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I keep running into an issue as a dungeon master where my players develop their characters a bit too much. By this, I mean that they'll write up things in their backstories or develop NPCs that aren't their own, and decide things that their character does not know.

Specific examples:

Player 1 has a character who was saved from drowning by an unknown sea entity which left him with a cursed sword. Great! But now player 1 will occasionally try to send me ideas of what he thinks may have been the monster-- which is really not up to him.

Player 2 is playing a character that she played in a previous campaign, which I'm allowing because she was more or less expelled from the campaign by the DM refusing to do his job. It's fine, but her character has a developed parent figure that she's written out text RPs with (which I don't allow in my games, but others have.)

We've played 7 sessions. I'm running two groups with the same campaign, but both are at 7 sessions at the moment.

I don't think either of them is doing this maliciously or to try and subvert me as a DM-- they're probably trying to help! I don't want to be too rude to them, but I do need to take the reigns back.

How do I discourage this?
How do I take control of unknown backstory entities with players who keep overthinking things that they have no control over?

I keep running into an issue as a dungeon master where my players develop their characters a bit too much. By this, I mean that they'll write up things in their backstories or develop NPCs that aren't their own, and decide things that their character does not know.

Specific examples:

Player 1 has a character who was saved from drowning by an unknown sea entity which left him with a cursed sword. Great! But now player 1 will occasionally try to send me ideas of what he thinks may have been the monster-- which is really not up to him.

Player 2 is playing a character that she played in a previous campaign, which I'm allowing because she was more or less expelled from the campaign by the DM refusing to do his job. It's fine, but her character has a developed parent figure that she's written out text RPs with (which I don't allow in my games, but others have.)

We've played 7 sessions. I'm running two groups with the same campaign, but both are at 7 sessions at the moment.

I don't think either of them is doing this maliciously or to try and subvert me as a DM-- they're probably trying to help! I don't want to be too rude to them, but I do need to take the reins back.

How do I discourage this?
How do I take control of unknown backstory entities with players who keep overthinking things that they have no control over?

I keep running into an issue as a dungeon master where my players develop their characters a bit too much. By this, I mean that they'll write up things in their backstories or develop NPCs that aren't their own, and decide things that their character does not know.

Specific examples:

Player 1 has a character who was saved from drowning by an unknown sea entity which left him with a cursed sword. Great! But now player 1 will occasionally try to send me ideas of what he thinks may have been the monster-- which is really not up to him.

Player 2 is playing a character that she played in a previous campaign, which I'm allowing because she was more or less expelled from the campaign by the DM refusing to do his job. It's fine, but her character has a developed parent figure that she's written out text RPs with (which I don't allow in my games, but others have.)

I don't think either of them is doing this maliciously or to try and subvert me as a DM-- they're probably trying to help! I don't want to be too rude to them, but I do need to take the reigns back.

How do I discourage this? How do I take control of unknown backstory entities with players who keep overthinking things that they have no control over?

I keep running into an issue as a dungeon master where my players develop their characters a bit too much. By this, I mean that they'll write up things in their backstories or develop NPCs that aren't their own, and decide things that their character does not know.

Specific examples:

Player 1 has a character who was saved from drowning by an unknown sea entity which left him with a cursed sword. Great! But now player 1 will occasionally try to send me ideas of what he thinks may have been the monster-- which is really not up to him.

Player 2 is playing a character that she played in a previous campaign, which I'm allowing because she was more or less expelled from the campaign by the DM refusing to do his job. It's fine, but her character has a developed parent figure that she's written out text RPs with (which I don't allow in my games, but others have.)

We've played 7 sessions. I'm running two groups with the same campaign, but both are at 7 sessions at the moment.

I don't think either of them is doing this maliciously or to try and subvert me as a DM-- they're probably trying to help! I don't want to be too rude to them, but I do need to take the reigns back.

How do I discourage this?
How do I take control of unknown backstory entities with players who keep overthinking things that they have no control over?