This is my first stable campaign in years, and my first experience with the new 3.5 edition rules (not that I was very familiar with anything else, besides a couple games in 3rd edition, to really make comparisons).

This is the GM's second campaign, and so he's a little wary about treading outside of the rules, but with three players of the group being fantasy writers (myself, my friend, and her husband) we've already managed to bend a couple (yay for my Riding Capybara for my Gnome Druid!). His previous experience was mostly with Hack and Slash style groups, so he's in for a surprise being around us devoted to the Role-Play aspect! :-D

Two things I'd like to touch ON;

One being that the GM stressed that I found very interesting, and was wondering if anyone else had this, was that after character creation he asked that we all get together without him before the first game to figure out how our characters knew each other. He was very concerned that our characters have valid reasons for adventuring with each other, instead of being thrown together by random circumstance. The first 'game' was actually more of a prelude to help us get in the groove of interacting together. Though our brainstorming session didn't really go as he had liked (we were more 'acquaintances' than friends (or, to quote our human wizard with a CHA of 8; "They're not my friends! They're not my friends!")), the game was a wild success, and we met three days later for another game because none of us could wait a week.

Has anyone else done that? fashioned some of the characters relations before actual game-play? What were your experiences?

The other point of interest to me is the fact that the only other D&D campaigns I've attempted took place in worlds (and races) created by the GM. This will be my first time adhering to a preset campaign. To clarify first, though; the reason the other two campaigns didn't work out was because the first one involved people in three different states, and the second one is actually still going, I just moved 300 miles away (tear!), so it wasn't due to the worlds created.

So what are peoples experiences here? Do you prefer pre-set, completely customized, or a combination? What do you feel are the advantages/disadvantages?

I can't say I've been playing long enough to form much of an opinion, and I always try to go into things with an open mind, but I'd love to hear other peoples view and experiences!

Has anyone else done that? fashioned some of the characters relations before actual game-play? What were your experiences?

So what are peoples experiences here? Do you prefer pre-set, completely customized, or a combination? What do you feel are the advantages/disadvantages?

I can't say I've been playing long enough to form much of an opinion, and I always try to go into things with an open mind, but I'd love to hear other peoples view and experiences!

Hi TC,

Most of the good D&D campaigns that I've been in have had the DM ask us to do the same thing.  Unless the DM is committed to multiple sessions devoted to just getting the party together, I think predetermining character relations is a good idea.  We usually make characters together and feed off one anothers' ideas as we come up with our character backgrounds.  It also helps create built-in character dynamics and conflict, which helps my group roleplay.  D&D stories often aren't that conducive to roleplaying, so if the players want to roleplay, conflict within the party is a good way to spark that, at least in my experience. 

Matt

I've run plenty of D&D games where the players went to great lengths to connect their characters before play started. Sometimes it was half-hearted, "Hey, I'll be your childhood friend" or I, as DM, told players how their characters knew each other. In the last D&D campaign I ran, I told the players that they were all somehow associated with the king of a certain land, gave them some details about that kingdom, and we bounced ideas around. I reminded them that they could play royalty and they jumped on that idea.

By the time we were all done, we had a human king married to his second wife, another human. His first wife had been elven; she was killed by invaders. The racial make-up let the group choose pretty freely among human, elven, and half-elven races and have those mean something. Also, all those who chose to play royalty ended up as siblings (or half-siblings). Two of them played fraternal (sister/brother) twins, which was awesome. One of the players decided to be a lady-in-waiting, not royalty, and she routinely got left out of the excitement (partly due to her choice, partly due to my DMing, and partly due to her continued turtling).

We played only five times and then a player of one of the twins moved to another state and for that and other reasons, I stopped running it, yet it was one of the best series of games of D&D I ever played.