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there was a similar mechanic in the Final Fantasy RPG, in which you get points for having a fleshed-out background, or if you do something particularly story-propelling during game. Or, you can get points for having the GM use parts of your background in-game to propel the story. You can use the points for various in-game things, of which I don't particularly remember because it was quite some time ago when I last read it.
The idea of getting bonus points in exchange for having NPC friends and family to put into peril dates back to Champions, at least (1981).
As a DM I try and use NPC family and the like for the players as much as I do against them. Occasionally they provide a hiding hole, or a present or something the party needs (free buffs sometimes) other times they need help (i.e. are kidnapped or have had a spellbook stolen) on rare occasions they are the BBEG -- I like this one (but use it rarely) since it gives good incentive for both sides to play nicer than "normal".
In the latest post over on my Pathfinder blog, Intelligence Check, I talk about how fleshing out your PC's background usually means highlighting NPCs who are your character's loved ones...which is usually just asking for the GM to use them to screw with your character.
Of course, it's hardly fair that you should be punished for good role-playing, so to make that particular part of playing your character more palatable, I introduce some new defects (basically Unearthed Arcana-style flaws) so that you can at least get a feat or two out of the deal.
Who said that having your character thrust into the limelight of the adventure was being punished?
Friends and family are an advantage all of their own, as well as a disadvantage. They are contacts who can find information, they are allies who can help you find people, they are a resource your character can fall back upon. Yes, they can be targeted by foes, but that just makes them believable hooks for adventures.
Myself, I love giving the DM plenty of ammunition to involve my character more intimately with the plot. It's more fun that way for everyone!
A vulnerability.. I can't really see your point, a detailed background and motivation for your character should not be seen as a vulnerability, I can not really think of a scenario thought up by any decent DM that will translate into a vulnerability.
I suppose you also avoid playing good aligned characters, seriously playing this game to produce the most awesome invincible orphaned character with no appreciable background or personality, is missing out on alot that PRPG has to offer in my opinion.
In the latest post over on my Pathfinder blog, Intelligence Check, I talk about how fleshing out your PC's background usually means highlighting NPCs who are your character's loved ones...which is usually just asking for the GM to use them to screw with your character.
Of course, it's hardly fair that you should be punished for good role-playing, so to make that particular part of playing your character more palatable, I introduce some new defects (basically Unearthed Arcana-style flaws) so that you can at least get a feat or two out of the deal.
Who said that having your character thrust into the limelight of the adventure was being punished?
Friends and family are an advantage all of their own, as well as a disadvantage. They are contacts who can find information, they are allies who can help you find people, they are a resource your character can fall back upon. Yes, they can be targeted by foes, but that just makes them believable hooks for adventures.
Myself, I love giving the DM plenty of ammunition to involve my character more intimately with the plot. It's more fun that way for everyone!
This is exactly my feeling. The more characters I include in my backstory, the more people I can call on for favors. That the GM uses them as plot hooks to get me more involved is an added bonus. They are just as likely to give me my next job as they are to become a target of others.
fleshing out your PC's background usually means highlighting NPCs who are your character's loved ones...which is usually just asking for the GM to use them to screw with your character.
The 'disadvantage' you see here is one of role-playing, not mechanics. As such it should be balanced out by role playing advantages, not mechanical advantages. Trying to balance a mechanical benefit with a fluff drawback, or vice versa, never works out very well.
As such, your 'family ties' flaw simply doesn't work. As pointed out - when those family members are threatened, your character gets to be in the limelight - an advantage in and of itself. Further, any quests you undertake to protect them will still give you the normal rewards for undertaking them. They become an adventure hook, which isn't really a liability at all from a game play perspective.
'Bringing Home the Bacon', on the other hand, has some potential, since it balances your mechanical benefit with a notable mechanical drawback. However, I'm not sure how balanced it is. 10% of the characters funds, forever, may be too high a price for a feat in pathfinder. Still, this one could be worked out. Also, this flaw has the same implied drawback as 'family ties', since by default the character has family members that they care fore that could be threatened.
So I'd recommend you drop the first, and focus your attention on trying to find a proper balance for the second.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I can't read the articles from work, but generally speaking...
It is a matter of negotiation between the DM and the players. To use one of my fictional characters, he's the bastard son of a Taldan noble. He volunetarily went into exile so he could not be used as a pawn by the nobility against his younger siblings who were legitimate heirs. His mother is still his father's first love, and his marriage, and the resulting children are a political move even though they are loved and cared for too.
Now if I were playing Talyn as a PC, I'd expect to have Taldan politics follow him wherever he goes. He might also have to 'go home' to save the family, be forced to travel somewhere to 'represent the family' etc. These are all adventure hooks. At the same time, in Taldor, I'd expect his name to carry a little weight, and if he comes home, at the very least I'd expect to be able to have him stay in the family estate, draw on family resources (within reason) etc. But I'd talk this out with the DM in advance.
I'd be miffed if we found out 'your entire family was wiped out, and no you don't get to inherit jack' As I might as well have started out with 'my character woke up with a gooseegg and no memory...'
Also, family connections can develop in game...
I honestly never had a problem with the added 'vulnerability' of NPC relations. It seems to me this is an important story telling tool for the DM and I try to provide it as much as I can. Hopefully the dm doesnt always kidnap your lady love and tie her to traintracks, but organizations threatening family businesses, friends being beat up by local thugs, cousins joining the army about to face down the dreaded evil hoard, and whatever else you can come up with are great adventure hooks. I like my adventure hooks to be personal for the character. Eventually adventuring for the sake of being an adventurer gets old as a motivation. The idea of a character thrust into the limelight because his family, friends, lover, spouse, daughter, etc is threatened/needs help often provides a good way to get my character motivated, so the dm doesnt have to drag me around with a purse of gold.
Just go all Keyser Söze on them if your GM blackmails you with the "family in peril" railroad.
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The assumption here - which I admit is entirely my own - is that these NPCs are essentially background characters. What I mean by that is that not only do they not get much "screen time," but they don't gain levels; at least, not as fast as the PCs do. Hence the notation in the Family Ties defect that they have 1d3 levels.
Now, for a 1st-level PC, having a 3rd-level ally can be a big help, but at 9th-level, that 3rd-level NPC isn't going to be offering very much aid at all (particularly when they're still at home, and your PC is adventuring in a far-off dungeon).
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I agree with most of what you put except for this. A lvl 1 town clerk is just as valuable to you as a level 15 town clerk. They will get you the same documents you request and will likely be able to provide you with the exact same info. The level 15 one will be able to go into greater detail. Having a connection in city clerk's office can be immensely useful, regardless of level. Likewise, this can be done with just about any position of even minor power. That lvl 1 farmer dad can provide you with an introduction to his local lord, or an old buddy growing up who is now captain of the town guard. Doesn't matter the contact's level, an introduction and some friendly words are some of the most powerful things an NPC can give you.
I agree with most of what you put except for this. A lvl 1 town clerk is just as valuable to you as a level 15 town clerk. They will get you the same documents you request and will likely be able to provide you with the exact same info. The level 15 one will be able to go into greater detail. Having a connection in city clerk's office can be immensely useful, regardless of level. Likewise, this can be done with just about any position of even minor power. That lvl 1 farmer dad can provide you with an introduction to his local lord, or an old buddy growing up who is now captain of the town guard. Doesn't matter the contact's level, an introduction and some friendly words are some of the most powerful things an NPC can give you.Not as powerful as a few buff spells or a magic item, free of charge. ;)
Seriously though, I wasn't clear in the paragraphs you quoted me on; I meant "aid" in the sense of mechanical benefits - that 3rd-level NPC might have some very useful contacts, but they're not going to be dropping a heal on you or making you a vorpal sword.
However, the issue of NPCs providing non-mechanical assistance is outside the scope of the issue I was raising. Any NPC - whether a total stranger or your character's spouse - can help in that manner. However, those NPCs are less likely to be usable to manipulate the PCs' reactions. When your character hears that the stranger they met in a bar several sessions ago who gave them a one-time adventure hook was assassinated, they might drop everything and run to find out who did it and why, or they might just shrug and mutter a Seinfeldian "that's a shame." When your spouse is murdered, however, there's much narrower parameters for the PC to be anything but devastated and intent on doing something about it.
Your relatives are also much less likely to stab you in the back or do what you want without question. And I would take leads, info, and contacts over getting free gear or heals any day. You can buy that stuff, and as an adventurer will be getting it anyway. You can't buy becoming friends with the head cleric and convincing him he should back you to be the next mayor, or dedicate his armies to fight beside you. New doors being opened has a price though, and if a villian (or fellow PC with a grudge) wants to firebomb your house, you have to deal with the dead family (both of these happened in a recent campaign... So awesome)
Also bear in mind that while NPCs may not advance in level, some will. Even if they don't, they can still facilitate assistance. Your uncle the swordsmith who makes magic swords (he's a master craftsman) might have been able to give you a +1 sword when you were 3rd level (after you dealt with that nasty business with the sewer-monsters). When you hit 18th he wasn't able to make you a new sword appropriate for a hero of your stature, but he had the contacts to get you one to your specifications.
As a GM I try not to wield there family against them. Especially if they went through the trouble of fleshing out there characters. I often have them be fairly capable themselves, and potential co-horts for the guys that take leadership. And yes occasionally, I will admit I sometimes use them as plot hooks, if the group just isn't going to the place they need to be going having there family either kidnapped or have left to go poke around the area of interest and not have returned are pretty nice tools to have. Plus RPing one of the characters mom and scolding them for bring there muddy armor into the house, is always priceless.
Honestly, setting up family ties is one of the strongest motivations for characters. One of my players worked up a background of his character being one of the princes of a not terribly wealthy kingdom who had enough elder siblings he was never going to get anywhere near the throne and one sociopathic younger brother who at twelve was just trying to figure out how to get himself on the throne via removing obstacles, the PC character first. This made a great reason for the PC to go off to see the world, and an even better reason for him to return later when he was a bit more experienced and encountered the ghost of one of his other brothers who'd been arrived when last he left.
After all, family drama does not mean that you have to be the focus of it.
Another PC in a previous game had the reason for her going adventuring was to get enough gold to fill her dowry chest so her poor parents wouldn't bankrupt themselves following the local custom.
Yes, the great evil can sometimes go out of its way to screw with your family, but by the same token, there are some people's families who will screw with the great evil in turn.
In the latest post over on my Pathfinder blog, Intelligence Check, I talk about how fleshing out your PC's background usually means highlighting NPCs who are your character's loved ones...which is usually just asking for the GM to use them to screw with your character.
Of course, it's hardly fair that you should be punished for good role-playing, so to make that particular part of playing your character more palatable, I introduce some new defects (basically Unearthed Arcana-style flaws) so that you can at least get a feat or two out of the deal. The link below takes you to the article; as someone with a lot of Guile once said:
I just see it as a good RP opportunity to get NPC's involved, and the "save the family member" thing becomes a side quest also.
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In the latest post over on my Pathfinder blog, Intelligence Check, I talk about how fleshing out your PC's background usually means highlighting NPCs who are your character's loved ones...which is usually just asking for the GM to use them to screw with your character.
Of course, it's hardly fair that you should be punished for good role-playing, so to make that particular part of playing your character more palatable, I introduce some new defects (basically Unearthed Arcana-style flaws) so that you can at least get a feat or two out of the deal. The link below takes you to the article; as someone with a lot of Guile once said:
Interesting blog, just go threw reading it.
Of course the unspoken part of all this is player/GM trust.
If you give me a handful of information about important family members for your character, I'm not going to have them all be straight 7's in their stats just waiting for the day I choose to kill them off. Adventurers tend to come from hardier stock and that should be at least partially seen in their family (even if they are all NPC classes). The opportunity to continue using the NPC family for role play interaction is a great reason to keep them alive for the DM, and if you give him reasons and uses for them (both for you as a player and for him as a DM) then it's all the more fun -- they are people he doesn't have to flesh out but can use -- which is a very valuable resource for a DM.
Quick story:
Had a player -- always did the unloved orphan thing because he got burned by a GM in the past. So I talk him into doing up a storied character with a family etc. I used the family to get him some stuff and got him to relax about it and enjoy the connections (he even loaned some wealth to them at one point putting himself behind where he should/needed to be). So finally I had someone kidnap them. Almost all of them -- he started to get upset when the BBEG appeared. Turns out the BBEG is LE and strongly disapproved of what his underling had done. Now there were social reasons that the BBEG couldn't be outright attacked but the BBEG removed his underling from that protection and even gave the PC's information on how best to hit his past associate.
It gave the BBEG a bit more character that the players hadn't expected and gave me a way to reinforce the player's trust too -- they got the family out safely of course and he even found a family relic that he got to use after that too.
AAAHAARAGH!! FORUM ATE MY POST AGAIN! I F%#ING HATE THIS FORUM!
Long post short:
10% of starting gold and GP value of treasure earned per level is a good starting value for BHtB, though I'd give it a cap of a maximum GP donation per level of about the cost of a 8th level item (away from my books atm, don't have set number to suggest)
While PCs are in the limelight in general, when your PC's family members are the focus of a rescue adventure, your PC is in the limelight above and beyond the other characters, which isn't exactly a drawback in many players' minds.
While you may feel the DM who attacks family members is railroading the players (I just call it a good adventure hook, if not overused), FT as written does the reverse. It railroads the DM, requiring them to attack the players family, even if it doesn't make sense for the campaign, because that is the stated balance for the bonus feat the player gets.
BHtB already includes the drawback from FT as an unstated default. If you have family that you're taking care of, then you have family that you care for ant that can be threatened. FT is unnecessary, or if both are allowed FT is objectively superior and BHtB would never be used.
All together, I strongly recommend rolling the two flaws together into a single flaw that incorporates a mechanical drawback balanced by a mechanical benefit (paying gold to support the family vs. a bonus feat) and a fluff drawback balanced by a fluff benefit (risk of danger to family members vs. the opportunity for your background to become the focal point of an adventure).