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Marriclay
2010-06-16, 04:29 PM
We've all been there - trying to figure out how the character we're coming up with came into this world. sometimes, it's easy - that young human paladin thought life on the farm was stupid and joined a paladin order as soon as he was able. Sometimes it's difficult - A half-ogre binder/rogue? well...

But the point is everybody has a little way of doing it properly, so that something comes out well. Personally, because so many of my games are roleplay heavy and downright weird, there are many opportunities to use a character generated by the odd situation in which these games find themselves. So I use the odd products of my gaming table (or those I've heard about) to make my characters

Example from another thread:

And that's why we have the half-dragon template.

Seriously, using an antimagic area on a dragon in the shape of a woman was how my Half-dragon character's dad got it on with her. Of course, this was rape, so once the antimagic lockdown turned off, she transformed back into a dragon, then made him suffer for over a week before finally eating him.

Interestingly, my character is the son of one of my player's characters from a DnD game I ran. It was just so absurdly stupid, unique, and evil that it made an awesome backstory. We did, however, tell that player she wasn't allowed to make evil characters anymore. (Yes, that's right, this story is relevant to the topic of the forum)

How do you guys come up with backgrounds?

LibraryOgre
2010-06-16, 04:39 PM
It depends. Early in the game, I tend to come up with fairly generic backgrounds... my fighter did time as a mercenary. His time in various battles got him experience. This is especially true if I'm in a game world I don't know.

If it's a world I do know, I tend to have a more complete background. He's from city X, or part of ethnic group Y. He's part Rhenee, which is why he's an outcast in this Flan/Suloise town, especially since his mother wasn't married to his father. Also explains why he's a bard, and a bit more about his motivations (i.e. he's out to be a hero, not because he's Good, but because heroes get free drinks and freer women).

As the campaign progresses, I tend to build my character either into the game background, or into the game world. My warforged was an emissary to Kravakos. Hecar (later St. Hecar) was in the Seven-Pillared Hall to visit the former kingdom of his ancestors. The Deva Paladin once knew the Deva Shaman.

valadil
2010-06-16, 04:53 PM
Sometimes it's difficult - A half-ogre binder/rogue? well...


I come up with the backstory first, then figure out a build that fits it. Helps avoid the situation you mention.

I really like backstories that include some of the character's current affairs. Biographical information is all well and good, but I like to know what the character was doing in the weeks leading up to game start. It lets you begin with some momentum so you have something to do when the GM asks "you're in town, what do you do?"

Rokurai
2010-06-16, 05:24 PM
The current literature is so rich that you really should have little trouble coming up an intricate backstory for any character, no matter how strange their race/class combination.

I.e. half-orc binder rogue started out in the streets running with a small local band of thugs, then one day one of his jobs got him into a mess he couldn't see coming, and got him captured by a strange cult. He managed to escape, and take a strange book that seemed like it was worth something with him. When he got home, he felt a strange calling and perused the book, which led him to discover knowledge of the forgotten vestiges, and eventually learn how to bind them.

The background above is bland and generic, I know, but if integrated with the campaign setting, a much more interesting story can be obtained. As a rule of thumb, if I'm playing a new campaign setting I make sure to get all the source material that may have information about the setting in it, or, if it's a homebrew, I incessantly ask the DM about various details of the campaign. One of two things will happen; you'll either get a rich and detailed setting from your DM and be able to come up with a good backstory that ties into the gameworld history, or you'll realise that the DM has no idea what his gameworld really is and that you should probably find a new DM. Win win.

Kiero
2010-06-16, 05:42 PM
Writing backstories is part of the process I use to realise my character (before I do any chargen), and more importantly to give the GM as many hooks as I possibly can. It often starts with a name, and a basic concept. This started with "skirmishing wilderness warrior". Then I had to find somewhere he was from, and built from there integrating him into the world and working out how he came to be where the game was taking place (Icewind Dale in this instance).

They are never more than a page, and my current preference is for bulleted lists for ease of reading, rather than extended prose.

This is what I created last time:

Maxim Fryar/"Blend"/Koryk of the White Tiger

Good-aligned human Ranger (two-weapon), half-Rhegedmen barbarian. Former outlaw turned good by the example of one of the other PCs.

Basic biography

Real name Maxim Fryar, only Lucius knows this.
Rumoured to be descended from Loric Fryar, a famous adventurer in the Sword Coast region a century ago.
Father was an abusive tyrant, mother (Reene) his captive taken from one of the northern barbarian (Rhegedmen) tribes.
Grew up on the edges of Luruar.
Has a barbarian name "Koryk".



Early career

Ran away from home at the age of fifteen, fell in with bandits.
Nicknamed "Blend" as a derisory reference to his social invisibility and seeming knack of not being around whenever there was work to do.
Later became a reference to his stealth skills.
Rose to rank of a trusted lieutenant
Stole to survive, didn't care who suffered as a result of his depredations.
Learned his two-axe style from a former warden of the great forests.



The break with the bandits

Fell foul of internal politics, one of the other lieutenants (Turvel Collett) made a successful leadership bid that included disposing of Blend and his closest allies on a suicide raid.
Most of his band were wiped out, the whole thing was a setup to allow one of the local captains (Fraker Ghent) to make his name showing they were dealing with the bandit problem.
Fled the region on foot, leading a chase through the forests that took several weeks and costing the last of his allies to escape.



The flight north

Signed on with a caravan, met Sunlord Lucius.
Fought alongside the priest, and talked extensively with him. Lucius showed him a better way of living.
Changed alignment from Unaligned to Good as a result of Lucius' influence. Tries to be a better man by following his example.
Stuck together once they arrived in Icewind Dale.



Activities in Icewind Dale

Joined Lucius in repelling an orc raid on one of the Ten Towns.
Tracked and finished off the survivors of that raid through a blizzard.
Carried important messages between the towns in deep winter.
Went north to talk to the barbarians to resolve an ongoing dispute. His barbarian family considers him an embarrassment, especially his grandfather Brannen, a former chief. They often speak against him.
Only member of his family who isn't set against him is his uncle Hark, who gave him his boots of striding.
Won his axe in a contest with a barbarian champion (Riggar) which involved a series of trials. This improved his reputation amongst the barbarians, though hasn't reconciled his family.
Riggar is now one of Blend's closest friends, and one of the strongest voices in his favour amongst the barbarians.
Slayed the ogre marauder Grak single-handedly, after tracking him across the plagued fells.
Was badly wounded after that fight, and only survived thanks to the rest of the party catching up and building a shelter to nurse him back to health.
Went on embassage to Manyarrows with Lucius and the two genasi to broker a peace deal.
Has a wife in Easthaven.



That's the info I gave the GM before the game started (I tracked what was going on here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=469102)). These were starting 7th level characters, not 1st level novices, thus the level of detail. In-game they dealt with a gnoll invasion, uncovered a Netherese plot to retake the Dale, fought Zhentarim agents, stopped the Rhegedmen turning on the folk of the Dale, slayed a Spell-plagued dragon, killed Manshoon repeatedly and crashed a flying citadel into Maer Dualdon. Good times.

Grumman
2010-06-16, 06:09 PM
I tend to come up with bits and pieces of plots and character concepts as I do other things, rather than trying to work everything out in one sitting. Unfortunately, I'm insufficiently enthusiastic about getting it all down on paper for recruitment threads, since for my purposes the copy I've got percolating in my mind is enough. Of the RPG characters I've created, I'd say the best backgrounds are for Ashley Denisson (spellwarped gish) and Kalalee "Cally" Kineere (halfling paladin).

For Ashley, my main concern was with how to justify the Spellwarped template on a character whose personality wouldn't get them thrown out of any right-minded party. Since parents with hereditary inherently evil tendencies would probably raise evil children, I thought a first-generation spellwarped made more sense (and was more interesting). So I came up with the idea of a young wizard who was kidnapped and subjected to experiments of the "Evil mage wants to create an invincible army" kind, but managed to escape. As I was using Wu Jen and Barbarian in her build, this also gave me an excuse for her spellcasting to be dependant on a taboo (not being as stable as she once was), and an excuse for her to enter a Rage (engineered "usually evil" tendencies + persecution by slavers = unthinking violent retribution when confronted by said slavers or when cornered). I was a bit worried that it would make her seem like a Mary Sue, but it turned out alright.

For Cally, things were simpler. She was paladin of Arvoreen and a mounted combatant, which suggested an outrider, of the sort that guards halfling caravans. Being an Ashworm Dragoon meant she needed an excuse to get a riding animal while in the desert. Being a halfling, the obvious answer was wanderlust, the need to see the world before she's ready to return to the caravans. Combine that with her devotion to Arvoreen, and you've got a knight-errant whose steed was killed as she rescued some group of desert-dwellers from some threat, and was given the ashworm as thanks. As I'd already thought up a few halfling characters, I used them to flesh out her backstory, giving her a little sister who inspired Cally's choice to become a paladin, and a father who did whatever he could to prepare his daughters for the adventuring life they sought.

Marriclay
2010-06-16, 06:24 PM
That's the info I gave the GM before the game started (I tracked what was going on here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=469102)). These were starting 7th level characters, not 1st level novices, thus the level of detail.

ah ye - this makes sense, and I've done it constantly with characters I've made. I always include exploits of varying importance to the world as the character grows in levels - a level 2 character might have gotten there by defeating a group of bandits, while a level 10 character might have defeated a bandit camp, moved on to something bigger, and then progressively bigger until I've filled up all the levels. It keeps me from making histories that are too bland for a character of a certain level

big teej
2010-06-16, 06:42 PM
my backstory method typically derives from three things (or a combination thereof)

1) inspiration strikes (my personal favorite) I'm reading a book, playing a video game, taking a shower, going for a run, whatever. and inspiration strikes! and my mind vomits forth a concept that I simply must play,

2) source material - this is somewhat related to the above, but far less original. "reading, gaming etc" and I come across a character that I find intriguing and unique. and I wish to play something "like" him

3) background questionaires - I typically fill these out regardless of how my character came to be, but the questions are exhaustive, provided you're willing to sit down and spew forth you're character's life story.

from these three, a concept and a history are spun. to be enriched and elaborated upon as the story progresses.

(do to our usual dm styles within the group, a completely fleshed out background is.... difficult ahead of time)

example
a spur of the moment duo campaign that was started last week with three people in our group. I get to play an ogre ranger (good times) but since it was spontaneous and the aforementioned three creation methods did not have time to be implemented, i created on the fly, and his origins only came to me after the session (raised by grey renders, also good times)

Jallorn
2010-06-16, 06:59 PM
The important thing to me is who the character is now and how they would react to various things. So I start with a general idea of the place I want them to end up, and work my way towards that. I'm a very intuitive writer, I choose a place to start, and discover the story as I write it. My backgrounds tend to be fairly vague, but they tell enough about why the character is driven by what drives them, and usually has a plot hook or two. I'm also always willing to add something later as long as it doesn't change who my character is too much. If the DM approaches me and says, "Hey, I need a plot hook for an adventure based off of your character soon," I'm more than willing to create some event.

DoodlesD
2010-06-16, 07:02 PM
Something you might want to try with building a backstory for a new character is to get some context information about where and what the first adventure will be like. This can help you get an idea of what kind of locale your character will start off in. This is especially important to characters who are members of races generally not native to that area, like elves in a mountainous setting. From there, you can start off with a reason why your character might be in that place. Rangers could be tracking a wild beast, Fighters could have been escorting a caravan, rogues could be hiding out from authorities, etc. For most campaigns, you also want a motivation for going on adventures and such. While describing a character as an adventurous soul is a decent catch-all, it doesn't provide a whole lot of depth. Try giving your character something specific related to his or her past that might cause him or her to seek adventuring, such as a family history of heroes. Perhaps your character comes from a line of great Fighters and wants to follow in his family's footsteps. Perhaps some tragedy has destroyed your characters home, and he or she adventures to forget.

Come up with a reason for being somewhere and a reason why you're an adventurer at all and that should suffice. look to movies, books, and other media for examples, but don't be afraid to get creative.

Il_Vec
2010-06-16, 07:09 PM
I'll roll a random age and fill the years with stuff. Not every year, it would get too big, but like the last character I rolled, was a Human Wizard, in Dragonlance. I rolled somewhere between 30-35. I decided he'd be the first son of a noble, at age 6 he was enrolled as an apprentice at the High Sorcery Towers. At age 15 he got married, at 19 he etc etc etc.

Susano-wo
2010-06-16, 07:14 PM
I often have a concept, and work the back story out to fill that concept, though often I have a build I think will be cool (hey, I wanna try a monk/Rogue, or try a Paladin..haven't done one of those...etc) and will work a back story around that--though I'm not happy until I get a satisfying character out of all of it, not just a collection of stats ^ ^

Snake-Aes
2010-06-16, 07:20 PM
Inspiration comes when you poke it enough times.

I pick general themes, and a couple drives, and work from there. Knowledge of the scenario helps.
My last character(which we are playing for three years now) had the following themes:
1) Pariah
2) Horrible, horrible grudges
3) Disciplined beyond suffering, or so others may think
-----
I also knew I wanted an elf, and used some things classic to elves on that scenario:
1) The only big elven land was razed in a war against a prophetic goblinoid alliance.
2) Elves are popular slaves among minotaurs from the coalition's minotaur country
3) The goddess of elves personally failed at protecting her people
-----
Mixing those, I came up with the following:

Daughter of two Swords of Glorienn (paladins of said goddess), Ennael was raised under the teachings of the Swords' philosophy and minimal martial training. She was preparing to enter a Seminar when her city was attacked, and her parents sent her away.

A few weeks later, her caravan was attacked by slavers and she was captured. During her years of slavery she kept her sanity through the discipline her parents taught her, and when she escaped (adventure started in this "arc"), her philosophy and training was used to teach ex-slaves to endure hardship and fight off the slavers.


The story is much more fleshed out than this... but it is pretty easy to weave in details on that, taking your core ideas as a reference. A simple enough background as far as "what would go to the history books" helps in making a background that is easier to use in the adventure. (In Ennael's case, faith in her goddess was saved from disappearing completely by spreading her paladins' philosophy to fugitive slaves, which further spread into the concept of protecting freedom as a whole)

Set
2010-06-16, 07:28 PM
I almost never use questionnaires, but when I do see one, I inevitably think of something that I completely forgot.

Most of my character origins just sort of wander in unannounced, and probably liberally steal from the hundreds of books I've read, comics I've read, TV shows I've watched, movies I've seen, etc. With vampire characters, I'd often pillage events from history (particularly Fortean events, that might be better explained by the presence of mind-manipulating monsters running around) to throw into the backstory, but always tried to make them uncommon events, and not be 'that guy who was on the Titanic' along with every other immortal character, it seems.

For a superhero spirit-summoner, I borrowed from Brother Voodoo (ghost of his dead brother), and, unconsciously, since I didn't know it was part of his story until I read it years later, from John Constantine, and had the character responsible for the death of his twin brother in the womb. I used a similar backstory for a Dark Ages of Camelot Spiritmaster, and said that the character would summon up the spirits of her dead family, who had died 'a straw death' and gone to Nifleheim. By sending their spirits into battle (the basic power of the Spiritmaster class), she gave them new chances to earn redemption and a ticket to Valhalla, by allowing them to 'die in battle.' Whether or not such a trick would work, she had to try! (In the game, the 'spirit' summoned was a generic Norseman, troll, kobold or dwarf, so I would just dismiss the spirit until I got a Norseman, so that I could RP that she was calling up her family, not just 'random dead dudes.' These days, you can actually select what race the spirit is, so I wouldn't have to go through that, but I was willing to spend 30 seconds dismissing and resummoning to play in theme.)

Shifting that sort of theme over to D&D, it could be a good excuse to come up with a necromancer or cleric or dread necromancer character, either wanting to communicate with the spirits of their loved ones, or allowing someone who has 'died too soon' to come back and inhabit the body of another (or their own body, for a Binder type class). It's a fun option for a Pathfinder Summoner as well, if you are willing to have a humanoid Eidolon, that will, over time, increasingly resemble your sibling or that spouse whose death you never got over. Whether or not the summoned spirit creature actually *is* dead aunt Myrtle and not a generic spirit that you are forcing to act like her (or a trickster pretending to be her because it enjoys playing fiddle with your heart-strings), well, nobody said the character had to be sane.

Generally, families are non-existent for adventuring types, so it can be fun to go against that by having an adventurer with a large and tight-knit clan, who he is embarassed to run into all the time in the town the adventurers are based around, or, in the case of a wandering adventurer, perhaps she's part of a gypsy-like family, spread around, so that she might bump into another member of the clan at some distant port, each of them somewhat disappointed that they aren't the only family member to have discovered this exciting new place.

The bog-standard origin seems to go along the lines of 'had nice family, then they all got killed by orcs, now I hate orcs!' That gives the character a motivation (hates orcs!), a reason to be adventuring, and a reason why he's got no living family, and doesn't have to bother to think up what his parents / siblings do for a living, or give them names. It's certainly serviceable, although I'd be inclined to make it more exotic by having them have died in a plague, weather-related disaster or because of rioting over new tax laws, or something less easy to pin a bad-guy (or favored enemy) on.

Many characters are young-ish, having started adventuring in their late teens, early 20s, post-training to become a 1st level whatever.

Turning that convention on it's head, perhaps your character gained a level of Fighter back in the militia, but then retired to work the stables or whatever (pick something that fits whatever skills the PC has) for 20 years, earned his pension, was ready to settle down, and discovered that his wife didn't appreciate his presence as much as she'd appreciated his frequent absences over the years, so now he's on the road, a sword in his hand that he remembers training to use a couple of decades ago, and significantly more 'seasoned' than the average young pup. A female PC could have even had her children, fulfilled what she considered to be the 'expectations' that her family and society placed upon her, and, when her kids got old enough to make kids of their own, packed up and left the homestead to become an adventurer, at the ripe old age of 35, surprising her family with her newfound ambitions (and herself with her newfound freedom).

And then there's the big flip, playing an older character who other people may *remember* as being a big deal, back in the day, and frequently being accused of being a pretender to the name he bears, because he was the Mad Druid of Whooping Hollow, until that vampire captured him and tortured him for three nights, reducing him to a pale bag of bones, with all of his ancient lore stripped away by negative energy. Now he's setting out all over again, remembering having once been a powerful Druid, but now just another aspirant, albeit older than most, and with a familiar face...

Alternately, perhaps the character was a powerful spellcaster, and either broke some vow to their diety, or enacted some magic far beyond their abilities, and were stripped of their spellcasting completely, 'burned out.' Not only is the character starting out at 1st level all over again, but they may have been forced to take on a non-magical career, like Rogue or a less magical career, like Ranger or Bard. This could also be reversed, with a middle-aged aristocratic Rogue having discovered that the only real power that will matter to her as her beauty fades is that of sorcery, and having bargained with a demon to set back the clock and allow her to start over as a sorceress, only to have discovered that the demon cheated her of the promised youth, stripping her of her Rogue levels, and giving her the potential to be a 1st level Sorcerer, but leaving her with iron-grey streaks in her hair and lines on her face... Now she races to master what sorcerous lore she can, before the years catch up to her.

balistafreak
2010-06-16, 09:15 PM
Backstory? I just shamelessly saute bits and pieces of stories I've read and universal tropes until it feels right. A kind of Iron Novelist, if you will. :smallbiggrin:

LibraryOgre
2010-06-16, 09:22 PM
Backstory? I just shamelessly saute bits and pieces of stories I've read and universal tropes until it feels right. A kind of Iron Novelist, if you will. :smallbiggrin:

Today's Iron Novelist theme ingredient is... Family Killed By Monsters!

GONG!

Curmudgeon
2010-06-16, 09:42 PM
For some back stories I use inspiration from the complexities of optimization. So if I start with a Water Orc Barbarian, with the Skilled City-Dweller minor ACF, I'll go with those two themes (aquatic and urban) in further development and make the character come from a coastal city. So I'll have this Barbarian take the City Slicker flaw, and acquire a water elemental graft like Breath of the Waves. There might be slightly better choices, but staying consistent with a coastal city background makes the character more real to me. And an illiterate beach bum going into a rage on a city beach just appeals to me. :smallsmile:

Zaq
2010-06-17, 12:25 AM
Usually, I come up with ideas that are silly and make me laugh, then twist and adapt them until they reach the desired level of seriousness for the campaign. I can, if desired, turn my characters into Serious Business, but they usually started as something absurd that makes me giggle. Sometimes this is to explain a certain mechanical quirk (Take the backstory I cooked up with my girlfriend this week: "OK, you need the skills, but why are you a Ruathar if you hate elves?" "Um... I'm an accidental Ruathar! I was flying, crash-landed on a drow or something, and the elves swarmed all over me and insisted on making me a Ruathar and creepily fawning over me until I regained enough strength to GTFO!"), sometimes it's just funny, but I start by just taking everything as un-seriously as I can possibly manage and then going from there.

panaikhan
2010-06-17, 02:32 AM
I do my best to explain what the character is, why they are adventuring, and how they feel about it.
I also try to be a little original. My last character (an Illumian Druid in 3.5) is adventuring after being 'promoted out of the way' to "Last Seed" - where it is the Last Seed's duty to seek out a far-away place to preserve the Cabal's knowledge.
It's annoying when you sit around a table, and 5 out of the 8 characters' backstories are:
"Town/tribe/village (strike as applicable) was wiped out by (insert goblinoid race here) while I was (insert lame reason for not being there)"

Serpentine
2010-06-17, 02:40 AM
Y'know, I'm not sure... I think most of my ideas tend to start with "I like the idea of..."

For example, "I like the idea of... an agile half-orc with a fondness for kittycats" lead to Shea, True Neutral Half-Orc Rogue/Catlord who tends to say "Shea like kitties! :smallbiggrin:" She simply doesn't know who her parents were (this was probably largely because my then-BF/DM liked to whinge about tragic Orphan Annie-type backstories, and my last one was exactly like that), and grew up on the streets with stray cats as her most constant companions. A few people were nice to her, but most people are mean eventually. She doesn't begrudge them that, just takes it as a fact of life. One person who was nice to her for a while taught her a lot of her more combat-related abilities, and gave her her magic lynxpaw (RoW). Her fairly good Charisma means she's not terribly ugly and is quite likable for a half-orc. Her low Intelligence but high Wisdom I translate as a definite lack of education and book-smarts but a very well developed sense of self-preservation (or if you want to be mean, she's a coward).

Raistlin1040
2010-06-17, 02:42 AM
By far the best backstory I've ever written was for a character I didn't even get to play. It's about 6 pages, and it involves a Drow named Laelira. Laelira was intended to be a girl, but his mother fell out of favor with Lolth, who "cursed" him with male-ness. The boy was hated by his mother, and loathed by his father, who had hoped to win himself favor with the Matron. Eventually, Laelira aligned himself with a strong female, in hopes of bringing down his own house and creating a new one.

She betrayed him, as female Drow do, and a huge political game occured, with Laelira siding with Surface Elves, out of revenge. He killed the woman who betrayed him, but was hacked to bits by her bodyguards shortly after. Still, his invasion was fairly successful, and ended with two Houses demolished, and hundreds of Drow killed. Plundering all their magic items, the Elves managed to afford Ressurection Magic for all their fallen, including Laelira.

Having no purpose, no enemies to kill, no family to defeat, and hated by all Drow, Laelira disappeared into a forest, only to be saved from a Dire Bear by a traveling Half-Elf Druid.

My backstories just sort of come to me. I think about what would be an interesting character (TN Drow Druid?) and then I work backwards from there like "Huh, so what could happen to make a guy who has filled his life with so much hate, but still manages to ignore Good and Evil as concepts entirely, and see the world in terms of Peace?"

Foryn Gilnith
2010-06-17, 02:57 AM
Go to Hero Builder's Guidebook and/or Unearthed Arcana. Random roll backstory points. Try to connect them somehow.

Lycan 01
2010-06-17, 03:48 AM
Ideas just spring to mind. That, or I bounce ideas of my friends/players/DM to come up with something cool.

Here are a few ideas that just sprang to mind...

-Aurix the Drunk Kobold Fighter. Once the greatest warrior in his village. He single-handedly slew the Young Dragon his clan worshipped after it started om-nom-nomming its servants. But he always had a drinking problem, and when he found out his wife was having an affair, the hero's resolve broke. He drank. And drank. And drank. Eventually, he got so drunk, that he basically blacked out to the point of getting amnesia and forgetting everything important about himself. So now he makes a living do odd-jobs as a miner and mercenary, trying to figure out where he got all these scars and how he knows how to fight....

(Never got to play him. :smallfrown:)

-Trog, the Half-Orc Bard.
Raised by a tribe of Orcs after his mother, a retired human adventurer, died giving birth to him. He was generally accepted by his tribe, though he did stand out like a sore thumb. He was handsome and charismatic, despite the fact that he spoke in broken third person. And he was creative. In fact, he even knew how to play the violin, even though its his deepest, darkest secret. Once reaching maturity, he set out to explore the world, using his talents to make a living as a travelling Bard.....

(Only used for one session. He broke the game by seducing the BBEG Succubus in the second round of combat. I <3 Trog... :smallbiggrin:)

-Father Gregory, a Russian Catholic Priest.
Fought off the machinations of the Great Old Ones in a 1920's Call of Cthulhu campaign. Originally a Loyalist during the Russian Revolution, Father Gregory survived an assassination attempt in which his family was murdered and his church was burnt down by Communist rebels. Immigrating to America, the old priest tried to put his past behind him, focusing on God and helping others, rather than the bullet wound in his chest and the memories that haunted him. He'd almost found peace, but deep inside, he never forgot how to fight and kill. And with the right conditions, the Cleric could be roused into action once again...

(Went to Innsmouth to help rescue one of his Parishoners. Ended up buying a shotgun and breaking into the Esoteric Order of Dagon since the rest of the team ignored him and his ideas. He single-handedly rescued the hostage, and when confronted by a Deep One High Priest, he passed his Sanity Check and blew its face off in the name of God. :smallamused: He was then shot in the chest and almost killed by the surviving baddie, before the rest of the team barged in, blew it away, and dragged the Father to safety. :smalleek: Retired him to preserve his awesomeness for all time...)

Kosjsjach
2010-06-17, 05:28 AM
I'm a bit ashamed to say, but I usually do it backwards. I find or figure out a build I want to play mechanically, work out all the crunch, then figure out how they got there.

Knowing how the world works and how an individual like the one you've made fits in helps.

I believe making a concept first and figuring out how to make it work mechanically is more "pure", but I guess I don't have the imagination for it. I tend to have to see a mechanical core and build a character around it.

Snake-Aes
2010-06-17, 05:57 AM
Y'know, I'm not sure... I think most of my ideas tend to start with "I like the idea of..."

For example, "I like the idea of... an agile half-orc with a fondness for kittycats" lead to SheaThat's how my group came up with their breakdancer orc
"I want an orc that kills like Uma Thurman did". Cue samurai/dervish Chou, last master of the Singing Swan style, servant of the emperor of Tamu-ra. His story is the shortest, he was sent on a quest, while still an apprentice, to find in his heart how he could best serve the Emperor. He decided to find the oracle of Anilatir, goddess of inspiration, and from there he developed his breakdance-with-swords. When his patron sent him to the city my side of the group was hiding in, he had some cultural shock that led to a ...violent bar brawl.

In jail we met our last groupie, the bard, who was a captive fleeing from his former master, whom he played a rather too nasty prank involving a turnip,a flatulence spell and the court's monthly speech to the public.

Serpentine
2010-06-17, 06:05 AM
Alas, I am reminded of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJBKyTfCjCc)

Snake-Aes
2010-06-17, 06:09 AM
Yeah, add swords, a stern mood and an absolute -hate- for sailing coupled with him sailing a lot anyway because the emperor is a ****, and you'll have lots of fun with the sight of a half orc swimming in full armor and succeeding.

Fortuna
2010-06-17, 06:11 AM
To write a backstory I use roughly the same approach as I use for writing anything else. I put it off until the last minute and then throw something together out of everything that pops into my head over about half an hour.

Grumman
2010-06-17, 06:35 AM
I'm a bit ashamed to say, but I usually do it backwards. I find or figure out a build I want to play mechanically, work out all the crunch, then figure out how they got there.

Knowing how the world works and how an individual like the one you've made fits in helps.

I believe making a concept first and figuring out how to make it work mechanically is more "pure", but I guess I don't have the imagination for it. I tend to have to see a mechanical core and build a character around it.
Coming up with the mechanics first and then working out how your character got there isn't less "pure" than the reverse, and it's not something to be ashamed of. Flagellating yourself because you lack devotion to the "roleplay vs. rollplay" myth is pointless and foolish.

I'd actually say that mechanics then background works better than the reverse, because the ideals are a simple mechanical build and a detailed background. It's better to use your mechanical build to give you ideas to add to the background than it is to use your background to force yourself to add unnecessary complexity to your mechanical build.

Snake-Aes
2010-06-17, 07:19 AM
Coming up with the mechanics first and then working out how your character got there isn't less "pure" than the reverse, and it's not something to be ashamed of. Flagellating yourself because you lack devotion to the "roleplay vs. rollplay" myth is pointless and foolish.

I'd actually say that mechanics then background works better than the reverse, because the ideals are a simple mechanical build and a detailed background. It's better to use your mechanical build to give you ideas to add to the background than it is to use your background to force yourself to add unnecessary complexity to your mechanical build.

It goes both ways, and either way each can retcon the other until the story actually starts.