Through the weekend and last night I was working on backgrounds for the newbie players. What I try to do with players of any caliber is give them a grounding to start from. A little of where they have been and who some of their friends are and if they have an rivals or out right enemies. The great thing about giving them this at the beginning of a game is they see you've taken the time to establish something beyond a column of numbers. So when they get into the shit they may have someone who can help.
The other great thing is to plan role-playing opportunities. The one character I created for the party is a magic-user who has the beginning knowledge of necromancy. It is up to him whether he uses it or not, but he will know the use of it is illegal. Down the line the player may encounter a source of advanced necromancy it will be up to him what he does with it.
Just a quick post before work. Gotta run. Short weeks and always the longest for some reason.
I agree. Backgrounds can add some nice hooks to come up during play, so long as there not over detailed.
ReplyDeleteEthics and the chance of power will be a dangerous mix......
ReplyDeleteI like this idea a lot. Especially if it's not overly detailed, as Trey said, I can see it being quite "economical" providing lots of story and adventure potential down the road for relatively little prep cost up front.
ReplyDeleteIn general, the players can disregard as much or as little of the background as they want. For newbie players I wanted to give them a sense of the world. That there is something going on beyond the focused places they will visit in the first couple of sessions.
ReplyDelete