The PC Driven Campaign

PC motivations usually fall somewhere between "I like money" and "I don't like that guy." In there is the driving force that leads most PCs to risk their lives. Isn't there anything deeper than that going on? These PCs often have very rough origin stories. Most of them lost their parents at a young age and had to practically raise themselves. Let's try to add something to that.

The PC driven campaign requires a different outlook on how missions are given. You aren't going to want that mysterious stranger in the tavern ordering the PCs around for petty amounts of gold and "whatever they find in the dungeon." No, your missions will come straight from the PCs' backstories. They will create their own missions and you will set them up. The goal of this is to have the PCs actively searching for what they seek. Whether they find it through rumors, by accident, or from that mysterious stranger, the point is they find it and not the other way around.

Money and Treasure


This PC seeks money and treasure, and not for greedy reasons. This PC's parents (if they live) owe a debt that they cannot pay and the PC seeks the funds to save his/her parents. This PC may also seek to one day open up a shop in a big city and saves for that day. Perhaps, the PC seeks only to contribute all of the money and treasure he/she finds to his/her temple or church.

Pilgrimage


This PC is looking for a series of shrines or some other artifact. Maybe, the church sent this PC out to pray at shrines across the country, or maybe they sent this PC to find a special artifact for the temple. Maybe as a right of passage, this PC must single-handedly defeat a giant and bring it's head back to his/her tribe.

Out for Blood


This PC has an enemy that he/she seeks to vanquish. This enemy could be something like "all goblins" or "the man who murdered my parents." It could also be more vague like "all evil." Whatever it is, this PC is actively hunting it.

Glory and Honor


This PC seeks glory and honor for reasons of pride or to honor his/her parents or church or tribe. This PC will take on difficult, high profile jobs that will put him/her in the spotlight. This PC may already be famous in some places.

Some of these could take charge of a campaign if you are not careful. Remember that every PC will have motivations and will want to fulfill his/her goals, so don't let the game focus on just one.

At least two things can come from this type of campaign. The in and out game where each PC leaves the group after accomplishing his/her goals and then the player brings in another PC to replace the one who left. Or, the bonded campaign where, having completed his/her task, the PCs stick together until everyone has completed his/her quest.

Feel free to change, use, and abuse this idea in any way you like.

Better Backstories

A character's backstory is a great tool from which to draw for both GMs and Players; it is also a great way to engage everyone on more levels of the game. So, why is it that we settle for such poor unoriginal stories? Why are all the parents dead? From where are all these orphans coming? It's a real epidemic, but it helps explain the lack of friends or enemies. These characters were never properly raised and don't know how to interact with other people—what else could explain their behavior?

Next time you start a game, tell yourself and your players that you will not settle for mediocre characters anymore. “Because you always wanted to” is not a good enough reason to join the militia. “Because your parents forced you” is not a good enough reason to pursue a career in magic.

These characters often have nothing to lose but their possessions and their lives and they risk all of it every day. Why is that? Why are they willing to put their lives in so much danger? Money is not a good enough motivation, and neither is depression due to the loss of family. What is the goal of the PCs?

Try this, make a list of things you could use from the backstories of your characters: people, events, places, items, etc. Take that list, and use everything on it.

If your list isn't as long as you'd hoped, then next time you run a game, ask for something more acceptable. Make your players flesh out your world for you. Ask for a friend, an enemy, a place, a meaningful event, and a special item, and make sure every PC has one in his or her story that links to the PC in some way. If you have a party of four, you have twenty plot items for you to abuse.

A Friend

A childhood friend, a pen pal, a friend from work, a close cousin or brother, etc. This person means a lot to the PC and should have a large impact on the PC's life.

An Enemy

A childhood rival, an evil twin, an evil landlord, etc. This person has caused deliberate harm to the PC on more than one occasion and causes the PC's blood to boil at the mention of her or his name.

A Place

Home towns are too easy and will not do. You need something less obvious. A first dungeon, a mysterious island that the PC stared upon as a child, a town to which the PC cannot go for fear of being hanged. These are more exciting and can provide more fuel to a smoldering game.

A Meaningful Event

This is something that has changed the PC's perspective on life and has led the PC to where she or he now is. This is something that haunts the PC's dreams. Births and deaths are easy, but acceptable. The death of parents is not acceptable. This can be a future event envisioned by the PC in a dream, or a massacre the PC took a part in, or an earthquake that swallowed a mountain. Something powerful with a bit of mystery sprinkled in.

A Special Item

This is something that the PC and others revere. Perhaps, it is a family heirloom or the ancient hero's sword that the PC now carries or the necklace the PC's daughter made before the PC left for good. Whatever it is, it's important.

The Parents Are Dead Conundrum

Okay, it's time to address this whole 'my parents are dead' thing. What is the problem here, players!? Where are all the parents going? And, why is it that it's the same old story? You know the story—bandits killed my parents. Enough is enough. Let's make our parents interesting. What do you think?

Targets of Assassination

We're going to transition into this slowly. Your parents are still dead; only this time, bandits aren't the cause. No, this is something a lot more intriguing. Your parents were assassinated. And, get this! It was on purpose! Your parents were some pretty important people and some other people needed them dead. Who did it? Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but you as a player know. Write it in! Maybe the mafia killed your parents and your character has no idea who did it; it's more interesting when there's a face attached to your parents' killers.

Sacrificed

We're keeping your parents dead, so don't have a panic attack, but the next entry won't be so kind, prepare yourself. In this one, your parents were sacrificed or sacrificed themselves. Your god was demanding human sacrifices and your parents were picked. Right before your eyes, they were killed and offered to appease your god. Your parents were part of a ritual that claimed their lives and the result of the ritual marked you for life. Perhaps, it even granted you strange powers because of the ritual. Your parents entered a long-fought war and were killed in battle, or so read the report....

Ex-Adventurers

Don't adventurers ever settle? Do they all become merchants? Well, this time it's your parents. Maybe, only one of them was an adventurer and came home periodically until that time he or she left and never returned. What if your parents had met while adventuring together and decided to settle down and have kids? Would it be so bad to have somebody, anybody to come home to? Besides, they probably made plenty of friends who will recognize your name too, and maybe they made a few enemies as well....

Nobles

That last one probably threw you off, so we'll go back to something you know well—the noble parents. It's going to be different this time. This time, you didn't rebel and leave on bad terms, no. In fact, your parents encouraged you to become an adventurer. They loved the idea so much, they even had you specially trained to be able to go out on your own!

Trying to Kill You

“Egads!” you say. “Why on Earth would this be the case!?”

It's simple. You know it's going to happen if you leave your parents alive. GMs get off on turning your parents against you. Why not just do it yourself? Your parents despise your existence. They see you as a stain that needs to be cleaned, and the only way to do that is to kill you. You've been running from them for almost your entire life, and you've never been able to completely shake them off you. Those suckers are just too determined to see you dead. Maybe it's your fault and maybe it isn't; they're trying to kill you either way.

The best part about all of these? You know who your parents are! No more 'I never knew my parents!'

Taking the Focus off Player Characters

The latest trend in gaming seems to be a focus on characters—developing their personalities and ignoring the numbers or, more likely, using the numbers as a way of development the characters as more than just stat blocks. How can I get my players to roleplay? How can I get my players to involve their PCs more with the game? How can I integrate my PCs' backstories into the world? These are common questions asked by GMs that focus on the Player Characters. Players are asking similar questions. How can I better develop my character and his/her personality? What are my character's motivations?

All of those questions are good questions to ask and can help build an involved game that can draw a lot of attention to the characters; however, perhaps we spend too much time worrying about PCs and perhaps we focus on them too much.

As players, it is easy to look to your character as your portal into the game world: as a vessel that lets you experience all that the world has to offer; therefore, it's easy to put all of our focus on development that character to be exactly what we want. This can create some issues, and many of them are common for us to experience.

Often, we will make a character and have an ideal development for that character. We can picture the character perfectly in our minds and know their personality in and out, but when we play the character, we grow disappointed in how they turn out. This might be because when we picture the character in our minds, he or she is the main focus—the main character, but when we play that isn't true; all of the PCs become the main character and, in a sense, none of them do. We each focus on our own characters and their developments while ignoring all the other characters and possibly even the world itself.

What if we began asking different questions? What is an interesting story that I can run to get my players interested? What's a cool situation that I can throw in to force the characters to work together? How can I take my players' focus off their characters and put it toward the world? Some of these go hand-in-hand with the previous questions. Integrating a character's backstory into your game is a great way to attract attention from that player, and what if the characters all had a shared backstory that they all created together?

For players, different questions need to be asked. Instead of 'What would my character do in this situation?' try asking 'What would be the coolest thing to do in this situation?' or 'What is my character capable of and how can I abuse that here to spice things up?' Instead of asking 'How can I better develop my character's personality?' try asking 'How can I form a better relationship between my character and the others in the party?'

What if the players in your game asked those questions? What if there was more inner-party roleplay? What if there was more 'What do you think, guys? Would that be cool?' Would you have more fun? Would you be disappointed in your character's development?