Omnicrons. You can't trust them. 😠

I hear that even emperor Palpatine dislike the Omicros after what they did!

The Omicrons did nothing wrong! They're the real victims!

@@douglasmartin7042 Damned Omicron apologists are everywhere these days.

Omnicrons are seth's natural enemies, just like omnicrons and nigel, just like omnicrons and jack, just like omnicrons and other omnicrons. Damned Omnicrons they ruined Omnicronia!

that sounds awesome. i've always wanted to play in a themed party. the sheananagans sound like a lot of fun

@@j.i.weyllandin7439 It was a great time. Combat dragging was the only issue since in Pathfinder 1e the size of the weapon adjusted it's damage. So all the weapon damage dice in the party stepped down by 1 (d6 became d4, d8 was d6, etc.). It also gave lots of RP opportunities as we had to convince the local armor and weapon shops to bring in small sized equipment for us.

Song of Ice and Fire?

Seems like the same synopsis and bullet points format could be used to introduce players to the setting and has a chance to create some reciprocity with character backstories for the DM.

@@johnrechtoris9796 Yep, that's a very good idea. However, some players seem to totally misunderstand even that. Hence my Renaissance and later setting based on the Holy Roman Empire's battles with the Ottoman Empire ended up with a gladiator....

You mean like... a SESSION ZERO?!

@@crimfan maybe some eccentric petty noble, obsessed with history, arranges his own mock gladiatorial games, and characters come away from that claiming to be gladiators...

@@originaluddite Yep, that's how I altered his background.

There are two widespread ways of creating characters, (That most are unaware of! - They just do as they have always done...) Individual character creation, where the players create their characters without any knowledge of what characters the other players create. Collective character creation, where the players create their characters in parallel and thus can adjust their characters according to what characters the others are making. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. (And I am of course most aware of the cases where people use the wrong... Doh...) Individual character creation lacks the ability to make direct backstory connections. Here it is more up to the GM to make background elements the characters can latch on to, and then during play discover that those elements connect their character to some of the other characters.

@@larsdahl5528 We live in an era of instantaneous communication. The only reason to make a character in isolation these days is by choice - and I'd contend it's generally a bad choice to do so. Even if you want to run someone who has a mysterious past and secrets to hide, participating in collective character creation gives you the opportunity to present the rest of the group with whatever false front your PC is using, while arranging privately with the GM that they know what you're hiding behind that mask. Notable exception would be cases where your PC wouldn't have had any interaction with the other PCs before meeting them in play, for ex when you're dropping into an established campaign or replacing your previous PC with a stranger. Even then you often get a tie from the circumstances - "guy we rescued from the goblin meat-cages" is a perfectly reasonable starting point for why you keep hanging around with the group.

I did this once with a friend who was new to writing backstory. I shared a backstory with him to help relieve some of the stress and allow him to focus on motivations rather than details. It was my second character and his first, and I think it went pretty well. I’ve always intended to do it again, but never have. Maybe I aught to try it in the next campaign I play in.

Honestly, I might be a minority here but I don't like trying my PC to someone else's backstory. The major reason is that it feels contrived and unrealistic to have everyone just happen to know each other. It also limits what kind of characters I can play since they all have to know about each other as well as takes away from the experience of roleplaying the budding relationships these characters from strangers who are together for survival to a family. Probably also because I usually play outsiders or characters from far away lands who don't have any connections to the current setting at all. I can see where it can work like if they are all from the same organization or village or are famous/infamous. But I prefer making it part of my background why I'm willing to team up with the party.

"Do any of you know each other" is a standard session 0 question in my groups. Usually a couple people will decide to be recent/casual friends or maybe coworkers currently travelling together, and the rest are strangers. Nobody is ever siblings, or reads each other's backstories to go "can this guy be me instead?". I may try to make it happen next campaign.

But honestly, your example is only made better by both players not knowing that they share the same backstory trope ;D

@@kasane1337 Yeah, sometime over-sharing on backgrounds is a bad thing because it gets in the way of that kind of surprise. The PCs usually ought to have a secret or two the rest of party (but not the GM) doesn't know about at first, with revelations coming naturally during play - if at all.

I see tropes as literary short hand. Nice building blocks, like the bones of a skeleton, but you need flesh on those bones.

Yeah. People like when the hero gets the girl, people like when enemies become friends and friends become enemies, they like for good to beat evil.

Tropes are totally fine, but it's important not to go too far down Stereotype Lane with them.

@@crimfan Sure but there are people that will strike everything down as a "trope", as if tropes themselves are the problem rather than a lack of originality.

As long as the GM does not take PC-NPCs as hostages, (Sadly a quite common GM failure) it should be fine. One of the reasons for the far too common "orphan amnesia" background is that the player has been the victim of a background abuser GM. It is the background that contains no NPCs for the GM to abuse.

@@larsdahl5528 Except the GM does have license to use, or even kill, the NPCs provided. I don't see why you think this is "abusive". Most players are delighted that a GM can weave their elements into a game story. And if they don't like it, they can always "reset" them next time.

@@larsdahl5528 If that's an issue or concern, just make sure they're not family or super close. A military supervisor, or a rival, or a pirate leader that got away that you've been hunting for, for example. These are all people that could've been impactful in a backstory that aren't going to be a big bother if the DM abuses them.

@@obsidianjane4413 The GM technically has license to do anything, but nobody says players want to put up with anything. If you don't want everyone your PC holds dear to die a horrible death, it's on the GM to not make that happen. So yeah, I think just using NPCs introduced by players as plot devices, knowing very well that you can always have them endangered or tortured to get your PCs motivated, is pretty abusive. I didn't add characters to my PC background story so the GM can just use them as plot devices. I added them so they could be used as *characters*.

@@kasane1337 NPCs ARE plot devices. That is their whole purpose. Otherwise the players are just the plot devices of the NPC's (GM's) adventure. Considering all the ways that a GM can screw up a game, this is a very minor one.

I have seen quite some examples where some play has to be done before it is possible to make a consistent backstory. It is a classic problem: What came first? The hen or the egg? ... Erhm... I mean ... The world or the character? I have a tendency to prefer having a world to fit my character into. If I do not have that, then I need to have played for a little while, to learn to know the world, then I can fit my character into the world.

I have lots of issues with Dragonlance but the first book does set up and backstory exceptionally well.

There's a lot to be said with starting a campaign with a reunion of some kind, yeah.

That method is also great for campaigns that don't start at level one! I will have to keep it in mind when I start a group at level 2 or 3.

Agreed, very well done.

I've kind of preferred that method (more or less) for more than a decade... MAYBE a page of hastily scrawled notes "roughing it in" as I originally "see" the Character Concept coming together. It should (in my opinion) give a reasonable explanation for how s/he is a Rogue/Ranger/etc... and probably what led to certain spells or abilities being early in focus... BUT other than maybe some "Placeholders" for vague reference later, I'll rather feel out where and how relevant information is later... Funny "side note"... I got into a Campaign over a long (holiday) weekend once, and about half the Table (me included) was drunk before dice were rolled... SO I used a few opportunities to explain some dubious wit or forethought with "My Daddy always told me..." having COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN that I'd specified that my PC lost his father very young... as in lucky to even be born at all kind of young... Mental Gymnastics and accusing my Daddy of the greatest and most pertinent wit ever became cornerstones of that Character's personality... which consistently generated a case of giggling in the GM... we finally worked out a scene when one of the other PC's finally cornered me about the matter, and I could admit that I never really knew my father, so it was just a ghost/amalgam of what I'd always kind of hoped he'd be like... Caught everyone off guard, because I'm USUALLY the type who sets some big expectation for a background personality and then smashes it horrifically or comically... like building "My Daddy" to seem like the greatest superhuman father of all time only to admit he was in prison for fraud and sexual indiscretions... or something... BUT no... admitting I was just trapped in that kind of "wishful thinking" about something I'd never really get or know almost broke everyone for a few minutes... If engaged well, almost any technique CAN be remarkably powerful as a tool for RP... Backstory CAN be great "as is" just letting Players write their "novels" as it were. Some are really gifted for it... AND some need a few prompts to get "the creative juices going"... I seem to work best after "trying on the PC for size and fit a while" first, and then improv' and "for f*ck's own sakes TAKE NOTES"... haha... ;o)

You know the cure for that, right? Take up the GM position yourself! Should be easy to do it better than your brother. (Who... Anyone with just a minor amount of self-esteem... Would use such a derogatory term as "DM" about themselves???)

Torment him some more.

My first DM seamed to think it was his job to kill the PC's as sadistically as possible. Played wonderful charters like : The Mage with no magic The fighter with one hit point! No that's not a joke! At lv 2 He got 2 Hp and took his first hit and was killed 4 XP short of lv 3 A druid with allergies. The thief afraid of highs!

XD

@@paintedblue1791 You should really just be playing Paranoia at that point. At least that way the players can get in on the fun of murdering each other.

3rdE system, I wrote my starting character as aristocrat/ wizard and my father is town mayor at aristocrat3rd/wizard3rd and folded create wonderous item feat and Leadership to over lap at 6th level. And he doesn't has a higher level cause all the xp he gains from duck hunting is folded into making lesser magic items. Long time player at the shop, " Cool, we now have a mentor and quest giver to provide aid." Shop owner's wife, " I'm Kris in game sister, I'm a werewolf wizard just like mother is. " DM, " Rewrite your starting skill points as a werewolf Kris."

@@krispalermo8133 Lol! Yes, this same player once cast herself as an Elven Princess, but didn't want to spend points on a high charisma. So she just wrote her bio to make herself charming and attractive. The DM informed her that while she thought she was lovely, her father the King was ashamed of her and locked her in a tower out of sight for most of her childhood. She managed to escape however, was now on the run from her father's retainers, and so could not call on him for any special assistance. Meanwhile her stubborn attempts to charm, and repeated fails, added many humorous moments to the campaign.

Are they handed around once or as many times as are needed for all characters to be linked in backstory?

I think a better way to this is to have each player pass to the right or left. Then you make sure no one gets their own back and every character is connected to another by varying degrees of separation.

@@joncarroll2040 IIRC you're supposed to swap with someone if you get your own slip back at random. Hard to "pass right" if you're not actually sitting at a table anyway - lot of online RP going on these days.

@@richmcgee434 For online, you can "pass down the alphabet" so Betty passes to Charlie who passes to Diego, etc.

I like the circular one-way method (left or down-the-alpahbet or whatever). In a party larger than three it means each character has two personal connections, but must still get to know one or more other characters, which can drive conversation in such a partially integrated group. The other thing I like is making sure those connections are distinct. Two characters might be cousins, two share a mentor, two are exes, etc. :)

This is why the Joker doesn't fuck with the IRS

King Galifar had a difficult decision before him: ban wizardry outright, or somehow incorporate them into the kingdom and ensure his own power. Aha! Wizards would only be permitted if they also served the kingdom as tax collectors.

@@macoppy6571 tax collectors, exempt from taxes (not including magic item GST), now half the country hates them AND have forgotten about the King's... past errors.

Added bonus points for playing the PC like the lead character in Pineapple Express

@@darksteelhero1 Liquidator Brunt

Yes, some RPG systems have such build-in. --- I do go for the simple 3 question starter: Name? Personality? Profession? Examples: (From a one-shot I was GM for) Heino, grumpy archeologist. Jacque, rich nobleman. Omar, curious grocer. I like the simple (yet powerful) base for the characters it produces. --- For the background struggled players, I go for the passport application form. Here they have to fill in the basic information needed for a passport, height, weight, hair color, eye color, etc. Again something simple to get the players started.

I ported over the Teens in Space crew questions for my OSE game. And I gave each pc a random item from Chris Tamm’s d300 Useless Magic Loot (Knock! #1). In 30-45 minutes we took a bunch of generic D&D characters and transformed them into a party that felt like we had known for years.

shadowrun had an excellent list of questions in the the 3rd edition shadowrun companion Called Twenty Questions the first question seems like seth paraphrased it for this video :D "Where is your character from? This question serves to give you an instant background for your character. It also sets up a framework by which many other questions can be answered. Be Specific. Don't just give a city or country. Give an exact location. For instance two characters growing up in Seattle could easily be from completely different areas. One may from the hard-boiled Barrens, and the other from the pleasant corporate structure of the Renraku Arcology (before the bad times...)"

I took the liberty to type the questions in here ●What motivates your character?why? ●What trait describes you? ●What is your appereance? ●What is your darkest secret? ●What is your biggest fear? ●What is your greatest tragedy? ●Where did you grow up? ●Who are your siblings? ●Who are your enemies /Rivals? Why do you dislike them? ●Who do you hate? ●Who is your best friend ●Who is your hero and why? ●Have you ever hurt anyone? ●What is your proudest accomplishment? ●What is your biggest goal? ●Do you live with someone else? ●What are you most passionate about? ●What do you do with your spare time? ●How do you feel about most people? ●What is your biggest flaw? ●What is yout most cherished possesion and why? ●What is your most cherished place and why? ●How did you meet the other characters?

What category are we in here? (1) Those who create the character and background, independent of the world (2) Those who build the character and background, as a result of the world. I consider (1) as a bit of a dead-end, as it can easily end up with a character not fitting into the world. And can be problematic during play, due to being untrained in reacting to what others (PCs as well as GM) does of creations & actions.

@@larsdahl5528 Nothing wrong in a dead-end I think. RPGs are for fun and recreation, so is writing an elaborate backstory. I have to be productive at work, not in my hobbies.

Or you know, as is it is with people, they might insist that it really did happen this way, but as people's memories are faulty, who's to say that it did. ;)

Seth has some really awesome content.

That's why I just adopt the opinion of Seth

Most of the people who make this kind of content are folks whose real talent is in video editing. Nice videos, but often terrible advice for running/playing ttrpgs.

Tropes can be used pretty well by a good author

People have a knee-jerk reaction to reject all tropes when they learn about them, without fully understanding what a trope is. Having a protagonist and an antagonist is a trope. It would be easier to write a story without nouns than to write one without tropes.

What's really sad is that the "anti-tropers" have, in fact, become a bad trope themselves. They so desperately want to be edgy and cool that they have become a caricature of the snotty critic.

You may want to consider why they roll their eyes. It's for a good reason.

@@SymmetricalDocking What reason might that be?

My current character is a human EK who has an alhoon as a "patron". I subconsciously made Arthas from Warcraft. I laughed a bit and moved on.

This is goddarn wholesome.

I'm very glad I'm not the only one who loves those!

Isn't that what happens when you gain enough XP?

U got schooled 😉

@@markj3169 Quite literally. 😛

Happy to hear that it worked for you.

I agree with the first part, but I have a severe problem with the word "mandatory" these days.

I don't know about the first half either - his books are pretty damn good too, and that "Origin of the Beholder" vid probably won him a free pass to whatever afterlife he prefers. :)

I think you'll find it's actually "Edgelord"

Personally, I just stopped thinking about tropes. Maybe my cynical, old occultist is a trope. Maybe my clumsy, piteous police officer was. Maybe my strong and stubborn opera singer as well. Or my fearful, supportive outback explorer. Maybe it was the careful, orderly, young female soldier. Or my proud, wannabe-perfect half-orc nobleman? Or perhaps it was my relaxed, child-friendly wrestling champion. I don't know. But the thing is: I just don't care. I somehow completely avoided ever thinking about applying tropes or not using tropes: I just come up with a short idea (three words maybe) and then expand upon that.

@@michaelcottle6270 IKR? Gotta love it when someone with tats and dyed hair who refers to themselves as "woke" tells you how different they are from everyone else 🙄

"I'm not like other PCs..."

One of the hardest lessons to embrace is to prepare what you can in advance, but once the game starts just letting it ride. I think every GM imagines some cool scene or ending for the game. But don't try to force it that direction. Most of the time the players will do something you never imagined or fail to do the thing you were looking forward to them doing. So just roll with it and enjoy the ride. Also, no matter how much you prepare in advance, once the game begins you'll be improvising the hell out of it. What level you need to prepare depends a lot on your group and what all types of adventures you're doing. Doing a murder investigation requires a different type of preparation than a cave of goblins. So for Mysteries and Heists, I've done dedicated videos for those and what all you should prepare. You might also want to look at some pre-written scenarios just to get a feel for what level of preparation is appropriate for that type of adventure. Once the adventure is done, you can share what all you hoped might happen or what obstacles or Easter eggs they missed or bypassed. My group enjoys the post-adventure breakdown of what could have happened. Some of those unused ideas you might not want to share because you might be able to use those again in a future session.

It’s kinda a different style of GMing but I like how Hank at Runehammer suggests organizing your session prep to fit on a 2-page spread of your notebook. That way there is no page flipping and you are not beholden to whatever doesn’t fit in that spread. I think Chris McDowell of Into the Odd does something similar.

There are three approaches to game mastering: Railroading, where the DM determines the plot and outcome ahead of time. Collaborative, where the DM and players agree on the plot and discover the outcome together. And lastly Sandbox, where the DM creates the world and the players explore it, having adventures along the way. Since you said that you wanted a collaborative story, but ended up with more of a sandbox game, here is what you do: Communicate with your players ahead of time on what the game is going to be about. Tell them about how evil your big bad evil guy really is, and that they all want to stop him and his nefarious plans. Then either ask them how they would try to stop him, or give them different leads for how to do so. When I decided to run Curse of Strahd for my players, I told them that they can only get out of Barovia if Strahd is dead.

I don’t know how your gamers derailed your story but you may want to consider my suggestions about it. - make your players have a clear objective of the current session. Giving them a sandbox world will make them go all over. - If your players are getting away of the desired path let them but get them back in your way with a trick. Like letting them hear a useful rumor that will give them some clue. Or move your planed events at their current place. What you were planning to happen in the woods of Somewhereville can easily happen at the woods of Nextville for example. Unless your players are consciously trying to derail your games meaning you need to find other players.

@@cameronframent8976 that's an awesome advice! I'll check it out, thanks

and as a bonus, it will help you roleplay your character better

Good luck with your game.

Glad it helped. Good luck with the campaign.

Oh wow. I haven't seen these before. Thanks for the head-up.

Good list. Cyberpunk's background generator is great. Back in college we never fully utilized that part of the game. We filled it in. We rarely, if ever, thought to name siblings or enemies. We mostly just wanted to do crimes and shoot stuff. Zero character depth. We had a blast. Tons of great memories. We also had regular trouble with, "Why would my character do this job if I'm not getting paid?" or other issues where characters had no real personality or no consistency of personality. A couple years later, after we'd figured out the value of incorporating backstories, and we returned to Cyberpunk, we realized what a goldmine the backstory section was because right there was all the character motivations and story hooks we could ever need, and we'd totally ignored it.

The Character Creation system was the first thing that made me fall in love with Mongoose Traveller. With as old as Traveller is, I find it weird that more games don't do some variant of it.

@@SSkorkowsky Absolutely. "Scum & Villainy" (highly recommended) has some backstory creating questions you answer during character creation, but nothing as organic and natural as Traveller. Stars Without Number is generally great, but completely drops this when they could have embraced the idea. One day, I'll combine all the best bits from each in a heavenly homebrew...

If the players are too diverse in the way they make their characters, then I suggest "prelude". Where prelude is a GM-assisted character creation process, between "Session Zero" and "Session One", where the GM does play a session with each player, building the character and background together. Yes, it is a lot of work for the GM upfront, but in the long run, it saves a lot of work!

"Of course I know him, he's me."

Thags? Man, I hate those things. They're worse than Omicrons. But seriously, the "earn enough honor to cover the afterlife entry fee for all my dead relatives" is actually pretty damn good as motivations go. Way more interesting than flat out "take revenge on their killers" and it leaves a lot of wiggle room for roleplaying. What if your barbarian honor code includes awkward stuff like allowing no one to go hungry or without shelter if you can possibly help them? Or refusing to raise a hand against your host no matter the provocation? Or never going anywhere unarmed? So much potential, and maybe you're haunted sometimes (whether by actual spirits or just your own nightmares) if you break with your personal code too often?

@@richmcgee434 The "why are you adventuring" usually ends up being something that has a nearer term goal or hook potential in it, with the ultimate goal being more of a "if you live past your current tangible goals, what will drive you?" See now I'm thinking of it like a Hierarchy of Needs but for adventuring, with different timescales of adventuring goals layered on top of each other: The moment to moment (encounters), the days and weeks (general questing and travel), months (campaigns or personal missions/revenge), years on to retirement (ultimate goals). Hey, this might be a good way to help flesh out a character's drives and motivations.