I'm a big proponent of using everything my players give me, especially when it comes to PC backgrounds: If you put it in there, I assume it's because you want to see it in the game, and I'll do my best to make that happen.
But why assume?
As a player, I design character backgrounds this way. I include NPCs my PC would love to fight, fuck, or otherwise interact ...
There are many ways to build a good character, but one aspect that often gets overlooked -- or conversely, over-worked -- is motivations.
If you know what motivates a character -- PC or NPC -- you can extrapolate a lot of other things on the fly.
The trick is not to make your motivators too broad or too focused. Too broad, and they're meaningless ("She's motivated by a desire to ...
Hi. I am away at GenCon, but I wanted to leave you with something to talk about while I am gone. I will check the comments as soon as I can, but I trust you can keep the conversation going in my absence....
One great inspiration for me as a GM was reading, Amber: Diceless Roleplaying. Of the many things I learned from that book was the ...
It took me some time to get used to the idea of emerging complexity for player character backgrounds and roleplaying elements (which I wrote about in its own article, Player Characters: Emerging Complexity is A-OK), but the concept is one I've always embraced as a GM.
In this context, "emerging complexity" is the organic growth of a character from a sketch, or from little more than stats or the ...
Raistlin50201 has a good question: How do you get your player to meet the first time?
I have been in a few dozen campaigns myself and am GMing one. In most that I played, I was in military situations so we were just ordered together as a unit. I also often hear of the classic “You meet in a tavern and decide to travel together” stuff. For my campaign ...
PCs are adventurers. I get it. They’re not slaving away at some lousy 9-to-5 job hoping the boss won’t drop a ton of work on their desk before the weekend or pining for that promotion that will never come.
It’s not in their makeup. They’re adventurers! They’re goblin-killers and tomb raiders and dragon-slayers, for goodness sakes. They don’t punch-in at a timeclock and they aren’t worried about the ...
"I check Gnome Stew every day." -- Monte Cook (
