Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

I accept 2 levels of backstory.
  1. A single sentence of no more than 25 words.
  2. A tome worthy of Old Man Henderson.
 
I'm reminded of the director of the Pirates of the Caribbean film relating a story about Orlando Bloom. For anyone who remembers an early scene were Will Turner is waiting for Elizabeth and accidentally pulls a sconce off the wall, Orlando Bloom queried with the director "would Will really do that?" and the director having to explain "you're not cool yet. You become cool later."

I've had to say that to a player when they want some amazing character backstory: "you're not cool yet. Imagine a younger version of your character still learning". Some backstories you just can't reconcile with low level characters.

I did see a neat way of handling it in a video game once, Marvel's Midnight Suns. The character of Hunter is supposed to be this legendary champion that you play. But he/she has been asleep for the last few centuries. You get lines through the game like "my strength is returning to me" or "I remember now..." to justify the levelling up with the legendary backstory. Some kind of setback that knocks you back down can work, but not all game systems could work with that. Alien would barely matter - a veteran soldier dies to a bullet as easily (almost) as a cadet. CoC is fine too because you can start as some very learned and successful person. D&D would be much harder to do that. Maybe recovering from some period of invalidity or magical affliction perhaps. But it feels very "Oh Special Me" to have unearned backstory.

I guess that's the key thing that makes people dislike it - it feels unearned. Everyone else is out to earn their spurs and collect new stories of "that time we saved the town from a demon" and this doofus is going around talking about how he's already great and special and chosen and everything.

I'll allow it sometimes. Would work fine in a The One Ring campaign. Generally it's a little obnoxious.
 
Overly Serious said:
I'll allow it sometimes. Would work fine in a The One Ring campaign. Generally it's a little obnoxious.
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There's also sort of a difference between D&D type systems and what I'd call the classic Chaosium systems. In D&D settings, special snowflake abilities from the outset can be game-breaking, or if you let a Monty Haul campaign get completely out of hand, you end up with heroes who can just effortlessly slice through an entire army and bitchslap Thor.

In more deadly systems, even if you have a total Billy Badass character with a machinegun, you could still have some 12 year old shoot a zip gun at you, crit, and blow your head clean off at any moment.

So a special snowflake can break a hack and slash campaign where everyone is a giant ball of hit points, but that's not really the case with more realistically deadly systems.

In my example, the character's backstory actually set the tone for what ended up being a years-long campaign.

Along that general line, character generation in general really sets the tone for the rest of the game that follows. One example that I think is unique is the character generation in the original Traveler (basically the OG SF RPG). You actually went through your character's career before the game started, and had a lot of options for developing exactly the kind of character you wanted. You could even get killed during chargen, or end up permanently maimed in some way if you'd picked a dangerous occupation, but the rewards for dangerous occupations were often excellent.

So you could end up with a military vet who got thrown out of the armed forces and became a pirate, lost a hand, got a great ship with top-notch weapons, but you also have bounty hunters after you and will be arrested on sight in any civilized port.

I generally think players should be allowed to craft characters they actually care about. This only gets bad when it's some bad actor, like they're just making a Mary Sue or being a munchkin trying to craft a Press X to Win character. And the solution to those is don't play with those people.
 
AnOminous said:
It doesn't make sense in a very low average lifespan game where your character is more likely than not dying in the first session. However, I'd always let players put some kind of backstory into their character to justify the perks they wanted.

Even in very deadly settings like Call of Cthulhu, I'd allow this. Like someone wanted their Russian gangster character to have lots of guns and access to pretty much any guns he wanted. I wanted to know why because this was America. So his backstory was he was a gangster back in Russia too and had to flee the country because he had sided with the White Russians. He fanatically hated Communism and Communists and would generally kill them on sight.

He still had contacts with his arms dealers from his previous career. His reason for being against the Old Ones started when his new crew in the U.S. basically got massacred by a cultist group that was (not coincidentally) a Communist front group as well. He was still bootlegging and had serious car skills.

This sounded pretty cool so I went with it. It ended up being a very car and gun-heavy campaign and this particular character lasted years (of real world time). It sounds like a huge perk basically to have as many guns as you like, but while it was definitely cool and fun, guns ain't shit against eldritch. It definitely trivialized most issues involving human cultists, though.

tl;dr I never had any problem giving players some cool background that came with perks so long as they could justify why this actually made sense and it actually benefited the party, too.
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My general approach to a backstory is largely the value is informing the characterization, and if it is interesting enough, I will let some mechanical boosts slide accordingly. As you said later, Traveller, and life path systems in general, are probably the best, because they really tie the character's backstory into their actual mechanics.
 
I just had one of the most infuriating games in a while.
All started with a bit of shopping, as it often does. And I ordered to make myself a +5 adamantine shield with the wait time of 3 weeks. "Cool we will wait" said me to the blacksmith, and we departed to the next town.
Town were protected by a paladin order that is supposed to be super powerful and shit and one of them greeted us by the entrance. We showed our documents so we were cool. He explained the rules that fee for disturbing the order is 500 gold. On which i simply made a joke by flexing my new shield worth like 100k. After the day of trying to figure out how to buy ourselves a ship to leave the island, we were starting to look for a place to stay. We were offered some bunk beds, but obviously we refused cause we are carrying so much shit on us that sleeping in a public bunkhouse is a bad idea so we rented a house for the night from the owner. I even commented that my new toy alone worth half of this town, me constantly referencing this shield is important.
Next morning, 4 paladins knock on our door with the arrest order. The guy who greeted us was killed last night and we are the prime suspects cause one old man saw 5 figures that looked like us, with no mention of the ranger's pet wolf. after considering that we can just book it or fight, DM said we have no chance.
My character as ex-guard says this is complete bullshit and a complete kangaroo court. But we all soon realize that this is railroad and we can't noped out of it. We have 2 days to clear our names or we will be executed.
We went through the motions visited the old man, fruitless, found a harmonica on the scene of the crime and our gaze fell on the band of traveling musicians that are talk of the town.
Guys suspicious as hell. They were late on their daily performance today, one guy were missing his harmonica and were stalking us through the day. After that, we captured them and went to the head paladin. we presented all the evidence and said that this is already more than one witness that said he saw people that looked kinda like us (and them), he wasn't convinced. As a fighter i said that these guys weren't regular bards and they clearly have some combat training. That fucking paladin says he doesn't see any of such sings. so he lets them fucking go.
at night we were patrolling the docks in a hope to find their hideout since searching their house yielded no results. and they did an ambush on us. in the middle of the fight DM asked why do i suddenly have 39 ac. i simply said that i have my new shield, to which he said but y its not supposed to be ready for the next 3 weeks.
So apparently when i said "cool we will wait" i wasnt fucking specific enough that i will actually wait in the town till i get the best shield that i will probably get in the game. in a result my AC dropped from 39 to 34, which meant instead of 1 normal attack i will catch 3 one of those is a crit and my health drops from 96 to 2 and I'm in a very bad position with no real way to retreat. on the next turn i catch 20 damage that sends my character to negative 18 and i die.
the rest of my party deals with the assassins, capturing one of them. they go to the paladin all chargers are dropped and as a reward and apology we can get all the loot from the assassins and a free raise dead on me.
I, completely pissed, storm in this fuckwad's office throw 500 gold on his table to which he asks: "What's that?". i Punch him in the face a couple of times, knocking like 5 teeth from his mug, say thats that the fee for the assault.
next ten minutes is me yelling at his paladin that he is the worst excuse for the guard that I've ever seen, and i take shits with more sense of justice that he has.
So yeah i got salty. I said to DM that i felt cheesed with the shield since i referenced it a bunch of times and no one corrected me and if he wanted to shook me he could simply cast a will-based spell instead of this.
 
Btw i need some rule lawyering, cause wording on both vital strike and whirlwind strike sounds like they can be used together
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DefinitelyNotMe said:
Btw i need some rule lawyering, cause wording on both vital strike and whirlwind strike sounds like they can be used together
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There's probably an errata for this somewhere, but on a cursory look they don't appear they can be used together at all. But at a glance...

Full attack, and an attack action are not the same thing. Doing a full attack is not granting you attack actions so they do not sound like they can be used together

But more importantly, this specifies why vital strike can't be used with a full attack action.
Screenshot 2025-12-04 003254.png

Also, I don't know what page you pulled those from, but for pf1, at least d20pfsrd lists the erratas/FAQs and their sources.

At the end of the day, if you're the DM make the ruling however you want. If you're the player and the DM has already told you "no"(otherwise why would this be getting asked) the DM already said no.
 
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@DefinitelyNotMe D&D makes no sense to me. In a scenario in which someone has a +5 shield made of adamantium why are they dealing with musicians or house arrest? They should be out battling devil lords and worrying about Tiamat. Or else my perception of power scaling and rarity is all out of whack. What sort of town blacksmith can make a +5 shield? That's some Noldor elves toiled for ten years and ten days stuff right there.

S'why if I ever run a fantasy RPG it's something like WHFRP or The One Ring.
 
Overly Serious said:
@DefinitelyNotMe D&D makes no sense to me. In a scenario in which someone has a +5 shield made of adamantium why are they dealing with musicians or house arrest? They should be out battling devil lords and worrying about Tiamat. Or else my perception of power scaling and rarity is all out of whack. What sort of town blacksmith can make a +5 shield? That's some Noldor elves toiled for ten years and ten days stuff right there.

S'why if I ever run a fantasy RPG it's something like WHFRP or The One Ring.
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it doesnt make sense at all
but DM said that i can have a +5 shield with free DR ducktaped to it
what am i supposed to say no?
 
DefinitelyNotMe said:
Btw i need some rule lawyering, cause wording on both vital strike and whirlwind strike sounds like they can be used together
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@p1138 is correct. In 3E/PF, keep an eye on those actions as some abilities may not work in tandem.

Vital Strike is pretty good for characters who may (for various reasons) not be getting a full attack for whatever reason. Whirlwind Attack's utility, on the other hand... I'll be honest, I've never seen it used.

Also, your GM is a faggot for screwing around with you.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
@p1138 is correct. In 3E/PF, keep an eye on those actions as some abilities may not work in tandem.

Vital Strike is pretty good for characters who may (for various reasons) not be getting a full attack for whatever reason. Whirlwind Attack's utility, on the other hand... I'll be honest, I've never seen it used.

Also, your GM is a faggot for screwing around with you.
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I like putting vital strike on monsters a lot. If the party tries to stagger it or pin it down and so it has to chase them it has a way out of it. They usually have some big attack that throws more damage dice so they get a little extra milage out of it too.

I've seen whirlwind attack used, a character who had huge reach with natural weapons and was set up to make the most of it used it once and then stopped all together.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
@p1138 is correct. In 3E/PF, keep an eye on those actions as some abilities may not work in tandem.

Vital Strike is pretty good for characters who may (for various reasons) not be getting a full attack for whatever reason. Whirlwind Attack's utility, on the other hand... I'll be honest, I've never seen it used.

Also, your GM is a faggot for screwing around with you.
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i love vital strike
you dont have to worry about not hitting things, you can use both combat expertise and power attack with furiuos focus so you are surpringly tanky
you can take strike true to give yourself +4 to hit if you dont move
yeah you damage but only if you supposed to hit with all attacks which doesnt always happen
plus you can move in the battle you no longer have to sacrafice damage to flank someone or to stand in between your squishy party members and the flankying cheeky cunt of the enemy.
AND it also works on ranged weapons for some reason
i do recomend it a lot, its like my favorite type of fighter now
 
DefinitelyNotMe said:
you can take strike true to give yourself +4 to hit if you dont move
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There's an obscure feat. Had to look that one up. However it doesn't quite work that way. You spend your move action to add a +4 to your next melee attack before the end of your turn.

Not bad, but it also requires Combat Expertise (feat taxes strike again) and base attack +6 (which means you're not getting it in early levels where it would be rather nice).
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
You spend your move action to add a +4 to your next melee attack before the end of your turn.
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Yeah i know. But if you are locked with someone already its just a way to burn a move action.
Capsaicin Addict said:
but it also requires Combat Expertise (feat taxes strike again) and base attack +6
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Thats basically the only attack tax that you cant avoid. But having just 1 tax doesnt hurt that much especially when you attack once a turn with the highest modifier.
But i gotta say this is the most ballanced build that i ever tried you can be as tanky as dedicated full armor sword and board fighter yet you damage is so much more.
I almost whish that kingmaker or wrath of the righteous had these feats to test it against the most rediculous shit.
 
DefinitelyNotMe said:
I just had one of the most infuriating games in a while.
[story]
So yeah i got salty. I said to DM that i felt cheesed with the shield since i referenced it a bunch of times and no one corrected me and if he wanted to shook me he could simply cast a will-based spell instead of this.
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I can see where the misunderstanding came from. You said you were fine with waiting for your shield, implying the party would hang out for a couple weeks until it was done. The DM took that to mean that you were fine with it taking some time and would come back to get it later, so he continued the campaign as written from there.

However, it was very stupid of him to then take the shield away from you after you had made references to it repeatedly through roleplay. He should have realized the mistake the first time you mentioned your very expensive fancy shield and made the correction there, honestly, either by retroactively including a period of hanging out around town (and giving other party members some downtime activities/rewards) or by removing it from your inventory before combat so you could be better prepared tactically and have you go pick it up later. Changing it out mid-combat was the dumbest way of handling the situation, although at least he made up for it by throwing a free revive on you afterwards.

Players and DMs are only human, so we're bound to make mistakes, but there are good and bad ways to rectify them.
 
DefinitelyNotMe said:
So yeah i got salty. I said to DM that i felt cheesed with the shield since i referenced it a bunch of times and no one corrected me and if he wanted to shook me he could simply cast a will-based spell instead of this.
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I had the same interpretation from your post as your DM: You would come back in 3 weeks for your shield. But DM should have confirmed.

When you say your referenced your shield, my question would be: Did you say you hold up your shield (since I imagine your previous +4 shield wasn't a dollar-bin find) or did you say you hold up your new Adamantine shield?

Anyway, the adventure you were running seems poorly scaled where 500g is the fine but the party has 39 AC.

King Dead said:
However, it was very stupid of him to then take the shield away from you after you had made references to it repeatedly through roleplay. He should have realized the mistake the first time you mentioned your very expensive fancy shield and made the correction there, honestly, either by retroactively including a period of hanging out around town (and giving other party members some downtime activities/rewards) or by removing it from your inventory before combat so you could be better prepared tactically and have you go pick it up later. Changing it out mid-combat was the dumbest way of handling the situation, although at least he made up for it by throwing a free revive on you afterwards.
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Bare minimum he should have caught it early in combat.

If it was me and I didn't, I'd rule: Finish current combat with adjusted AC, then give one of the enemies some bullshit vial of acid or something that takes off 5 AC.
(Actually I'd probably split the difference and go with 36 AC, depending)
 
Ghostse said:
When you say your referenced your shield, my question would be: Did you say you hold up your shield (since I imagine your previous +4 shield wasn't a dollar-bin find) or did you say you hold up your new Adamantine shield?
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i used a regular ass heavy shield
no magic no nothing
thats why the difference was 5 points of AC
 
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