Pointless GURPS

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jmurrell

I need to define my terms here, I think. Backstory and background, as I am using them here, are different things.

A character's background is say, middle-aged rural detective, or lady anthropologist from wealthy upper-class Bostonian family who went to Harvard. And I agree that is important to the character and the campaign.

Backstory is a ten page document that details the great kindergarten teacher they had, and the trouble with a bully in second grade, and their first kiss in the eighth, and their unrequited love in the tenth, and their senior prom, and...

When I get something like that, the alarm bells start going off. Particularly as they usually show up with that to the char creation session. Those are the ones that don't seem to be able to play well with others.

I generally build that into the campaign premise and explicitly require it during char creation, or have a premise that drops the characters into the situation.

I suppose much depends on just how strongly does the backstory make narrative sense. E.g. one of the players in my current campaign dropped some seemingly trivial bits of character biography into my mailbox. Stuff that has little to nothing to do with the campaign's premise*, but it was of great use for integrating the character into events that occurred/will occur 50+ sessions into the campaign.

For your example, you might want to snatch up that bully for an NPC who will be forced to cooperate with the party, or use the unrequited love interest to add some drama to the B-plot of the campaign.


* == Generally well-meaning people got into the wrong place at the wrong time, and through various courses of events were mildly pressured into working for a guild solving odd cases (investigative or otherwise).

[Adina]

Originally Posted by Brett

You are more sensitive than I, and perhaps I ought to learn from you.

I am still better in theory than practice. And it took a while to figure out what was going on.

I know that in other groups' gaming culture character players are sovereign over their characters, and are allowed any plausible backstory that they can afford to be consistent with. But that doesn't work with no budget constraint on consistency-with-backstory, and players who have difficulty adjusting to the difference tend to cause difficulty by not adjusting.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I suppose much depends on just how strongly does the backstory make narrative sense. E.g. one of the players in my current campaign dropped some seemingly trivial bits of character biography into my mailbox. Stuff that has little to nothing to do with the campaign's premise*, but it was of great use for integrating the character into events that occurred/will occur 50+ sessions into the campaign.

For your example, you might want to snatch up that bully for an NPC who will be forced to cooperate with the party, or use the unrequited love interest to add some drama to the B-plot of the campaign.

Except I had ten pages of backstory with only a tenuous connection to the campaign premise. Besides it wasn't like I was allowed to use, or heaven forbid, change any of it.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jmurrell

Except I had ten pages of backstory with only a tenuous connection to the campaign premise. Besides it wasn't like I was allowed to use, or heaven forbid, change any of it.

I can sort of live with a player giving me a set-in-stone backstory that doesn't conflict with the campaign premise / the setting. But not being allowed to use it at all? Sheesh. What's the point then? If I'll ever want to be a solitary author without cooperation, I'll solitarily write stuff and post it somewhere for solitary authors. If I want interactive story-making, I'll start with a backstory and let it live on.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by jmurrell

I need to define my terms here, I think. Backstory and background, as I am using them here, are different things.

A character's background is say, middle-aged rural detective, or lady anthropologist from wealthy upper-class Bostonian family who went to Harvard. And I agree that is important to the character and the campaign.

Backstory is a ten page document that details the great kindergarten teacher they had, and the trouble with a bully in second grade, and their first kiss in the eighth, and their unrequited love in the tenth, and their senior prom, and...

When I get something like that, the alarm bells start going off. Particularly as they usually show up with that to the char creation session. Those are the ones that don't seem to be able to play well with others.

I generally build that into the campaign premise and explicitly require it during char creation, or have a premise that drops the characters into the situation.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Generally I do as well. This is someone who has written fiction tailored to an audience of one (themselves) and at the least is going to face the harsh reality that their audience has suddenly expanded to include the rest of the group, and we may not care about their first love and etc.

The best outcome is that they can adapt rapidly to this change and everything continues smoothly.

The most likely outcome is a conflict of expectations about how much the character will be the center of "the story" and how much other players and the GM really want to hear about their history at any given moment.

The worst outcome is that the player had a full "plot arc" already planned and fiercely resists a) loosing the spotlight that the character enjoyed when he or she was writing the "prologue" and b) anything that disturbs his or her lusciously detailed vision of the character's personality and future.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

You are more sensitive than I, and perhaps I ought to learn from you. My alarm bells don't start going off until the player starts dismissing GM requests and refusing to meet GM requirements on the grounds of assertions about the backstory. "I know you asked for each character to have a single defining professional skill of 18, but my character was on the Australian Schoolboys Rugby team and played for Sydney University while she was a medical student, so I gave her a 22 in Games (Rugby)."

I know that in other groups' gaming culture character players are sovereign over their characters, and are allowed any plausible backstory that they can afford to be consistent with. But that doesn't work with no budget constraint on consistency-with-backstory, and players who have difficulty adjusting to the difference tend to cause difficulty by not adjusting.

Having done my share of Pointless GURPS character creation, as the GM, I've never had a red flag go up beause someone specified too much of his background.

The problems that I have are mostly related to some players specifying far too little and/or (very often related) characters being created for very different roles in the setting.

Any time you place some responsibility for character creation in the hands of players, either you have already established benchmarks or the consensus of the players establishes some form of consensus on how much each level of skilll or capability means.

So it's super jarring to see a character meant to be 'average' be orders of magnitute better than other PCs at something or, vice versa, somone established as having 'great skill' at something, to the extent that it defines the character and has gotten him noticed by movers-and-shakers of the setting, actually barely managing to equal the average Corporal in the setting.

Basically, everyone has to have the same understanding of how the world works, if they are to sucessfully design characters in it.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Basically, everyone has to have the same understanding of how the world works, if they are to sucessfully design characters in it.

True. They also have to have a similar understanding of how the PCs are going to fit into it. A character who is perfectly consistent with an environment can nevertheless be unsuitable for a particular campaign set in that environment, just as a character who is consistent with a particular backstory can nevertheless be unsuitable for a given campaign.

Postscript: Also, a character who fits a point total can be unsuitable for a given campaign.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Having done my share of Pointless GURPS character creation, as the GM, I've never had a red flag go up beause someone specified too much of his background.

The problem comes when the player has come up with a wagonload of complicated backstory and expects it all to be significant to the plot, even though he created it without knowing much of what the campaign is about or even about the setting. I've not had this problem in GURPS campaigns, but I have with other systems. Its influence means that I'm quite happy to have players retcon some of their backstory, provided that they don't thereby try to gain advantages without paying for them.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The problem comes when the player has come up with a wagonload of complicated backstory and expects it all to be significant to the plot, even though he created it without knowing much of what the campaign is about or even about the setting. I've not had this problem in GURPS campaigns, but I have with other systems. Its influence means that I'm quite happy to have players retcon some of their backstory, provided that they don't thereby try to gain advantages without paying for them.

Most recent reg flag I had was when two players brought completed characters, made to budget they had decided between them.

The extensive modifications that proved necessary were more work than if they'd simply brought back-story and we'd then GURPS-fied the concept that emerged from the backstory.

One of the major changes from stats as the PCs designed them was that the civilian CIA analyst* was the combat expert, having a wide range of expertise in hand-to-hand, melee, gunplay and making stuff go kaplow with heavier ordnance.

The Delta Force operator was a techie, with mediocre to poor weapon skills,

Befofe we started cooperatively modifying them, they character did not diverge from each othter in Disadvantages at all. They had the same goals, for the same 'reason not given in non-existing backstory'.

Essentially, there was a Warrior from the CIA and a Rogue from Delta Force. How the characters happened to have learn their particular skills** and how people with their particular skill set fit into the desired organisations was the GM's problem.

I told them that as written, the characters needed redesign. Either a small adjustment to a few skills accompanied with a massive change to background and status in the campaign wordld or a ground-up overhaul if you want these characters to have and be competent at the job you have indicated for the,

They choose ground-up dedesign and we all made new characters together. It was fun. Now the characers are fun.

*Whom the PC did not want to have been a former member of any armed force.
**And only those particular skills, in that they did not learn any other skills belonging to Styles that their skils might have been taught in or learn sklls that in real-life are connected. An example is that one PC wanted to know how to Pilot planes and helicopters, but he didn't want to have any other skills related to that, just the Pilot skills.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Yeah, it does have the problem of imposing a character-building currency for pre-gamestart that doesn't match up to post-game-start advancement rules.

Several successful RPGs do that. Presumably because their fans can't see the problem that that kind of design creates.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Basically, everyone has to have the same understanding of how the world works, if they are to successfully design characters in it.

QFT.

I'm running my current campaign in a somewhat pointless fashion. Character creation is "Here are some templates for guidance, but you have no point budget; make a character that you want to play and will fit into the campaign."

We still keep track of points, though, for character advancement; instead of me awarding points and the players spending them, we've been doing a riff off of CoC/Burning Wheel skill advancement.

Any time you get a crit, you get a point in that skill or the appropriate attribute (player's choice).

If you make a significant skill check (GM's call) you can then make a roll against that skill at the end of the session. If you roll HIGHER than the skill level, you get a point.

... haven't really figured out a method for buying advantages yet. Ads or disads gained in play just adjust the character's point total.

I was worried that it'd be too much bookkeeping and/or lead to too-quick advancement, but so far it's worked out pretty well. The players like it, at least...

[Jachra]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

... haven't really figured out a method for buying advantages yet. Ads or disads gained in play just adjust the character's point total.

I was worried that it'd be too much bookkeeping and/or lead to too-quick advancement, but so far it's worked out pretty well. The players like it, at least...

Depends on the kinda advantage, really.

In Ars Magica, one could purchase supernatural/Hermetic virtues (the equivalent of advantages) via intervention by supernatural entities or by engaging in a mystery cult, which both have their own individual rules.

For most advantages, I'd probably do some equivalent of time training roughly corresponding to the value of the advantages, if you have no supernatural or sci-fi elements which can provide them. Trained by a Master has something like that.

If Supernatural or Sci-fi elements are present, let them buy them with wealth or favors.