thewamp
2011-09-27, 02:46 AM
Play by Post roleplaying creates a unique opportunity, because the written medium allows so much more depth in roleplaying. And now sure, that's not everyone's cup of tea, but even for those who do strive to create interesting roleplaying, there's quite a lot of boring going on. So this is going to be my thoughts on what a PbP background should accomplish. This isn't meant to be comprehensive and it's pretty off the cuff, but it's a little bit like a rant, so that's okay.
My main motivation for this is based on the campaign I started recently - in the application phase I received many backgrounds and what I quickly realized is that some of them were both very long and very worthless. This post aims at letting applicants understand how to make their backgrounds not suck. Making them awesome is, of course, up to the skill and imagination of the writer.
EDIT: to be clear, I'm going to misappropriate the word "background" to mean "everything you write about your character". Backstory will be the character's story up to this point. Get it? Got it? Good.
So what does a character background entail?
Well first, I want to clarify that "background" is an umbrella term and encompasses everything you're telling the DM about your character that isn't represented on the stat sheet. So as much as physical appearance isn't really encompassed in the word "background", for our purposes it is.
Backgrounds usually contain three main elements: the backstory - what the character's life has been like up to the point of the story, the physical appearance of the character and the personality of the character. More on whether all three are really useful later.
So that's great! Slap those three together and you've got a character? Well, yes, you've got a character, but not necessarily a good one. Because the problem is that it's very possible to put a lot of words onto the page in all three of these areas and really not tell the most crucial part of information. What's that?
Yes, What does a background try to do?
So we know that a background is a backstory, a personality and an appearance, but these aren't the purpose of the background. It may sound odd, but here's my opinion: the purpose of the background is to inform the reader about what sort of person your character is. You're trying to flesh out, as quickly as possible, a three dimensional character that is interesting and real-feeling.
And that's the key, the main point to this whole post. Make a compelling character. Having an epic, soaring backstory is fine, but if it doesn't say anything about who your character is, it's useless. Compare your character to real people - not in their story, but in their psychology and decide if your character is anywhere near as complex. You obviously can't be as complicated as a real person, but the comparison is still useful.
NPCs
If the first purpose of the background is to give you a unique voice, a person to roleplay when roleplaying, then the second purpose is to give something back to the DM, namely, NPCs.
Part of this is personal preference, and it certainly isn't as crucial as determining what sort of person your character is, but you should feel free to interact with other (nonplayer) characters as you create your character. You can have detailed NPCs or ones that are just a name and their relation to your character, because the DM can always choose not to use something if it isn't useful. But basically, if you can give something back to the DM, that'll just make for a more interesting, character-oriented campaign - assuming the DM bothers to incorporate the NPCs. But that's not really your problem.
Characters to Avoid
This section is about what not to do. If you write a lengthy-enough background, you'll probably get accepted into campaigns with these characters, but really are very boring or very unrealistic and you should stay away from them.
1. The Classic Do-Gooder: the guy with the troubled past who has some really complicated backstory and has arrived at the location of the adventure with the intention of... upholding justice. And punishing bad people. There are such an incredibly large number of these with slight variations because they hide so well - their long backstories might make you assume there is more to the character, but if all that backstory says nothing about the character, then it's pretty useless. This isn't to say your character can't be a do-gooder, but a good rule of thumb is this: if you met the character, could you be around them for more than 10 minutes assuming they don't talk about their past without being so bored you wanted to stab your eyes out? Often, the answer for the Classic Do-Gooder is decidedly not.
2. The Really Really Powerful Character: you see these more in higher level campaigns when people have munchkin'd out their characters (or not) and the player just wants to get across to the other players how badass his character is. You'll often see extended pissing matches, ridiculous actions and nonchalantness as players try to prove how badass they are. Seriously, it gets old.
3. The Character Whose Motivations Make No Sense: He saw a star as a kid and developed a passion for light, so he became a mage. He saw shadows as a kid and was really interested in shadows, so he became a rogue. You see these characters quite a lot. The problem with them is that their character motivations are ludicrous. No one devotes their life to an interest in shadows - at least without developing some seriously interesting social disabilities that you could play up. Seriously, it's akin to someone who became a doctor because they were obsessed with the color red - conceivable, but you'd better realize that there's *way* more going on there than just an obsession with the color red.
A good rule of thumb
Here's one good rule of thumb to keep in mind. If you take away your character's past, their job, everything on their statsheet and even the physical description, can you still describe someone interesting?
Not clear? Okay, here's the difference (stolen from a rather excellent video review): Think about Han Solo. Aside from his job and all that stuff, who is he? He's a rogue, a charmer, but he's got a conscience. He likes to appear tougher than he is, but shows up when his friends need him. And so on.
Now think about Obi-Wan Kenobi from the new trilogy. Who is he? He likes his master? He's a jedi (but wait, that description's not allowed). Who is Queen Amidala? She's... normal? But what else?
This is the problem with both the new trilogy and many characters people create: despite working them very thoroughly into a plot, they are totally insubstantial and boring characters.
And you might try to answer this by just reading down your "personality" description, so let me make this one step harder and make your background one step better - describe your character in the same way, but only use information you can pull from your backstory. This leads us to our last section.
A Personality Section - Good or Bad Idea?
At first, it looks like I'm suggesting not bothering to give your character a personality. To be clear, I'm not. What I'm suggesting is that people often use the personality section as a crutch so that they don't have to bother working the personality into the backstory. A well written backstory, like the saga of star wars, should have enough character development that a personality section is redundant.
The backstory really should imply most of your personality. When people take actions, it's usually because of what type of person they are. You shouldn't need a personality section.
So should you skip the personality section? Personally, though you don't need them, I'd say yes, write them anyway. That's just because backstories are often significantly longer than the personality section, so the personality section is a nice succinct description of your character's personality. Just try to make sure that whatever you say about your character's personality could be inferred from their backstory.
/rant
My main motivation for this is based on the campaign I started recently - in the application phase I received many backgrounds and what I quickly realized is that some of them were both very long and very worthless. This post aims at letting applicants understand how to make their backgrounds not suck. Making them awesome is, of course, up to the skill and imagination of the writer.
EDIT: to be clear, I'm going to misappropriate the word "background" to mean "everything you write about your character". Backstory will be the character's story up to this point. Get it? Got it? Good.
So what does a character background entail?
Well first, I want to clarify that "background" is an umbrella term and encompasses everything you're telling the DM about your character that isn't represented on the stat sheet. So as much as physical appearance isn't really encompassed in the word "background", for our purposes it is.
Backgrounds usually contain three main elements: the backstory - what the character's life has been like up to the point of the story, the physical appearance of the character and the personality of the character. More on whether all three are really useful later.
So that's great! Slap those three together and you've got a character? Well, yes, you've got a character, but not necessarily a good one. Because the problem is that it's very possible to put a lot of words onto the page in all three of these areas and really not tell the most crucial part of information. What's that?
Yes, What does a background try to do?
So we know that a background is a backstory, a personality and an appearance, but these aren't the purpose of the background. It may sound odd, but here's my opinion: the purpose of the background is to inform the reader about what sort of person your character is. You're trying to flesh out, as quickly as possible, a three dimensional character that is interesting and real-feeling.
And that's the key, the main point to this whole post. Make a compelling character. Having an epic, soaring backstory is fine, but if it doesn't say anything about who your character is, it's useless. Compare your character to real people - not in their story, but in their psychology and decide if your character is anywhere near as complex. You obviously can't be as complicated as a real person, but the comparison is still useful.
NPCs
If the first purpose of the background is to give you a unique voice, a person to roleplay when roleplaying, then the second purpose is to give something back to the DM, namely, NPCs.
Part of this is personal preference, and it certainly isn't as crucial as determining what sort of person your character is, but you should feel free to interact with other (nonplayer) characters as you create your character. You can have detailed NPCs or ones that are just a name and their relation to your character, because the DM can always choose not to use something if it isn't useful. But basically, if you can give something back to the DM, that'll just make for a more interesting, character-oriented campaign - assuming the DM bothers to incorporate the NPCs. But that's not really your problem.
Characters to Avoid
This section is about what not to do. If you write a lengthy-enough background, you'll probably get accepted into campaigns with these characters, but really are very boring or very unrealistic and you should stay away from them.
1. The Classic Do-Gooder: the guy with the troubled past who has some really complicated backstory and has arrived at the location of the adventure with the intention of... upholding justice. And punishing bad people. There are such an incredibly large number of these with slight variations because they hide so well - their long backstories might make you assume there is more to the character, but if all that backstory says nothing about the character, then it's pretty useless. This isn't to say your character can't be a do-gooder, but a good rule of thumb is this: if you met the character, could you be around them for more than 10 minutes assuming they don't talk about their past without being so bored you wanted to stab your eyes out? Often, the answer for the Classic Do-Gooder is decidedly not.
2. The Really Really Powerful Character: you see these more in higher level campaigns when people have munchkin'd out their characters (or not) and the player just wants to get across to the other players how badass his character is. You'll often see extended pissing matches, ridiculous actions and nonchalantness as players try to prove how badass they are. Seriously, it gets old.
3. The Character Whose Motivations Make No Sense: He saw a star as a kid and developed a passion for light, so he became a mage. He saw shadows as a kid and was really interested in shadows, so he became a rogue. You see these characters quite a lot. The problem with them is that their character motivations are ludicrous. No one devotes their life to an interest in shadows - at least without developing some seriously interesting social disabilities that you could play up. Seriously, it's akin to someone who became a doctor because they were obsessed with the color red - conceivable, but you'd better realize that there's *way* more going on there than just an obsession with the color red.
A good rule of thumb
Here's one good rule of thumb to keep in mind. If you take away your character's past, their job, everything on their statsheet and even the physical description, can you still describe someone interesting?
Not clear? Okay, here's the difference (stolen from a rather excellent video review): Think about Han Solo. Aside from his job and all that stuff, who is he? He's a rogue, a charmer, but he's got a conscience. He likes to appear tougher than he is, but shows up when his friends need him. And so on.
Now think about Obi-Wan Kenobi from the new trilogy. Who is he? He likes his master? He's a jedi (but wait, that description's not allowed). Who is Queen Amidala? She's... normal? But what else?
This is the problem with both the new trilogy and many characters people create: despite working them very thoroughly into a plot, they are totally insubstantial and boring characters.
And you might try to answer this by just reading down your "personality" description, so let me make this one step harder and make your background one step better - describe your character in the same way, but only use information you can pull from your backstory. This leads us to our last section.
A Personality Section - Good or Bad Idea?
At first, it looks like I'm suggesting not bothering to give your character a personality. To be clear, I'm not. What I'm suggesting is that people often use the personality section as a crutch so that they don't have to bother working the personality into the backstory. A well written backstory, like the saga of star wars, should have enough character development that a personality section is redundant.
The backstory really should imply most of your personality. When people take actions, it's usually because of what type of person they are. You shouldn't need a personality section.
So should you skip the personality section? Personally, though you don't need them, I'd say yes, write them anyway. That's just because backstories are often significantly longer than the personality section, so the personality section is a nice succinct description of your character's personality. Just try to make sure that whatever you say about your character's personality could be inferred from their backstory.
/rant