Quote from: Benoist;367984I agree.

As for the whole thing being more abstract than say, being part of Group X or hired by Religion Y in the setting, or being all Rangers or Elves, I guess what really matters (as always really) is to have a good communication from the get-go, before the campaign even begins.

If GM and players agree in a session before play begins to say, create characters with backgrounds including losses and betrayals, the GM can then build a document of specific examples on how this can come into play, like for instance relating to the torture of some creature in the dungeon if your family was tortured then killed by a horde of barbarians in the character's background, etc. If the players are responsive and imaginative, this can go really far and indeed, add a ton of role playing flavor to the game to the point the campaign would go in some truly unexpected directions.

Such a document could explain how the GM intends to use plot hooks in the characters background, or a sample of the theme in play, and bullet points suggesting ways in which the players could themselves use the themes while role playing their characters. It could just take a page-or-so of light reading to get to the crux of it, and after that, it's up to the players to make the synergy happen at the game table.

I actually disagree with most of this- I think it it goes too far (as far as I am concerned) to write out the backgrounds before the fact in too much detail. I'm all for writing out "backstory" for characters- but we even used to have a rule in my home campaigns that you weren't allowed to do it before 2nd level. (This is in my 3rd edition campaigns...)

And the reason is just practical: players know a character better after they've played them a bit.. plus DMs know the characters, and everyone has a better understanding of what is actually going on in the world. When people first started writing backgropunds on the wiki we use now, I sent an email out not to write too much. Even just a sentence or two is preferable to too much detail.

I wasn't talking of writing novels either. You're preaching to the choir, here.