I have a question for fellow GMs. Have you ever found yourself

>>49380743
My player had a little rat-pack of fellow urchins who she became a Harper to support.

One of them became a Warlock in order to track down all their parents and demand an answer.

He won't like the answer.

She won't like the fact he's going to use them to fuel his master's dark power.

Eventual showdown is go.

>>49381392
Delicious.

Yeah, I do that. I think it's nice to tie the player to the plot a bit more.
One of my players had no backstory beside "halfling thief", so I introduced a fairly important NPC as his aunt. She was the head of the local thieve's guild, and he had no prior knowledge of that. Worked rather well and it's funny when your mafia boss is also the one to remind you you should find a nice halfling girl to have kids with because your mom wrote and she's a bit worried.
Despite the player having no prior idea, he took it very well. You can do a lot of things when you have your players' trust, and I like doing stuff where they'll feel personally implicated.

>>49380743
Using character backstory to fuel adventures is how to build character driven plots in their entirety.

I always sit down with at least one, often 2/3rds or more of the party and say "I plan to intro this character from backstory. Anything I should know, any way you want them played, etc etc."

Often a player will be in on an entire session's plans or first contact plan at least, to facilitate them having a chance to think about their character.

Often times established NPCs will move without their knowledge or control, or they'll act in ways made to keep the players on their toes.

But generally, establishing a character-related NPC in the universe is a wholly joint effort.

You have discovered one of the easiest ways to instant player investment.

You get all the gold ribbons.

You are now Good DM.

>>49381498

>You can do a lot of things when you have your players' trust,

Fucking this.

"Evil DM out to kill you" is a meme so it can be an uphill battle but after a few games it all works out and you can make some really awesome shit with your friends.

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138KB, 650x450px

>>49380743
Did a one-shot campaign where the players were to bring in a low challenge-rating monster character of some sort. just meant to be a sort of hack'n'slash thing while the normal DM took a break.

It wound up going for a few more sessions than we'd planned, with using one of the player's back-story characters for initial motive; he was apprenticed to a Xorvintal dragon playing a big sort of chess-with-mortals-as-pieces type thing and learning by being one of his mentor's pieces at first.

After we'd played this out for several sessions, I made note that one of the other players encroaching in the region was a White dragon, the likes of which had enslaved the PC's people and made them Dragonwrought so that they would survive the unnatural frost that covered their former desert home.

They eventually get around to ousting the white dragon who'd taken up residence there, though it was one of the PC's actual antagonist's disgraced children left to run it after. The PCs then built up over years of this campaign, taking over more territory, gathering allies, influence, magical and technological influences until the Talon/Claw Empire's reach lead to war against aggressors from the south pole and their Anguillian (Sentient lamprey with opposable claws) allies.

At the last minute; his Mentor surrendered as the session of the Great Game came to a close. The highest ranking players, now the PC, the object of his revenge, and one other unknown player in the Great Game would advance to a new battleground.

After taking some time to check on the stability of the empire and ensure its survival without half the party, the PC player and allies traveled from an archeic swords and sorcery setting into a multi-planet magitech sci-fi one starting at level 21. Back to square one starting on the outter rim as they start into the new plateau of power.

The players older sister was a bully and kept beating the shit out of him and party members for being losers.

>>49380743
One of the players in my last game was the second child from a smarmy ass noble family. His dad was this tremendous asshole, so his character decided to go adventuring to get away.

I brought his dad into the story at one point when a group of bounty hunters his dad hired tracked the PC down - turned out the PC's older sister had gone missing so he had to help find her (she was the only family member he liked).

In fact, it turned out that her dad was going to use her blood as part of some creepy evil ritual and she managed to escape. The PC ended up helping his dad find her.

PC's dad proceded to dick the player over and the other PCs who were very unhappy. Eventually, towards the end of the campaign, his dad decided to become the new BBEG by killing off his current leader, who was a member of this creepy cult. Unfortunately for him, the BBEG was actually a lich in disguise, so it came back and fucked up the PC's dad.

Eventually the PC's confronted the poor bastard, but he had been twisted into an insane monster by the BBEG and they had to put him down, though they rather relished doing so.

Sometimes I don't really get how some fa/tg/uys DM.

Of course the PC's family plays a part. Sometimes minor, sometimes major.

>>49383140

Everyone has gotta learn dude.

I'm glad that you came out uberDM without flaws

>>49383140
Aren't there entire systems that hinge on the PCs never interacting with their families, though? Deathwatch, for instance. The PCs families are long dead.

>>49380743
Just wanted to say that God Hand is an amazing game.

>>49384366
Yes, yes it is.

>>49380743
>Have you ever found yourself arranging with a player to use a character from their character's family backstory as a MacGuffin or quest reward? A hostage rescue, a courtly intrigue, something akin to that?
Why would I need to "arrange" anything with my players? These are just NPCs we're talking about and I'm probably just going to kill them off anyways. They're too distracting.

Several times. Most recently, I had the party travel to the war priest's homeland to meet with his archbishop. The player and I worked together to bring that area to life. In the end it felt really natural, as the war priest was vastly more familiar with the locals than the rest of the party.