Being responsible for the story, the GM should know as much as possible about the characters in her campagin. I’m not necessarily talking about character names, height, weight, or color of hair and eyes, although these things are also good to know. I’m talking about the things that make a character come to life; the reasons the players spawned this creation. Is this character pious? Does this character have any prejudices? Is this character allergic to anything?
Origins. Everyone comes from somewhere, and most of the time, where someone comes from has a lot to do with who they are. Give your players an opportunity to explain things to you, have them generate a background story. Give your players as much room for embellishment as possible without detraction from the balance of your campaign. Obviously you're going to have to step in if these backgrounds include factors which you didn't plan on having in your campaign, like certain creatures or magical items, etc.
Players, this is your chance to tell a story. This is not an opportunity that presents itself very often. This might actually be your only chance, so take it! The GM has many, many things to do, other than come up with a history of your life. If left to the GM, you may just end up with something uninteresting, which takes away from your character. Don’t let this happen!
Example: Ed wants to play a paladin. In the description of his character, Ed makes it a point to mention that he’s got a scar on his left cheek. When you tell Ed that he needs to come up with a background, make sure that you tell him to explain where he got the scar. You tell him, “Your parents were eaten by an owlbear when you were four-years old, while you were traveling from the Great City of Somewhere to the Vast Sands of Nowhere. A great swordsman, Sir Larry McGoobers happened by, killed the owlbear and took you to his home in the village of Dumpwater.” Now you leave it up to the player to come up with why the family was traveling, what was his father’s occupation, where he got the scar, and why he decided to become a paladin.
Of course, you could also leave all that up to Ed entirely, if Ed's the type of fellow whose judgement can be trusted. (i.e. you won't get some crazy story about him defeating a red dragon with both hands tied behind his back!)
Naturally, you may run into some issues along the way. Some players may try to add in things like a history of fast riches and incredible conquests. “My father was the only merchant allowed in the palace and he was best friends with King Stormwell. I have since kept in contact with King Stormwell, and he has offered to adopt me because he’s got no children and he’s sick. Now I’m a crown prince…” and so on and so forth. You are the GM, so it’s ultimately up to you. Do you want him to be King of Burntlandia? You have the power to say no, or to let him do it only to be overthrown by the King’s secret mistress, Penny Pincher.
On the other hand, your players may all draft up good, plausible backgrounds. Now you have something to work with. Ed decided that his father was a farmer, and they were traveling because his farm was burnt down by Baron Von Greenbacks, who gave Ed the scar. Well, you’ve seen enough sci-fi movies to know that Ed is going to be the one to finally go against Baron Von Greenbacks in the final parts of the adventure – only to find out that they are brothers. I’m sure *no one* will see that coming.
It’s a good idea to have a chat session with players about their respective characters to get a feel of who they want their characters to be. This way you can get a fair hold on what types of reactions these characters are likely to have in certain situations. Perhaps one of the characters lost a loved one at the hands of an ogre and his life’s mission now is to eradicate all manner of ogre. You know what he’s going to do the first chance he gets to fight an ogre regardless of how powerful the ogre may be. Any GM, new or experienced, could use this in a campaign.
Don’t rely too heavily on assuming that the character would act a specific way however. If you set up the adventure so that the character reads a sign that says something like, “Help, heroes wanted to guard against ogres! Apply within!” and the characters decide, “Nah, sounds boring,” your whole session just went down the drain unless you find a different way to shove the players in the correct direction, which is usually unappreciated by the players. Make sure you have a backup plan, otherwise, you may find yourself sitting behind your GM screen reworking the adventure that took you all last weekend to plan. If you are hanging the storyline up on an assumption of how your characters react, give some thought to what you can do if your assumption doesn’t work out the way you had hoped.
Knowing the types of personalities and proclivities isn’t enough. A GM needs to know what the characters have for items and abilities to effectively create an adventure. You as a GM might layout an adventure that includes a sleep spell being cast against the party and it needs to succeed for the storyline to run smoothly. You tell the party, “someone is making magic-looking movements, next thing you know, you are waking up in a dungeon” when a player reminds you that a few sessions back, (Which these days are further and further apart, at least for me) she found a treasure trove from which she acquired an item that prevents sleep or charm spells. Now your story line is botched. Sure, you could always say something like "Gee, that didn't work this time, maybe you spent all it's charges?" but that can seem a little thin and sloppy. Likewise if you know that your player’s characters have an item that shield them from psionics, you probably wont waste the time to generate a paraplegic psionicist with no armor for an arch villain. Or maybe your sense of irony is such that you would.
Keep a separate notebook to keep track of things like these. I personally like to have a couple sheets of paper (I prefer graph paper) dedicated to each specific character and one master sheet for the most general notes. I keep notes like “Zippy hates goblins” “Cowboi is allergic to goblin hair,” and “At some point, these guys are going to have to fight some goblins” on the master sheet. The individual sheets are filled with as much information about the characters as I can get. You can of course go high-tech. These days I keep track of the info that I need to keep on my trusty laptop, and a backup copy on my phone.
Something that you have to remember as a GM is that just because YOU know that the character has a specific item doesn’t mean that the villain knows about it. In other words, that same spell caster that I mentioned before would still cast the sleep spell. This is not something that you want to omit! Why bother letting the character get an item that has a specific purpose if you are never going to let them use it? Have the spell fail, but have a plan B ready. (Bad guy runs away or brings in henchmen is always a good one.)
The other side of the coin is that if you know what your player characters are capable of, you can (and should) allow them the chance to use their abilities. Player #1’s character has the uncanny ability to slip through very small spaces. Make it a part of the story that he has to do this in order for the party to triumph and save the maiden, or the planet… what have you. What’s the point of allowing a special ability if they’re never going to have the chance to use it. (It used to drive me nuts when I'd take "swim" as a non-weapon proficiency, and never have to use it...)
You have a good handle on what your characters would do in some specific situations, and you also know what they are capable of doing, given their items and abilities—now you have only to learn what it is exactly that the characters want. Have your players set down on paper (or electronically for you Green Beans) some short term and long term goals.
For instance, the fellow who was hunting the ogres knows that he will never eradicate all of the ogres on Earth (or whatever you call your world) and thus instead, a goal might be to run the ogres out of the local caves, and see how he feels after that. Having met a short term goal, maybe he got it out of his system. If not, then it’s off to the next cave network.
It is sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that who a character is, can be strongly impacted by where he came from, who he was, and what he has lived through. Above all else, have fun. After all, that’s what you’re there for. Think of your campaign as a story in the making. What would you like to read?
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