Is it common for a gm to radically change a characters backstory and if so why? For instance: at the end of our last campaign we were given land to build a city/town for our efforts within the story (homebrew). It was kind of like our reward for playing. I did research and made a complete layout of the town, how it developed, how my character and the people he met after the campaign grew together and apart, and added in some things from the campaign and how he changed for the better and worse due to them. There was an organization that I worked with through the entire previous campaign the helped us to fight against an evil corporation and against some demons and devils who were the main antagonist do I added a base for them in my city because it made sense.
Long story short for the new game I decide to make a charter who is the daughter of my previous character. I write her backstory as kind of aloof and unknowing about the world but strong do to her parents coddling her. My old character (her father) died a few years back and her mother wanted to toughen her up so she was sent out to a school to learn what the world is like.
Then I find out that the good organization that we worked with all of the previous campaign took over the town and magically enslaved my new character's mother. When I asked why they would it was basically "oh there are evil and good branches so yup"
So after my initial shock and (insane amounts of) frustration I changed my entire new character background because no one is going to be like "well let me go learn about the world while my mother is enslaved" so now my character's complete reason for being and backstory is rewritten so that she is untrusting of people with magic and people in authority, and she is also obsessed with becoming more powerful so that she can save her mother.
Last session (that was like 3months ago)he alluded to my character "living a lie" or something so I think that he is about to change it again and so I'm wondering if it's common to change a character concept like this. Last time I told him how frustrated Iwas and why. if it's happening again I feel like next time I should just pick a race and class and have him tell me what character I'm role-playing.
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Well, he did do the original change before completing character creation, so that is good.
I would say that there should have been more room for negotiation when he is suddenly springing this new info on you about changes in carried over story assets.
I think I would have negotiated it so that the character doesn't know about the enslavement, and the organization is not entirely visibly evil (maybe growingly corrupt and incompetent at their stated purpose)
Essentially, springing the whole 'they are evil now and have your mother' thing should have been drawn out and discovered, rather than casually told to you out of character. It has far less gravitas that way.
No, you should have been carefree and off to see the world shortly after your mother started acting funny (but don't worry, you left her in the care of a close 'family friend' in the organization). On your journey, you would have then found more and more evidence that the organization has corruption in the ranks, and you would have found it went higher and higher up the chain of command.
And then when you try to do something about it, you find out that they have your mother under their control. Maybe they are using her against you.
That would have been effective. The GM should control the world. You should control your personality, goals, backstory...as far as you understand it. The GM can reveal that what you know is a lie later, but he should change what you believe to be true before you start. That is how you effectively negotiate a story- you make a character with a personality, mindset, and beliefs, and then the GM put your character into situations which tests each of those to create conflict.
Final verdict- the arbitrary way he changed the world dictated changes in your character, which is not good. The sudden revelation he is hinting at is within his purview... if he handles it well. Which, considering how he handled your backstory...I have doubts.
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It's generally frowned upon, for a lot of the reasons you're experiencing.
In my experience, it's best done with some level of player consent, or if you're sure the player trusts you to do so. And I mean "playing together constantly for half a decade" sure.
In your case, I'd talk to your GM privately outside the game and tell them you have concerns about this. If they're reasonable, they'll listen. Perhaps they thought you'd find it really interesting or compelling - just politely let them know that this isn't the case. And if they're not reasonable... you always have the option of leaving the game if it's not enjoyable anymore.
That's my take, anyway. ^_^
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In my experience, it's best done with some level of player consent, or if you're sure the player trusts you to do so. And I mean "playing together constantly for half a decade" sure.
This works for me.
I've had a few 'you've been lied to your whole life' retcons that shocked and stunned me.... and it made for a better game.
Keep in mind, that the peasant who finds out he's the chosen one/prince/princess/wizard/rich is a fantasy trope. So it's not like such things are UNHEARD of... But yeah, I've had a few situations of "Obi wan never told you what happened to your father did he..." moments.
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My Carrion Crown PCs, each with their own twist. The spoilers include info that came to light as the campaign went on, generally without player input.
Lyra, human magus: exiled from her Chelaxian noble family for being a lesbian and/or bastard child. (The player wanted that element, so I edited some elements of Golarion's background.) Her father was to kill her best friend if she were ever associated with him, due to tainting the family name.
Thanos Su'Koth, dhampir cleric of Urgathoa: sent to Ustalav by his vampire mother, a Blood Lord of Geb, to foil the Whispering Way. He always wondered how he came to be, since vampire women are incapable of bearing children...
Bordana, aasimar cleric of Desna: Bordana came from a lovely caravan of Varisians. Once she had the capability, she began sending messages to her mother daily, just to see how things were.
Sometimes no twist is just fine.
Tessara, elf witch: The player was new to roleplaying, and not much good at getting into it. She specifically didn't address her backstory, and I did a lot of the work creating and leveling her character.
They've since met the "real" one: Princess Misoyvel, once a princess of the elven land of Sovyrian, exiled for evil magic and plotting, and now a lich of the Whispering Way.
So, twists and turns and dramatic reveals aplenty. For the most part, they've enjoyed it. ^_^
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As a GM, I haven't really tried dramatic reveal type plots for my PCs. That said, I imagine they would be a lot less intrusive if the reveals came from intentionally omitted parts of the PC's backstory.
Maybe the PC owns some heirloom whose significance is unknown.
Maybe the PC is a witch, and doesn't know the identity of the Patron.I expect a GM taking advantage of these kinds of 'backstory black boxes' for a dramatic reveal to be less intrusive than a GM having the dramatic reveal modify the PC's current backstory as written.
Patrons are great for this sort of thing. ^_^
Really, having at least one person realize what they believe to be true is actually a lie is a rather well recognized genre trait of either the hero or one of their companion.
It is a driving motivation that can go much further than simply knowing that you need to save someone. It brings discovery and a sense of betrayal that precedes and seasons the search for those responsible and attempt to resolve the situation. It can bring so much more to the story than him just plot dumping it on your out of story.
It is not hard to have your cake and find out that there is secretly an assassin hiding in it too. You can have the character you want, he can have his world building, and everything becomes richer because there is cake...I mean new conflict that can occur throughout the campaign.
A GM should never, ever change your backstory.
Developments building off said backstory, however...
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A GM has to either work collaborately with the player during backstory creation, or make some adjustments (even if its just names and places) to fit in with the world and campaign setting. So yes GMs change PCs backstories all the time.
The difference is, you try very hard to come to a happy arrangement with the players in the process. I would never drastically alter the PCs backstory, in particular after they created it in that much detail. If a player has put that much detail into their backstory, it means they are envisioning this in their head and playing the story there a fair amount already to come up with that depth. If you mess with that, you are basically buzz-killing that player and diminishing their desire to play. It had better be damned important and critical to the game at hand to do that. And the GM had better be willing to offer us some juicy incentives if they have to force a player to take major changes like that....
...my 2 cents :)
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A GM should never, ever change your backstory.
Developments building off said back story, however...
I am sorry, but I disagree. In my mind, a character's back story is a cooperative effort by both the GM and Player. I would never give a player carte blanche for creating his character's back story as there would likely be elements that would conflict with my campaign.
For instance, when one of my player's made up a recent character, he wanted him to be the son of a very wealthy merchant whose parents met a terrible demise and the son was left to be raised by an uncle. While that in itself is a very acceptable idea for a back story, it would mean that I would need to incorporate a new wealthy merchant family and company into the history of a city that I had already developed around a story arc (and I really did not want to have to redo that work). Instead, I asked the player if he would be OK with his family being up-and-coming merchants on the brink of making it from lower class into middle class. He was OK with it and in the end, we came up with a nicely defined back story that had some good flavor, intrigue, and a number of unanswered questions as to what happened to his family and his families holdings. He was quite happy with it.
Also, there were several elements of his back story that were explained in one way that I had planned to actually mean something completely different due to information that the character was not aware of. There is nothing wrong with that.
A GM should never feel that he cannot change any aspect of the campaign. That includes anything that the players have created. However, a GM should also consider the ramifications of making changes to aspects of the campaign that player's hold dear as it may upset the player. For example, destroying a player's favorite magic item on a whim is generally a bad idea; but if a story arc leads to the destruction of the favored item by a character's nemesis because of some previous encounter, that may be just fine (as long as destroying the item has more meaning than just destroying the item).
I got tired of "my entire family is dead and I want revenge". So I started changing them to make the players work harder on their story or I will change it.
I also am under the illusion that people do not know everything that their parents did before you came along so how do you know that they did not hunt monsters before you showed up on the scene and stopped their fun.
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As a GM, I write around the PC's background, while trying to be faithful to their concept as I understand it (and I do encourage my players to detail their backgrounds before play begins).
That said, some things might be actually different from what they believe. And I feel that once we are started, their background elements become part of my world and I can have them evolve any way I feel necessary for telling a more interesting story.
I do not like crushing a PC's background though. That is really stepping on the player's toes. Quite disrespectful to a fellow creator IMO.
So essentially; some do it and some don't and when done right it can be an enriching experience. I think my experience was more like what kestral said. I played an entire campaign in this world so I purposely wrote the story to fit it and to be honest I didn't see a reason to change it. I was more attached to my last character (my first character playing a game like this) than the current one so I put a lot of thought into how I wanted his story to end. It seems like it was arbitrarily changed with no impact on the current story and while I'm sure the story will pass through what happened there and why, I cannot see how it was mandatory.
That being said I'm grateful for everyone's input. Thank you for helping me see it from other perspectives.
Was it like
- game starts, first thing that happens, town gets taken over and your mother enslaved.
or was it more like
- Here's my backstory. Cool... oh wait no, this won't work, that town's been enslaved by <organization> for several years leading up to the campaign BTW that would totally include your mom.
If it was the first thing then the DM has done nothing wrong other than rely a little heavily on a trope or two. Your character got blindsided by a raw deal, no need to change backstory but time to react to circumstances.
If it was the second one then it's a little more of a grey area. He has every right to establish the history of how an NPC organization has behaved in the past X years. If he knew you were planning on a character that would be tied to the history of the area then perhaps he could/should have been a little more forthcoming with the information but my gut reaction is to cut the GM some slack. We have a lot of different information floating around in our heads and deciding what information PCs need to have and what to save for dramatic reveals can be a tricky needle to thread.
- Torger
NPCs integral to a PCs backstory are doubly a grey area.
On the one hand the DM saying what, no your uncle was totally a drunken abusive pedophile... not cool. *example exaggerated for the purpose of making a point.*
On the other hand you've infiltrated the home base of the thieves guild that you've been in a cold war with for the whole campaign, past a bulwark of traps and guards you've penetrated the guild master's inner sanctum. As the door splinters forcing your ingress a figure by the moonlit window calmly turns to face you. With a casual smirk she greets you, "Hello dear". A chill runs down your spine, that voice permeates your earliest memories. It's your mother.
Kind of awesome and impossible to have happen unless the DM gets to muck about with your backstory NPCs the same way he does all other NPCs. It's a trust exercise and can be the best part of a game or also the worst.
- Torger
I am getting a lot of gm perspective and I like seeing it from both sides but I will say this: if you tell a player he can build something and he spends weeks on it and you ok it only to take the core of that and smash it aweek later don't expect that kind of commitment again.
@lazarx if you want to play a laid back character shouldn't that be your choice?
@ torger it was more like "have you cities ready because we are starting the new campaign next month." After emailing him the backstory he said it was fine and the week we met up to play he told me the that the organization enslaved her mother. When I asked why and explained that just by being in the town they were protected, had access to making magical items with her help at a far faster rate, had help with anyone who would attack them, and had an ally (a virtual army dedicated to fighting evil) against the evil organization from the other game so why would they do that with so much to gain and after being good all of the previous campaign (with examples of why they would be considered good) he was basically like "well some branches of the organization are evil"
One thing I'd point out, is that the OP doesn't give an example of something that is purely backstory, it is also a continuing campaign. The father was his previous PC, and is seems at least plausible that the mother is a previous existing NPC.
Now it is all well and good in a continuing campaign to have your PCs be the children of the previous generation, but when you are dealing with existing characters, and existing NPCs in a story that is ongoing it is completely possible that the GM may have plans for those NPCs and you really can't expect to write their story or control their behavior.
I'm not sure if that what has happened here, but if the GM had some reasons for the NPC that became this characters mom do be enslaved, then the player does need to modify their backstory to accommodate the evolving world.
Clearly though the GM could have been better at explaining the issue and helping the player deal with their frustrated feelings.
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why would they do that with so much to gain and after being good all of the previous campaign (with examples of why they would be considered good) he was basically like "well some branches of the organization are evil"
That's viable if he's got a decent reason for it. They could be The Spanish Inquisition sect of the group - meaning well but with an extreme 'ends justify the means' vibe.
It is kinda a jerk move to tell you that the backstory was fine on day X, and then throw you a curveball a few weeks later though. Though - if he did go for The Spanish Inqusition vibe it makes sense... no one expects The Spanish Inqusition!
I am getting a lot of gm perspective and I like seeing it from both sides but I will say this: if you tell a player he can build something and he spends weeks on it and you ok it only to take the core of that and smash it aweek later don't expect that kind of commitment again.
@lazarx if you want to play a laid back character shouldn't that be your choice?
@ torger it was more like "have you cities ready because we are starting the new campaign next month." After emailing him the backstory he said it was fine and the week we met up to play he told me the that the organization enslaved her mother. When I asked why and explained that just by being in the town they were protected, had access to making magical items with her help at a far faster rate, had help with anyone who would attack them, and had an ally (a virtual army dedicated to fighting evil) against the evil organization from the other game so why would they do that with so much to gain and after being good all of the previous campaign (with examples of why they would be considered good) he was basically like "well some branches of the organization are evil"
Ok, NOW THAT is a jerk move.
If he changed it in the original reply, it would have more arguing room. That would have been the time to iron out any conflicts between your backstory and the GM's preexisting plans for the same NPCs.
But suddenly changing a major foundation and thus forcing the character to radically shift their motivations at the very time you come to actually play the character? Now that has little excuse. That counts more as randomly changing your backstory during play, since you have absolutely no time to rewrite and reconsider your character in that circumstance.
And it seems so arbitrary. Just 'they are evil now'. As I suggested, having it seem legit, and then slowly finding that the people in charge are doing nasty things in the background is a much, much better way to handle this. It makes the transition of the organization's image more real, since you are following the realization of this corruption.
There should be a meeting in the middle between player and GM. If you feel like your input has been ignored, then you should follow the advice given above and talk to your GM about it.
In one of my campaigns, a new player joined and created a character that traveled from Tian Xia to the Inner Sea in search of his long lost brother. The player left it up to me to determine what had happened to his brother, so I plunked him down in the Darklands.
Now my player has a plot thread to unravel and follow to find his lost brother. The player gave me the basic thread to work with and I developed it for him.
Your Gm seems to be doing something similar but has changed things you didn't want changed. Again, discuss this out of game and see what you can do about changing it to something you are happy with.
Think this is going to be added to my list of "gamer expectations" checklist for gaming with new people...
I'm curious if this is another disconnect in the various gaming cultures and how things are done.
Do folks have their GM approve their character history / backstory before the game starts to make sure everything is kosher for the game world, or do folks just show up with characters and the GM doesn't bother to check these things?
For me (and most of the folks I play non-PFS games with), we try to make sure all of the background stuff fits the campaign before we ever actually play the 1st game, sometimes even doing "Session 0" meetings to make sure everyone's on the same page thematically & power-level wise.
As a player, if a GM approved a background I'd want a good reason why they changed their mind.
If they didn't approve my background, I'd anticipate that I might need to adapt for things that are planned for the campaign or which I may be unaware of as a PC that would render things either impossible or change the focus of the game.
As a GM (and even more when I was the creative director of a LARP), I've had to shoot down backstories and character histories for a variety of reasons, especially when players go around making up their own abilities or metaphysics that don't fit the paradigm of the campaign or might contradict something which is game-defining or necessary for game exposition.
For your specific example, things often get weird when transitioning from campaign to campaign.
Is it the same GM from the prior campaign, and did they let you know that it was a continuation of that campaign?
It is never good when players and GMs clash over the things that keep players invested in their character. Good luck getting it resolved.
-TimD
This is a homebrew which is kind of... a persistent/ evolving world with the same gm. My old character married his cohort, neither of which existed in the world until i created them, the town also didn't exist so he couldn't have had plans for them. It is possible that he read the backstory and was like "aha! this will be a cool idea" but the way that it was presented was "do whatever you want with this place" and then changed to "because *I* want you to play *this* character here is your new backstory, roleplay it." The problem I have with it is that you wasted my time and effort, destoryed my previous character by messing up the ending, because you wanted to change something that didnt have to be. It's like watching the neverending story remastered only to find out that falcor was working with the nothing all along...
Again, this was months ago and I pretty much just rolled with it because whatever but now it seems like hes about to change it again which is why I was wondering if it is typical. If i don't have any control over my character why am I thinking up a backstory to begin with? If you want a world full of troubled broken people and no one ever has a proper family that's fine, it's your boat and I will help row it. Just don't pretend I have options when I don't.
Again, this is just my perspective. You know where I have a terrible back story that I had to overcome? Real life. The reason I like magic users in games is because in real life there is none.
As a player shouldn't I have the right to play a character with a happy upbringing? Isn't that the point of a backstory? Hell most of the time I think up a backstory, then character concept, then race/class etc. If you change the backstory I have to change everything else because everything else was chosen based on that. If I have no notice I have to find a way to pigeonhole this race/class into a new backstory because you changed something that didn't need to be changed.
This is a homebrew which is kind of... a persistent/ evolving world with the same gm. My old character married his cohort, neither of which existed in the world until i created them, the town also didn't exist so he couldn't have had plans for them. It is possible that he read the backstory and was like "aha! this will be a cool idea" but the way that it was presented was "do whatever you want with this place" and then changed to "because *I* want you to play *this* character here is your new backstory, roleplay it." The problem I have with it is that you wasted my time and effort, destoryed my previous character by messing up the ending, because you wanted to change something that didnt have to be. It's like watching the neverending story remastered only to find out that falcor was working with the nothing all along...
Again, this was months ago and I pretty much just rolled with it because whatever but now it seems like hes about to change it again which is why I was wondering if it is typical. If i don't have any control over my character why am I thinking up a backstory to begin with? If you want a world full of troubled broken people and no one ever has a proper family that's fine, it's your boat and I will help row it. Just don't pretend I have options when I don't.
Again, this is just my perspective. You know where I have a terrible back story that I had to overcome? Real life. The reason I like magic users in games is because in real life there is none.
As a player shouldn't I have the right to play a character with a happy upbringing? Isn't that the point of a backstory? Hell most of the time I think up a backstory, then character concept, then race/class etc. If you change the backstory I have to change everything else because everything else was chosen based on that. If I have no notice I have to find a way to pigeonhole this race/class into a new backstory because you changed something that didn't need to be changed.
This is the stuff you need to tell your GM. If you aren't happy with the changes, then he needs to be aware. Roleplaying should be a synthesis of ideas - from your ideas for your character, to your GM's ideas for the world. If you go on playing without having an in-depth discussion about this, you're not going to be happy.
A GM should never, ever change your backstory.
Developments building off said back story, however...
I am sorry, but I disagree. In my mind, a character's back story is a cooperative effort by both the GM and Player. I would never give a player carte blanche for creating his character's back story as there would likely be elements that would conflict with my campaign.
For instance, when one of my player's made up a recent character, he wanted him to be the son of a very wealthy merchant whose parents met a terrible demise and the son was left to be raised by an uncle. While that in itself is a very acceptable idea for a back story, it would mean that I would need to incorporate a new wealthy merchant family and company into the history of a city that I had already developed around a story arc (and I really did not want to have to redo that work). Instead, I asked the player if he would be OK with his family being up-and-coming merchants on the brink of making it from lower class into middle class. He was OK with it and in the end, we came up with a nicely defined back story that had some good flavor, intrigue, and a number of unanswered questions as to what happened to his family and his families holdings. He was quite happy with it.
Also, there were several elements of his back story that were explained in one way that I had planned to actually mean something completely different due to information that the character was not aware of. There is nothing wrong with that.
I don't see why any of this required changing the character's backstory.
It wouldn't have required "introducing a new merchant family". They're all dead. There USED TO BE a new merchant family, and now there's not. Where's the conflict?
Even if they were still alive...so? It's not like it changes anything significant in either case. It is literally just a matter of erasing the current number you have written down and writing in the new number. What "work"?
It's good that he was okay with the changes, but what if he wasn't? It would be perfectly understandable that your player too did not want to "re-do the work" they had spent making their story either.
And all in all it seems...odd that you'd spend the time to re-write his entire backstory, which seems like a lot more work than just working in a small merchant family that no longer exists into the history of your city.
Or hell, go with the smallest change possible: it was in a different city, but his uncle lives here.
I dunno. I'm sure it seemed like a logical sequence of events from the inside, but after the fact it doesn't make much sense to me.
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When I GM campaigns in games, I usually "negotiate" character backgrounds.
Sometimes I give an outline of what I need of characters in order to fit into the campaign we will be running.
Sometimes a submitted background just won't work with what I'll be running, so I'll suggest some alternative ideas that can make it better fit.
Sometimes character creation is a back and forth with co creating, where the player suggests the type of character they would like to play, I suggest ways they could fit into the campaign, and then we have give and take from there to flesh out a final concept.
This doesn't mean you throw out player ideas. Try to let the player play what they want to play. Just make sure that the final product will work for everyone.
TLDR: I like to create characters as a collaboration between a player and GM in order to help make characters fit the campaign.
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I got tired of "my entire family is dead and I want revenge". So I started changing them to make the players work harder on their story or I will change it.
I also am under the illusion that people do not know everything that their parents did before you came along so how do you know that they did not hunt monsters before you showed up on the scene and stopped their fun.
I agree...the next player who tells me this gets a lich for a dad who is the bbeg of the entire campaign and his mom is going to be the head vampires for her own clan.
And the player has a responsibility to craft a backstory that is coherent and fits the campaign. *shrugs* Pathfinder storytelling is a collaborative process and both players and GM have rights and responsibilities.
There's the key word.
The GM and player should be working together to create something that both are happy with. It's win-win. It ties the character into the world itself, giving them a sense of belonging while the GM knows more about the character giving them an easier to time motivate both the character and player and craft plotlines and stories that directly relate to them. Among the best sessions and where the players were most invested were the ones that have drawn on character backgrounds that were done together.
I also suggest letting the player gives suggestions for potential npc allies and antagonists. When I introduced a new group I did this and they gave me a slew of creative NPCs and enemies to use leading to some really memorable moments.
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I agree...the next player who tells me this gets a lich for a dad who is the bbeg of the entire campaign and his mom is going to be the head vampires for her own clan.I got tired of "my entire family is dead and I want revenge". So I started changing them to make the players work harder on their story or I will change it.
I also am under the illusion that people do not know everything that their parents did before you came along so how do you know that they did not hunt monsters before you showed up on the scene and stopped their fun.
That actually sounds pretty awesome. It's basically Luke Skywalker's backstory x2 - only undead instead of Sith.
Changing a Player Character's backstory, without their permission?
No. Just...no. I have made characters from a PCs backstory go evil or such before, but I made clear that if the players put an NPC in the backstory, I might use them. On the other hand, I've also had the NPCs in their backstories actually help and matter (and not kidnapped or killed them), so I go both ways with it.
But IMO? Talking to the player about tweaking the backstory is reasonable. Doing it without their permission is a good way to get yourself hated and blacklisted.
This is a homebrew which is kind of... a persistent/ evolving world with the same gm. My old character married his cohort, neither of which existed in the world until i created them, the town also didn't exist so he couldn't have had plans for them. It is possible that he read the backstory and was like "aha! this will be a cool idea" but the way that it was presented was "do whatever you want with this place" and then changed to "because *I* want you to play *this* character here is your new backstory, roleplay it." The problem I have with it is that you wasted my time and effort, destoryed my previous character by messing up the ending, because you wanted to change something that didnt have to be. It's like watching the neverending story remastered only to find out that falcor was working with the nothing all along...
Again, this was months ago and I pretty much just rolled with it because whatever but now it seems like hes about to change it again which is why I was wondering if it is typical. If i don't have any control over my character why am I thinking up a backstory to begin with? If you want a world full of troubled broken people and no one ever has a proper family that's fine, it's your boat and I will help row it. Just don't pretend I have options when I don't.
Again, this is just my perspective. You know where I have a terrible back story that I had to overcome? Real life. The reason I like magic users in games is because in real life there is none.
As a player shouldn't I have the right to play a character with a happy upbringing? Isn't that the point of a backstory? Hell most of the time I think up a backstory, then character concept, then race/class etc. If you change the backstory I have to change everything else because everything else was chosen based on that. If I have no notice I have to find a way to pigeonhole this race/class into a new backstory because you changed something that didn't need to be changed.
This kind of stuff is why so many adventurers are orphaned murderhobos.
It's only happened to me once that I can recall, and it wasn't PF or D&D but the old DC Heroes superhero game. I was royally pissed off and only played in the one game where he did it.
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My first GM in 3.0 not only changed my background but also changed my class and race. I was going to play a Human Monk who had lived at the temple all his live training to serve the church. He told me I was playing a Dwarf Fighter because he needed it to go with the story for another player's character that was an Elf Ranger. He turned my character into Gimli, except he was a drunk and picked fights all the time. I went from LN to CN. That was his choice too. That was the last time he GM'd for our group.
My first GM in 3.0 not only changed my background but also changed my class and race. I was going to play a Human Monk who had lived at the temple all his live training to serve the church. He told me I was playing a Dwarf Fighter because he needed it to go with the story for another player's character that was an Elf Ranger. He turned my character into Gimli, except he was a drunk and picked fights all the time. I went from LN to CN. That was his choice too. That was the last time he GM'd for our group.
Wow.
Just. Wow.
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I have to say this is ringing warning bells for me know especially the "you are living a lie" after you changed your character to match his story.
There's ways to do what he seems to want as others have said e.g evil is trying to corrupt the organisation and with the last great bulwark (her father) gone (perhaps due to foul deeds) they're making their move and either. ..
The guys fighting it controlled your mother for the greater good or
The villains mind controlled her as part of their plans.
Either offers lots of scope for adventures without torpedoing your backstory. "After some time adventuring you receive ominous rumblings of dark things happening in your home town."
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My first GM in 3.0 not only changed my background but also changed my class and race. I was going to play a Human Monk who had lived at the temple all his live training to serve the church. He told me I was playing a Dwarf Fighter because he needed it to go with the story for another player's character that was an Elf Ranger. He turned my character into Gimli, except he was a drunk and picked fights all the time. I went from LN to CN. That was his choice too. That was the last time he GM'd for our group.Wow.
Just. Wow.
Near the end of 3.x I ended up making a Dwarf Gestalt Fighter/Cleric. I hadn't played a Dwarf since the one he had me play. He asked me why I played Dwarves all the time when I made my character. I wanted to punch him.
My first GM in 3.0 not only changed my background but also changed my class and race. I was going to play a Human Monk who had lived at the temple all his live training to serve the church. He told me I was playing a Dwarf Fighter because he needed it to go with the story for another player's character that was an Elf Ranger. He turned my character into Gimli, except he was a drunk and picked fights all the time. I went from LN to CN. That was his choice too. That was the last time he GM'd for our group.
Oh man. My first 3.0 DM pulled almost the same thing.
I was gonna play a big ole' Half-Orc Barbarian with a bit of Mongolian flair, got sick and missed the character creation session. So I make the character on my own, bring the sheet to the first session and get handed a sheet for the character I'll actually be playing - a LN Dwarven Cleric of Obad-Hai (God of Nature). I'm also informed that he's a forgotten god and that I'm his only worshipper.
Now I rolled with the punch, went with it, and had a blast trying to convert the world, but looking back on it I'm just stunned.
The whole last cleric thing never came up in the campaign either...
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If you trust your GM, you can purposefully leave holes in your backstory for the GM to play with. Heck, you can do that just because you're lazy, too.
Korthis, you sound wonderfully creative but also a little controlling and overly sensitive...like many talented artists can be. Every good writer can use an editor but submitting to an editor is a painful process. Not that the DM in question is your editor, I do think there is a legitimate comparison in the processes to help recognize that writer can't get too personally invested in or attached to their work.
It doesn't seem like your DM did a terrible thing IMHO. He used your work as the framework for his own, which is very common in RPG's especially in a living world that you are helping create as you play. I think you should, as others have mentioned, consider this a compliment.