>Start playing in a game with a group of friends. >One

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>Session ends with the GM saying "and there were no survivors."

At least the Master Plan prevailed.

>>52359183
Because it's a very easy (read: lazy) way to give all the characters a reason to hate whatever faction is intended to be the villainous one. Even if they took it back just one step and made it "are planning on killing companion from backstory" it would be substantially better, but nope, gotta kill 'em all. No social entanglements in this game, no sir.

>>52359224
I had a campaign start with the BBEG kidnapping our family members as part of some yearly tribute thing which turned out to be so he could feed them to an evil tree.

We saved them in time but then the deadline passed without anyone feeding the tree and it died, releasing the ACTUAL BBEG from his thousand year slumber.

We still questioned his choice of holding a lottery and grabbing up villagers for the sacrifice rather than using prisoners at least.

>>52359183
Because a lot of GMs are terrible, just like a lot of players are terrible. They can't think of any reason to get you to follow the plot other than taking something away from your character that they care about.

Allies and companions from your backstory are AWESOME for the GM, because they're a two-way street. You ask your guard captain friend to get rid of some breaking and entering charges, and in return he asks if you can do him a solid and look into a missing person's case. Your priestess waifu resurrects the rogue and afterwards talks about how two of the priests betrayed the church and stole a holy artifact that they badly need.

The best way to get the players to do something isn't to kill their friends and family, it's for those people to help them out of a bad situation, then later ask for the PCs to do something for them.

>>52359183
One response to that which is funny if not very adult is to accept that and with dogged fatalism keep marrying a new wife again and again, fully knowing she'll probably get killed the next week or so. If the GM doesn't want your character to have family then at least you can make him do the work. Who knows, maybe the next one will stick!

>>52359308
There was actually one campaign where the GM started it off with all of our families being dead...but one player ended up becoming royalty because he was the sole air to the throne, even though he was only a bastard child.

The GM was not amused.

>>52359300
>Because a lot of GMs are terrible, just like a lot of players are terrible. They can't think of any reason to get you to follow the plot other than taking something away from your character that they care about.
That's what kills me the most honestly. We're already interested in fighting the BBEG yet you need to kill off our PC's families just to make us want to kill them more?

>>52359836
>We're already interested in fighting the BBEG yet you need to kill off our PC's families just to make us want to kill them more?
Lazy shit yo. 4 sho.

>>52359862
If we didn't want to kill the BBEG on some level, we wouldn't be playing your game. Killing off families doesn't make me want to kill the BBEG more, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and tells me that for future games, I'm better off just rolling up a murderhobo.

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>>52359183
>Why do so many GM's kill off companions from a PC's backstory?

They correctly assume endangering or murdering a PC's friends and family will make their conflict more personal, but incorrectly assume they can do it right at the beginning in the most impersonal way possible.

A good GM absolutely should put your character's loved ones in the crosshairs at some point or another, and potentially even pull the trigger. He doesn't have to, but done will it's dramatic and interesting and hopefully changes something in your character. But when you do it in Session Zero, then what's the point? Even though your character knows these people, you the player don't. You have no attachment to them beyond simply thinking them up in your head. You haven't really met them until you've had some chance to interact with them.

Plus the scenario you described is horrendously lazy. It was literally "rocks fall, all your friends die".

My players for my current game handed me like half a dozen family and friend NPC ideas in their backstories. Why would I kill them all right now, and never get a chance to use them?

>>52360072
My players are good about fleshing out friends and comrades as NPCs, but not so much family. I just have to work with their buddies instead their cute sister, which isn't terrible.

>>52359263
What was his excuse?