If a player's backstory's is that of an amnesiac, how okay is it for the dm to then fill in what they were before the amnesia occured?
>>47213125
No. Tell the player to stop being lazy and actually put the effort into making their own character. You're the DM, you're already making the entire world and plotlines within it, if someone can't be arsed to even do THEIR OWN CHARACTER, don't let them play.
>>47213164
That seems a little extreme
Here's what ya do. Ya makes a backstory like ya nermally would, cuz it's stuff that actually happened, then ya say "but me dude don't know nona that, cuz he's amnesiac"
>>47213125
Usually there just needs to be some communication and understanding befire hand. I offered up a character to be an amnesiac with some tie to the bigger plot in his past because both DM and I agreed my previous character (who was kill) and no one else had any honest ties to the greater plot and I wanted to be balls deep involved in the campaign.
Didn't help three other members of the party never had any real idea how to play, much less bothered to learn or remember shit about the setting or even the campaign story
Either do >>47213164 or >>47213175 desu senpai.
The other option is don't give him any real say in what his backstory is and you just reveal it as it goes no matter how stupid or crazy it is since he basically handed you a blank check.
hmm, someone had some kind of disadvantage with his amnesia, i wonder if i cant find it.
basically, the character had amnesia and the Gm would often bring up negative effects in game like they run into a group of people the player wronged, or running into a giant he banged and they had a kid and she's angry he wasn't there for the kid. stuff like that.
>>47213171
How is it "extreme" to expect your players to put in a basic level of effort and make their own character? The hobby is called ROLE PLAYING.
You ask the player what they want to happen with it.
And you hope for the blank check.
>>47213125
Ask the player, obviously.
>>47213164
You sound like you've had a bad experience with a lazy roleplayer, which had to do with them being a lazy roleplayer, and nothing to do with amnesia specifically.
The best game I ever ran was largely based around a character with amnesia. I was able to twist him around into everyone elses backstory, in ways both real and imagined, to the point that one guy thought he had killed his father, one girl though he was her long lost father, and he himself spent the whole game looking for a cure for a wife he didn't even have, only to learn that he had been betrayed years earlier by the guy who they'd all bee working for the whole game. It all turned out pretty great, and led to some of the best roleplaying I've ever had in my games.
>>47213125
Are you the same OP that made the thread about wanting to literally copy MGSV on one of your players without them knowing?
What did you do, just shake up the presentation for this thread?
>>47213524
Hmm, in the original thread, the GM said they were planning on doing it even though the character already had a backstory... this time the GM seems to be asking if it's OK to do it if the player explicitly doesn't have one or explicitly doesn't know their own backstory...
Still... very similar, isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if you're right about them being the same person.
Players should make their backstory even if the character doesn't know it. Character amnesia without a backstory is just lazy.
>>47213125
>Just write a fanfiction for me or some shit, I'm just here for the combat, I don't give a shit about this "story" stuff.
>>47213219
This. If a player wants to not make part of his character, then by default it falls on the GM to do it, and you should make whatever.
You don't want to make it super exciting, because that's giving them the spotlight when they did nothing to earn and and said nothing to say they wanted it. Make them a farmer's son who left to make a living in the big city, got kicked by a draft horse in the head, woke up near a weaponsmith, and decided that adventuring was a good career.
>>47213125
>how okay is it for the dm to then fill in what they were before the amnesia occured?
As OK as the referee and player initially agreed to during character creation.
If the player is too lazy to talk about it with their referee, all bets are off.
>>47213164
You've got the wrong attitude m8. If you're looking at DMing as "work I have to do" you're not cut out for running a game. How is crafting a sidequest/character plothook for an amnesiac any different from regular sidestory crafting? I'd argue they;ve even made it easier for you. If a character tell me they're from the eaterlands of Norgorth and their father was a raider who abandoned the family, it could be expected a DM might bring that up eventually. But with an amnesiac you've got no restriction. Character is playing lawful good? Make them a reaver who was memory cursed into becoming a do-gooder by a wronged mage. Character is evil? They were a summoned messiah for some kind of doom cult but the ritual was interrupted and their memories erased. That took me like 15 seconds to come up with, surely you could do more with the time it takes between sessions.
Become a DM because you actually enjoy storycrafting and the people you play with or don't become one at all. It's your responsibility to be the narrator, If your PCs were creative they'd be DMs themselves.
Most people stop at the PC. But not me.
