I keep noticing a lot of my characters do not really come from happy backgrounds or have good lives. Even my ideas if I do not get to play them. I want to play a gnome sorcerer know that is looking for her father who has a draconic bloodline. Her father left her before he could remember. I also wanting to play a half orc rouge that ended up growing on the streets. Another elf rouge I played was an orphan. Would GM's have a problem with playing characters with the same issues?
I was wondering if anyone else does this or knows people that do.
I keep noticing a lot of my characters do not really come from happy backgrounds or have good lives. Even my ideas if I do not get to play them. I want to play a gnome sorcerer know that is looking for her father who has a draconic bloodline. Her father left her before he could remember. I also wanting to play a half orc rouge that ended up growing on the streets. Another elf rouge I played was an orphan. Would GM's have a problem with playing characters with the same issues?
I was wondering if anyone else does this or knows people that do.
I think far too many players build a lot of tragedy into their characters in general, but it's not really a serious problem as much as it's a predictable rut. But if you're noticing it with your own PCs and asking if it's a problem, then it probably is for you. You need to come up with something different. Start with a PC who has both his parents and otherwise lives a normal life and see where that takes you.
I keep noticing a lot of my characters do not really come from happy backgrounds or have good lives. Even my ideas if I do not get to play them. I want to play a gnome sorcerer know that is looking for her father who has a draconic bloodline. Her father left her before he could remember. I also wanting to play a half orc rouge that ended up growing on the streets. Another elf rouge I played was an orphan. Would GM's have a problem with playing characters with the same issues?
I was wondering if anyone else does this or knows people that do.
It's not that uncommon for a person's PCs to have some common trends. Some prefer to play only one alignment, class, or race. Others have particular backgrounds. Some part of your mind wants to explore the theme of abandoment and loss, or identifies with those in such situations.
GMs will seldom object to a character's background unless they suspect it's a covert attempt to gain an advantage over the rest of the party ("I'm secretly the son of the god-king Hamubabbi. Kneel before me, mortals!") or it just doesn't fit the game's themes and background ("Like I mentioned last week, you're all tribal nomads from the Everonandon Desert. Let me see that new PC's sheet... Rori the Seagoing Scoundrel, Corsair Extrordinaire? Hmmm.")
It might be a problem if player each time insist that his background be included somehow in the campaign. It might be also problem if the player does not insist but instead is later angry that it wasn't involved.
On the other hand other players might have issues with another's PCs background being used too much and too much focus on single player.
All of this is very situational, however.
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Please note that happy and content people generally do not go into dungeons looking for wealth and glory.
Yeah, the role of adventurer does kinda lead itself towards selecting for people who weren't happy at home.
Media increasingly plays into this, as more and more protagonists in various TV shows, comics, etc. have 'dark' pasts. It gets a bit stale, and there's certainly plenty of room to come up with some less angsty motivations, such as wide-eyed curiousity, lust for power, some sort of quest to prove oneself, etc.
I think far too many players build a lot of tragedy into their characters in general, but it's not really a serious problem as much as it's a predictable rut.
+1 to this.
Playing tragic, crazy characters can get old really fast, especially for the other players in a group. Drama is good but if every character is a suffering, tragedy hit wreck it can get really annoying as a steady diet.
Plus, in my opinion, it is much harder to play a character with a good happy upbringing and living family than one who has conveniently had all they cared for killed before play. It is much easier for the enemies you make adventuring to strike at your living loved ones and family members than dead ones. Thus, characters with good homes can give the ref more to work with often times than ones who are all 'dark knight'.
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Any item that adds layers of complexity to character is good. Conflict or tradgety with other NPCs who are still living gives your GM fertle ground to grow story elements.
A tradgety where you are an orphan can be quite boaring.
Please note that happy and content people generally do not go into dungeons looking for wealth and glory.
+1
GMs will seldom object to a character's background unless they suspect it's a covert attempt to gain an advantage over the rest of the party ("I'm secretly the son of the god-king Hamubabbi. Kneel before me, mortals!")
But you said it was okay if I played a Godling...
This is common because why else would you be out adventuring. I mean if you had good upbringing with lots of potential you'd be working a job, raising a family and such. If things are good why would bother adventuring which leads you to all kind of trouble. I'm not saying that no one would become an adventure just for the fun of it but it would be lot less those forced into the lifestyle due to tragic circumstances.
This is common because why else would you be out adventuring.
Because the mundane life of civil repetition does not appeal to you?
Because you were born with a thirst for excitement and adventure that was not shared by your more mundane syblings and family members?
Because the tales told by storytellers and passing bards and minstrels instilled in you a NEED to see the wonders that are out in the wider world for yourself?
Because you want to live a GREAT life, one of purpose and note, legend and merit.
Because you find being an accountant, shopkeeper, farmer, apothicary, insert any other number of respectible ordinary jobs here to be mind numbingly boring and you want MORE.
Because adventurer's see amazing things, go amazing places and make amazing money and wealth.
You want to live a life less ordinary than most farmers or simple trade folks.
I would think the yearning for travel, adventure, weatlh and wonder would be a far more common reason to adventure than tragedy.
I keep noticing a lot of my characters do not really come from happy backgrounds or have good lives. Even my ideas if I do not get to play them. I want to play a gnome sorcerer know that is looking for her father who has a draconic bloodline. Her father left her before he could remember. I also wanting to play a half orc rouge that ended up growing on the streets. Another elf rouge I played was an orphan. Would GM's have a problem with playing characters with the same issues?
I was wondering if anyone else does this or knows people that do.
As a creative endeavor, roleplaying certainly involves (psychological) projection, just as writing and other kinds of storytelling do. The characters and stories you create tell you something about yourself. This is a common imaginative pattern, though, across cultural time and space. The hero, whether it is Moses, Jesus, Macduff, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Little Orphan Annie, Luke Skywalker, or one of any other of thousands, is often distanced in some way from from the "normal" experience of birth and two-parent child-rearing. We humans seem to like doing this.
If you want to mess with your fellow players a bit, play with their expectations by conspiring with your GM.
Tell the others that you're the the son of a prominent nobile family from some distant region, determined to make your fortune without drawing on the wealth and privilege that's your birthright. Your character bores the party with endless travelogues, each describing the wonders of his home. You constantly critique the inferior archetecture and food of the lesser kingdoms you visit.
All that remains of the city of your birth are the shattered spires of its towering palaces. Gnarled, ancient trees grow between the cobblesones of once-grand boulevards. Centuries of abandonment have left the place almost unrecognizable, yet your character remembers leaving only a few months earlier.
Finally, a moss-covered inscription warns travelers that the spirits of the land's rulers linger among the living, accursed to wander the world and bring others to their city. Those who rest the night among its cursed stones are forever haunted by the place, their souls eternally bound to its weathered stones.
Would GM's have a problem with playing characters with the same issues?
Maybe not a problem... ... ... but a little weird.
(Well, after the nth time, I'd probably end up - subconscious or otherwise - ignoring your character's background and not ever bring it up or do anything with it...)
If you want to mess with your fellow players a bit, play with their expectations by conspiring with your GM.
** spoiler omitted **
THIS can be a ton of fun, especially if you tend towards one type of character, but want to mix things up.
I enjoy playing female characters. Not all the time, but enough that I get harassed for it (and occasionally, I was called 'she' by my friends, when, in fact, I'm 6'10" and definitely not female).
So, I decided to mess with folk's heads, and I made a female character that was pretending to be a boy. She was doing this to find her lost twin brother, and since she had a strong resemblance, the idea was to find people that knew him, and to protect herself from predators. She eventually revealed herself (ahem, not like that) when the people looking for her brother caught up with her and she needed to disappear.
It turned out to be an AWESOME subplot (especially when she became the group's first shadow dancer). Plus it got a groan and chuckle out of the other players.
You could work with your DM to do something similar. Maybe you're lying about your past, and your parents are alive and well and painfully mundane. Maybe your character has psychological issues and mistakes someone else's past. Maybe you're hiding from them, or just wanting others to think you're tough.
Personally, I think that any sort of background can provide a good start for a DM. If you or your group is bored with it, mix it up.
As for me:
I've played other characters over the years, but I enjoy those the most (plus I DO enjoy drawing both types).
I should have made this clear earlier my gnome still thinks her father is alive so its a little different he just left.
I am horrible at lying. I mean people can read it off my face so that could cause all sorts of problems in game with weird looks on my face.
I did think of an idea I may use for a fighter later of having him be a noble that hates court so he ran away. He despises being polite and likes to eat with his hands. He will also be too blunt for court. He also wants equality and feels that nobility is not what he wants to do.
My GM likes my gnomes backgorund becuase he wants to use my father still being alive but I do not know him so it could be fun. My characters are never happy.
I used to do that all the time also, so for my last character (a wizard), I went out of my way to make him completely normal. His BFF from tot-hood is another PC in the group, he grew up with a loving family secure in their positions (servants of a noble wizard). It's kind of nice to play a character who didn't come from a broken or tragic homelife.
He recently hit 9th level and took sending as one of his free spells, specifically so he could call his mommy and let her know he was okay (they're adventuring faaaaaar from home).
I have a Half-orc that killed her own mother and was enslaved by her father. She's an Oracle of Rovagug.
My CotCT character was one of lamm's lambs, who fell in love with another, but when she escaped Lamm killed her love... She's now an inquisitor of Iomedae...
I made a character that hated his father because he was a drunkard that sometimes beat his mother.
Tragedy is a great motivator.
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Many of the character traits (Bullies, Forlorn, Dirty Fighter etc.) seem to imply an unhappy background. Besides, Pathfinders tend to be folks who kill people/monsters and take stuff. Do normal happy well-adjusted people on Golarion do that?
*** WARNING!! AMATEUR PSYCHOLOGIST ALERT!! ***
Most of the players I know come from ordinary middle class American backgrounds. We therefore tend to romanticize Dickensian life stories.
This is common because why else would you be out adventuring.Because the mundane life of civil repetition does not appeal to you?
Because you were born with a thirst for excitement and adventure that was not shared by your more mundane syblings and family members?
Because the tales told by storytellers and passing bards and minstrels instilled in you a NEED to see the wonders that are out in the wider world for yourself?
Because you want to live a GREAT life, one of purpose and note, legend and merit.
Because you find being an accountant, shopkeeper, farmer, apothicary, insert any other number of respectible ordinary jobs here to be mind numbingly boring and you want MORE.
Because adventurer's see amazing things, go amazing places and make amazing money and wealth.
You want to live a life less ordinary than most farmers or simple trade folks.
I would think the yearning for travel, adventure, weatlh and wonder would be a far more common reason to adventure than tragedy.
+1
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This is common because why else would you be out adventuring. I mean if you had good upbringing with lots of potential you'd be working a job, raising a family and such.
Just going to counter this with two of my most recent characters' backgrounds.
A Dwarf son of a blacksmith who felt overwhelmed by the insistence his family gave him in continuing the family smithing tradition, who was struck with wanderlust at a young age when a traveling bard/worshiper of Cayden Cailean passed through his town. He more so than any other Dwarf was enraptured by the god and the stories of adventure, and so be sneaked away that night and became an initiate in a temple of Cayden Cailean. Eventually he earned full priesthood and traveled to Cheliax to help resist the oppression and spread the good word.
A Gnome barely old enough to be considered a young adult who was whisked away from home by his conniving uncle, who claimed that it was time he set out to see the world and live a more exciting life to avoid the effects of the Bleaching. In reality, his uncle had used his name as a cover for one of his many schemes and been caught, and hoped to leave the country with his nephew before local authorities imprisoned them both.