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 Earth127 wrote:
No, you can create a char that is githyanki and write a backstory for it.

Yeah, what this guy said. It says they normally lean towards lawful evil, but again, those are guidelines.

I think how people see that sort of thing varies quite a bit from group to group.

The game sounds like a lot of fun though - I love that sort of gritty, low level stuff.

I was playing for the first time in a couple of years on monday, one of my players took her first run at being a GM. She killed my Dwarven Cleric! Got surrounded by 8 Bullywugs with spears and probably should have surrendered, but it is just not the Dwarven way! So I survived for 4 rounds as my party were ineffectual at killing any of them. AC18 and the Dodge action can only get you so far though - eventually one rolled a 20 and down I went. Went the full 5 death saves before dying too - 2 successes and then 3 failures. Next character I think a Wizard.

My old school roots are twitching at the thought of a Githyanki PC, but...I'll be OK.

 Mysterio wrote:
My old school roots are twitching at the thought of a Githyanki PC, but...I'll be OK.

I mean, if you're playing an evil campaign it works. There are also evil races within Volos. I'm not sure what the issue could be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
I think how people see that sort of thing varies quite a bit from group to group.

The game sounds like a lot of fun though - I love that sort of gritty, low level stuff.

I was playing for the first time in a couple of years on monday, one of my players took her first run at being a GM. She killed my Dwarven Cleric! Got surrounded by 8 Bullywugs with spears and probably should have surrendered, but it is just not the Dwarven way! So I survived for 4 rounds as my party were ineffectual at killing any of them. AC18 and the Dodge action can only get you so far though - eventually one rolled a 20 and down I went. Went the full 5 death saves before dying too - 2 successes and then 3 failures. Next character I think a Wizard.

That sounds like a lot of fun. The Ranger in the session the other night was shaking. I recommended he take into account that his character can run and probably make it out alive, but would leave everyone else for dead. He turned his hat backwards, stood up to observe the table more clearly, and began shakily rolling dice. He was like "Nah, my character wouldn't run away. I got this". And I was on edge wondering if he would succeed or not. Because of him, only one person has to reroll a character, not 3/4 of the players.

"Evil Campaigns" just straight up don't work for long, if at all.

And some races just shouldn't be available as options - they should remain antagonists, or else we're going to get dual wielding Nalfeshnees.

You don't want dual wielding Nalfeshnee PCs, do you?!?

But overall, there is no 'issue', just 'opinions'.

I think back in the old old days, wacky PCs were pretty common. I think Gygax even addressed it in one of the books.

Generally, I keep things to PHB core because it is easier for me to keep things suitable to my imagined world, but every so often I do a short "gonzo" campaign (usually Planescape) that runs for like 8 sessions of madness where literally anything goes. In long running campaigns some people get annoyed if the balance on one of those gonzo characters is screwed up.

My favourite gonzo game was:
- Tim the Maug, a sentient construct who was a middle manager in the mercenary company
- A half dwarf half minotaur barbarian
- A paladin of Tyr who became and Blackguard and got reincarnated as a Bugbear
- An evil ranger who got reincarnated as a Lizardman
- An evil artificer with multiple wand bracers.

It was pretty mental! But fun.

I've not run one, but I think an evil campaign can absolutely work, and I'll probably try one at some point in future. It just requires a shift in perspective; instead of bandits or assassins or warlords, your main threats become guardsmen, soldiery, vigilantes, rivals ect. Monsters still have to be killed in pursuit of loot or information or territory, and evil characters can still have plenty of objectives beyond 'kill everyone' or 'steal everything'.

I actually think it'd be fairly easy to structure a campaign in this way; the party works for a thieve's guild or criminal empire or evil order, they undertake quests and jobs for that organisation while also plotting their way up through the ranks, they might even end up doing some ostensibly good work because it's in their own interests (the pack of Orcs is as much a threat to your robbers as it is to the caravans they're robbing, and the invading Chromatic Dragon doesn't care what the aims are of the puny mortals it wants to rule or consume) or facing some threat that poses a similarly large threat but to the bad guys rather than the good (instead of the boss being a powerful dark wizard, you [are] the dark wizard and the boss is the self-righteous Paladin sticking his nose where it doesn't belong).

Ultimately, I don't really see how it'd be any harder to run an evil campaign than a good one, assuming all the players are on the same page regarding the tone and style (which is pretty much a baseline requirement for any campaign). Given that other games are more than happy to put you in the role of the bad guys, like (for instance) Blades in the Dark which has you running a criminal gang, I don't see why it should be any more difficult for D&D.



I also don't see any point restricting certain races to certain alignments or banning available races on the grounds that this is a 'good' campaign (or setting similar parameters). Yes, Goblins as a whole might tend towards Chaotic Evil, but that doesn't mean they all have to be baby-eating monsters. True, High Elves might often tend towards goodness or neutrality but that doesn't preclude you from having a High Elf antagonist who's a real nasty piece of work. Obviously certain things are out on the grounds of mechanics (you can't have a Beholder or Dragon PC without a lot of custom work) but if someone wants to play a Bugbear or Kobold in my campaign, I find that no more outlandish than a Dragonborn or a Tabaxi.

Then again, this is really illustrative of why I throw the alignment system in the bin wherever possible; I find it creates preconceptions about how things 'should' be done and I'm far more interested in my players playing a genuine, nuanced 'character' rather than something defined by the trinity of race, class and alignment, and I take a similar approach with NPCs and antagonists. Even though I figure Alignment is meant to be a reflection on how you play rather than an instruction manual, I find people prone to taking it backwards and doing things because of their Alignment, rather than having a certain Alignment on account of the things they do.

Ironically enough, 'evil' campaigns tend to be more restrictive then (for lack of a better term) 'good' campaigns.

And it just looks like you've allowed yourself to be restricted by alignments in the past, but this is also probably why it really isn't a focus of D&D now - if it exists at all anymore?

And yes, your experience may vary, etc. etc. etc.

 Mysterio wrote:
Ironically enough, 'evil' campaigns tend to be more restrictive then (for lack of a better term) 'good' campaigns.

How do you mean? In terms of character creation? Or in terms of what you can actually do once you're in the game? Perhaps I'm missing something, but all an Evil campaign restricts you to is the idea that the law will be your main antagonist force, rather than the dangers of the wild or the traditional cults/bandits/evil creatures ect. Which yes, cuts down on your options a little, but it's also what you sign up for when you join an evil campaign.

Then again, perhaps the whole concept is a misnomer; it should perhaps be considered a campaign in which some (or all) of the PCs happen to be evil. Threats, opportunities and roles change in response to what the players elect to play, that's true of any party; the dynamics of the group dictate the sort of things that are going to happen and how the players will respond, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a function of Alignment.

And it just looks like you've allowed yourself to be restricted by alignments in the past, but this is also probably why it really isn't a focus of D&D now - if it exists at all anymore?

If you mean 'you' as in me, rather than a hypothetical 'you', not really; I started with D&D earlier in the year and haven't really given Alignment more than a passing thought. It has its uses, perhaps, as a barometer of player intentions; if you have a character describe themselves as Lawful Good, you know moral ambiguity or calling the concept of law into question should be a good way to challenge them, likewise if you have a self-described Chaotic Good PC then you can give them opportunities to challenge the status quo and the existing order, knowing they should get a kick out of that.

My wariness comes from the idea that it takes the place of motivation; as far as I'm concerned, saying 'I'm Lawful Good' is not a particularly good rationale for donating your 500GP reward to a struggling city orphanage, whereas 'I am a firm believer in helping those in greater need than I, even at my own cost' is far better. Same outcome, but a result of a thought process rather than checking the box on your character sheet.

Bin the Alignment axis, and players won't feel the need to act in a certain way, and conversely will think more about their character's outlooks, beliefs, morals in a variety of situations ect. And for that, I think 5e's Background system makes Alignment entirely redundant. As I say, I've never bothered with it, so it could be these are entirely illusory risks, but ultimately I don't feel I've lost anything of value by never bringing Alignment into my games. If you're roleplaying well, then I don't need an Alignment box to tell me what kind of things I can use to provoke a response from you, and if you're not them I don't see that an Alignment will help all that much.

Yes, almost no one paid much attention to alignment probably....ever.

Which is probably why the "Lawful Good isn't Lawful Stupid" phrase showed up a....long time ago!

I have often just told my players not to worry about alignment, and then I observe their actions and track it secretly. It used to be important mechanically in 3rd edition for spells like Blasphemy and Holy Word. But overall I find it is not helpful for roleplaying and players tend to fixate on it a bit too much.

Our group has had a few evil games. Mostly they work if everyone has an overall overall goal. Seems like it'd be hard on a DM though needing combat stats on virtually every NPC encountered.

Games tend to work best if the party has a goal in general.

I think the most important thing is for people to have a reason to work together. I played a Chaotic Evil character who was a total scumbag but really liked having some drinking buddies and didn't really care about money and so was by default pretty generous to his friends.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think the most important thing is for people to have a reason to work together. I played a Chaotic Evil character who was a total scumbag but really liked having some drinking buddies and didn't really care about money and so was by default pretty generous to his friends.

Yeah, I built myself into a corner one time. I was playing a Warlock (3.5) who was a student at the Mage school in the city and was a huge loner. The DM tried to work with me to give me a reason to want to adventure, but I kept thinking "My character wouldn't care about money, or other people". So, I had to reroll a character to fit with the game. Doh!

Yeah, I do occasionally find myself having to remind players that this is an adventure game, so you kind of need to make an adventurer, or at least a potential one. Reluctant, hesitant or totally-out-of-their-depth characters are absolutely fine, and can make for some great stories (see Bilbo Baggins), but there has to be at least some reason, whether than an internal motivation to go adventuring or a product of the character's circumstance, that gives them a little nudge out the door.

Take that warlock above as an example, that's a fine character so long as they have a reason to get out and do stuff, preferably with a group. All you need to do is, for example, throw in a line in the character's backstory about how they used to be a student at the Mage school but got thrown out after being framed for a crime there or discovered some dark secret that meant they had to leave. All the personality traits remain the same, but they now have a reason to be out in the world, and stick with a group for safety and convenience if nothing else. That can then lead naturally into an arc of being more trusting and more adventurous, without having to force it.

That crops up so often for me over the years that I actually think of it as the "bilbo baggins problem".
Grouping is really important. I tried to get my players to consider that when making our new group, asking them, "Why are you all working together?" but they either couldn't really process what I meant or didn't consider it that seriously, and now we have reached a point where conflicting desires are causing issues.

To be a bit contrarian.... D&D started out as a game of adventure/exploration. The PCs were treasure-seekers and adventurers. However, AD&D 2E changed that a bit, and started portraying the PCs as heroes and heroines. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking still pervades. This need to flesh out the character fully, as though it were a protagonist in a novel... sheesh.

Here's an idea. Just roll up the character and let its background/history develop as you play the character, not before you play the character. You're not plotting a novel; you're playing a game. You'll find the game much more fun if you explore the character's background, motivation, w/e, as you play.

I generally agree with that. I am not too interested in creating backstories with my characters, I much prefer experiencing the backstory through play! So I tend to just have a broad idea and see where the game takes me.

To my mind there is no wrong way to do it though, so I think it is fine if you want to do the backstory thing.

I am much more on the gamist-simulationalist end of things rather than the story game end. But I think right from the start how people played diverged wildly. Gygax might not have been a big Tolkien fan, but lots of other people in the early days were, and so I think you see pretty early on that sort of heroic romance style in parallel with the more Leiber inspired swords and sorcery stuff. I actually fell in love with swords and sorcery through D&D and am only recently discovering the fiction that inspired it - my initial exposure to fantasy was the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Of the two, the Hobbit is much more the average D&D campaign but I still love LOTR.

To be fair, for new players, 5e presents background as a core part of the system. I do like that, as I think everyone had a life before being an adventurer, and people in my group have a lot of fun with their backgrounds.

And popular streamers like Critical Role focus on the storytelling parts because I think it makes for more entertaining viewing.

 Red Harvest wrote:

Here's an idea. Just roll up the character and let its background/history develop as you play the character, not before you play the character. You're not plotting a novel; you're playing a game. You'll find the game much more fun if you explore the character's background, motivation, w/e, as you play.

I disagree, simply because while a Level 1 or 2 PC is someone who's just picked up their sword and set out into the world, or made a deal with their Warlock patron or graduated from the Bard's College, the majority of player characters are going to be adults and are going to be defined entirely by the experiences they have had up to that point. They are still people, after all, and their life doesn't begin at Level 1.

Certainly, characters will grow and develop a great deal during a campaign as the events they're part of and the people they meet change them, that's the fundamental principle of storytelling, but I think coming into one without knowing that person's history leaves you significantly underrepresented. You don't need an itemised list of 30 years of events and characters, but I do think you need to have prepared some details just for the sake of knowing that character, and thus being able to roleplay them faithfully and authentically.

Yes, you can just decide on a list of personality traits, but sooner or later someone will want to know something more and it's best to have an answer prepared. If you play a character that has major issues with authority figures/institutions, eventually an NPC or another player will (presumably) respond to that and ask why. At which point, a player who has a backstory to justify that belief is better equipped to maintain the immersion than one who's only reasoning for it was that they wanted to play a rebel.

Not to mention that it just helps have a clearer idea of your character. Even if you have stories or ideas jotted down that never even reach the DM or other players and are entirely for your own benefit, they still contribute to your frame of reference for getting into character. An encounter with a Tiefling in your past might give you reference for an encounter with a different Tiefling now. Having your home burned by an Orc warband colours any interaction you later have with Orcs. So on and so forth. More detail can't ever hurt.

As a DM, I also encourage my players to give me backstories as that in turn gives me a tool to make their experience at the table bespoke and personal. I might not use every detail you give me, I might introduce new details you/your character wasn't aware of previously, but in general, if you give me something to work with, I will work with it and make sure you get encounters, interactions with NPCs, entire sessions and arcs that matter to your character, rather than just saving another town or looting another ruin. In my experience, the players who get the most of out my games are the ones who give me stuff to work with, as I go out of my way to respond to it. It's an understanding that if you put the effort into your character, I will put the effort into making sure they get a story that is personal, relevant, surprising and satisfying.

I'm sure there are games that run very well without that kind of stuff, but to me it's anathema, the fundamental opposite of the kind of game I run. For me, all the dungeons, all the monsters, all the traps and chests and merchants and ruins, it's all just a catalyst for creating drama, whether that's between the players, between a player and an NPC drawn from material they've given me, or between the players and the world at large. And the more thorough, interesting and engaging your backstory is, the better that drama is.

I think you have a fine point there Paradigm, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with running a game that way at all.

I would still like to play devil's advocate though!

If you allow the story to happen only in the shared world of the game, it means you actually experience the backstory rather than have it be written on the paper. You build it together with the other players, meaning that they are the main actors in your story, forging closer bonds by doing so. It means you will be invested in what is happening and likely to form your goals out of what has happened in game, drawing you further into the story and the world in front of you.

This visceral "living" of the story is something only roleplaying games can provide, and it is so much more meaningful than reading a written text can be in most cases, simply because most of us are not world class writers. By putting in a backstory, you are colouring this visceral experience with something unrelated to it and risk diluting the impact or distracting from it.

(Remember, this is devil's advocate )

I would also say that some people play roleplaying games for reasons other than story, and that is perfectly valid too. Sometimes you just want to fight some monsters and steal their stuff.

Again, I only bring that up to demonstrate what I see as the other point of view. I think both approaches have deep roots in the hobby and it is all a matter of taste.

De gustibus non est disputandum. If you are having fun, then you are doing it right.

With that out of the way... I've played the sort of campaign Paradigm describes. Not fun for me. Too restrictive, not at all spontaneous. Dull. ( I repeat, for me. For others, maybe not. It's not a thing of wrong way/ right way, just different ways.) I prefer improvisation and creating at the table, with my fellow players. It is meant as a cooperative game after all. As far as I am concerned, a PC's adventuring life begins at level 1, and what they did before that is really not relevant...unless you play one of those social politics sort of campaigns. ( I get enough of that in RL; don't want it in my Elfgames.)

This, by the way, is a common dichotomy. The story-telling started to creep into D&D in the mid-80's when the Hickmans started writing modules for TSR, as far as I can tell. (Dragonlance being the worst of them, IMO) It may have been present in other RPGs earlier.

Seems like, as usual, it comes down to how each of us want to play the game and how our players want to it. And like the two things Red Harvest said, the style of the game that will be played affects it too. And ultimately if it's fun, it's being done right. The starter set campaign that I'm playing with my first time players, they didn't care at all about back story, and they haven't even read their pre-made back stories. A long term veteran of D&D joined that group, and I believe he's writing a new back story for the character he's playing, even though it already came with one. A different campaign I'm writing is more about political intrigue, mystery solving, and puzzles. They players are thrilled that I wrote a back story for them and how they are involved with the events that are starting the adventure, with them polishing and tweaking the back story only.

I think an important distinction to make is between story and backstory; the two are not mutually exclusive, and neither relies on the other, but I think together they can complement each other nicely. The easiest way to make that distinction is that backstory happens before any dice hit the table, anything after that is story.

Take for instance recent events in my campaign; it was a fairly standard setup, with the party set up against a mysterious rising threat (in this case, a new, deadlier kind of Gnolls that ultimately tried to summon Yeenoghu). There was some detective work, some heroic rescues, some dungeon crawling and it concluded with a pitched battle outside the city walls, and a final showdown with the leader of the Gnolls in Yeenooghu's Realm. A fine story if you ask me. But what the backstory did, rather than interfere with that, is enhance it. A few examples:



I think those examples form my case for arguing that a good backstory can create excellent moments of spontaneity and enhance the storytelling that occurs during gameplay. In each of those instances, whether it was via my choices or the players', the drama was heightened, twists had genuine emotional punch, the players were forced into tougher decisions and after most instances like this, the interactions with the party regarding the events create the exact same kind of at-the-table story that you'd get otherwise, rather than detracting from it. Again, the crucial thing to keep in mind is that done well, backstory is a foundation for story, rather than replacing it. It's fuel for the fire on both sides of the DM screen and I can't really think of a moment where it's detracted.

Once again, as other have said I'm not claiming this is the right way to do things, and every group and game will approach these elements differently. I'm just arguing the case for it as I personally believe it can add a great deal to a campaign, heightening drama, reinforcing immersion and verisimilitude and facilitating these memorable moments. It is very much the Critical Role way of doing things, and probably only a fairly recent phenomena when taken to this extent, but as a new player and one who came into the game via CR, it's the style I find most exciting and what keeps me coming back to the table each week. (incidentally, I do accept that my game, and taking drama to this extreme, is probably an outlier, not necessarily representative of a more standard game, so I'm definitely not saying this is the 'normal' way to do things, just the one I prefer)


EDIT: I'd also add as an addendum that the backstory is entirely in the hands of my players in my campaign. It's entirely up to them when, how and why they choose to reveal it or not, rather than sitting down and passing round 4 sides of A4 with a character's life story on it. One of our players is a walking barrel of mysteries as far as the rest of the group is concerned, another is entirely open about it. But it's never been presented as written material (except to me as DM), it's all done through character conversation at the table and never forced on them. The players still get to experience that story as a group, which strikes me as the exact kind of shared storytelling you'd get in 'regular' games.

Sounds pretty cool. I am less into drama in my games now that I am older, but I used to thoroughly enjoy it back in the day. I think now, after a long and tiring day herding middle schoolers and stressing about my high schoolers coursework, I want some pretty straightforward escapism that doesn't require too much emotional investment.

Did you see that Matt Mercer has released his world as a campaign setting? Cover art looked fairly cool, I nearly picked it up even though I can't seem to get into Critical Role.

Fair enough. Given that my two most active players are drama/creative writing students, that possibly explains why we're so into the dramatic side of things more than your average group. I wouldn't have it any other way, but it's entirely possible that's influencing what we're looking for as a group.

Yeah, there's some good stuff in the Tal'Dorei campaign book, and as a CR fan it's really cool to have access to the background material that doesn't necessarily crop up in the show. Mercer certainly has a talent for breathing a lot of life into a setting that would otherwise be fairly generic high fantasy, and the book offers a nice peek behind the curtain at that.

I'd love to run a game in that world but I feel that, as with a lot of licensed RPGs/settings, you kind of need to run it with a group that knows that world well, or a lot of the work is going to be lost on them.

I had that problem last year running Green Ronin's Dragon Age with a group who (aside from one player) knew very little about the setting and it ended up being more of a hindrance than a help as I had to explain every reference or concept to the unfamiliar players. While the rules evoke the feeling of both the world and the video games very nicely, that wasn't really worthwhile on a group that didn't really appreciate it.

When we switched over to D&D in a setting of my own devising, everything ran much smoother as the onus was on me to explain things as I saw them and I could fill in gaps on the fly, rather than relying on existing knowledge of a setting. There was less need to explain at length the lore ramifications for playing a Mage or an Elf (both of which come with tonnes of baggage in Dragon Age that I'm not sure my players were expecting), and I could focus on building up a setting around what my players wanted, rather than trying to project it onto them.

It's actually the same reason I don't use any of the 'official' D&D settings, as that freedom suits me as DM and the players; if one wants to play a Drow, for instance, I can write up a side of notes on Drow culture in my setting, where they exist, what their relations with the other races are, and to a certain extent I can curate that around what the player is after and what I want the central tensions of my world to be. Where as if I was using Sword Coast or Waterdeep or Raveloft, that lore already exists and might not necessarily fit with the ideas I/the players are after. That, and world writing lore is a lot of fun for me!

I use settings quite a lot, over the years I have run Ravenloft, Darksun, Ptolus, Planescape and Eberron. Weirdly, I have never run Forgotten Realms, because if I am gonna run a basic fantasy world I would rather make it myself, so I have done 2 completely homebrew campaigns.

I am currently running in my own setting, but even then I use the maps and stuff from the Wilderlands - I just fill in all the detail and cultures myself.

So, had the second session on my Critical Mode game and I must say, it was pretty ridiculous. If anyone is interested, instead of typing it all again here, I posted on reddit describing what transpired. Simply for your reading enjoyment, should anyone be interested.

https://ss.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/8qrwcx/how_players_are_dealing_with_my_critical_mode/

Thanks.

I'll definitely have a read. Always interested in other styles of play (this is my favourite Dakka thread )

That's completely opposite of how I like playing dnd. But if you and yopur players are having fun...

3 things I'd like to give as feedback:

1) 14 kobolds at lvl 1 is extremely hard for 4 lvl 1 chars let alone
using all those special rules.

2) I'd probably give a catch up system for xp in case a person gets killed at "higher" lvl's because constantly laggiong behind isn't really fun.

3) I'm pretty certain that rate of character loss stops being fun very quickly.