>Create character with wife and son >GM has them both killed

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>>50026909
>Son thrown out of the family for being monstrous (albino)
>hates family now

Easy.

>>50026909
Now see, this is why when I GM I never have an enemy flat-out kill a PC's family. I threaten, yeah, often subtly threaten. I've found it's more effective to have the evil cult start to seduce the paladin's daughter to their way of thought than to kill her off by fiat, or have the paladin's wife have recurring dreams of a sinister locale than to have her killed off by abhumans by fiat.

Killing PC's family and friends for cheap drama is just amateur hour. All it does is wast potential story hooks and discourage players from getting invested in the game world. Never kill off their loved ones unless they well and truly fucked up the chance to save them.

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>>50026909
>I can't fucking win
Yes you can. You can find a different GM.

>>50026909
Create orphan.
GM attempts to reveal who your parents are.
Play the classic Patrick Star "That's not my wallet."

>>50026909
>Create a character that is forced to marry and flees from it.

What is your DM going to do? Kill the betrothed?

>>50027323
>Excuse me sir, but I do believe these are your parents.
>They don't look familiar to me.
>What? They're your parents.
>Nope, they're not mine.
>They are yours, I'm trying to be a good person and reunite them with you.
>Reunite who to who?
>Are you Generic PC?
>Yep.
>Is this is your birth certificate?
>Yep.
>I found this ID with these parents, and if that's the case, these must be your parents.
>That makes sense to me.
>So they're your parents.
>But those aren't my parents.

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>>50026909
>tfw I'm that GM
Get a better backstory, scrub.

>>50026909
>Create a character who is a terminator from the distant future

>>50026909
Play a warforged. No relatives at all.

>>50027380
Yup

>>50027473
I want to fuck that frog.

>>50026909
Just don't include a family in your backstory, pretend they never existed.

Or play someone who doesn't give a fuck about their family either way.

>>50027215

This desu.

The thing is, running the same cliches every time robs the story of its interest. It's worse than not having a motivation at all.

When Joss Sheldon and George RR Martin started killing major characters, it was a big deal because it was unexpected. Big story payoff.

Then in the 2000s, everyone started doing it. No longer fresh and new, but totally a cliche. Doing it wouldn't really hurt or help, because the surprise factor was gone.

For GRRM and Joss, it happened earlier, but for the rest of the industry, it was the 2000s where main character death was kind of expected. So at best it was a cliche, and at worst it was a dick move. Either way, the old shock, surprise, and sense that anything might ahead gone.

GMs often don't seem to understand that every storytelling technique has a sell-by date, and you need to make an effort to keep even good ideas novel and fresh.

>>50027473
>get a better backstory, scrub
>no matter what backstory OP comes up with GM finds a way to shoehorn in cliche drama in the form of dead family

ugh, try and find an original bone in your body and don't revel in your hackery

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>Create character with wife and family
>DM has them raped by the BBEG
>thinks that he's being hardcore and giving me motivation
>I see right through him to the edgy manchild that he is

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>Create character with wife and son
>Character does a shit and family gets estranged
>Make character's personal goal to get reunited with his family
>GM kills me, teleports the body in another continent and ressurects me
>Starting money let me get a ship and go back home
>Literaly no reason to not do it
>Leave

>New character is the same but in the current continent
>Same story, down to the full stops
>"There was a housefire at their house and they are dead now"

>>50027473
You're a shit GM because you're arbitrarily ending obvious repeatable plot hooks, even shit as simple as "your son wants (thing) for (not-Christmas), go get one faggot"

>>50026909

See, as a DM, if I kill a family, the player will always have a chance to defend them. But legitimate threats against them can happen.

>>50027031

I've done it to a character's entire extended family

I just really didn't want to deal with the stuff the player wrote for them such as half of them being nymphomaniacs or lecherous old men or some shit.

>>50031641
A better option is to ingore them then.

>>50031641
Then don't bring them into the story period. That's no excuse to just start hacking and slashing at them. In fact, you're still giving your player the opportunity to bring up what his fucked family was like, so you're actually masking the situation worse.

>>50027323
>GM attempts to reveal who your parents are.

Or have your character shrug and say "ok but i dont give a shit"

>>50027031
Of course, imperiling them is perfectly acceptable at least once. Alternatively if your characters grow to high-level you can kill family members and create a subsequent "Raise my Family" sidequest.

Family is a great GM tool to minipulate PCs. When your party returns to Adventuretown, have one PC's mother chastise him about how he's always out their fighting monsters and never at home. Even better, if the PCs neglect their family you can have members berate them for spending all their money on their equipment. "You got enough money in your coin purse to buy us a home in the Noble District! Why are you holding onto it?

If your going to kill a family member, the way to create drama is to make that death a direct result of the party's actions. Don't say "The evil theif slits your son's throat in the night." say "Your great rival who you've known since childhood jumps out the window and escapes, vowing to hunt down your entire family and slit their throats!" and then have a time constraint because another villain is about to destroy the world or something.

If the GM says "Your family is dead", that's cheap. If you do something or deliberatley abandon your family and they die, THEN it's drama. Because now you at least thought you had an option to save them. Suddenly its your fault, not the GM's.

>>50026909
>Not making your family antagonists.

>>50026909
>make character with wife and son or fuck it, ANY sort of potential plot hook my character could have
>GM doesn't even acknowledge their existence and makes no attempt to do anything with them

I wish I had the middle ground, fucking holy shit.

>>50026909
I absolutely loathe this.
This is the reason so many players roll up "Lonewolf McMurderhobo" rather than trying to make a well rounded character with social connections and a life beyond stabbing goblins for gold.

I remember I rolled up a catfolk rouge in pathfinder Kingmaker, part of a tribe of jungle warriors who had to adapt as civilization moved in.
In his case the same sneaking, climbing and silent takedowns of a hunter makes a damn good criminal, plus no one can pat you down for claws.
His one real limit was he loved his mother dearly, taking care of her was why he turned to crime, would go from zero to bar brawl if someone insulted her and so on, his manta was "would this make mama proud?".
As a player i made sure to put aside treasure so once we had a real town going he sent money home to pay for her to come live there, show her he was this important guy, head of the police of all things, respected, with a big house for them to live in, even set up a shine to their tribal deity much to the annoyance of the local church of Erastil. Fuck i even had it in the background she was a potion maker so she'd have some sort of role if he wanted to work her into the story proper,
Next time we get back to town "Oh yeah anon, your characters mom's waggon was attcked on the road and she was killed by bandits. lol"
It really pissed me off because not only was it sorta a "fuck you" to me as a player, i had to think of any reason my character wouldn't drop everything and go after every highwayman, brigand, and mildly suspicious fuck until he found the right ones like some fantasy version of the Punisher.

>>50027380
so much win

>make a character with lots of background and supporting info
>make sure it all fits in the campaign and setting
>get it approved and change anything they want
>game ends 4 sessions in, with two being mostly combat

>>50034177
I played a Tiefling Paladin of Vengeance in a 5e game a while back. His backstory was that he was the adopted child of a few farmers. Farmers where all murdered by bandits. So the characters is hunting them down as a way of getting into GM's plot. 1st session, "Oh hey anon your families killers are on the otherside of the continent and everyone else is going in the opposite direction, lol." So my character said thanks for the help to the NPC got up and walked out and started to cross the continent to get some vengence.

It was meant to be an edgy character

>>50032039
>tfw you disarm the GM's big plot to have you realize your parents were hardcore rebels against the empire
>you and the party could care less and the ruling caste never bothered you much

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>>50026909
had a Gm wh thought killing or dragging a PC's family was the way to drama. Often killed off family members for cheap edge. Pissed him off something furious
>make a half elf with extended family but give no details
>BBEG kills my elvish step brother
>"always hated that guy"
>GM drags little half sister into it
>"That bitch who my mother focused al ltheir attention on?"
>Drags father into
> "the man who raped my elvish mother leading to my misbegotten existence?"
>brings mother into it
>"That bitch who always hated me because of my human blood"
>Gm gets pissy and says my character isn't realistic
>"Not realistic like that immortal, all knowing DMPC you use to ruin any interest in this horrible fucking game?"
>get kicked out

>>50028406
I honestly don't know where villains find the time to do that shit. Don't they have master plans to be attending to instead of tracking down annoying farmboy's family in bumfuckistan and raping them to death to set an example for someone he isn't afraid of in the first place? Or if he is afraid of the heroes, why is he trying to do stuff that might just enrage them and make them more dangerous? I don't get it.

So anyone have examples of killing off family members/friends in the right way? As in, it actually motivates the player(s) to do something, or had some sort of emotional response?

>>50027380
>GAH, what's in that box anyhow?
>My parents.

>>50035517
>Creates character who has reasonable opinions of hating family
>Not realistic

>make character with wife and child
>never brought up again because they're on the other side of the country and I'm too busy crusading

>>50035517
You owned that douchenozzle: well done

I copied that one episode of Scrubs once for my Fighter.

>Fighter McManly has a lover in a faraway land.
>Sorcerer asks me about her.
>Fighter McManly gets a little flustered talking about his "cherished darling" but doesn't give too much details.
>At one point we end up in that faraway land, specifically in Fighter McManly's home town.
>Town got its ass kicked, town square is loaded up with the bodies of slain women -- women -- only.
>DM begins to recite this pompous narrative about my character finding the body of his loved one, this beautiful redhead woman.
>Allow him to finish his speech and I have Fighter McManly display outrage at these senseless deaths but sigh a breath of relief that his cherished darling is not amomg them.
>DM audibly "wuts".
>The big reveal -- Fighter McManly is gay and his cherished darling with the gender neutral name is a dude.
>No hints of homosexuality -- Fighter McManly was just a run-of-the-mill Fighter who enjoyed cooking. Since we never ran into openly gay couples, I assumed homosexuality was a taboo. Also characters aren't defined by their sexual preferences so there wasn't a need to bring it up.
>Other players think it's cool of me to play a non-stereotypical gay character.
>DM loses his FUCKING MIND and accuses me of meta-gaming and trolling him.
>Heated back and forth follows that results in the game dissolving.

I guess in the history of him DMing, I'm the first that's ever thrown such a spanner in the works and he couldn't deal with it.

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>>50039385
Fucking beautiful mate.

>>50039385

That was kind of a shitlord thing for you to do.

>Oh I just so happen to be gay and have a lover, but I'll never ever explain who that lover is and treat them like you would a woman!

Literally the only good thing in that shitty story is subverting the DM's forced tragedy.

>>50039385
DM was an idiot, he should have all gays hanged on the town hall after gay reveal, that would show you

>>50039459
Eventually everyone the pc could potentially romance will be hanging. He could fall in love with a noose and it'll be found hanging from another, smaller noose next time the party rolls through.

>>50036077
what you've got to understand is that any villain trying to go against society itself probably isn't trying to win against society, which is nigh impossible unless you stage a revolution and have that objective in the first place, but rather dick around and have fun until they die.

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>DM asks for Chaotic Evil character's backstory
>Grew up in a convent
>Then burned it down and laughed like a madman, because Chaotic Evil
>GM tries to threaten a friend from growing up there
>Chaotic Evil asks the wizard how many fireballs it will take to kill the "Friend"

>>50039437
>That was kind of a shitlord thing for you to do.

How?

>>50039385
>about her
You gave the game away, anon.

>>50039515
any actual motivation for burning down the church beyond lolsorandom?

>>50039558

I just gave you a reason in that post, darling.

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>>50039589
Don't darling me, liebling.

>>50039587
An invading horde was coming and he thought they'd invite him in if he did some of their work for them.

They didn't, so he swore revenge on the invading horde.

>>50039594

Too late, dear! Nobody's going to marry you now!

>>50039605
fair enough. i'd take it the convent didn't treat you so well.

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>>50039613
Then I'll just have to marry you! Who's gonna be laughing at the hanging corpse of their lover now, Schnuckums?

>>50039589
Not him, but That wasn't even a reason. Even with the mocking way you explained his actions, you still didn't explain what he did wrong there. Are you referring to the whole, "treating them like he would a woman" thing? Because that's not even actually unbelievable, sissies, bishies, tomgirls, and traps are things that exist and that some people find attractive.
Or are you referring to the whole, "tricking the whole party thing"? If you are then that's even more of a bullshit excuse. Why would he give the DM every little detail of his character's backstory if he knew he was just gonna destroy it for shitty half-assed attempt at drama.

You sound like an autist who gets butt hurt if the DM isn't in control of everything.

>>50039648

Aha, that was my plan all along! We're gonna wear adorkable matching sweaters at Christmas and hold hands in public and maybe even share a toothbrush holder!

You're mine, honeybuns!

>>50039643
If they had, he wouldn't have ended up Chaotic Evil.

Or as chaotic evil, at least.

>>50039589
That wasn't a reason, that was just snark delivered in a way that made it sound as if you had an actual point to make.

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>>50039703
I planned that this was your plan all along, so I planned to take it slow to build a happy loving relationship before marriage! Suck on those apples, Shmuckers!

>>50039437
>shitlord

tumblr, pls

>Make my character an orphan
>DM tricks me into getting into a relationship with my character's mom

Bastard.

>>50026909
Your GM is shit. This kind of thing ought to be discussed with the players beforehand.

>>50040100
Eh, as long as he didn't have you unknowingly kill your dad first.

>>50040149
Surprisingly no, and I would have expected that too.

>>50040100

Was your character's mom hot?

Besides, as long as you didn't get her pregnant it's alright.

>>50040258
Fairly attractive as was described.

Forget pregnant though, they had a kid before she realized, and chose not to tell him and continue the relationship, to the extent of having more kids.

>>50026909
>Create a PC with a family.
>Mention them on page 3 of my 4-page background.
GM didn't make it past the opening paragraph. Admittedly, his background was a trolling attempt inspired entirely by Henderson, it had so many random pieces of crap in it that I could have justified a claim to orcish nobility (human character), having served with Ollanus Pious, and a few other things besides.

Am I the only one that loves baiting DMs with this kind of shit? Every character I've ever made has a family, or a lover, or someone very dear to them. I've always made characters that have someone they'd call "important", and beyond the obvious plot significance it's always to see just what the DM will try to do with them.

>Play a paladin
>Backstory has him being betrayed by his captain and him and his friends being sold out.
>The paladin adventures to find his old captain and avenge his friends
>He writes wrongs on the way, because paladin, but his motivation for wandering the world is hunting her down.
>First goddamn line out of the GM's mouth
>"So yeah, you found her and killed her. Then it starts to rain, so you enter the dungeon to get some shelter."

So yeah, not quite the same as ded parents, but I was salty as fuck my characters entire motivation was wrapped up off-screen, before the game even started, and with no input on my part. And yes, he did refer to the dungeon as "the dungeon."

>>50027376
Her father and the village mob chase you wherever you go for a shotgun wedding.
The fact that he has the only shotgun in your typical fantasy d&d setting makes everything even more strange.

>>50041063
Why the duck do DMs do this? I have a hard enough time dragging motives out of my players that aren't just 'money and power'.

I would love that backstory. Perfect chance to have them face off against that fallen paladin lady as a recurring villain. Even if you were lazy about it, how hard is it to just have her be one of the BBEG's leuitenents?

>>50041169

>tfw I wrote my character as a single father trying to rescue his daughter and the DM turned her and the mother into plot-critical characters

>>50041169
>Why the duck do DMs do this?

Because it's easier to fiat your characters from fight scene to fight scene than it is to build up 3-6+ different individual backstories into one narrative.

I was considering bringing back one PC's dead brother as a plot hook, but I wonder if that would invalidate his character, as he set out because his family died.
Maybe the BBEG magics him back to life after doing his research on the PCs, then screws with his head as a Hawaiian good luck sign to the character in question?

>>50041349

What is easier is not always what is right, and you should have weeks to write the backstories into the narrative regardless.

>>50041063
Only thing I've ever had like that was during a M&M villain game.

My character's sole motivation was his powers being dangerous to himself, so his goal was two-fold.
1. Figure out a way to make them not self-destructive.
2. Figure out how to replicate it and sell the resulting super soldiers to the highest bidder.

Both required me to get money, hence turning to a life of crime.

GM homebrewed the wealth stat a bit so that the 3 points I put into it functionally made me a multi-billionaire, which kinda sucked when my character's main motivation was a lack of funds.

He let me shift those points around so I had actual motivation, and then the first session of the game I get power cancelling handcuffs that negate the entire downside with my powers. Granted I still would have to find a way to make them not block my powers completely, but still.

>>50039684
>tomgirls
Are female and thus wouldn't have fit here.

>>50042312
Aren't tomgirls the male equivalent of tomboys?

>>50042502
Shit i fucked up in reading that.

>>50041502
Make it his brother but not really. Just a clone/ someone trying to impersonate him

>>50043143
>The BBEG is an adept actor and disguise artist
Oh God, should I?
It seems so horribly petty, but he's imitated dead people to fool the party before.

>>50027215
So that's where that joke about the Castellean came from!

>play druid
>GM tries to start some plotline about how there is some old god fuckery and they're trying to make me think the earth has turned against me
>i don't believe them and ignore their whispers every time

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>>50026909
>Create an old wizard
>No living family
>Never married
>Never loved
>Just liked to study magic
>Ask GM if he can have a small hovel on the outskirts of the town where the group was assembling
>He says sure
>Everyone else goes with orphans with nothing to their name
>The group meets in town to rid it of a goblin problem
>We find the goblins and beat them up
>Their treasure room has a tiny dragon guarding it
>We beat it up
>It flies away
>Go back to town and rest in the inn
>We all agree to head off towards the nation's capital to spend our fortunes in the morning
>Tell the group they can crash at my place on the way there then we could set up camps for the rest of the way
>We go back to my hovel
>It's burned down
>The tiny dragon is sitting there gloating about it
>Except he's not tiny anymore
>He's a full size adult dragon
>Everyone is confused
>GM looks smug as shit
>Ask how it's an adult literally one day after encountering it
>No answer
>Ask how it knew that was my hovel
>No answer
>He has an NPC kill it in one hit off screen a session later

Some GMs just love taking anything you have away. Had a few do it when you buy a horse or wagon too.

>>50036386
Well we had a game where the CG 16 year old farmer boy barbarian's sweetheart was kidnapped by orcs. Much more effective than killing, because it made us go from our usual "let's spend weeks planning this out and reconnoitering the situation" to "let's pool all our money and hire as many mercantilism as possible to march in there and burn them all". It was good.

>>50026909
meanwhile my character is trying to get home to his wife, and runs into his parents in a tavern. they've stopped aging. and then in the middle of the night, they just up and leave an infant girl in my room. shes got some curse mark on her too.

so on the bright side, you've not got my shit to deal with.

>>50043355
There is being a dick, and there is being a monster. He just crossed the fucking line.

>>50026909
>Not creating a character who willed themselves out of the aether of the cosmos

Pleb tier, deserved everything you got.

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>>50040330
>To the extent of having more kids

>>50026909

>playing as a half-orc who left her brutal society behind and learned a better way
>DM reveals in a PM that not one but two orcish rivals are coming to fight me
>get excited because my backstory is coming into play

choose the better way, anon.

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>>50040330
Hot.

>>50043244
DO IT

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>play a paladin
>fluff out his relationship with his parents - they had settled for each other after the wife had a failed courtship with an elf, and the blacksmith husband had left after an affair was revealed (the paladin's half-sister being fluffed out as a backup character in case mine died)
>paladin cared a lot about his mom, even would write to her and send some money along home
>GM never did anything bad with it and just let me have this bit of character
>never shoved the (presumed, but not confirmed) dead dad in my face
>never forced the half-sister out early as an NPC

>>50039437
>That was kind of a shitlord thing for you to do.

Holy fuck we have actual tumblrfags on this board, please kill yourself for the sake of everyone else

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>>50039437
Can't a guy be flustered about bringing up his female lover as much as a male lover?

>>50027950
Also GRRM at least makes sure you get a bit of an emotional attachment to the characters he kills off. I really thought Ned wouldn't die.

>>50041349
Why not simply require players to design back stories with pre-intertwined narratives?

>you've been close friends for years
>each of you: design one backstory event that made you closer to each of the other players.
>then each of you design one backstory event that brought the whole group closer together.
>then fill in the rest of your backstory.

Now they players are invested in each others characters

>>50043878
I actually had a SR campaign where me and two other members of the party had shared backstories.

It was actually a hell of a lot of fun, I just wished we didn't have to deal with a special snowflake and a lump at the same time.

>>50043878
I've had fun doing similar things with other characters occasion, but I don't like the idea of forcing it for the whole group. A much simpler process could be 'your group has been working together for a while now.' You don't have to outright say they're friends or family, and it gives them a good reason to stick together and form their own friendships and rivalries through interaction.

>>50043740
It's easy to forget that he does that because the show tossed it out the window after a couple of seasons. The show writers just axe random characters for shock value now. And to feed the demand for higher pay among the remaining actors.

>>50043143
This. Ever seen There Will Be Blood? The scenes where he meets his maybe-brother are intense.

>>50043967
Having them define a reason they're interested in eachother's well being can help foster coop gameplay.

Or you could invert that, like a campaign I played in.

Banewarrens campaign. GM gave everyone a plot hook based on their backstory for why we want to deal with the banewarrens and don't want the evil artifacts falling into the wrong hands. He then gives each character a secret objective, also tied to our backstories, and through play most (but not all of us) play those close to the chest, and it turns out we're all largely at odds with eachother.

I'm teleporting away the evil artifacts for the chelish army, through a Djinn ancestor who runs my character's noble house from behind the scenes.

Most of the other PCs want to round them all up and either destroy them or find a new, more secure vault to store them in. But I'm the one who bought the magic bag, and so nobody questions that I grab the evil artifacts. Also, the artifacts attack nonevil characters, and I'm LE.

Additionally I was sent to stop a pirate company from getting control of the naval waters, because there's some major artifact the GM threw in that allowed widescale control of the weather, again, for chelish military interests.

One of the players apparently secretly belongs to this pirate group, and their parents are higher-ups in it. She tipped her hand first, and so I kept the fact that my goal was to sabotage her family a secret, throughout the entire campaign.

It was fun, but we weren't exactly entirely cooperative.

>>50041196

>write in background elements that can cause conflict, but likely won't require me to deal with massive forces
>DM is actively planning to give me rivals from background conflict

feels good man

>>50044180
That can work well with the right group of players, but they have to be good at or quickly get used to having a secret objective and working somehow to achieve it without alerting the others.

>>50039561
the sorceress' pronoun choice, left uncorrected out of taboo fear.

>adding superfluous details to your dungeon crawling murderhobo
>not expecting them to be used to fluff an encounter or minor plot

Why even mention them otherwise? Every character has parents, a home town and probably some siblings too. Maybe a family of their own or just some childhood sweetheart. But it doesn't really matter and wont come up unless you bring it up.

>>50046178
That's exactly what they expect. What they don't expect is the hometown to be put to the torch, with the siblings and parents all murdered and the sweetheart raped in front of them because the GM decided they weren't "invested" enough.

>>50046291
What I'm saying is I don't know how they expect anything but the burning village scenario. These minor background details aren't particularly interesting or useful on their own and most GMs are not the next great american novelist. Best case scenario your backstory family are kidnapped to fluff the dungeon of the week and their fate is down to the GM's edginess levels.

If this stuff bothers people so much just stop writing it.

>>50026909
>Be GM
>players help in making a huge chunk of the world, including backstory and a lot of setting details
>Some characters write letters home to loved ones
>For example Paladin is searching for his lost sister thought to be dead, and keeps parents informed
>blossoming romance and/or father-daughter relationship happening between young aasimar girl and paladin. He even gives to her his ancestral longsword so she can defend herself.
>then the paladin dies, facing down a super dragon that the rest of the party has to run from
>aasimar girl only has the sword to bring back to his family for the funeral
>they know who she is, and tell her that their son had written all about her, and forgive her for not being able to do anything, and that he would definitely have wanted to have put his life on the line protecting her
>aasimar player practically breaks down crying at the funeral

dragging background family in can be awesome.

>>50046586
Why not have the childhood sweetheart get involved with the leader of a rival party, to increase tension? Or the parents end up going to the capital to try and meet the king to plead for something or other, and meet their kid, and now the kid is torn between whatever duties he's on now and having to help his parents?

They don't have to be a major plot point or anything.

>>50044025

Really makes me wonder what Martin's going to do with his writing now. Is he going to follow the same story the show takes, or is he going to continue on whatever story he intended from the first place? Or is he the one telling them where to take the show?

>>50047230
You could. None of the other players will give the slightest shit about it but if you wanted to give a character a little spotlight without murdering their family then that'll work.

>>50048376
Was it ever supposed to be something to motivate the entire party, even at its worse excesses? It's not like the entire party will get their families massacred all at once as 'motivation.'

>>50048501
Well of course it doesn't work but revenge motivation is probably the intent. It's really a desperate attempt to make up for a lacking plot isn't it? Players don't care about the evil lich army so you have the army storm their gay weddings and kill all their backstory characters.

>>50027323
I almost derailed my current campaign because my character was an orphan... at 7. He knows his damned parents, they were fucking merchants.

Played along with DMs "they were da chosen one" plot for the sake of the game, but fucking hell DM, i'm literally the only player who even bothered to mention his childhood.

>make a badass assassin loner
>GM keeps asking me about whether or not I have friends or family in every town I go to

Ugh. Emotional connections are for the weak, why can't my GM understand?

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>>50046178
>>50046586
>dungeon crawling murderhobo
>this is all the PCs are
>backstories are not important
>fluff the dungeon of the week
>>>dungeon of the week
Never GM. If you're already running a game, cease immediately.

>>50026909
>Create a family that you will never interact with on screen.
>Say you're primary motivation for adventuring is to feed family instead of getting a real job, that is within close proximity to your family, like a rational person would.

Why do you people do this shit? There's literally nothing to interact with here and no one in the party want's to take the time to got to your dirt farm and interact with your uninteresting family.

Every time the BEG kidnaps your family you bitch and moan about how it doesn't make sense. Don't make something that not interesting and doesn't add anything to your character.

>>50026909
So OP, I have to ask, what's it like to have John Wick for a GM?

>>50040330
Fucking cute, son. What did she look like?

>>50044025

Yep. Great example because between the time when the book was written and the present, it became a cliché.

Meanwhile, good point that there's more to it than that. Execution matters. When George RR Martin does it, it feels tragic but necessary to the plot. When the showrunners do it, it feels like a random cheap play for ratings.

Actually a great example was the Firefly movie. Shepherd Book's death was tragic but was done very well. Wash's out-of-nowhere death at the end felt like an afterthought (joss himself said it was, he just kind of threw it in to up the emotional stakes).

>>50051785
>John Wick
Who?

>>50051785
Nah. John Wick is more about killing the PCs than the background characters

>>50026909
>after 6 sessions
i have heard of worse probably just an isolated incident
>The GM has their ghosts attack us three sessions in
ok yeah thats concerning

>>50027031
i wont go out of my way to kill family members but i wont let there presence get in the way of an invading army or something so i have had a few characters parents die to the rampaging hordes alongside the rest of there city

>>50052136
>not knowing about Grandma's heart attack

Fucker had the character unmasked then thrown through a rooftop window onto the table their grandma "just so happened" to be eating at. The shock of seeing her grandmother gave her a heart attack.

Literally.

Wick wrote about how no other character wrote in they had any dependents afterwards.

With a small but of pride no less.

>>50039437
its questionable
its really a question of if that was the case all along or he just made it up to fuck with the dms shitty drama

>>50052304
man fuck wick

>>50026909

> Crete "immigrant wanting make ends meet" character with a fleshed-out family
> Take some "bad luck" qualities
> GM has character's overbearing mother call at most inopportune times

>>50027027
>family tracks you down to apologize and say it was a mistake. They where forced to banish you because of the local cult or the BBEG, "It was for your own good! He/They would have killed you !"
>you have a heart felt reunion BUT SUDDENLY BBEG comes in and kills them for disobeying his will or just out of spite
>or you hate them and kill/tell them to fuck off only to be haunted by the memory of you being a dick from the bbeg

>>50052439
>GM tells me how my character feels
I wish I had a reaction image to show how disgusted I am, but I have none of that magnitude

>>50052954
i had one player who was new who would often try to dictate the feelings of the npcs
it did not take me long to get them to understand that was bad but it was incredibly frustrating for the short amount of time it continued

i cant imagine how bad it must be coming from the dm

>>50026909
>Create character with wife and two daughters
>Prevent them from being killed down the line by killing a serial killer
>Used for comedic effect mostly with a normal wife complaining to her murderhobo husband
>Younger daughter joins the party as a cohort for extra comedic effect of a father going into "overly protective daddy mode" when anything ever happens to her both from the combined fears of losing a daughter and having to deal with the insurmountable wrath of his wife when he comes back and says "I kinda had to spend thousands of gold pieces to resurrect our daughter"

It's fun

>>50039437
>but I'll never ever explain who that lover is
they gave an in-character reason
>and treat them like you would a woman
because they weren't there
fuck outta here

>>50052110
>>50052136
>>50052304
I once saw him kill three men in a bar.

With a penceel.

>>50052344
Consider it stolen.

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>mfw the DM creates an enemy explicitly to fuck your character up
>mfw the enemy works too well and you get one-shotted
>mfw the DM tries to roll back the clock and say, "No wait a minute, the character's alive!"
>mfw naw man, naw. That guy's dead, you killed him fair and square. Congratulations!

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>>50040149
>>50040180
>Oedipus reference
>your head

>>50043878
One of my friends i played with was playing as a Goliath who was my father. He got frisky with a genie and gave birth to me, an air genasi goliath qt. Was p fun, campaign got cut off at level 7 right before we (the only two members still in the party) were going to tag-team a young red dragon. Still wanna know if we would have won. feelsnostalgiaman

>>50034248
Good man.
How did the DM respond? Did he try to stop you?

>>50040446
>inspired entirely by Henderson
Leave.

>>50054671
>the rival gets frustrated, still not understanding what you fight for as he attacks
>as you lay dying, you speak your last words,and he finally understands
>he now deeply regrets what he did, and all the Rage and hated to you now turns to regret.
>he then joins the party as the player's new PC to atone for what he did

>>50026909
>Create a character with wife and son
>BBEG cucks me while I'm out of home trying to stop his evil machinations
>turns up he wasn't even trying to do shit, they were all made-up stories to make sure I would stay away from home so that he could fuck my wife

>>50055431
What are you talking about? He clearly got the reference. He just said he would have expected that.

>>50052954
Please explain anon for I can't see anywhere in my reply me telling you how you feel.
It just an example of gm fuckery.

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>>50027031

I read this as "kill her off by fat" and now I want my next BBEG to be a murderchef.

>>50055900
that's bretty gud actually.

>>50049817
Don't act dumb, you know this is how the game is usually played.

>>50046954
The only thing sadder than this greentext is the fact that most GMs won't bother using family members as anything more than emotional crutches.