Worst backstory you've ever seen from a player?

>She is used to the urban life as she has lived in urban areas all her life.

In an inner-city gang campaign. It all went downhill from there.

>>44786153
Super genius scientist who was literally raised by wolves until it came time to enter University. In a low fantasy Iron age world.

I let it happen in a serious game just to prove to my friend why we clear our fucking invites with the DM.

>>44786153
I've had to reject a player who outright stole characters from Final Fantasy X. He made Lulu and Auron into farmer's market food vendors.

"She is a hot bitch"

One of our players always tries to play a shota from his new favorite anime. If we let him, he'll do nothing all game and get bored. if we tell him no, he makes an intersting character instead and has fun. but he always asks to play the anime ripoff first.

>>44786153
I'm a Warlock. My name is Phil.

>>44786380
(In unison) Hi Phil!

>>44786153
Where can you find four dollar karate lessons? That's so cheap.

>>44786380
Welcome to Warlocks anonymous Phil...

>>44786398
S1ll7 An0n N0T D01n9 L33T 5p33ch

Not being me

Killin people

>person makes a character with a harsh backstory
>only ever brings up backstory as an excuse to be an asshole
>does so both in and out of character

>>44786189
Details please, it sounds hilarious.

>>44786239
That actually sounds interesting, in a player character shouldn't exist in that universe type situation.
>>44786153
I could just go with standard
>3edgy5me character
But I'd say the worst had to be a Fantasy Military campaign I was running.
>Player was a thief who got conscripted instead of punished for crime
>Player finds necronomicon and doesn't tell the rest of the party
>It's a major plot device so I try and get the rest of the players involved
>Other players are dumbasses and go bear hunting at level 1.
>Same player gets rekt by the same bear twice in one session
>He's on his third character two hours in.
>Player with book just leaves the group and wanders into the distance, thus ending the game.
>All because his backstory was, "He's a loner"

That's why I have a rule, if your character has no reason to stay with the group, they had no reason to show up in the first place, so make someone who does.

>>44786810
Group character creation is a wonderful thing.

So is having them work for a society that will shoot them if they split up.

>>44786153
Exalted game.
Way out innawoods village ranger gets Solar'd. Meh but passable.
Then suddenly Wyld Hunt is upon him but he succesfully gets out of dodge. Sort of reasonable because that far innawoods "Hunt" means "a couple dragonblooded kids round up some local goons".
Then he starts pondering about why do the dragonblooded hate the solars so much. Okay, now that's getting interesting.

Then comes full stop.
He says he went on the search and discovered the existence of the Great Curse. At Lore 1.

>>44786380
He also had pet wolf called Steve.

>>44786810
Might have been able to play it off as either madness or magic, but he insisted it was super serious and was very demanding. He was told that after the game not to come back and my friend got brow beaten for bringing the autist.

she is a 8 year old sorc but due to some spell fuck up on her part she acts like an adult

Translation: plays a depressing, broody tween stereotype who treats sweets as an alcoholic does alcohol.
Acts like an edgemeister woe is me character until she just decides her character has had enough sugar to throw a spell flinging lolsorandumb tantrum, usually at the worse time.
Ends up with us dragging her everywhere and having to, mid fight, convince her that throwing literally any spell in the enemies direction is a better option than dragging us down in her constant deathwish. When we're not dragging her anywhere we had to leave behind a babysitter with her at an inn to prevent her from either eating candy or slashing her wrists. Can't take her with us cause the DM, who's open and willing to give literally any character a fighting chance, treats her almost like a -10 to diplomacy rolls which just makes her more depressed.
Midway through session 2 we all collectively said fuck it and brought it up with her and the DM. DM understood but she absolutely did not. If you've ever seen a child have a full body temper tantrum imagine that and scale the child to a 26 year old woman. We all agreed she wouldn't be coming back to the group.

Brother wanted to play a Gnoll Cleric who got molested into religion. . . somehow.

I shot him down.

He's playing a Vampire Dio expy, which is just barely acceptable in my campaign, as long as he doesn't try and badger me into giving him ZA WARUDO without him putting in some serious thought as to how it should work mechanically, and potentially multiclassing into wizard or something.

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I had a player once BEG the GM repeatedly to let him make a Kitsune character. We all sorta groan and say no because we don't want any Naruto/League of Legends shit at the table. He SWEARS he won't do that and keeps bitching.
>GM finally relents
>Player makes a female Kitsune sorcerer.
>Player makes them a blatant charisma whore.
>Player uses a fucking picture of Ahri as their character pic.
>Player is literally just playing Ahri after we told him we didn't want his League of Legends faggotry in here.
>Player swears that's not what he's doing because his character is named "Momo".

Yeah, me and another player started refusing to show up while this guy was around and the GM eventually broke off contact with him. I feel a little guilty about it to be honest, but we wern't playing DnD so this retard could live out his anime fox-girl waifu fantasies.

>>44786810
>That's why I have a rule, if your character has no reason to stay with the group, they had no reason to show up in the first place, so make someone who does.

I go one step further and give the players a reason to stay with the group. Why that reason applies to the PC is up to its player. For example: If the reason is that all PCs want {npc} dead, it's up to each player to decide why.

It also helps keep the plot on track when all the PCs are created sharing a common goal. Much better than them sharing nothing beyond all being in the same bar at the same time and just deciding to work with each other.

>>44786820
>So is having them work for a society that will shoot them if they split up.
Having the PCs working for the same organisation is a common one I use.

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>>44786153
A group of new players who explicitly asked me to start with D&D 3.0. Told them to read the player handbook and make a lv1 character. I gave them a week to read the thing. I won't forget those sessions.
-'Lazy' tier:
>female half-elf cleric of st. cuthbert: my mom and dad are clerics, so I am too. I don't know else. not even how to prepare spells.
-'Bad' tier:
>female elf ranger, chose dragons as favored enemy
>'i was mentored by a master of martial arts who taught me how to kill dragons and do martial arts when i'm using my bow. i'm also best at brewing elven beer'
>look up to her sheet for feats
>no Improved Unarmed Strike anywhere
>no ranks in Profession (brewer/innkeeper)
>'oh and can I get a dragon as a pet?'
-'Shit' tier:
>human paladin
>'i'm the son of the king but he sent me away to train with Rogue, the best swordsman in the land. I am very good at fighting, have defeated hundreds of enemies, and the only one to ever defeat me was a powerful sorcerer who left me alive.'
>lv1
>look up his feats
>blank spot
>ask him for part of backstory relevant to religious upbringing or holy calling to arms or whatnot
>looks at me silently with a confused face

The only good player was a dwarven fighter who had lived on the surface all his life because his father was a herdsman and he had become a city guard with the secret desire to travel across the realm if the occasion arose.

The party went on to a TPK in the next session against three gnolls and I had to make them survive somehow and then they completely lost track of their mission and sneaked inside a nobleman's house only to get discovered in the stables and kill everyone without regards.
I quit right and there after explaining everything wrong with their approach and advised they learn to read a player handbook.
Also told them to choose something easier for their brains, like car lesbians.

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>>44787045
>but we wern't playing DnD so this retard could live out his anime fox-girl waifu fantasies.

Right on, you're there to live out your anime Succubus waifu fantasies right?

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>>44787677
I'm there to SMITE AND CLEAVE my anime succubus waifu.

>>44786153
"I iz Orc Bard named Thug We bang, okay?
Worst part was, he wanted to be a cabaret performer....

>>44786153

I was raped by trolls as a child
I'm a cleric and I don't worship a god but instead the force of darkness itself.

>>44786153
I am a National-Socialist Paladin; Starting in "the order's Youth program, I have learned that the only good jew/orc/goblin/elf/dwarf/gnome/non-human are dead ones!"

"My mother was a whore who liked big grey orc cock... then got raped and knocked up by an elf. I'm a whore who likes big grey orc cock."

That half-elf sorceress had all her skill points in "Profession Courtesan."

Guy wants to be a drow noble in Pathfinder. Reasoning? He wants to be strong.

>>44788363
>then got raped and knocked up by an elf.
Points for an original twist.

"Backstory? Fuck You, I'm a Dragon!"

He was a Kobold Brawler... :/

>>44788378
>:/
Kill yourself

>>44786153
"My character has amnesia."

FUCK YOU KEVIN.

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>>44788393
>"My character has amnesia."
Have an undefinable horror creature of darkness that instakills them follow his character. Bonus points if it's in an old, crumbling castle.

>>44788393

The shame with amnesiac backstories is that you can still do stuff with them if you just set the waking up to happen a bit before the game. Then you can have some good backstory about how the character's acted since finding himself in a place he doesn't know and no idea how he got there, can use that period to give him at least basic links with his surroundings, hell if the local area has problems you can probably get something interesting about his perspective on it, which'd be rather different given the lack of prior knowledge and whatnot.

Problem is, that takes effort, and the average player who puts down amnesiac is doing it out of laziness. Shame really.

>>44786153

"I was told there was beer"

>A Dwarf drunk? Why does he Drink?

"To Forget"

>Forget what?

"Doesn't remember..."

"I do what I wanna""

>>44788467
It's a shit start, but at least it's something.

>>44788467
sounds like it's working

>>44788467
>A Dwarf drunk? Why does he Drink?
>Why do men breath?
Shit question.

>>44786153
>He has a wonky eye.

That was it guys.
That's all I had to work with.

>>44787677
At least I can disguise it, make a kitsune and 99 times out of 90 it's due to weeb

>>44788533
It seems you are right...
>>44788492
That's all I got from him: When the PC's cut off his booze, he killed himself rather then the Player think of a reason.
>>44788569
True, but he had no job, no hobby, but sitting in the oub drinking.

>Where do you get gold for booze?

"I forget"

>>44788467
It certainly worked, now what does he remember?

>>44788363
>then got raped and knocked up by an elf.
Waht a tweest

>>44788335
That doesn't sound bad at all, I'd fucking love for anything other than every character being a college liberal in my games.

>>44788596
shame, an old drunk type of character can be interesting if over the course of a story he makes genuine attempts to clean up

even the "doesn't remember what he was drinking to forget" deal, when played right, can lead to good things.

>>44788622
>shame, an old drunk type of character can be interesting if over the course of a story he makes genuine attempts to clean up
I play such a character, it's actually interesting.

>>44787449
They were new players. They didn't know better. You were supposed to teach them about things like that.

>>44786153
Blatant and lazy Kite ripoff for Dark Heresy assassin/scum girl. Assassinated planetary governor when she was 13 or so. Player was at least 25 years old, educated, had a good job, etc.

>>44788622
He didn't: the party tried to dry him out, so the dwarf an hero...

>>44788619
fair point... However in a game where we had a Paladin of HFY (an order based on mass-effect's Cerberus), a Cleric of Asmodeus (who believed in the power of free markets via contracts and social shunning of wrongdoers), an Anarcho-capitalist changeling and a Suicidal fighter who wants a 'meaningful death' before passing on to see his dead family...

Sadly, the Nazi paladin concept was done with the HFY paladin, and the player said that he wanted to play a omnicidal sociopath...

>>44786947
EAST

ALWAYS TO THE EAST

Literally "I am a mysterious stranger, And am neutral evil." I'm boiling down two paragraphs of garbage, but the basic motivation for the character was literally "brood, kill people just to be contrarian, and be a edgelord"

I called him on such and he justified it all with muh neutral evil.

So after my current character passed, I decided to make a properly NE character, and proceeded to literally win the game.

>>44788739
>winning at a TTRPG
Please tell us how you were That Guy.

>>44788818
I didn't mean to, OK?! I just made a NE character that wasn't an edgelord, it wasn't my fault that the GM gave me Carte blanche to weasel my way into the power structure of both the local Senate and crime syndicates.

I literally just gave my character some goals on a paper and Went for them via torture, assassination, and abuse of the law.

I expected some level of consequence, but he just basically allowed it to happen.

Endgame I was a senator, boss of one of the largest syndicates in the country, owned a castle, and basically just handed the whole of my character to the Gm and said "here. Use him as a villain npc. Here's his personality, here's his resources. Go nuts"

From what I heard, he became the BBEG and nuked the party using assassin's.

>>44787449

You were there to explain the game to them Fucking elitist. "you don't get the game. You are all stupid" No wonder we get bad reputation.

>>44788913
If you don't point out how shit they are, they'll never improve.

>>44788876
>paper and Went for them via torture, assassination, and abuse of the law.
sounds pretty edgy for me.

>>44789016

pointing out is one thing. Insulting them, their brain capacity and leaving is another. I remember when I started my first character was ranger that used a bow. And the had a wolf. Not better than anything they put as character concept.

>>44786380
glad I'm not the only person who names my human characters with human names.

>>44789102
That's why I name my character CUETZPALLI

>>44786825
That's just a simple newbie mistake that any decent storyteller or player would correct him on.

>>44789150
Yeah, he did fix it.
Still, claiming discovering THAT as part of the backstory is bad. Hilariously bad.

Also wolf Steve remained.

>>44786153
4 bucks for karate lessons? If he knows a deal that good I'll give him a fiver just to let me in on it!

>>44786153
That thing we've created in the Mary Sue thread the other day.

>>44789180
No, it's a simple, honest mistake. He didn't know better. It wasn't a big deal after you fixed it.

Anything beyond a paragraph, I don't see much point in backstories especially in dnd. Nine times out of 10 you're an unfortunate orphan or bored commoner with nothing better to do. I've never read a backstory worthwhile...

>>44789024
It wasn't indiscriminate, and it wasn't for personal enjoyment. When torture was useful as a way to gather info, or to make a point to enemy forces, it was employed. Mostly he used diplomacy and deceit to gain power, and did his best to look like a "good person " to avoid trouble.

He was loosely based on shadier Florentine politicians in the 16th century, in that regard.

>>44789219
No anon, it's like a foreigner misspelling common words and phrases in their fifth language. They need to be mocked and ridiculed or they'll never know how dumb they are.

>>44788303
That's actually legitimate. Clerics don't need specific deities unless you're in Faerun.

>>44788368
Agree to his demands, but only if he names his character Roman Reigns.

>>44788591
There's always that one guy who doesn't know the meaning of the word subtlety and asks to play a Sergal, though.

>>44789339
I wish I knew if you were being sarcastic or not there.

>>44786153
desu, most backstories are garbage. Most roleplaying and character development happens spontaneously at the table, and I prefer blank slate PCs who develop characterization over the course of a campaign.

>>44789371
I wish I knew if you were right here.

>>44789390
I'm not, I'm over here.

>>44789219
If your first reaction upon reading the setting and finding out that it has some big hidden shit is to claim your character owning it as part of backstory, it is a red flag.

>>44789052
He felt insulted first.

He asked them to read the book.

They failed to comprehend, likely because they didn't put the effort into it that was required. Effort that he was putting into the campaign, which they shat on and disrespected.

Either that, or they are literally incapable of parsing written words that are capable of instructing them how to play, and you apparently can't expect them to understand any resource you point them to other than personally holding their hand and spoonfeeding them.

Neither are the sorts you want to play with.

>Dude, where's your backstory?
>uuuuhhhhh... I didn't make any

Surprise surprise, turned out to be the most useless character in the party. Inb4 you should have kicked him etc. etc. he was a friend, so was everyone else, and before this he was our best player.

>>44789398
Unless you don't know it's supposed to be big hidden shit. Duh, that's the point.

>>44789398
What it boils down for me is:

Stop making your characters EXCEPTIONS to what they are.

You're NOT an exception to your race.
You're NOT an exception to your class.
You're NOT an exception to what every other PC knows or can do.

Try playing what you actually are. Try CHOOSING what you actually want to play in the first place instead of taking it and changing everything about it.

>>44789400
>everyone has perfect understanding of the system I've been studying for years when they encounter it for the first time in their lives.
sure thing buddy

>>44789418
This sounds like a recipe for only ever having boring stereotypes. Adventurers aren't supposed to be average peasants, they're social misfit pyscho murderhobos. Or at least some of them are. I mean, think about it, where else would the weirdos go?

>>44789400
Trying to learn your first RPG by reading the big book is usually pretty shit. People have no idea what they're looking at since most of what's being has no external context for them to reference.

Secondhand story. My friend played in a Dark Heresy game where one of the assassins had an one-sentence backstory.

He was a baker whose family got killed by Orks, so he went crazy and started poisoning his products.

That is all.

>>44788700
>>44788913
I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking this.
I get that the players wanted to play the wrong game, but they didn't know better. When you're new, the most hip game on the block seems like the only option, and they come in with different expectations and then just get shot down.
I'm more curious on why the house infiltration was seen as such a bad thing. Did they stray from the intended plot?

>>44787449
>everyone new to the game must immediately know everything I do

You would have stopped DMing my group's first game, too. Yet it's one of the most entertaining campaigns I ever played. You demand responsibility of your players, but fail to take it as the DM. Yes, they were noobs, but you were the experienced party AND the DM. It was up to you to take charge.

If this story ended with you explaining their mistakes, and them telling you off as "no fun" or whatever, I'd have been there with you. But I can tell you what this looked like to them: They were having fun, and then their DM suddenly exploded. Your point isn't wrong, but your behaviour damn well is.

>>44786153
> Rogue Trader
> Seneschal
> Noble-Born
> "Basically Michelle Rodriguez in Fast & Furious."

Those were his actual words.

>>44789462
Honestly he should've just said 'I'm not teaching four new players how to play 3.0'. Those types of games only go one way.

>>44789418
No, not even that. He seemingly was going for an interesting take on character motivation on step 3 in my post (normally it's "oh they don't like us? WELL FUCK THEM, REMOVE KEBAB")

But then flipped into "lol I got it already"

>>44789430
For most roleplayers I've met, "social misfit psycho murderer" ends up being more cringeworthy than worthwhile.

On a broader note, I really dislike that sort of amateurish "muh deconstruction." Fuck you for liking it

>>44789400
Gongard detected

>>44789431
I just find it sad how humans are incapable of understanding this. We've all been there, and most of us had people teach us through a few sessions, helping us.
But that's forgotten.
Heck, getting into the hobby back in the times of Basic DnD was mostly done that way, and the mechanics were much simpler back then.

>>44789500
I don't think all of them should be like that, but there definitely should be room for them.

There's nothing more boring than playing a cliche that someone else thought up.

>>44789418
this makes no sense.

>>44786398
He obviously is missing 4$ for the fee.

>>44789495
>Those types of games only go one way.

They don't, though. I mean, if he didn't want to, he should have said that. But he didn't. He just magically expected new players to just "get" the game AND his style of DMing with no prior experience, and that's the sort of stupid assumption that makes these games go wrong.

>>44789431
>>44789526
I'd still say that deciding to play cleric and then not knowing how to prepare spells or a paladin and not knowing they're divine warriors is pretty shit.

>>44789532
Originality is overrated as fuck m80. Much of Shakespeare, for example, draws heavily on other things. It's how the pieces are used, and I don't mean in the retarded lego fashion that places like TV Tropes are inclined to believe, that breathes life into them.

Creativity is far more important than pure originality. Deconstruction for its own sake is a heartless endeavour, better confined to literary fiction by actually good writers than the gaming table

>>44789553
Well, that's why they... should be helped out instead of ridiculed. Isn't it easier to just explain instead of blowing up at them?

>>44789573
>Originality is overrated
I don't care how others rate it, I'm the one who has to play the character, not them.

>Deconstruction for its own sake
Who said it was for its own sake?

>>44789526
This being 4chan, they very well may have learned from reading the book. We do have the type of people who enjoy reading technical manuals.

>>44789553
Every new player I've run has had a problem with spells. Without fail. Even experienced players got tripped up in the transition to 5e. They knew it was different from 3.X, but they were still grappling with *how* it was different.

Vancian casting is a non-intuitive process.

That said,, not knowing that a Paladin is a divine warrior is weird, since everything about it screams divine. I honestly don't understand how someone can decide to make a Paladin without knowing that part.

>>44789546
I don't mean they all crash and burn, but they're always based on a dysfunctional grasp of the rules, players that are unsure of how to roleplay, and how to make a character worth roleplaying, and a complete lack of awareness of the conventions that'd help them follow the scenarios the DM's prepared. They're always going to end up sneaking into some nonsensical place and murdering all the obstacles when they get backed into a corner.

>>44789369
To be honest, a stereotypical Sergal can still work really well in a fantasy setting

>>44789608
>I don't mean they all crash and burn, but they're always based on a dysfunctional grasp of the rules, players that are unsure of how to roleplay, and how to make a character worth roleplaying, and a complete lack of awareness of the conventions that'd help them follow the scenarios the DM's prepared. They're always going to end up sneaking into some nonsensical place and murdering all the obstacles when they get backed into a corner.

That's true. But if the DM had known that, he wouldn't have been so damn frustrated.

>>44789593
Who's to say that it doesn't across as grating otherwise?

It's injects a spirit of inauthentic cynicism that I find detrimental to the typical fantasy roleplaying setting. Deconstruction works pretty well when everything is built around deconstructing the premises of the genre, which in my mind and experience, takes away from the spontaneous roleplaying experience and player agency. Indeed, I think it also gives a gigantic middle finger to anyone who wanted to have fun or enjoy the standard fantasy milieu.

Basically, you and most roleplayers aren't DFW or some other talented author who can write a good deconstruction. Yours sucks, sucks away fun, and detracts from the world as a whole.

>>44787045
I'm not seeing anything that bad here

Using a picture of somebody does not mean your playing that character that's like saying disruptive student is tefrie because that's the character in the picture

>>44789608
>That said,, not knowing that a Paladin is a divine warrior is weird, since everything about it screams divine. I honestly don't understand how someone can decide to make a Paladin without knowing that part.
Maybe he thought it was a more realistic type of knight.

>>44789655
He must've been new to new players. DMing's even less intuitive then reading the book.

>>44789674
I mean, it's possible, but with 'Aura of Good' 'Detect Evil' and 'Smite Evil' at first level (And he didn't mention that the Paladin had any problem with that stuff.) it's pretty clear the Paladin has something of the divine to him.

>>44789666
>It's injects a spirit of inauthentic cynicism
>buh buh buh I don't like it
No, it creates a fresh look that catches the imagination again. You know, sort of like the cliche type of dwarf and elf did when you were 11 years old and reading the hobbit.

>Yours sucks, sucks away fun, and detracts from the world as a whole.
No it doesn't. You, a random person on the internet who knows nothing about me, are the first person who has ever complained about it.

It's fine if you only want a party made of three humans and a dwarf, but don't act like others are only allowed to do things the way you do.

>>44789688
>'Smite Evil'

For some reason I read that as "Smut Evil", and am now imagining a Paladin of the God of Love.

>>44789688
I don't know, I can see how someone who doesn't know anything about it could see that and read knight templar into it or something.

Your examples don't even have anything specifically divine in them, though other paladin abilities do.

>>44787449
>female half-elf cleric of st. cuthbert: my mom and dad are clerics, so I am too
Nothing wrong with that
>I don't know else. not even how to prepare spells.
Jesus Christ how horrifying
I once had a player who wanted to delibritly play a weak character I let him do it once so he could see how horrible the idea is but I all but vetoed the first draft witch dident have enough wisdom to cast any spells but that was more a matter of not understanding the system like yours

Unless you mean the character dident know how to prepare spells in which case double holy shit.

>>44789698
>Tolkien
>cliche

I see you don't know what you're talking about.

>It's fine if you only want a party made of three humans and a dwarf, but don't act like others are only allowed to do things the way you do.

Did I ever say that? Or are you just projecting the worst onto me because someone vehemently disagrees with the ethos of how you approach fantasy charaterbuilding

>>44789722
I don't know. A cleric who only became a cleric because her parents were clerics is the exact sort of thing a very low wisdom character would do and end up not being able to cast spells.

>>44789731
>are you just projecting the worst onto me
That's a laugh, coming after several posts of you doing that to me. Anon please.

>>44788363
I was expecting the orks to have been the one to knock her up and I thought horray finally a half ork that's not a fucking rape baby

Also keeping your profession skill points up is perfectly sensible.

>>44788378
I love it

Sereius backstorys arnt needed I have never used a players backstorys in a game outside of the occasional visiting the place they were trained backstorys tend to be just explaining why you have a certain personality which is a waste of time you don't need to have a reason to be a good member of a usually evil race you can just want to be good etc

>>44789747
I took issue with the deconstructive ethos and why I dislike it, which should be evident if you weren't asspained. And I took some potshots and snide remarks, but that's just an insult -- not an actual argument.

>>44789769
No, you took issue with some kind of vague strawman that you set up. That's alright, anon, but don't act like I have to respect or respond to it.

>>44786153
>uuhhh, I don't really know much about where I'm from. So I guess I'm adventuring because of that.

The Elf Sorcerer who fireballs and magic missiles, and doesn't contribute to anything outside of combat unless it can be solved with mage hand or mending.

>>44789781
>I don't like deconstruction
>Here's why
>Fuck you

Harden up, babby

>>44789707
They aren't rulebook divine, but they're definitely things that ring of divinity.

But it's semantics at this point. The point is that new players can't read for shit, and if you expect them to be able to play like real people then you're as retarded as they are.

>>44789804
The same goes for you.

Your approach to making characters is retarded, deal with it babby.

>>44789418
No it boils down to stop trying to explain why hour an exception and just play your God damed suubus paladin

>>44789747
>I don't know. A cleric who only became a cleric because her parents were clerics is the exact sort of thing a very low wisdom character would do and end up not being able to cast spells.

But isn't this in direct contradiction to the rules? The GODS decide to bestow THEIR MOST BENEVOLENT POWER upon their lowly peons in the material realm. It's not something you choose, but something that's chosen for you. I don't imagine the GODS would even select someone without the worldly understanding to even comprehend the gifts bestowed upon them.

A Cleric who refuses to use spells unless absolutely necessary because 1) the power of the GODS should not be squandered, and 2) The word of the GODS should stand on its own, in all its divine logic. Now there's a character.

>>44789859
Gods don't pick clerics. Gods pick Favored Souls.

>>44789400
>He doesnt make his players build their characters together and with him.

You have no right to complain. Newbies are a precious ressource and you spat on it. You brought this upon yourself and you disgust me.

Son of a bitch I had a big post typed up and then acidentily left the page

>>44789859
Depends on the setting and the god.

>>44789859
That really, really depends on the setting. In many settings, becoming a cleric is as much a career choice as it is a calling.

Also, there are plenty of priests who have no magical capabilities (I.E they're level 0 or not even in the class and are instead commoners with the profession of a priest). Not every country hick minister is going to be able to throw around the healing light of a god.

>>44789546
There's a difference between not knowing everything about the game and being incapable of understanding basic concepts

That said i have learnt not to give up on thse players I had a player I had to explain point buy to 3 times but he is fine now (mostly)
These people aren't the lost causes they seem to be

>>44789900
That's not a Cleric however, that's a priest. Taking a level in Cleric means you are a hardcore divine energy channeler with martial training or experience.
Just being someone who worships a god is called a Commoner.

>>44789930
Concepts that are basic to you are things a newbie needs to think about.

It might seem silly on paper that someone would need point buy explained three times, but you have to keep in mind that that's a player who is also being bombarded by tons of other information at the same time.

>>44789747
>A cleric who only became a cleric because her parents were clerics is the exact sort of thing a very low wisdom character would do and end up not being able to cast spells.
Holy shit your right

>>44789859
One of the worst parts of 5e was that it made clerics into favoured souls.

>>44789896
>>44789900
But Cleric as a class implies a D&D ruleset with all that brings with it. If the setting changes that, it changes the class to the point where it's not the Cleric class anymore.

>Also, there are plenty of priests who have no magical capabilities (I.E they're level 0 or not even in the class and are instead commoners with the profession of a priest). Not every country hick minister is going to be able to throw around the healing light of a god.

And cats have barbed dicks. Which bears about as much relevance to this discussion.

>>44789954
>also being bombarded by tons of other information at the same time.
That's a good point auctualy that really gives me a new perspective to think about the matter from thanks anon

>>44789937

Granted. But still, being a cleric in D&D rarely includes being literally chosen by a god. You can choose to be a cleric, provided you carry out your duties and serve your god like you should.

Then again, a person with a shitty Wisdom and no actual conviction about it likely would be a priest instead. There's just nothing there to denote an actual cleric. Even if a god wouldn't just reject you, you wouldn't have either the calling or the cojones, so to speak.

>>44789937
A cleric still gets some unique stuff even if they don't get spells. So it's and unoptimal but still a valid character from a mechanics standpoint.

As far as the fluff goes, favored souls are chosen by gods, not clerics, like someone said.

>>44789987
>As far as the fluff goes, favored souls are chosen by gods, not clerics, like someone said.

No Anon, I'm pretty sure D&D 3.0 Clerics are selected by the gods, according to the fluff.

>>44787008
That girl sounds like a That Girl I know

>>44790016
No, that's favored souls.

>>44789731
That last paragraph is exactly what you're doing to the other

Get real you fucking autist

Used to be a farmer. Got bored.

Was our first game so I didn't expect much, but a guy wanted to be a chaotic neutral wizard who had amnesia and only knew his name, which was Wienerface in Danish.. I almost begged him to take it seriously

>>44789500
Doesn't even need to be an attempt at deconstruction. It can just be ''Im sick of always playing as X. Im gonna give myself a different backstory so I no longer have to rp as X''

>>44786820
This.
Generally I say "The campaign is going to be focused on X, so when you make your characters, give them a reason to do X. Chargen session on friday, I'll get pizza."

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> wood elf
> parents killed by orcs
> wants to get stronger in combat

>>44790273
If thats your worst, you're a lucky DM.

One of my players once produced a character whose backstory was ''I found Bubbles (his pet pseudodragon) and I use fire to burn things that piss me off''

He thought eating another sapient creature alive was defend-able as something a CG character could do without an alignment shift. And people nearby freaking out.

>>44790314
Not really the worst, but the laziest in my opinion.
Luckily I always try to play with friends, so I don't fish in the deep waters of online roleplaying and probably I'm spared the worst.

>>44790314
>He thought eating another sapient creature alive was defend-able as something a CG character could do without an alignment shift.

I hate to break it to you, but it is. That's pretty Chaotic, really. And given that it's OK for Good characters to murder reams upon reams of sentient creatures, I don't see the problem.

Sure, it still sounds like shitty play, but it kind of illustrates the problem with policing the game according to alignment. The next step is the Paladin murderhoboing everyone who pings Evil.

>>44790373
See, the part that cinched it for me was ''alive'' and the fact it was entirely because the thing ate a sheep he had killed and wanted to eat.

I was willing to let him do it but we were in the middle of a village so I gave him fair warning that A) Id switch his alignment down a peg and B) the town guard were probably gonna freak out. Apparently that was unfair.

See, way I see it the murder is usually done for the good of others in one way or another. This was purely because the dude wanted to punish the creature for eating something he had mentally claimed, even though he didnt own it.

>>44790348
>Not really the worst, but the laziest in my opinion.
You still can make a common backstory interesting. It's just a matter of the details.

>>44790373
>given that it's OK for Good characters to murder reams upon reams of sentient creatures, I don't see the problem.

That's not a given you silly sausage. Try reading the books, none of them say 'it's A Okay to kill something just because they're evil, go nuts!'

>>44790434
Yeah, that's pretty evil.

>>44789526
Same thing in vidya when people are confused as to why new players drop the game after a few rounds of vs against a veteran player; and the vet can't understand why the new players get frustrated when they can't even figure out how to stop spinning.

If you bought the game, you've had the chance not only to read the manual, but play tutorials and single-player missions. Same principle applies to the table-top. The player given a week to figure everything out most likely won't even think of the mechanics questions they need to ask until they're at the table

>"What button switches weapons?"

>>44790434
>Apparently that was unfair.

That's the part that does it, for me. Players shouldn't bitch about things like that. Actions have consequences, etc. etc. It's not being forbidden, it's just that the PC's don't exist in a magic, consequence-free bubble.

But yeah, that does sound pretty shitty.

>>44790462
Anon, in the course of pretty much any campaign in a game with an alignment system (in other words, D&D), Good party members WILL kill hordes of enemies. It's arguably what the entire game is about. Don't be obtuse, and especially not by giving me an example I pointed out in the post you're responding to as WRONG.

You condescending prick.

>>44790314
I hate it when people try to make cute pets or similar things in DnD.

>>44790453
Yeah, exactly what I prompted the player to do afterwards. We managed to create a decent backstory some time later.

Also, I still don't get the "wants to get stronger" bit. It's quite obvious you're going to get XP and have some kind of freedom on how you spend them, why feeling the need to state something so obvious?

>>44790552
Just because they will do it doesn't mean that it's okay for them to do it without a reason. "They're evil lol" isn't a good enough reason.

The reason why they do kill so many things is because the DM gives them a good enough reason.

>>44790591
Your point being?

>>44790552
Its not even like I was stating something like ''well, you'll need to switch to evil and be hunted everywhere you go.'' I said ''Im gonna mark you down to CN. Keep on doing stuff like this and you'll have to go to CE. And the local guards that see this will want to have a word with you once we deal with the attack.''

Same dude created a character for a Rogue Trader campaign named ''Internet'' (he was the astropath) and spent most of his time rping himself making lolcat jokes and shit.

>>44790609
My point being that your entire argument there was pointless since it didn't talk about the same things as the anon you were responding to.

>>44790609
Not him but Im guessing its ''the reason isn't 'theyre evil, fuck it' but rather whatever reason the plot provides''.

Like, maybe its just me but Ive never had a situation where my plot was players wandering around murdering ''evil'' creatures. Usually they kill things attacking a bunch of peasants or trying to kill them.

Its a slight difference, perhaps, but it does make a difference. Its the difference between punching a dude that you know second hand to be an asshole and punching him because he attacked you or a friend of yours.

I was an immortal and invincible super-omni-scientist in a modern compaign. I fought injustice with the help of my parents, who were also immortal and invincible, and were the president of earth (for several years) and the actual ruler of earth (for as long as I could remember) respectively.

I could manipulate energy and was a great strategist. My dad could charm people and was a great fighter and an awesome leader. My mom could manipulate organic matters and always knew the correct decision in any situations.

I also had younger (adopted) siblings who were neither immortal nor invincible. My main goal was to protect them. My parents were always too busy to be around much. Hence adventures.

>generating report...
>generating report: done
>...
>edge load: maximized

>>44790552
>Good party members WILL kill hordes of enemies
>it's OK for Good characters to murder reams upon reams of sentient creatures

Do you see the difference? Killing groups of people trying to kill you=/=murder, and it certainly doesn't justify burning people alive. Your original example was just plain wrong, so I assumed you were on about evil things (since that's less blatantly wrong), and clearly I made a mistake there.

Doesn't stop your argument being dumb though. What part of being allowed to kill things trying to kill you justifies 'burning things that piss me off'?

>>44790664
OK, /tg/ being as stupid and argumentative as ever. Fuck this, I'm out.

>>44788335
Not my character but I lead a youth camp for orphans of war that was supported by the church if Zarus. Turned out pretty well for me.

>>44790652
It's the holy trinity of Mary Sue

Rape vampire.

The obnoxious part was that he didn't think he was a rapist but basically this guy just rolled around collecting women, dominating the ones he couldn't seduce or coerce through normal force, and just acted like it was cool because they all said yes at one point or another.

This was an active problem with the character but it's important to realize his backstory was just more of this. Basically his back story was: I was a rapist back then and I'm still a rapist now.

Dude legitimately could not figure out that his character wasn't a cool dude who was super smooth with the ladies. Yeah, like 1 in 3 times it was consensual but he still fucked the other two, either through domination of threatening the crap out of them.

I later heard from the GM that he was trying to actually get to roleplay those scenes fully over private chat and was not taking "fade to black" as an answer.

so yeah, Rape Vampire.

>>44786153
A classmate tried GMing 2e online once and this was his accounts of it:

Dragonborn fighter in 2e who was the child of FUCKING TIAMAT and was trained in sword fighting by FUCKING HEXTOR and was still neutral good. And since it was a level 3 and onward campaign his justification for not cutting forests down in a single swing (direct quote from him) was because he vowed to Hextor that he would only use his teachings to kill only the most powerful enemies. His motivation for joining the party was trying to clear the bad name of Tiamat because he was a mommy's boy (which was bad since in the campaign Tiamat was one of the big evils). There was a whole lot of other stuff in there too but nothing as significantly wrong as the ones i mentioned.

And for those who don't know the fluff on the named gods: Hextor is the god of war, massacre and everything else naughty things you can do with a bladed weapon and Tiamat is the grumpy mother to all evil dragons.

>>44791546
>Dragonborn fighter in 2e
I'm going to guess you mean 3e, because there are no Dragonborn in 2e.

>>44791571
No, in 2e which just makes it that much worse.

>>44791599
How did he swing that?

>>44791672
Like a public masturbator swings his cock: Out of nowhere and generally catching nothing but frowns and screams from it

>>44788423
....will a mirror gets involved at the end?

>>44791897
...nnnmaybe.

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In my first Call of Cthulhu game I made a priest who was a crude amalgamation of Father McGruder from Dead Alive and Ash from Evil Dead. He was a boozing, womanizing Catholic who carried around a sawed-off shotgun. I was completely unaware of the tone of Call of Cthulhu.

I enjoy keeping my backstories open so the DM can twist it. I don't want to be that hardass that won't change his background even if the DM thinks it won't fit the story.

>>44787008
>Midway through session 2 we all collectively said fuck it and brought it up with her and the DM. DM understood but she absolutely did not. If you've ever seen a child have a full body temper tantrum imagine that and scale the child to a 26 year old woman. We all agreed she wouldn't be coming back to the group.

Holy shit. What system was this?

>>44789452
they completely lost track of their mission and sneaked inside a nobleman's house only to get discovered in the stables and kill everyone without regards.
I'd say they did.

>Character was captured by a giant eagle and saved by a noble who got his kicks out of enslaving the character and have them be violently raped by midgets
I really wish this was a joke. The character hallucinated about seeing midgets around, and had an obsessive relationship with his sword which he had lovingly called 'Dwarf Bane'. The character wasn't even played in a lulsorandumb way, like what the fuck.

>>44791176
When sexual fantasies seep into Dungeons and Dragons.

Minimal flirting, sexual intercourse, and romance stories in sessions are best, it's easiest to avoid fetishes.

>>44792578
I'm ok with this backstory, but why did the noble save him and then tortured him?

A person could have saved him and then another person could have kept him prisoner.

>>44792448
Well, if it interested them more than the intended plot, let players have their fun.
Contrary to popular belief, new players don't understand railroads, considering the hobby is often sold to them with the famous line "You can do anything you imagine"

Someone showed up to a game with a guy named Old Man Jenson. Had this "I'm so fucking hilarious and clever" grin on his face the entire time and talks like he's barely containing his laughter, thinking he's the only one who's read Old Man Henderson(and Henderson was explicitly an inspiration for this character he said).

As follows is the best approximation I can remember of the conversation

>Gets to Jenson's turn to introduce his character
>[snickering] "My PC is an old war vet named OId Man Jenson. He's...well, might be faster if you read my backstory yourself."
>pulls a big stack of about 200 sheets of paper out of his and drops it on the table
>DM doesn't even touch it, just looks at it for a second, looks back up at Jenson
>"I said 4 paragraphs max for backstories. I need you to cut that down."
>[grin dropping] "B-but I already wrote it. My backstory's right in here."
>"I'm not reading all that shit. 4 paragraphs."
>"No, that's my backstory, all of it's necessary!"
>"4 paragraphs. If you can't do that, find another table."

Followed by about 5 minutes of the guy increasingly getting louder demanding this fucking novel be allowed as his backstory.

I flipped through it a bit while this was going on, and this shit was barely coherent.

Eventually, Jenson guy eventually started screaming to let his backstory stand, which made the store owner finally come over and tell him to shut the fuck up. He eventually left when the DM took the stack of paper and chucked it in the trash.

Henderson fags are the fucking worst.

>>44792814
How autistic. He couldn't have found a summary of the story online and gave the DM that?

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Weeeellllll, prolly not as cringe worthy as some of the things I've seen here but:
>Exalted 2.5e Game
>Two player groups
>GM makes it very clear that one's gonna be playing a Wyld Hunt and the other group can do whatever, as long as they can work together.
>One makes a Solar.
>Inherited Amaya's Exaltation.
>Past Lives.
>Amazonian beauty with fucking wings.
>Backstory: ...I'll come up with something later.
>GM's like 'Eh, sure, but you better do.'
>mfw

>>44786153
"He just got out of the Army. He doesn't anything other than killing shit. So he join Murderhobo Guild."

"This setting doesn't have a 'Murderhobo Guild'."

"Whatever. Fuck."

>>44787449
Car lesbians?

>>44790553
why?

>>44786380
>>44786402
Now Phil have you admitted to yourself that perhaps trading your soul to the devil for a klondike bar was a bad idea?

>>44788700
>>44788913

Listen up, I had other groups that tried 3.x with me. They had the decency of actually reading the goddamn handbook, managed to get most of the things and there I was to help them when they had problems remembering details or complex rules, or issues with the game.
With this group, instead, each of the players had a copy of the player handbook and a whole week to read it. I gave pointers to the main chapters. But they were fucking thick, or didn't even bother reading the handbook. Some of them didn't even have the excuse of having homework or university time or other shit. They were just posting Game of Thrones stuff on facebook. I wouldn't have posted this example here otherwise.
>>44789452
You want more info, I'll share.
>group meets under the attack of a mysterious sorcerer riding a red dragon
>after managing to almost die against a single viper, the party, without helping each other at first, gathered thanks to the dwarf, and went on to follow a map left behind by the sorcerer. The map showed an ancient pilgrimage road spiraling around the kigdom up to the capital in the center
>If the cleric had actually put ranks in knowledge (religion) they would have tried to roll to discover that each city on the pilgrim road had a different temple passing right over the road. They simply followed the road because they had no other idea and failed all other rolls and ignored all other hints.
>at the next temple, now lost in the ruins of a destroyed town, lost years ago, they found a few gnolls, managed to get TPK'd because they didn't use power attacks, spells or smite evil.
>i tried to give them a second chance. they awoke in the midst of bloodshed, the gnolls had been killed by the passing sorcerer, they were lying around and didn't look alive, he just went on.
>the players passed on without inspecting the area for any plot hooks and headed for a forest. suddenly the paladin player asked: 'is there a druid in this forest?'

>>44787449
Ah, it's a damn shame to see people who don't actually know how to play characters who are from nobility. Which.. Honestly I wouldn't allow anyone to start with any semblance of nobility unless they were at least level 5.

So here's a good example of a -properly- done Nobility character.

> Level 6 Half-elf Paladin
> "Celebor Meldariondwe", son of Baron Eruaphon Meldariondwe.
> His father is a lesser lord who comes from a bloodline of monster slayers. Six generations before Celebor, the first Meldariondwe slayed a dragon on behalf of his king, and was rewarded land.
> From then on, all descendents of the bloodline are expected to become heroic individuals, and may only hold land if they too become monster slayers.
> Celebor has not yet proved himself to be a proper heir to the meldariondwe bloodline, and on top of that he is only a half-elf. Therefore he has sought after the favor of gods to go on a grand adventure.
> Only after he slays a great many worthy beasts, will his family recognize him as being one of their children.
> Ranks in Knowledge Nobility and Religion, with survival(For tracking monsters), and Diplomacy.
> Extremely poor wisdom. He's portrayed as being arrogant towards non-elves, and to those of non-noble upbringing.

>>44786398
Mr miyagi did it for free.

>>44793883
>I nodded. a dwarf druid lived in a shed in the woods.
>'it's an old friend of mine' said the player. 'he'll surely give us some weapons and equipment so we can get stronger.' None of that was in his backstory, he was making it up as he went. I accepted partially his idea. The druid indeed knew him, but wasn't too fond of this little prick who went around asking for stuff our of the blue. the guy told the party to get him a good drink if they were to receive some equipment.
>This was a way to incorporate the elven ranger's brewing skills into the plot, even for a simple sidequest.
>Party didn't have shit for brewing beer so they headed to the next town, which was the next stop on the pilgrim road. except that they had completely forgotten the main quest. The barkeeper they started working at repeatedly hinted at the fact that the old church was now in the center of town while it once stood on the top of the hill, now home to the city nobles.
>The players didn't give a shit. In the middle of the same session they completely forgot why they had started the whole story. They were struggling to get brewing equipment, so they asked me what was next and what to do. I simply told them that the temple in town was the church of prosperity and would probably give them a loan or something.
>the priests didn't give a loan to the first group of hobos dressed in gnoll rags claiming to be sons of kings, master brewers and clerics of other churches. They would, however, if they managed to get an audition with the nobles on the hill to get the approval for a certain bill that had to pass in the council. I had hoped that once there, the PCs would try and spot the ancient rock basements of the old church in the noble's garden, and then notice the symbol on the stone slabs that matched the one on their map. Unfortunately, things went straight to shit from then on.

Ninjas. It's always the ninjas. Somehow whenever I see someone playing a ninja they don't even give themselves the excuse that they're going off the Naruto model and load them down with enough techno-crap to better be described as cut-rate Kamen Riders.

I think they're the worst backstories I've ever seen because they end up not factoring one iota into the alleged ninjas. It'd make as much sense if they said their characters' backstories were that they were used car salesmen.

>>44794145
>The party walked to the mansion, saw a few guards stationed in front of the gates, and suddenly panicked. The supposedly LN cleric ofu St. Cuthbert and the supposedly LG paladin of Pelor agreed that they had to get in stealthily.
They hadn't even tried to talk to them to even get an appointment. Hell, the so-called paladin had a huge charisma bonus due to sheer beginner's luck and had the diplomatic ability to express his intentions in and out of characters of a dead dog.
>Since they wouldn't talk too the guards, and were also scared of climbing the walls and getting caught, I threw them another bone. A carriage stopped by and asked where the mansion was.
>They finally caught the hook, i thought. They talked with the conductor and asked him very nicely to get inside. The well-spoken man inside the carriage inexplicably agreed and let them inside, but asked them to give him a good reason to.
>They panicked again. They weren't able to give a single explaination, not even a good lie, heck, i told them to try and tell him the truth. But squabbling and bickering about the course of action, they had forgotten why they had gotten there in the first place.
>I was losing my patience, visibly, but I threw another bone to them. The mysterious man in the carriage tried pointing out things, like the symbol of pelor hidden under the paladin's ragged clothes and armor, and asked why a sacred man would sneak in like a thief. The paladin player made his dumb confused face again, like I was talking about the last episode of a show he had missed.
>Dead inside, I asked the same to the cuthbert cleric. Silence fell again on the table. The man let them in anyway. They went in, as the man had an appointment with the noble. The carriage stopped at the stables, a stableboy came to get the stuff. And at this point they irredemably fucked up.

>>44793883
>Expecting a Cleric to have knowledge (religion)
>2+int mod skill ranks per level
>not an int-based class

>>44786153
"Street urchin rogue, stole some magic shit from a wizard, knows use magic device."

>>44794631
What's bad about this one? It even has a plot hook.

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"My character is a dwarf paladin but get this he rides around in a john Cena mech."

>>44793883
>If the cleric had actually put ranks in knowledge (religion) they would have tried to roll to discover that each city on the pilgrim road had a different temple passing right over the road.
Why would he specifically roll religion specifically on a random map he found?

> 'is there a druid in this forest
Sounds like a reasonable question.

>The barkeeper they started working at repeatedly hinted at the fact that the old church was now in the center of town while it once stood on the top of the hill, now home to the city nobles.
If they didn't know the temples had any significance, why would leap at it when you mention it in passing?

>I had hoped that once there, the PCs would try and spot the ancient rock basements of the old church in the noble's garden, and then notice the symbol on the stone slabs that matched the one on their map
Why would they do that? How would they know to check the noble's garden for rocks?

This just sounds like you had what was going to happen already decided, and getting pissed that the group wasn't reading your mind to do exactly what you had pre-planned them to do.

>>44794461
>The elven ranger, master of stealth, instead of going to the door inside that led to the mansion, checked the guards coming and going through the garden, and decided to get in from a window in the blind spot between one patrol and another. Only then the others pointed out the more convenient entrance, forcing her to more useless stealth action back to the stables. In which she failed.
>Up until then, the stableboy was transporting the carriage's load and hadn't noticed a thing. To distract the guards' attention from the elven intruder, they tried to take a horse from a box, which definitely upset the poor animal and attracted only the stableboy's attention, leaving the guards focused on the intruder outside.
>Instead of trying to knock him out like the dwarf player had tried, the paladin player drew his sword and cut the poor guy in half. I was speechless.
>Next thing he does, he goes out, attacks the guards outside and lets no one else leave alive. He was sporting a clueless face, as if nothing he did had any consequence whatsoever. >Meanwhile the LN cleric robbed the corpses of weapons and money, and the ranger shot arrows to the last guard who was running inside, but preferred the most noisy way possible: by shooting through the closed windows from the front of the building.
>I stopped then and there. I pointed out all the mad inconsistencies, misbehaviours and fuck-ups, then I kindly told them what you already read above, and left that group of fucktards before losing any more QI.

>>44794758
It sounds like you had a great recipe for a comical campaign about four bumbling idiots who always do things the hard way, but you threw a bitchfit because they weren't following your super serious railroad and probably drove those players away from the hobby forever.

>>44794758
>stealth mission
>they kill everyone who could have seen them and made it no longer a stealth mission

I don't see the problem.

Well, one problem, and that's a shitty whiny DM.

>>44794665
That would actually be kinda neat, if the mech could only ever be used for transport.

That or the mech counting as the paladin's holy steed that could be summoned by striking a pose.

>>44792578
I'm dying over here

>>44789573
You, like a few other people on this board who bitch about it, don't really know what deconstruction is.
I know this because what you described is deconstruction. Where you take all the basic element parts of something and examine them and then reassemble them in creative ways.
Stop hating on misused meme words and try forming your own opinions.

>>44794758
I agree with >>4479484. You are a shitty DM who won't be bothered to explain how the game works. Most of this shit show sounds like you are the problem. If you are the kind of person to throw a tantrum at the table I would want no part of your sessions.

>>44788393
>FUCK YOU KEVIN.

Eric, take a deep breath and chill, OK? I'd like to get some gaming done tonight.
--Sincerely, Hans.

>>44795035
I really can't follow the conversation but I will say this.

If a player creates a dwarf and has that character act like a stereotypical elf or a DM makes a setting where the orcs all live in cities like civilized people while cave-dwelling humans come down to attack and steal their women, then you should probably fucking kill yourself for being a pseudo-pretentious cunt.

>>44794679
1) because it had fucking religious significance, you smartass. I supposed that players with religious characters would actually take a plot hook like that. It's not so hard.

2)It was, and I obliged. Keep reading instead of shitting on the keyboard.

3)They had passed at the first temple in the city where they met, then the temple in the ruins, and there was the sorcerer in both occasions. Maybe you are used only to sandbox games or campaigns where the players decide their main objective, but this was clearly a quest-driven story so far because they were beginners.

4)Again something I made in relation to what the players had. The ranger had ranks in spot, had spotted most of the stuff anywhere in search for any kind of dragons, enemies and innocent people to shoot down. I was expecting a bit of investigation or even a reaction to the description I was gonna give as they got into the mansion's garden.
Are you really filled with so much angst? Did your GM make a story up in which you didn't understand shit? I almost always improvise in the game, how could I expect things to happen only the way I want? I gave them problems with solutions. They didn't get a single one.

>>44794823
>>44794841
You know what? Fine, I told a story where I was the whiny guy. I was improvising customized challenges and yet, to you, I was railroading people. People who hadn't a clue.

But the truth is: what would have you done instead? I gave them pointers, time to get an idea, sessions, patience and let them have names like Dorian Arcane (paladin) and Khaleesi Greenleaf (ranger). Without a single hint of irony.

And then I posted stuff here. Guys, if you want to criticize at least give ME some pointers.

>>44794950
He wanted to be in it all the time. I was like then why don't you make a john cena monk or fighter character? His response was yeah but I want the drawven stats but the height of john cena.

>>44795142
>The players aren't doing what I want them to!

How about you write a fucking novel if your railroad is so damn important?

>>44786239
Subtle, magnus fag.

>>44795152
I think you're just upset because he styled all over you.

>>44795185
Because you must be 18 to post here.
And able to read, which seems to me it's not the case.

>>44795212
Lol I supose so. I let him do it. It turned out being kind of fun describing how it worked. I made the NPC's confused and scarred of him. I made John Cena to be a fictional hero in the universe. Kids would follow him around in cities.

>>44795299
Not that anon, but did you stop at any point to think about the fact that you're about to call someone underaged because they don't agree with you?

>>44795142
Be patient with new players, especially if everyone at the table is one. If they try to do something dumb, maybe explain to them why it's a bad idea. You don't have to maintain a strict divide between your side of the table and theirs.

>>44786189
What's wrong?

>>44794631
Tomi, is that you?

>>44789418
Do you know what the Great Curse is? Do you know the themes of Exalted?

>>44795126
While I personally wouldn't have a problem with the orc-human switch, that's not deconstruction. That's... some else, can't remember the name of it... perverting expectations maybe?

>>44795382
Yeah, it's not quite fair and I don't use the offence usually, but I kinda felt that that guy didn't actually read a thing.
I clearly stated I had improvised. Hell, I never make a real story until the players have leveled up a few times through the story.

The pilgrimage road was an idea to make them travel from church to church and invent stuff about the world as I went on, but the sorcerer was just implemented as the paladin's nemesis and the dragon as the ranger's. I hadn't got any long-winded plot in mind. So I kinda snapped. The fact that this is 4chan doesn't help.
It's still nice that someone reacts kindly like you, anon. Thanks.
>>44795431
Thanks to you too. Usually I explain the reasons why an idea is dumb too aggressively. Perhaps that's one thing I can change.

>>44795628
Well the orc-human switch is the worse one. There's literally no point to it other than, hey, its the other way, isn't my setting interesting and unique? No, it isn't.

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>I was a street urchin
>raised by a nobleman that adopted me
>he told me bedtime stories about mindflayers (???)
>actually I was raised by an order of assassins so I killed the nobleman who adopted me
>also I have a connection the forest even though I've never left the city until I joined the party

He didn't even come to the table with all this. He just made shit up so he could use his backstory as a utility knife. I'm sure I'm forgetting some detail or another.

>>44795683
I never said I liked it, just don't see how it would matter enough to be a problem really.
Mainly though i'm just tired of seeing words like deconstruction or edgy used in increasingly incorrect ways, basically just to describe "things I don't like".

One guy literally lifted the whole plot of berserk golden age as his back story except his fighter was called Ragnar

>>44795805
You can't use a word incorrectly.

You can only help participate in the change of its meaning through continual use of it until the socially accepted definition of the word changes.

>>44786153
im pretty sure karate lessons cost more than $4

>>44795850
Over the hills, cloud blue a shelf lay fuschia brightness foresees the rug. Amongst all confused working fly.

>speaks windy hot mess
the take and shirt slam for near

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>>44795850
I hate you.

>>44795932

The first sentence of your post is strangely beautiful.

>guy's character is a human rogue
>backstory is he was an orphan and survived on the streets by stealing
>his childhood friend that he lived and stole shit with wasn't very smart or fast and almost got them caught a few times
>so he stabbed his friend to death so the friend wouldn't slow him down anymore

and yes, he was a complete and total unironic edgemeister the whole time we were playing.

>>44795850
Shut the fuck up.

>>44789430
To insane asylums or prison

Or stabbed to death by well adjusted people who are tired of the fucking horseshit

>>44796146
Anon there has always been a place for insane murderhobos, and probably always will be so long as there is violence and war in the world.
Currently that place is the french foreign legion.

"I woke up from a coma and I wanted to go on an adventure"

Was a slave, has many scars, was treated abysmally on a mining colony
One night escaped, killed everyone and blew up the whole island
Characters is a level 1 druid

One time, and I shit you not at all here, but I ran a BECMI game back before 3e came out. One guy that was invited to play because he always hung around our little group at college and would have been crushed if we didn't invite him made up a backstory that detailed how he was a normal guy from modern earth and had found a PET PIKACHU. He non-ironically tried his damnedest to get that into the game.

>>44788423
An old crumbling castle...follows his character? That would be scary.

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>My character is part of a small extremely poor village. There can only be 100 people living there at the same time or they will starve.
>My character was kicked out of the village when he was 6 year olds because he was weak
>"Why was he weak?"
>He was just weak, some people are weaker than other people
>"Ok, but what kind of weakness is it? Does he have a bad immune system or is it something physical?"
>No, there is nothing wrong with him. Some people are just weaker than other. I don't want something negative in my character which can bite me in the ass later.

I never started the campaign.
Off-topic question: How do you get an old friend to leave your gaming group? This fucking guy is in my other campaign and he is 110% "that guy".

I hate backstories, I just want to play the game not write a fucking novel for you.

>>44796839
How can you roleplay without a backstory?
If the whole group agrees to rollplay no backstory is fine I guess.

>>44791995
>tone of Call of Cthulhu
What is it?

>>44796839
I'm a longtime GM, and I hate character backstories.
Just jot down a couple lines and give us all a feel for what kind of person you're playing. All of my attention is on the shit happening now/in future actual sessions.
Hell, if I even actually used anything from anyone's backstory, I'd be accused of being That GM, so fuck it.

>>44796860
Fuck yourself.

>>44796860
I'm all for roleplaying, it's easy to do it without one, just give your character whatever traits you see fit, I could say my character is racist towards elves without saying why.

I'd like characters to have backstories because they provide story hooks, but I understand that a lot of people aren't good at coming up with them, and I'd rather have no backstory at all than yet another sob story about the PC's family being killed.

>>44795885
You simpleton. He's saying he needs money = $ for = 4 karate lessons.

>>44796860
This is the exact all-or-nothing attitude that ruins this hobby.

>>44796966
There gotta be at least a THOUGHT for backstory to roleplay. There can't be nothing at all, that's what I'm getting at.

I don't expect you to write a long ass backstory, but you should at least have thought about it while creating your character.

>>44796815
Tell him to stop being an ass or you will kick him. This will have one of the three following consequences: A. He leaves because of personal reasons, may they be anger, feeling of betrayal or so forth. B. He will continue being an ass and you will simply kick him without feeling bad since you gave the warning. C. He cleans up his act and becomes fun.

>>44797004
don't pretend you were just asking for a happy medium when you're the fuck who said rollplay no backstory you smug shit

>>44797122
I have kind of warned him before of acting like a total idiot where in his next character he tries to redeem himself, but he is too stupid to become fun to play with.
He caused the last party to disband/kill them off:
>Half-orc fighter is cursed by a magical ring
>The whole party is in empty field
>half-orc takes off ring, puts it down on a rock and swings at it with his Earthbreaker to destroy it.
>He fails the first hit
>"that guy" tells the half-orc he is weak and a bad warrior
>Half-orc punts "that guy" with his Earthbreaker non-lethal with intention to make him back off, he does very little damage intentionally.
>"that guy" goes fucking crazy (irl) and starts wailing at the party members with lethal damage

His new character is Stupid Good - he was spat in the face by an evil dwarf, where he simply kept smiling, cleaned his face off with his hand and said "that was unnecesarry" and nothing else happened after that. He was asked by one of the other players that it was a very robotic reaction and his response was "Well, I'm good this time around".

>>44796815
Gonna need more details, what does he do that makes him That Guy?

>>44797380
I have two examples in >>44797364

>>44796899
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfkHkdu5IEI

Not this, that's for damn sure.

>>44789386
It's good to have a basis to work with. Usually I tell my players to introduce their character with three sentences. A bit more if they feel inspired.

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>>44786153
>"A Dragonborn Monk!"
ten minutes later
>"GM, what kind of background would a Dragonborn Monk have?"

If it was a new player, I probably wouldn't have been so flabberghasted, but the guy has run campaigns in other settings and was the one who pushed us to 4e. Seeing some of that energy invested before the game was actually rolling would've been nice.

>>44789707
He gets a cute angel mount.

>>44796569
>Bonus points if it's IN an old, crumbling castle.
You should go back to school m8

>>44786290
i bet all sorts of shit gets stuck in those belts.

>>44789476
Wouldn't that be the goddamn voidmaster? Or flight whatever if you're going into sidebooks?

What the fuck about MRod in F&F screams 'acquisitions expert' to him?

>>44788393
In systems that have amnesia has a character flaw, I am sometimes guilty of this. But, I always ask the GM before just writing it down, and we work together to make it appropriate. Our brief experiment with C-Tech had me playing an amnesiac found several years before the start of the game as a sole survivor type. Higher ups didn't really trust him and there was a lot of implication that the amnesia was super deep repression rather than actual brain damage. And it was fun.

Amnesia is as bad as the player.

>>44790153
I played an elf named Shitcunt in Finnish one time. Then again, I am That Guy.

>>44788732
Professor Calculus would make an amazing character 2bh. Never quite understanding whats going on. Interacting with NPCs in bizarre ways because he's deaf. Making arbitrary decisions based on some pet form of divination.
Come to think of it, that's a horrible character concept

>>44788303
> force of darkness itself
Oh man, I would have totally used that against the character. She unknowingly makes pacts and sacrifices to whatever the setting has as the badguy, and it eventually blows up in her face.

>>44788393
GODDAMMIT KEVIN! You're as bad as Steve!

>>44793513
I guess not.

I assume he saw the part where a DM accepted a 300 page backstory on account of "can't be assed to read that," and didn't expect it would probably get rejected for the same reason.

>>44787045
>Player makes them a blatant charisma whore.
>Player is literally just playing Ahri

But ahri is a high damage mage so he was "literally" just using the picture because it was fitting and you were behaving like autists because you didnt like a videogame

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Once I joined a rp group that my friend suggested. The group somehow had a fetish fascination with Russians and believed being Russian was pretty much the magnum opus of characters with aggression. So there we're four Russian characters just being a group of fucking assholes and my character being ignored by the intimidating posse of Russians.

They killed off my character probably because it wasn't Russian

Zhey wuld "talk" like zhis which promty pissed me off too.

"I'm a sexy Assassin's Creed style Assassin-in-training named Kate Miles"
>"So why are you with the party?"
"They are my blend/hide-spot"

>>44796815
General advice: stop inviting him. Stop inviting him, stop telling him about the games, stop telling him about your ideas for upcoming campaigns, tell the rest of the group to do the same. You might have to lie or sidestep the subject when he asks you directly, but it'll fade eventually. This is all assuming you're more of a passive guy or want to avoid hurting his feelings. If you want a more specific sitcom style scheme to get him out of your group, you'll need to give us more information.

>>44789102
>>44786380 was saying that his only character building was to give a name.

>>44794758
That does sound like a crappy group. Too use to vidya. Still they could be improved, just start low and build up (assuming you're interested in doing this of course).

>>44786153
"He's a monk from wherever monks are from. He hits things."
He then proceeded to "meditate" whenever the DM requested he interact with anything in a non-hitting format, from group discussion of tactics to purchasing supplies to BEING ASKED WHAT HE WANTED TO EAT AT AN INN.

>>44805841
That's just stupid.

>>44789418
this

>>44789671
>Not seeing anything bad
>Player is literally playing a one-dimensional charisma-whore anime-waifu.

Yeah, nothing wrong here.

>>44786153
>Marijuano Blaze the Dank Elf of Prophecy
>born half-wood elf and half-high elf in the land of Danktopia
>he's the reincarnation of the god OG Kush the Dank
>is gifted Great Old One's powers
>he's forever high
>unlimited supply of weed
>arcane focus is his pipe/bong
>always brings up he's the Dank Elf of Prophecy

"Hi, I'm Minimus the Great, Caesar of the Imperial Shires" (A fucking pacifist Halfling Warlord!)

WUT.jpeg

>>44809721
Sounds like a NPC I would make... as a Story Villain arc...

From Star-Wars RPG:
"I'm a Sith sent back from the Future... I will bring balance to the force by killing JJ Abrams before he could begin work on the Sequel Trilogy..."

>DESU, If the rest of the party weren't all amped-up for a RPG based on Episodes 1-6, I'd have ran with it...

>>44789185
It's $ 4 karate
Money "4" karate
"For"

>>44786153
>A Kobold in a fantasy setting that was convinced he was a rifleman in His Royal Majesty's 4th Rifle Regiment. Came with vietnam-esque flashbacks and everything.


Actually not that bad now that I think about it, just clashed heavily with everyone else taking it semi-seriously. Sadly the campaign never got off to a start.

>>44789508
It's grognard you twit. Get it right!

>>44786825
I don't know anything about Exalted except it's basic premise. Can you explain why that is dumb? I was lost for your entire post, but I'm very interested.

>>44789350
It's still an obvious attempt at edge and lazy. In my opinion anyway, I think having a connection to a God is what ages clerics fun.

>>44792814
People ruined by stories of "epic" RPG games/stories/characters are the worst.

>>44792814
>>44811804
>join rpg group because I have this really awesome backstory that I spent ages making
>hear about there being a limit but surely my fellow autists won't mind.
>forget that I can just summarise in a few points and just keep my two hundred pages for myself, maybe pollishing it up and selling it as a short novel.

>get scared that I will be kicked from group
>socially awkward so don't know how to roll Charisma checks irl.
>group turns out to be shit heads who throw my work away.

>leave group and eventually find people who are as interested in huge time spent in working out characters.
>have fun for rest of life.

>GMing shadowrun at a con
>game is advertised as low-power and gritty
>fat neckbeard with shadowrun supporter badge approaches my table
>"I have the perfect character for this"
>female fomori (irish troll variant) sorceress from a vietnamese mountain village with jade colored skin and golden horns min/maxed to hell
>not in the mood to tell him to fuck off and cause drama
>player does absolutely nothing of any consequence whatsoever and just fades into the background after 10 minutes

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>>44795842
Was he called, "Ragnar the Red?" by any chance?
Did he hail from a town called Rorikstead and have a fight with a brave shieldmaiden Mattilda?

Two from the same game. A Dwarf warrior. And a Human barbarian The players took their INT score of 8 to mean their character were functional retards. The dwarf wasn't as bad, merely having an awful backstory.

>My character was bullied in his youth
>He then became a folk hero
>Now he travels the land because he wants to be a.folk hero in other places too.

At least Urist McSandbrain was a useful party member, the barbarian was even worse. At one point they tore down a building entirely by accident.

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>>44813257
INB4 Character gets decapitated

>>44786153
I've posted this before but it's pretty shit:
>sorcerer
>grorious nippon name
>came from another world, and has amnesia
>midway through a goblin attack (after killing 3 of em or so) he decides he has no reason to kill goblins (besides the obvious fact they're trying to kill him) because he don't know they're goblins and stops fighting.
>that's the one time his backstory was ever relevant, 5 min later he kills a Goblin we were interrogating for shit and giggles

>dies and makes a barbarian that tries to kill the party because they wore yellow.

>>44789102
You now that human names is a pretty fucking long list and includes everything from Olof to Nigamananda Paramahansa?

>>>44786189
>as with many urban fenales, she was raped at gunpoint
>cyberpunk2020 campaign

>a poor peasant farmer who's land burned to the ground during a drought
>goes to the tavern to spend his last coin on booze and overhears some weedy looking party talking about wealth in some ruins
>asks if he can come along since he has literally nothing to lose

>>44815702
How's that bad? Seems pretty decent to me. Even a revenge plot hook.

>>44816067
revenge against nature for the heat and drought? That would be a strange angle...

the problem is there really is nothing to it. It isn't much of a backstory. The character is still really a blank canvas.

...they might have an interesting story later, but they haven't had one yet.

>>44816133
And why is that bad?

>>44816133
Sorry, misread and thought someone did it, not just nature.

>>44816133
>The character is still really a blank canvas.
... Problem?

>...they might have an interesting story later, but they haven't had one yet.
THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT.

>>44815702
That one's pretty okay- I'd call it good work, if it came from a newbie.