Character backgrounds having a mechanical effect? (any)

[Coidzor]

If any of you have ever played Arcanum, it and a few other CRPGs have a character generation system where different backgrounds available to certain races which, in addition to the base racial stats can have an effect on stats, skill bonuses, or even energy vulnerabilities/resistances. Possibly counteracting the usual bonuses/minuses the race gets or increasing them.

Has anyone ever encountered something similar to this idea? If so, what system did it involve? Anyone familiar with any homebrewed attempts to implement something similar?

For example: a Half-orc raised in a human home (maybe counteracts the minus to int at the cost of darkvision)versus a Half-orc raised amongst orcs (more of an increase to str, more penalty to int or sommat else to reflect a different way of coping/adapting) having a different starting package of bonuses and penalties. A human orphan raised by elves or... wolves or owlbears or natural lycanthropes.

Basically modifiers on top of the existing racial template that change some things but leave others intact.

Thank you Darkfire for finding this list of examples. This should provide at least something to show what I meant. (http://arcanum.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/backgrounds.php)

[Kyeudo]

Exalted does things this way. If it isn't something you could do stark naked, it's a background. Got a fancy magic weapon? It's a background. Got money? background. Got contacts on the Blessed Isle? definately a background.

[Blackjackg]

In various versions of D&D 3.5 (I'm thinking of Forgotten Realms and Living Greyhawk) a character's history and region opens up several potential new feats and other character options. For example, a character who is descended from Mulhorandi royalty in Forgotten Realms has access to additional feats as well as a different selection of starting equipment.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

The 3.5 homebrew attempt for this that I like best is to give a starting character 8 skillpoints to be spent on either Profession or Craft skills.

[Quietus]

Exalted does things this way. If it isn't something you could do stark naked, it's a background. Got a fancy magic weapon? It's a background. Got money? background. Got contacts on the Blessed Isle? definately a background.

This is all WoD games, to my knowledge. It's been standard since I was first introduced to the system, and it does play out nicely in fleshing out your character. Gives a sense of what they've been doing before coming "on-screen", so to speak, as opposed to appearing with a bunch of combat stats and a name.

[Yukitsu]

My DM makes semi mechanical concessions for backstory. For instance, I pitched a very compelling back story, and could use an awesome bloodline (living spell: fear) automatically succeed on my bluff check when people asked my race (because as far as I can tell, I'm human), and I have access to more books in character than normal, as I took the eidactic memory feat and attended an academy of magic before starting the game (memorizing all of the books).

[Gorbash]

Shackled City Adventure Path has a number of Character Traits, you can find them here.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/shackledcityzero/wikis/shackled-city-traits

[valadil]

I let interesting backgrounds unlock classes and races that I otherwise wouldn't have allowed.

[alchemyprime]

In 3.5, I allow 2 "minor traits" (from UA and a few Dragon issues) and 2 "major traits" (from Iron Heroes). 1 Major traits should be a background or incorporated therein.

[ColdSepp]

PHB2 for 4E has a section on how to create these, along with some examples.

[erikun]

Burning Wheel sounds like this, another this review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11444.phtml) would probably give more information than I could. Towards the end of the So, About Those Mechanics? section it talks about character creation.

[RTGoodman]

PHB2 for 4E has a section on how to create these, along with some examples.

Not only that, there're dozens upon dozens of 4E character Backgrounds in PHB2, FRPG, Eberron Player's Guide, the Scales of War Adventure Path, and several other Dragon/Dungeon magazine articles. The 'zine and SoW ones gives benefits I can't remember off the top of my head, but the "standard" 4E backgrounds each have an associated skill or two, and when you select the background you can choose one of them to either get a +2 bonus to the skill OR to make it a class skill.

[AslanCross]

As has been mentioned, Faerun has background feats, which can be only taken at level 1, and depend a lot on the region you come from. Most of them are kind of lame.

[arguskos]

As has been mentioned, Faerun has background feats, which can be only taken at level 1, and depend a lot on the region you come from. Most of them are kind of lame.
But, they are flavorful and fairly awesome. I personally enjoy the regionalism that Faerun has, and encourage it when I run in the Realms (not often, but it happens).

[Jayabalard]

Has anyone ever encountered something similar to this idea? If so, what system did it involve? Anyone familiar with any homebrewed attempts to implement something similar?GURPS works somewhat in that way; you take disadvantages to get more points, and many of the disadvantages = a piece of backstory. I imagine most point based systems are fairly similar in that respect.

ex: You have an enemy who tends to show up fairly often and wreck havok with your plans (appears on a 12 or less on 3d6 in any particular session). You gain a certain amount of points that can be used on other things depending on how serious of a foe this guy is.

[Satyr]

In Serpents and Sewers (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Serpents_and_Sewers), background is covered by two feat-like character traits (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Serpents_and_Sewers:_Background_Tr aits)that describe the character's culture, personal or physical characteristics to separate between culture and species (because fantasy racism sucks) and to offer an additional layer of individualisation and specification of characters.

In some groups, I also expect that my players write elaborate and well thought-out backgrounds and evaluate them, granting additional mechanical advantges (usually more skill points) for backgrounds I think are made well to reward the effort and thought.

[Devils_Advocate]

Every aspect of a starting character is a result of his background.

I guess I'm not entirely clear on the distinction being made here.

[Dark Herald]

Every aspect of a starting character is a result of his background.

I guess I'm not entirely clear on the distinction being made here.

Gotta agree here. Are we talking not within the normal rules?

[Serpentine]

As mentioned there are quite a few feats and the like that require some event to take place before choosing it. For example, there's one that gives you extra-bendy bones, but only if you've been comprehensively crushed by something.

The 3.5 homebrew attempt for this that I like best is to give a starting character 8 skillpoints to be spent on either Profession or Craft skills.In my game, we have something similar, except you just get an extra skill point at each level. They're called "hobby skills", and they have to be used on a Profession, Craft or possibly Perform skill, or with DM's permission on another skill that gives no direct benefit to the character's class (for example, a sorcerer who used to be in a circus might take Tumble).
I'm also pretty flexible with character creation. If someone can give me a convincing backstory reason why their Ranger should be good at Forgery, I'll probably allow them to take it as a class skill or swap another class skill out for it, depending on its relative likely "effectiveness".

[-Cor-]

The 3.5 homebrew attempt for this that I like best is to give a starting character 8 skillpoints to be spent on either Profession or Craft skills.

I do this (or did this) when DMing 3.5.

Well, a version anyway. Everyone gets 4 free skill points at first level for a Profession, Craft, or Perform skill of their choice. Any other skill points in it have to be spent on their own, but this in essence gives everyone a place that they came from... (Former singer, sailor, saddle maker).

Also has the added benefit of allowing the character to choose Int, Wis, or Cha for their background "job".

[mistformsquirrl]

Gotta agree here. Are we talking not within the normal rules?

I believe what's meant is "Specific Background = Specific Bonus"

Ex:

Arcanum had "Child of a Hero" - you gained a +1 Sword to start with... but if you did anything Evil, you'd take much larger reputation hits than normal folk.

--

Personally, I don't think that kind of thing works as well in a PNP RPG; as generally speaking - every choice you make at creation amounts to a 'Create your own Bonuses' based around the background.

If you have a particularly unusual background - talk to the DM, see if you can make a couple ability swaps or gain money for an RP penalty of some kind, etc...

That said, I can understand the appeal from a certain perspective - it's kind of an instant "package deal" kinda.

That is... the selection of a given ability helps build your background.

Kind of an inverted way of doing it but <@.@> I guess if it works it works.

(That's how I'm seeing it at least.)

[Fitz10019]

I played with someone whose character had an interesting halforc-raised-by-dwarves background. The DM let him have Favored Class: Fighter, to represent the cultural background. [The same character was cursed to be unable to see orcs (the result of 2 random rolls), so he was unable to see himself!]

[mistformsquirrl]

I played with someone whose character had an interesting halforc-raised-by-dwarves background. The DM let him have Favored Class: Fighter, to represent the cultural background. [The same character was cursed to be unable to see orcs (the result of 2 random rolls), so he was unable to see himself!]

Someone has to do it:


http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0025.html

>.>

[Darkfire]

I believe what's meant is "Specific Background = Specific Bonus"

Ex:
Arcanum had "Child of a Hero" - you gained a +1 Sword to start with... but if you did anything Evil, you'd take much larger reputation hits than normal folk.

As I recall, it was more "Specific Background = Specific Bonus + Specific Penalty". Here's a handy list (http://arcanum.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/backgrounds.php).

[wormwood]

In a Call of Cthulhu game I played, our GM would give everyone 100 extra skill points to be put into flavor skills. This originally started as a joke, since all of the Call of Cthulhu pre-generated characters in the olden days would have absurd amounts of points in totally useless skills (kitten juggling: 80!). Our GM found that hilarious so he gave us points that we could use in a similar manner.

My character, for example, took 50 each in "prepare German food" and "scream like a little girl."

I only rolled "scream like a little girl" one time in the campaign... just before i blew myself up to kill myself and the monster that was currently trying to eat me. I impaled it. :)

[Swordguy]

Considering I don't have my players generate their own characters anymore, but ask them to give me a character concept and a background and then generate the character from that (so there's no unpleasant surprises for me and less balance issues between group members), their background is inherently mechanical. If they don't give me one, they don't have a character.

[Jastermereel]

A player in an upcoming game I'll be running wants to be a Warforged who doesn't know that they are. She's been the bodyguard/aprentice of an Elven Wizard Artificer type who has set it up so the Warforged has some sort of glamor so that it thinks it's an Elf, it looks like an Elf and "heals" normally through various magical effects. At some point in the campaign, the devices causing these effects will disappear (at a semi-random time: damaged by area effects + DM choice) and her true nature will be revealed.

Fortunately, some mechanical abilities line up (neither race sleeps), and others can be masked to keep the secret from the other players (like auto-stabilization and light fortification). She won't get the racial abilities that only the elf side would provide like the secret-door-detection, but she'd be picking from their language lists and getting their weapon proficiencies.

Basically, Warforged nature, Elven nurture.

[Panda-s1]

Exalted does things this way. If it isn't something you could do stark naked, it's a background. Got a fancy magic weapon? It's a background. Got money? background. Got contacts on the Blessed Isle? definately a background.

A matte painting made for a movie? Ooh, you better believe that's a background.

[Rizban]

When I DM, I require my players to have more or less in depth backgrounds and pull stuff from those to influence the campaign. Basically, if you don't want your rival for years past to suddenly ambush you in a bid to prove he's really the better swordsman, then don't write him into your back story.