[DL] Character development & background (was: That Character just ain't right)

["Heivilin, Jim" <banzai@missouri.edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: J Tolle [mailto:jwtolle@altavista.com]
> Subject: That Character just ain't right - was [DL] Looking for random
<snip>
> So let me throw it back at y'all.  Are your experiences 
> similar?  Do you even care about "Character Development"?  
> 
We don't play DL (rather D&D 3rd addiction) but the character background is
crucially important to us.  And as such it becomes impossible to gin up a
character (I use that term rather than roll up since there is more involved
than just rolling dice) without the group as a whole.  We feel the need to
have some plausible reason to meet up and even to travel together.  

<warning - long and not DL related>

For example, in our current campaign we are introducing a new player to
gaming.  She's been a friend of the DM's wife for many years and he's been
after her for awhile to join in the group.  She finally acquiesced and we
added her to our group of die hard roleplayers. 

Anyway my buddy Jeff decides he wants to play an Elven ranger.  Laura, to go
a bit along with him (since she wasn't terribly familiar with the game much
less rpgs) decides to play an elf also, however she seems (in recent times)
to want to indulge a bit in the seamy side of life, so she plays a rogue.
Why are they adventuring together?  Because they're brother and sister.  And
she didn't start out as a rogue, but rather as they were growing up she
always seemed to get her siblings in trouble with her plots, plans and
machinations.  

I decided rather than playing a spell caster (wizard or cleric) I wanted to
try a monk.  And instead of elf I picked half-elf.  So how do I fit in?  I'm
the half brother.  And how did I get to be the half brother?  Well, it seems
that their parents left the capital of the Elven nation about 30 some odd
years ago as emissary to the Empire (the human kingdom) and traveled to
Citadel.  Some strange things happen there and their father ends up dead.
Murdered?  We don't know yet, but something happened.  Their mother returns
(in disgrace?) to the Elven lands and a few months later has another son
(me).  Who's my father?  How did their father die?  Why has no one told us
of this?  

As we were growing up she was always getting us into adventures and
eventually into trouble.  And we (Jeff and I) were always protecting her
from the results of her hastily thought out schemes.  Indeed we even sort of
invented our own "language" (we all took skill points in innuendo with the
intention of using it to "speak" with each other while in a group).  

At 18 I left the Elven nation, not sure where I fit into the greater scheme
of things.  I met a trio of monks on their way to Citadel from their
monastery to buy supplies.  Eventually their philosophy (our DMs explanation
of monks is a bit more specific that the PG or DMG) won me over and I went
to the monastery and joined the order.  So went the next 10 years of my
life.  

The background proved to pull us together when I get a mysterious message
from someone claiming to have know my father in Citadel.  I send word to my
siblings and we start the campaign in a temple in the city.  Eventually we
discover that Scipio is my father and he's blind now, having been blinded as
punishment for having a liaison with a widow before her year and a day
mourning period was over.  And lo and behold he had studied at the very same
monastery for several years.  However the plot (uncovering ten holy
artifacts to fight barbarian invaders) didn't allow us to question Scipio
long enough to get more details about our mother and their father.  

We later added another player, Andy, who decided to play an Elven wizard.
We rescued him from a tribe of kobolds and we discovered it was our old
childhood bully and tormentor. 

There is even more detail to go into but this is sufficient to demonstrate
our backgrounds and how the DM makes use of them to motivate us and move us
along the plotline he's developed.  I hope to get the notes I keep up on the
web and can forward the URL to anyone interested.  

Jim