Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth
That sounds like an enumeration of cases of a rule I suspect you follow in general: If you wouldn't want a character in your game on its own, making reference to an outside basis for the character isn't going to make you happier about it.
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That's probably about the right level of strength in general. But it may not be everything. I really do want the player to look at my campaign world, think about what backgrounds and occupational roles and the like it offers, and come up with something based on that. If that means they import a lot of stuff from other sources, I may not object—but I want a sense that the character is their response to the world I've offered them to play in; I don't want it just to be "but I always play this character."
Kromm discussed the idea that there are players who play one or a few archetypes. I have had players who were like that. But I've also had players who did what I do, which is to make a point of trying to come up with something different for each new campaign, to extend their own range and test their own limits. And that's something I really like in a player.
For myself, I've built several characters on that basis: Bertran (in a campaign set in Steven Brust's Dragaera) was a deliberate exercise in playing someone who was otnay ootay ightbray; Edward Gray Wolf (later Edward Two Dogs ****ing) was a deliberate exercise in playing a habitual BSer, trickster, and manipulator; La Gata Encantada was a combat monster; Linnaeus Jorgenson was an attempt to play a character who's good at social interaction and understanding people. All of these were outside the range of what I had previously played.