forge connections with the setting.

I mean, if you have 4 people, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and the stranger in town, wouldn’t you expect the stranger to be the one spending the most time and effort of the 4 on “forging connections”?
I assume Anymage was talking about constructing some additional backstory to explain *why* this character, that is perhaps not of a class/race native to the setting, came to be there in the first place. Or what they're doing now that they're there. What motivates them? What are their goals? Are they trying to "get home"? A wanderer? Fell through a portal? On a mission from some extra-dimensional deity? Some players will just look at the setting and say "i want to play <something that isn't normally in that setting", and they'll give lots of reasons why they want to play that particular type of character (usually more focused on class/race abilities than RP), but if/when you allow it, spend virtually zero on those other things. It's just played as though it's perfectly normal for that character to be there.

And this puts the onus on the GM to provide that detail. And then explain why there aren't more of whatever it is in the setting, or add it in, even if there was no intention to in the first place. Sometimes, this can spur some ideas in the GMs head (Your Kung Fu Panda is an orphan and there is a distant land in this world where your kind come from that no one around here knows about). Sometimes, that's just not as easy or possible though.