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Burley
2015-05-27, 09:42 AM
So, my recent group dissolved, due to outside influences. Looking back over my notes of the campaign as it stood, I found that only one of the players had a backstory prepped before the game began.
We all had a lot of fun making up character history as the game went on, because I made a conscious effort to allow the players to shape the world with their characters' pasts, sorta made up on the fly by asking impromptu questions.

But, that was a lot of extra work, and sometimes worked against me.

There is a long standing debate about requiring role-playing in a role-playing game, but creating a backstory is not in-the-moment acting and shouldn't be as stressful or discomforting.

How do other people handle character backgrounds in games? How much preparation do you require, if any?

TheCountAlucard
2015-05-27, 09:48 AM
The minimum I ask is "something I can work with." A more complex character will of course require a more complex story. I don't need to know where you got each piece of your equipment, though if you're carrying Excalibur around, there'd better be a reason for it.

Raphite1
2015-05-27, 09:55 AM
I love how my DM handles it.

I always write up a character backstory, and check with the DM to make sure that any particulars like place names and events are compatible with his world. I always try to keep it small-scale so that it isn't likely to contradict or unduely influence anything he may have already decided. Sometimes the backstory will need details like the history of a town or a particular conflict, and if that's the case he'll give some suggestions on tweaking it to fit into the setting. When it's done, I give him a copy.

Often, over the course of the campaign, he'll bring in elements from the characters' backstories as plot elements or conflicts to resolve. It's really a lot of fun, and makes it feel like our characters as we created them are truly a part of a living world, rather than just people that go around and kill stuff that NPCs direct us towards.

Players aren't required to go into this much detail, but it seems more fun for everyone when they do.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-27, 10:01 AM
Depends on the game. Some rpg's, like Fate Core, a backstory is a requirement and gives tangible in-game advantages. Also depends on the group.

I prefer there to be some effort on the players' part to become invested in the campaign and for me to use as adventure hooks.

Necroticplague
2015-05-27, 10:11 AM
When I play an RPG, I want to play an RPG, not write a f***ing book. I don't like writing backstories, especially not before play begins. I prefer to make a character, iron out their personality through play, then go back and fill in what might have made them this way.

Geddy2112
2015-05-27, 10:12 AM
The minimum I ask is "something I can work with."

I have never had a problem with a character having too much backstory. But it is hard to include a character that has no real reason or motivation to do anything. A character should at least have a reason to exist in the setting and a willingness to go out and do something.

Raphite1
2015-05-27, 10:20 AM
When I play an RPG, I want to play an RPG

That's why the backstory seems indispensible to me - because we're playing an RPG, which is as much cooperative storytelling as it is anything else. That's what these games can do that other types of games can't. If you're mostly wanting to play a number-crunching combat sim, that's totally fine and those are fun, but video games do it far better than a tabletop RPG.

JNAProductions
2015-05-27, 10:31 AM
Honestly, depends on the players. Improvising players can give you a name and a stat block, but still have a compelling, fun, and storied character. Players who can't improvise as well might start with just a name and stat block and go nowhere with it.

Really, it dependsa lot on who you're playing with.

Necroticplague
2015-05-27, 10:33 AM
That's why the backstory seems indispensible to me - because we're playing an RPG, which is as much cooperative storytelling as it is anything else. That's what these games can do that other types of games can't. If you're mostly wanting to play a number-crunching combat sim, that's totally fine and those are fun, but video games do it far better than a tabletop RPG.

Yes, but the act of writing a backstory is quite different from the act of playing in an RPG, especially before the character has been fully established through play. I enjoy the latter, the former is work. It has nothing to do with 'combat-simming', I'd play DF on adventure mode if I wanted that.

Keltest
2015-05-27, 10:37 AM
I work with the players to get as much detail as theyre comfortable with. Often that means nothing, because they aren't that excited by the roleplaying aspect, and want to watch the story unfold rather than work within it themselves. That's OK. Occasionally though I get a player who is very excited about making a new character, because it lets them do lots of interesting things like playing as a stone giant in a land of humans and elves.

weaseldust
2015-05-27, 10:53 AM
I can see two reasons for writing backstory: to develop the character's personality, and to provide plot points for the campaign.

I'm not a big fan of the former because backstory doesn't determine personality and is a poor replacement for it. E.g. you sometimes see players who have a story like 'I was born into this culture, and my village was destroyed by this group B, and I was taken in by this benefactor and trained in this class, etc.' and have no understanding of the character beyond that. But that story is consistent with any number of personality traits - the character could be consumed with thoughts of revenge, or dutifully but unhappily dedicated to revenge, or only looking to live in peace, or whatever; and whichever course they pick, they could still be stoic or short-tempered, excessively formal or blunt and sharp-tongued, etc.. The backstory can enrich the character in small ways, e.g. by determining what sorts of food or conversational topics or swearwords they will favour, what behaviour they will see as normal or aberrant, and so on, but you could easily get by without one (all of those things fall under 'background' more than 'backstory'; you can know where your character comes from and what they are familiar with without having any particular narrative in mind).

As for providing plot points (e.g. 'Hey, the benefactor who took you in after your village was destroyed just turned up again'), I expect some groups/DMs will enjoy playing on that and some won't, and backstories will be required or not accordingly. That's more a matter of taste.

Eisenheim
2015-05-27, 11:14 AM
When creating a character, assuming you have more than a set of stats in mind, what is there to create that doesn't at least implicate a partial background? I don't really see a lot of space between creating a backstory and creating a character, if I'm going to know anything about their motivations and concerns before play begins.

goto124
2015-05-27, 11:21 AM
Am I a wierdo for not wanting the DM to use my backstory as plot points?

PbP tends to demand long backstories to determine player involvement, considering the high risk of dropouts.

I'm more of the kind who 'goes with the flow' though, and find it rather awkward when my PC is too personally involved in the situation.

Incidentally, I played a character with a highly detailed backstory, and it wasn't long before I was told to shut up about the backstory already. So I guess backstories shouldn't/don't have to go to that extent. Knowing your character's personality would be more important (although for some reason I find it easier to figure my char's personality out via past experience aka backstory, as opposed to 'shy' or 'brash' or something...)

Maglubiyet
2015-05-27, 11:21 AM
When creating a character, assuming you have more than a set of stats in mind, what is there to create that doesn't at least implicate a partial background? I don't really see a lot of space between creating a backstory and creating a character, if I'm going to know anything about their motivations and concerns before play begins.

You can easily create a very detailed character without a backstory. Just because you know you've got a wood elf Warblade/Swordsage doesn't mean you know anything about that person's motivations, where he received his training, his family, goals and aspirations, favorite color, etc.

The Grue
2015-05-27, 11:36 AM
PbP tends to demand long backstories to determine player involvement, considering the high risk of dropouts.


And yet both player and GM drop-outs remain a frequent occurrence, at least in my experience playing on these forums. Makes one wonder how effective long backstories are as a player selection mechanism.

JNAProductions
2015-05-27, 11:39 AM
Terrible. Simply terrible. Makes me more likely to pass up a PbP games if I need to whip out more than a few paragraphs, since it's just too much effort.

PbP is nice because it's spread out-you can handle it on a day-by-day basis.

Eisenheim
2015-05-27, 11:48 AM
You can easily create a very detailed character without a backstory. Just because you know you've got a wood elf Warblade/Swordsage doesn't mean you know anything about that person's motivations, where he received his training, his family, goals and aspirations, favorite color, etc.

You'll notice, Possibly that I was talking about a character beyond a set of stats. Now, stats, in which I include mechanical entities like race, class, level, as well as actual numbers, take up a lote of space in D&D, and less in many other systems, but I think my question remains: what is a character, at the start of play, other than stats and a backstory?

Necroticplague
2015-05-27, 11:54 AM
You'll notice, Possibly that I was talking about a character beyond a set of stats. Now, stats, in which I include mechanical entities like race, class, level, as well as actual numbers, take up a lote of space in D&D, and less in many other systems, but I think my question remains: what is a character, at the start of play, other than stats and a backstory?

Personality. A backstory tells you what the character was, but not necessarily how they are now.

Oddman80
2015-05-27, 12:08 PM
if i'm making a back up character - or replacement character because mine died, then i usually have very minimal back-story. However if i am creating a new character for a new campaign - it likely has about a 1 page back-story.

Lately - to help me get a feel for the character, i try to hone down the character's voice... their accent, their speaking pace, etc.. it gives just as much flavor, if not more than the written back-story. if i come across a voice i like, i will often hit record on my phone and just improvise a background - pretend I'm in a tavern with a group of people I've been drinking with all night, when one turns and asks "well - what's YOUR story?" i have done this on several occasions during my morning commute to work, all with enjoyable results.

Eisenheim
2015-05-27, 12:08 PM
That's true, though I find it hard to separate the two myself. My best insight into personality is often motivations, which generally grow from experiences. Sometimes I start with a backstory and that suggests a personality, sometimes the other way round, but I really don't think I've ever put one together without the other making an appearance.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-27, 12:10 PM
You'll notice, Possibly that I was talking about a character beyond a set of stats. Now, stats, in which I include mechanical entities like race, class, level, as well as actual numbers, take up a lote of space in D&D, and less in many other systems, but I think my question remains: what is a character, at the start of play, other than stats and a backstory?

I didn't quite get that question from your earlier post. Anyway, a backstory may or may not include motivations. If it doesn't, it's just a list of things that happened, like "was born in x, parents did y, moved to z when age n". That doesn't explain how the character was affected by any of these events.

A character should also have, well, character. He was raised by an orcs so he hates elves, he failed his Blood Rite initiation so he is driven by an ever-present sense of shame to excel, his father was a baker so he is constantly seeking out the finest croissants to remind him of home.

EDIT: ninja'ed!

DigoDragon
2015-05-27, 12:15 PM
PbP is nice because it's spread out-you can handle it on a day-by-day basis.

Yeah. If the game survives that early unstable trial period where players and GM stay onboard, they tend to be very rewarding and decently lasting games.

One PbP that I'm in didn't have much of a backstory at all for my PC. I sort of regret it a bit because I do love my character and had some fun ideas after-the-fact. It's okay though, I managed to build a little backstory as I go. Hasn't come up much, but at least it's something the GM was able to use once.

I love backstories I can use when I GM. Not too much is needed, just a bit about where the character grew up, what family life was like, and why they're adventuring. Sometimes giving the players a short questionnaire helps make it easy.

Red Fel
2015-05-27, 02:16 PM
I consider writing a decent, well-written and well-organized backstory to be an act helpful to the GM. A great GM doesn't just dump plot around the characters, he makes it relevant to them; knowing who they are and what they've done is invaluable to that degree. And I'm not just talking about using loved ones from the backstory as hostages.

Writing a backstory is a valuable exercise in fleshing out the character for the player's benefit, but as others have mentioned it is not necessary. Many players do their character development on the fly, while others may have the backstory written in detail in their heads. It's not necessary for the benefit of the player.

But your GM (generally) can't read your mind. And while a decent GM can get a solid handle on your character's personality within a session or two, it really does help to have more concrete material. Not only that, it helps to get the players more invested in the world.

Here's an example. A player writes a backstory for his Paladin, about how he grew up on a farm in a small agricultural village, attempted to enlist in the King's Guard, and was denied on account of his physical immaturity and lack of training, leading to him seeking guidance from church leaders and ultimately taking up the calling of the Paladin. Nice, clean, takes maybe a page or two, or a one-page bullet-point list.

There's so much I can do with that, as GM. Maybe I can squeeze that small village into my campaign world someplace. Maybe I'll use that church leader in a future event. Maybe I'll use the Captain of the King's Guard who haughtily denied this PC's application. There's stuff there that I can use.

And the player gets his payoff, too. His material, the stuff that he created, exists in the world. His characters, and his PC, become integral to the ongoing story. It's not just a story happening around a bunch of fungible characters; it's a story relevant to his PC, because the places and people are relevant to his PC. It gives the individual character a chance, regardless of party role or ability, to be relevant and important; to be a star.

All because somebody slapped together a couple of pages of helpful background information that I, as GM, could use.

rafet
2015-05-27, 02:27 PM
Writing a backstory for a character seems like a small amount of work compared to what a GM has to do, and like Red Fel said, a few lines can go a really long way.

Kid Jake
2015-05-27, 02:28 PM
As a DM I ask for only a single piece of backstory to begin with: "Why are you here?" Everything else is optional or can come up later.

Flashy
2015-05-27, 02:44 PM
Am I a wierdo for not wanting the DM to use my backstory as plot points?

This. Oh my god this. I haaaate seeing random events from my character's past drop into the campaign. If I have to have a fleshed out backstory I usually try to make it as closed off as possible. I like a DM that lets me decide why my character is motivated to do a thing rather than trying to hammer it home with references to a boring crib-sheet I made weeks ago when I had a limited understanding of the world and no real connection to any other PCs. I don't particularly care about where my character has been, if that was the interesting part of their life I'd be playing that.

Eisenheim
2015-05-27, 02:49 PM
I like a DM that lets me decide why my character is motivated to do a thing rather than trying to hammer it home with references to a boring crib-sheet I made weeks ago when I had a limited understanding of the world and no real connection to any other PCs. I don't particularly care about where my character has been, if that was the interesting part of their life I'd be playing that.

See, problems like this are why the first session of a game should be the players and GM establishing the important points about the world, and the game you're going to play in it, together, and then building characters together.

Even if you never play fate, read the core rules' take on game and character creation. It's system independent and just genuinely good advice for making sure everyone has fun.

rafet
2015-05-27, 02:52 PM
[QUOTE=goto124;19311303]Am I a wierdo for not wanting the DM to use my backstory as plot points?[QUOTE]

I don't think so, but it should be something he asks to use, or makes it very clear from the beginning that all submitted backstories are available for his use.

My GM killed had our group kill my back-up character this way, had I known he was going to make my brother with wizard skills an opponent I would have included why I him to begin with.

EdokTheTwitch
2015-05-27, 03:28 PM
Well, I haven't DM-ed much, but from what I did, the background part fluctuated quite a lot. However, I did notice something: In the first "longer" campaing I DM-ed (several months), most of my players had apsolutely no background that anyone cared about. However, we still sometimes quote some of the NPCs that were introduced, and remember some glorious encounters (Delver vs Ancient Relic Sword, hehe). It was a completely basic story, about rallying up the nations an fending off an invading army, with the players simply jumping from place to place. (I was still green)

On the other hand, my last long campaign was completely backstory driven. I never even tried to think up a plot point by myself, it was all character-motivated. And those characters appear to be stuck in my player's minds much better, as they really connected to them. And this led to an airship invasion of a kingdom ran by the backstabbing brother of one of the players, with the main villain using a superpowered mech to beat them down :smallbiggrin:

So, basically, there are pros and cons to both sides, in my experience. Whatever works for the group, in the end.

Vizzerdrix
2015-05-27, 04:32 PM
Am I a weirdo for not wanting the DM to use my backstory as plot points?

This.

When I'm a player, I'll always have a backstory. Most of the time I won't bother to write it out unless asked to. Even then, if I suspect the DM is going to try to squeeze some filler out of it (Oh no! your long lost sisters uncle's cousins fathers roommate from collage's son is trapped down a well! Either save them or stop the BBEG!) then their will be heavy omition, and a note made to only make bland backgrounds for that DM. Or, if the DM is a resetter, they can expect something generic and short (No joke. I had one DM that made our group at the time restart four time in one day).


When I DM/GM, I'll ask beforehand if anyone wants to make one, and if they'd like it incorporated in some way. If someone says no, then their background is strictly off limits to me.

Vitruviansquid
2015-05-27, 04:56 PM
I never require a backstory for multiple reasons.

1. I like the atmosphere of RPG's when they are friendly, laid-back hang-outs where everyone's cooperating for everyone else to have fun. I really dislike the drama that arises when people at an RPG table starts judging each other based on their roleplay style, like "ugh, Alice never has a consistent personality in her characters" or "ugh, Bob always plays the same character" (I do make an exception when someone's using roleplaying as an excuse for toxic OOC behavior). So I don't really want to force players to come up with backstories, and I certainly don't want to put any requirements on their backstories for me to look through and judge.

2. A lot of players have different roleplaying styles, and I don't want to constrain people who prefer to improvise by demanding they come up with extensive backstories.

3. I think backstories do kind of burden some roleplayers. In establishing a backstory for their characters, some folks tend to flanderize themselves in-game by keeping to that backstory to an unreasonable degree, so that they'd actually be better roleplayers if they didn't tie themselves down with it.

Telok
2015-05-27, 06:29 PM
I don't require any backstory but if backstory is given then I incorporate it and give perks for it. Thr friends, mentors, and family of a character are all ways for me to give the players information, resources, and allies. Characters without backgrounds are nameless nobodies, homeless outcasts that nobody cares about. If you want to play a nameless drifter fighting against a hostile, uncaring world that's fine. But you aren't going to get anything like discovering an old lover infiltrating the same evil cult that you're infiltrating and get some help or information, or be broken out of prison.

Sadly my current group is anti-backstory. Every time I wrote one it was ignored and nobody else will do anything but stat blocks. Well, that's not completely true. They'll violently murder anyone who insults them or asks them to pay taxes if they can get away with it.

valadil
2015-05-27, 09:23 PM
I've given up on requiring backstories. Players don't deliver and then I get pissed off and treat them badly. The game is better off if the whole thing is optional.

Players who do write backstories get their story elements thrown back into the game as a reward. I've never seen a player not want that and it usually helps bring them into the game. Not sure how I'd reward a player who liked backstory, but didn't want that story to become part of the game since I haven't encountered that yet.

goto124
2015-05-27, 09:50 PM
This. Oh my god this. I haaaate seeing random events from my character's past drop into the campaign. If I have to have a fleshed out backstory I usually try to make it as closed off as possible. I like a DM that lets me decide why my character is motivated to do a thing rather than trying to hammer it home with references to a boring crib-sheet I made weeks ago when I had a limited understanding of the world and no real connection to any other PCs. I don't particularly care about where my character has been, if that was the interesting part of their life I'd be playing that.

(a few more similar quotes)

Wow, glad to hear I'm not the only one who doesn't like the GM to use my backstory.

Oftentimes, the backstory (and the entire character hirself!) is something I threw together solely for the purposes of the campaign, so it's not like I have an emotional connection to said backstory anyway. Especially if the GM had demanded the backstory. Thus, when said GM makes use of the backstory, I feel frustrated and railroaded, not compelled and immersed.

Other times, when I do like my backstory, I prefer that only I use the backstory in ways that I see fit (e.g. how it affects my character's personality). I find it much better that throwing it in the hands of someone else.

Maybe I don't trust the GM enough with my backstory, even more so when the GM is a stranger. Not everyone's lucky enough to have close friends to play with.


Not sure how I'd reward a player who liked backstory, but didn't want that story to become part of the game since I haven't encountered that yet.

No need to 'reward' those kind of players directly. Just let them... well... play as normal. We'll be glad for it.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-27, 10:38 PM
I won't quote anyone, because there are many people who feel the same way. For those people I have a question though:

In the absence of providing your own backstory, do you object when the GM fleshes one out for you in the game?

For example, what if an adventure started off with "You are approached by a woman who looks somewhat familiar. It takes you a moment to realize that she is the wife of the head librarian of the Sacred Vaults. You became good friends with her husband, Piegar, while you were studying at the Vaults for your initiation ritual to become a mage. He was the first to give you a formal tour of the city and was also the one to introduce you to the illegal griffin-fighting pens. The two of you even spent a few evenings gambling on fights together. It comes to you that his wife's name is Venetia..."

goto124
2015-05-27, 10:50 PM
In the absence of providing your own backstory, do you object when the GM fleshes one out for you in the game?

Yes. No one should write someone else's story without permission. That's even worse the the GM forcing me to write a backstory before the game starts- at least in this case, I know beforehand what will come up. Why is the GM writing the backstory for my character?!

It's alright if the GM and player has talked over and agreed on it before the campaign. Otherwise, a big fat no.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-27, 10:54 PM
Yes. No one should write someone else's story without permission. That's even worse the the GM forcing me to write a backstory before the game starts- at least in this case, I know beforehand what will come up.

Fair enough. What about a toned down version of my example above? Your character didn't drop fully formed out the sky, there must be someone they know from their life prior to adventuring.

Would you be upset if the GM said, "you trained with this guy when you were studying to become a mage"?

goto124
2015-05-27, 10:56 PM
Still yes. When I don't write my backstory, I avoided it for reasons already mentioned before. Don't write my backstory for me when we didn't even agree on it.

It's courtesy.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-27, 10:59 PM
Still yes. When I don't write my backstory, I avoided it for reasons already mentioned before. Don't write my backstory for me when we didn't even agree on it.

It's courtesy.

Take it a step further back then. "You must've trained with some people when studying to become a mage. Do you think you might know this guy from the wizard academy?"

goto124
2015-05-27, 11:21 PM
This should happen BEFORE the game starts, and only if the player actually wants to write a story with the GM. Really, should've discussed all those sort of things before the beginning of the campaign.

That, or the player simply refuses to play with such a stubborn GM.

Vitruviansquid
2015-05-27, 11:24 PM
Take it a step further back then. "You must've trained with some people when studying to become a mage. Do you think you might know this guy from the wizard academy?"

Checking with the player to see if this would be a good addition, and then possibly some compromise... I'd be okay with this.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-28, 03:52 AM
This should happen BEFORE the game starts, and only if the player actually wants to write a story with the GM. Really, should've discussed all those sort of things before the beginning of the campaign.

That, or the player simply refuses to play with such a stubborn GM.

Sure, but courtesy works both ways. If you're going to be playing in someone's campaign you might want to meet them halfway. Backstory might not come up initially, but may become important later.

Really, I don't understand having zero flexibility on a character's non-background. The presence of a living, breathing being in a campaign world begs the question of exactly how it came to be there. If a player doesn't provide the narrative of why it's there, then the GM should be able to fill in a few details as necessary.

A RPG is telling a story. You at least want to know a little bit about the main characters in that story. "Mysterious brooding loner without a past" gets old pretty quickly.

rafet
2015-05-28, 07:14 AM
Your character didn't drop fully formed out the sky, there must be someone they know from their life prior to adventuring.

A 4e Shardmind born yesterday.


A RPG is telling a story. You at least want to know a little bit about the main characters in that story. "Mysterious brooding loner without a past" gets old pretty quickly.

But really this ^

Give some unique reasons why to the GM your character doesn't have a backstory. This is a Role Playing game

BWR
2015-05-28, 08:14 AM
I rarely bother with backstories for my characters beyond country of origin and whatever other social and political organizations the PCs belong to. Mostly because I have little concept of personality before I've played a PC a while. A backstory that suddenly doesn't work with how the character has turned out is useles, and most of the DM's I play under don't bother with backstories - where you are from isn't interesting; it's where you are going.

As a DM I don't require them and rarely bother with them if they are provided. It has happened that too much of a detailed backstory getting in the way of the current game. By all means, determine where your character started but it doesn't need to be more than 'grew up on a farm and left for fame and fortune'. Some games make more of a big deal about pre-game life than others and if the mechanics support it, it can be good for the character and game (Ars Magica is pretty good at this).

DigoDragon
2015-05-28, 08:48 AM
Really, I don't understand having zero flexibility on a character's non-background. The presence of a living, breathing being in a campaign world begs the question of exactly how it came to be there. If a player doesn't provide the narrative of why it's there, then the GM should be able to fill in a few details as necessary.

At the very least, a little backstory can be a benefit to the player by giving them a couple NPCs they can go to for information. Like having connections.

Red Fel
2015-05-28, 09:32 AM
I hear the objections to the GM using your backstory as a form of forced motivation. And I agree with that; that's heavy-handed and inching towards railroading. But here's the thing - backstory isn't just a source of morality anvils and blackmail. There's so much more you can do with it.

For example, let's say that, in your backstory, your mother told you the legend of X as a bedtime story. Fast-forward to the present game, you're in a puzzle dungeon, and there are murals in each room. The DM informs you that they depict the legend of X. Well, you learned that growing up; you recall the story, which helps you solve the puzzles and advance. The DM isn't forcing you to do anything; rather, he's using your character's unique experiences to give you a moment in the spotlight.

Another example; in the Monk's backstory, when he was young, a traveling martial artist came to town, and saw him practicing in his yard. The traveler told him to drop by if he was ever in the Capital. Fast-forward to the present game, and the party is in the Capital with some down-time. The Wizard is at the Mage-Mart, shopping for bargain scrolls; the Cleric is in the Pray-Atorium, doing his thing; the Fighter is at the Sword-Ateria, browsing the BFSes. Monk doesn't use spells or weapons, he's not in the mood for prayer, and he's feeling a bit left out. DM reminds him that he has a friend in the Capital, he visits him, maybe the DM takes that opportunity to let the Monk practice with that training dummy that increases your 5-foot step.

Or maybe, in the alternative, the party is trying to get into a fancy-pants gala in the Palace. Party is doing some Gather Information and diplomancy to try to get invitations so they don't have to crash, and the Monk suddenly recalls that he has a friend in the Capital. If I were GMing and the Monk hadn't told me ahead of time about the traveling martial artist, I wouldn't let him suddenly invent one from whole cloth; because he told me, however, I'm receptive to the idea and willing to reward his creative thinking.

In each of these cases, the GM isn't using the backstory to force the PCs to do something; he's using it to enhance their experience, to make them feel special, or to give them creative alternative options. These are all good things.

As an aside, I have an issue with a point you made, Goto. First, you said you shouldn't be forced to provide backstory, because you don't want the GM using it. Fine. But then you said that the GM shouldn't be writing it for you (a fact with which I agree); it should be discussed in advance. But how can you discuss it in advance if you refuse to provide it?

Basically, if the GM can't use your backstory in any way, you're a character whose only involvement in the plot is contrivance; that is, "I'm interested in doing this quest because I want to." Your character is in the game because he's a PC, not because of any personal reason or motivation. Even a paragraph of information - who he is, where he's from, and why he's adventuring - goes a long way to telling you, the GM, and the other players what your PC is doing in the game.

I get wary of characters with no history, at my tables. I have a number of yellow and red flags for murderhoboing; they're not guarantees, but they're indicators of varying strength. When the game is a straight-up hack'n'slash, that's fine, but when it's not, I'm wary. And one of those flags is a lack of background. As a GM, if the only reason I can see that the PCs are together is that their players have decided it must be so, that's another flag. At least if the character has some depth, some reason I can see at the outset of the campaign for being involved, my mind will be more at ease.

Communicating expectations is vital at the outset of the campaign, and it goes both ways. As a GM, my obligation to the players is to let them know, generally, the tone and genre of the campaign, and whether there are any particular expectations to have or avoid. As a player, my obligation to the GM is to let him know what I expect from the game, and what I'm bringing to the table. Taking out a character sheet and simply saying "I'm a level 1 Cleric" tells the GM absolutely nothing about my character or my expectations.

goto124
2015-05-28, 11:17 AM
Basically, if the GM can't use your backstory in any way, you're a character whose only involvement in the plot is contrivance; that is, "I'm interested in doing this quest because I want to." Your character is in the game because he's a PC, not because of any personal reason or motivation. Even a paragraph of information - who he is, where he's from, and why he's adventuring - goes a long way to telling you, the GM, and the other players what your PC is doing in the game.

If I knocked up the paragraph at the last minute and even I have no idea what the heck I'm writing?

'The man reveals himself, and gasp! He's Master Unad!'
'Who?'
'Your mentor!'
'How was I supposed to know?'
'You wrote him in your backstory!'
'What? When and where? *checks* What the, I smashed my head against the keyboard to write that story...'

JNAProductions
2015-05-28, 11:25 AM
Honestly, at that point? Talk to the DM and say "I hate backstories. I'm a good player, I promise, but I. Hate. Backstories. Don't make me write one-it won't be good, and I won't want to see it in play."

Red Fel
2015-05-28, 11:49 AM
If I knocked up the paragraph at the last minute and even I have no idea what the heck I'm writing?

'The man reveals himself, and gasp! He's Master Unad!'
'Who?'
'Your mentor!'
'How was I supposed to know?'
'You wrote him in your backstory!'
'What? When and where? *checks* What the, I smashed my head against the keyboard to write that story...'

So... Actually put some thought into what you're writing? I don't understand how that's not a thing; if you're playing a character, you must have given the character some thought. If it honestly takes you a massive pile of effort to produce a paragraph of text, how are you producing an hour or more of RP?

I mean, this just falls under the general rule of "never hit Send when you haven't read what you typed."


Honestly, at that point? Talk to the DM and say "I hate backstories. I'm a good player, I promise, but I. Hate. Backstories. Don't make me write one-it won't be good, and I won't want to see it in play."

See, this is a fair position. If a player tells me this, I'll understand that. I will ask, however, something along the lines of, "Could you at least give me a Cliffs Notes explanation of him? You know, where he's from, why he's here? No writing, just quick answers?"

I get that some people genuinely don't like putting pen to paper (or the digital equivalent). But in my mind, if I'm going to dedicate a ton of work to building an entire world in which your characters can play, I would hope you'd be willing to dedicate a few minutes to coming up with a quick explanation of who this character is as a person. If you can't even produce that, what reason do I have to expect that you'll devote any effort to RP?

You could be the best RPer in the world. You could improvise incredible characters, create tremendous emotional depth and motivation at the drop of a hat. But I generally don't see the future, and I don't know that in advance of the campaign. All I know of your character's complexity, if anything, is what you've told me or written down. And if you can't be bothered to create depth in advance of the game, I have no reason to assume that you're going to do so once gameplay has begun.

That, for me, is a yellow flag. Not a red flag, but a yellow one.

The Evil DM
2015-05-28, 12:20 PM
I agree with a lot of what Red Fel has posted here. However as a GM I have solved some of this in my own games by doing to following - (explaining by using a D&D model here)

Typical character creation has the following steps.

Ability Scores
Race
Class
Skills/Feats
Equipment
Put a minimal amount of thought into personality

Ready to go

However hidden within "Race" are cultural elements that have never been extracted. So In my campaigns I have extended this to:

Ability Scores
Race
Culture
Home Settlement - Which also give a home nationality or kingdom.
Religion - Not required and can be skipped
Associations - Not required and can be skipped, used to model participation in a guild or some other entity.
Class
Skills/Feats
Equipment
NPC Contacts - One line name/profession of NPCs that are derived from home settlement, religion, or guild associations. Could be a fence, shop keeper, high priest etc.

My campaign has run for 20 years and I have many of these things pre-defined. The player only needs to go through lists of available cultures and religions to choose what they want. Some of them give bonuses, for instance all the women in the Amazon culture get a free weapon specialization with spear.

The player only needs to provide a bit of additional personality.

While playing the selections here don't necessarily provide fodder for railroading. However, I have large matrices that describe the relationships between various nations and cultures. A character from a Roman Culture who finds himself in the wilds of Gaul might have some additional difficulty negotiating with a Gallic inn keeper.

The character creation process is a little longer and more in depth but the player doesn't necessarily need to give me any additional detail in background. The process of selecting culture and home settlement places the character in the setting and I know what is happening around that location.

Talakeal
2015-05-28, 12:53 PM
So I have always been disappointed with players who didn't come up with a backstory. I didn't give them too much trouble about it, but I would request they put in some effort and get a little annoyed when they refused. But then, the same players would also get mad at me later on when I "played favorites" by giving the players who did give me backstory more hooks and spotlight time as they were integrated into the world.

I have never met a player who refuses to have any sort of backstory or refuses to let the DM flesh it out. Every game I run has the players as an integral part of the world, most with some sort of special origin or destiny. Most of the games I have played in are the same way, and I can't imagine someone who adamantly refused to let me use any sort of backstory for my character would remain welcome at my table for very long.


However, the last year or so I have been playing rather than GMing, and I am starting to see things from the other direction.

First, if you don't have a lot of trust in the DM they will literally make a mess of your backstory. They will kill or have other horrible things happen to your old friends, family, and acquaintances to motivate you, and when those characters show up in game they act in a manner that is totally contrary to your initial intent.

Second, more often than not writing a backstory gets in the way of the game. If my character has responsibilities and goals that are not served by hanging out with a group of murder hobos and raiding dungeons then I need to constantly find excuses for why I am ignoring my backstory, shirking my duty, and ignoring my friends and colleagues in favor of the other PCs.


For example, the three characters I am currently playing:

The first is a knight who is in love with a dryad. The DM reveals to me (through a literal divine revelation) that all fey in the campaign world are actually soulless abominations created by the powers of the far realm and given fair form to infiltrate and corrupt the mortal world, and by siding with them rather than the gods I am going to suffer eternal torment as my soul is consumed when I die. When my character refuses to change my whole motivation and life around as a result the DM gets mad at me.

The second is a centaur shepherdess and tracker. I am hired by the local constable to track down a gang of raiders. I do so, and I find that they are hiding in a tunnel complex similar to those used by the viet cong. Now, I am not a warrior, and I am a centaur, and I was hired to track them down. So I mark the location of the tunnel entrances and take them back to the constable. I am then berated by the DM for "ignoring his adventure" because apparently I was supposed to crawl into the tunnels after them and kill them all (which in my mind shouldn't even be physically possible for a centaur).

The third character is in an cWoD Mage game. My character is a medical student who has a job, a family, friends, and a relationship, and don't agree with the PCs on moral issues. Yet I am constantly having to come up with rationales to put my life on hold and go off on long adventures with them where I have no IC motivation to do so.

All three of these games would be so goddamn much easier if I was simply playing "murder hobo treasure hunter with no past".

Flashy
2015-05-28, 01:06 PM
Honestly even if I put effort into backstory I don't want to see it in play. A lot of the problem I have with backstory is people who demand it generally have different expectations about what the backstory is going to be. I like a character whose backstory is simple, clean, and gives me a solid starting point for character development. It's a thought experiment in how my character interacts with the world, and bringing figures from it back into the story is irritating because that was never their purpose. Saying "Your mentor shows up." is pointless because as a player I never cared about this character's mentor. If I mentioned them at all it was as an excuse to shape who this character was when we began, not because I ever wanted to see them again. I just don't enjoy that kind of melodrama.

On top of that I find it's difficult to handle. How do you introduce this character to the group as a whole in a compelling way? Why is this person's sudden unexpected arrival better or more useful than a new NPC? What about one player standing around going "Ah yes my old friend I remember all those adventures we went on except we didn't, they're a thing I made up" has anything to do with interesting tabletop play? As a player I have seen exactly one DM who successfully integrated someone from a character's history into a campaign and as a DM I have had exactly one player (They're actually the same person).

Red Fel
2015-05-28, 01:43 PM
First, if you don't have a lot of trust in the DM they will literally make a mess of your backstory. They will kill or have other horrible things happen to your old friends, family, and acquaintances to motivate you, and when those characters show up in game they act in a manner that is totally contrary to your initial intent.

Second, more often than not writing a backstory gets in the way of the game. If my character has responsibilities and goals that are not served by hanging out with a group of murder hobos and raiding dungeons then I need to constantly find excuses for why I am ignoring my backstory, shirking my duty, and ignoring my friends and colleagues in favor of the other PCs.

These are two very fair points. With respect to the first, as I've mentioned, a great GM will do things with your backstory that don't involve using it as emotional blackmail, but still make you feel special and important. It's rather poor taste to take the backstory and turn it into George R. R. Martin's latest massacre. It's worth noting, however, that you don't really get to "intend" how any characters act aside from your own; by creating NPCs in your backstory, you are allowing your character to be more connected to the game world, but you are also allowing the GM to take these characters in whatever direction he sees fit. That's how NPCs work.

With respect to the second, that's less an issue with the GM, and more an issue with poor planning. As a rule, if you wrote a backstory that would preclude your character from being an adventurer, you probably missed the point. A certain degree of communication is necessary. If I were in a party with a necromancer, a devil-worshipper, and a serial killer (and not the heroic kind), I would not do well to play an heroic, noble, virtuous defender of the people. Similarly, if I were in a campaign that would involve traveling the continent and fighting evil, I would not do well to play a character who cannot survive more than one mile from his sacred mountain. I would go back and rewrite my backstory to allow and encourage the campaign to go on.


For example, the three characters I am currently playing:

The first is a knight who is in love with a dryad. The DM reveals to me (through a literal divine revelation) that all fey in the campaign world are actually soulless abominations created by the powers of the far realm and given fair form to infiltrate and corrupt the mortal world, and by siding with them rather than the gods I am going to suffer eternal torment as my soul is consumed when I die. When my character refuses to change my whole motivation and life around as a result the DM gets mad at me.

Yeah. This is an example of a jerk move by the GM. If the GM planned for fey to be evil all along, he should have advised you against including one in your backstory; if he didn't plan it from the beginning, this was a targeted attack on your character, and was a jerk move. Again, that's a problem with the GM, not with writing or using a backstory.


The second is a centaur shepherdess and tracker. I am hired by the local constable to track down a gang of raiders. I do so, and I find that they are hiding in a tunnel complex similar to those used by the viet cong. Now, I am not a warrior, and I am a centaur, and I was hired to track them down. So I mark the location of the tunnel entrances and take them back to the constable. I am then berated by the DM for "ignoring his adventure" because apparently I was supposed to crawl into the tunnels after them and kill them all (which in my mind shouldn't even be physically possible for a centaur).

Also a jerk move by the GM. Players are under no obligation to pick up on every plot hook dropped in their laps, and GMs have no right to berate the players for doing so. That's just an unpleasant person.


The third character is in an cWoD Mage game. My character is a medical student who has a job, a family, friends, and a relationship, and don't agree with the PCs on moral issues. Yet I am constantly having to come up with rationales to put my life on hold and go off on long adventures with them where I have no IC motivation to do so.

This, however, is all you. You wrote a character who has too much of a life to leave, in a game where he would be expected to do precisely that. That's not a problem with the concept of backstory, it's a problem with writing a backstory that directly conflicts with the goals of the game.


All three of these games would be so goddamn much easier if I was simply playing "murder hobo treasure hunter with no past".

Which is a fine choice. I enjoy the occasional no-consequence slaughterfest. But, to bastardize someone else's quote, not every game needs to be a cheeseburger, no matter how simple and satisfying it may be; sometimes you want a high-quality piece of steak.


Honestly even if I put effort into backstory I don't want to see it in play. A lot of the problem I have with backstory is people who demand it generally have different expectations about what the backstory is going to be. I like a character whose backstory is simple, clean, and gives me a solid starting point for character development. It's a thought experiment in how my character interacts with the world, and bringing figures from it back into the story is irritating because that was never their purpose. Saying "Your mentor shows up." is pointless because as a player I never cared about this character's mentor. If I mentioned them at all it was as an excuse to shape who this character was when we began, not because I ever wanted to see them again. I just don't enjoy that kind of melodrama.

Why include something in your backstory if you don't intend it to see any use? When I write a backstory, everything I use has a function. Rivals, friends, places, things, people. I try to distill them down to a bullet-point list, if I can, for ease of reference. Why would you include a character you never cared about? If the character was important to your PC, your PC should care about them, and by extension so should you.


On top of that I find it's difficult to handle. How do you introduce this character to the group as a whole in a compelling way? Why is this person's sudden unexpected arrival better or more useful than a new NPC? What about one player standing around going "Ah yes my old friend I remember all those adventures we went on except we didn't, they're a thing I made up" has anything to do with interesting tabletop play? As a player I have seen exactly one DM who successfully integrated someone from a character's history into a campaign and as a DM I have had exactly one player (They're actually the same person).

The idea, if done well, is to make the PC in question suddenly important. To give him a moment in the spotlight. Look, you can bring in a random NPC to do whatever needs to be done, and it might or might not help, and it might or might not feel contrived. But if you bring in this NPC, who has a relationship with this PC, you create an opportunity for this PC to momentarily become a focus of events; a chance for this PC to be pivotal to the story in a way that no other character could be. That's a thrilling experience, when done well.

Telok
2015-05-28, 01:52 PM
One thing I have noticed when GMing is that the people who won't provide any pre-game personality or backstory are generally the ones who don't read the setting/world stuff that I've written for them.

Which gets really inconvenient when I tell them that their path goes through Baron McEvilName's territory, or that the person they want is in the House of Yellow Flowers. Those people just go on their way with no concept that the baron has wyvern cavalry and demands taxes paid in magic items or that the House of Yellow Flowers is the lair of a lich and the front door is famous for killing anyone who touches it, no save. It's not a problem if I've set up the adventure as a kill-them-all bloodfest where the PCs are never outmatched. But in a world where PCs aren't automatically the biggest fish in the pond it can cause issues.

It's been the same pattern for decades, the players with a stat block and no personality or history are normally the ones who didn't read the important setting info. I don't require backstory, but these days I just assume that those PCs are homeless thugs who have no reason to care about anything but amassing personal killing power and wealth.

Once in a great while I'm pleasntly surprised and get someone without backstory who can interact with the campaign in a more meaningful way than a kill-loot cycle.

Flashy
2015-05-28, 02:10 PM
Why include something in your backstory if you don't intend it to see any use? When I write a backstory, everything I use has a function. Rivals, friends, places, things, people. I try to distill them down to a bullet-point list, if I can, for ease of reference. Why would you include a character you never cared about? If the character was important to your PC, your PC should care about them, and by extension so should you.

The backstory isn't about use, it's about defining who my character is. It's about figuring out who they are and why they're on an adventure, and how that adventure is going to change them. I don't care about aspects of my character's past because that's firmly not what the story is about to me. Having someone from the past suddenly drop in isn't interesting because they're usually nothing to do with the character's (and more importantly the party's) ongoing journey. It often just leads to pointless melodrama about things that didn't happen for anyone but the player who wrote the backstory.

I do agree that it can be done well, but it's the difference between having someone from a character's backstory suddenly show up because hey they're a wizard and that's what the DM needs and someone showing up because hey they're a leading expert on conjuration magic, that's what the party needs, and so the group as a whole decided to use their connection.


The idea, if done well, is to make the PC in question suddenly important. To give him a moment in the spotlight. Look, you can bring in a random NPC to do whatever needs to be done, and it might or might not help, and it might or might not feel contrived. But if you bring in this NPC, who has a relationship with this PC, you create an opportunity for this PC to momentarily become a focus of events; a chance for this PC to be pivotal to the story in a way that no other character could be. That's a thrilling experience, when done well.

But you don't have any relationship with that NPC. Not really. You've never spoken to them, or interacted with them, they're just an aspect of your character. They don't exist in a meaningful way until they become a part of the story, because the whole point of the game IS the ongoing story. It doesn't make me feel special to have something from my past arbitrarily dredged up because it feels the same as the DM knowing my character is good at climbing, and so throwing in a bunch of situations where that's important. It feels like pandering.

Talakeal
2015-05-28, 02:18 PM
One thing I have noticed when GMing is that the people who won't provide any pre-game personality or backstory are generally the ones who don't read the setting/world stuff that I've written for them.

Which gets really inconvenient when I tell them that their path goes through Baron McEvilName's territory, or that the person they want is in the House of Yellow Flowers. Those people just go on their way with no concept that the baron has wyvern cavalry and demands taxes paid in magic items or that the House of Yellow Flowers is the lair of a lich and the front door is famous for killing anyone who touches it, no save. It's not a problem if I've set up the adventure as a kill-them-all bloodfest where the PCs are never outmatched. But in a world where PCs aren't automatically the biggest fish in the pond it can cause issues.

It's been the same pattern for decades, the players with a stat block and no personality or history are normally the ones who didn't read the important setting info. I don't require backstory, but these days I just assume that those PCs are homeless thugs who have no reason to care about anything but amassing personal killing power and wealth.

Once in a great while I'm pleasntly surprised and get someone without backstory who can interact with the campaign in a more meaningful way than a kill-loot cycle.

God I hate that.

A couple of years ago I had a situation where a player was going up against the strongest conjurer in the world, tried to escape using a teleportation spell, and then the enemy countered their spell and their character died.

The player threw a giant fit about how he shouldn't be punished for not caring about my stupid setting and not knowing what the villain is famous for before attacking him.


It's worth noting, however, that you don't really get to "intend" how any characters act aside from your own; by creating NPCs in your backstory, you are allowing your character to be more connected to the game world, but you are also allowing the GM to take these characters in whatever direction he sees fit. That's how NPCs work.


This, however, is all you. You wrote a character who has too much of a life to leave, in a game where he would be expected to do precisely that. That's not a problem with the concept of backstory, it's a problem with writing a backstory that directly conflicts with the goals of the game.



If you don't get to decide who the people in your backstory are then you really don't have a backstory. If I have a wife / girlfriend / lover it is because they are a person my character would find attractive. If I respect a mentor it is because they are worthy of my respect. If I have a friend it is because I like hanging around with them. If I am a paladin because I was raised by a noble person who always did the right thing and was inspired by her than she better be kind and noble and always do the right thing.

If the DM just throws all these things out then you really are better off not having a backstory at all because whatever you do have is now a lie.



I am not really looking to lay blame on anyone for how my Mage game goes because it is going great, I was just commenting that it would be much easier if I didn't have a backstory.

For example, half the group has jobs, the other half just shrug when asked where their character gets money. The first half definitely has "more backstory" here, but with that backstory comes a lot more work as they need to come up with excuses as to why they can take so much time off to go on wild adventures. The more backstory you have, the more ties and responsibilities you have, that's just how the world works. I don't see it as a bad thing, just a thing.

Now, if the GM had actually laid out what the campaign was about beforehand and someone made a backstory that precluded that, it could be an issue, but that is not what is happening in any of my examples.

kyoryu
2015-05-28, 02:39 PM
I personally like the way Fate does background creation - at the table, collaborative, as a part of character creation.

Talakeal
2015-05-28, 02:43 PM
I personally like the way Fate does background creation - at the table, collaborative, as a part of character creation.

Does Fate make people create other people's backstories?

I played Spirit of the Century once and we did something like this, but we all took turns generating portions of one another's backstories and it pretty much killed the game for me; I didn't like other people dictating parts of my character to me and I felt extremely uncomfortable doing it for anyone else.

Eisenheim
2015-05-28, 02:49 PM
The standard fate character generation is a collaborative process, but it doesn't include other people dictating your aspects. By default, each person gets a chance to describe some interactions with some of the other characters in a previous, shared encounter, and to pull an aspect for their character from that, not to impose one on somebody else.

Talakeal
2015-05-28, 02:52 PM
The standard fate character generation is a collaborative process, but it doesn't include other people dictating your aspects. By default, each person gets a chance to describe some interactions with some of the other characters in a previous, shared encounter, and to pull an aspect for their character from that, not to impose one on somebody else.

It was something like that. Basically we each go to "guest star" in one of each of the other character's previous adventures and we had 100% narrative control over everything that happened in that adventure including what the character whose backstory it was did during it.

Eisenheim
2015-05-28, 02:56 PM
God I hate that.

if you don't get to decide who the people in your backstory are then you really don't have a backstory. If I have a wife / girlfriend / lover it is because they are a person my character would find attractive. If I respect a mentor it is because they are worthy of my respect. If I have a friend it is because I like hanging around with them. If I am a paladin because I was raised by a noble person who always did the right thing and was inspired by her than she better be kind and noble and always do the right thing.

If the DM just throws all these things out then you really are better off not having a backstory at all because whatever you do have is now a lie.


A good GM will work with you and not have NPCs introduced into the game from your backstory behave in a way that clashes with your intent, but still lets them be characters who are not completely under your control when they do appear.

Incidentally, I think fear of the problem you describe here is what leads many GMs to only use backstory characters as 'blackmail'. They exist to be threatened and make you save them, because having a more complex interaction might run afoul of your initial idea for the character.

It seems like the common thread in most the problems you describe is a lack of collaboration and communication between players and GM. You should never be building a character, including backstory, without all the information about a game you need to make a character that fits the game you will be playing. That's on everyone.

The Grue
2015-05-28, 03:12 PM
It seems like the common thread in most the problems you describe is a lack of collaboration and communication between players and GM. You should never be building a character, including backstory, without all the information about a game you need to make a character that fits the game you will be playing. That's on everyone.

It's the common thread in many of Tal's Bad RPG anecdotes, in fact.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-28, 03:54 PM
I can understand not wanting to create NPC fodder for a sadistic GM to blackmail you with. That's a low blow. (...unless you're playing something like GURPS, where that's the whole purpose of Dependents -- it's a Disadvantage for a reason.)

Feeling like your past is contrived is a little harder to understand. You're writing it after all, so couldn't you write something that feels somewhat meaningful to your character concept? It doesn't have to be about your mom if you're worried that that means she's going to show up at some point to remind you to wear clean underwear in front of all your Blackguard and Warlock friends.

In Fate Core, you write about your first adventure -- how you came to be who you are today. Graduating from the paladin academy, first burglary as a thief, etc. Next you write about how you met one of your current teammates. It's all backstory, but relevant backstory. No need to introduce extra NPC's if you feel like they're frivolous. It's just an opportunity for character exposition. I might have to try something like this for other games.

Another interesting concept is how allied NPC's in Savage Worlds are run by the players. If your little sister shows up as a kidnap victim of the BBEG, you get to control her. That might mitigate some of the sense of vulnerability of bringing such characters into your world.

Hawkstar
2015-05-28, 04:09 PM
This should happen BEFORE the game starts, and only if the player actually wants to write a story with the GM. Really, should've discussed all those sort of things before the beginning of the campaign.

That, or the player simply refuses to play with such a stubborn GM.

... I don't think it's the GM that's being stubborn in this instance...

Necroticplague
2015-05-28, 04:14 PM
Feeling like your past is contrived is a little harder to understand. You're writing it after all, so couldn't you write something that feels somewhat meaningful to your character concept? It doesn't have to be about your mom if you're worried that that means she's going to show up at some point to remind you to wear clean underwear in front of all your Blackguard and Warlock friends.

Except here's the thing: my character concept is who they are. My character concept is not who they were. So a background is completely unrelated to a character concept.

Eisenheim
2015-05-28, 04:23 PM
Except here's the thing: my character concept is who they are. My character concept is not who they were. So a background is completely unrelated to a character concept.

Do you play people who popped into existence as fully formed adults with skills but no previous experiences or relationships? The idea that there is a hard line between a backstory and a character is odd. Read any book, watch any film. Characters are shaped by their relationships and what they've done and experienced before whatever snapshot of action the media covers, and they continue to evolve based on the events that occur in the piece of media. Why should RPG characters be different?

Keltest
2015-05-28, 04:27 PM
Except here's the thing: my character concept is who they are. My character concept is not who they were. So a background is completely unrelated to a character concept.

A character who is totally unaffected by the events in their past is either a very odd character or a very boring one. While I suppose it is theoretically not impossible, as a DM I would challenge the notion that a person's backstory can be totally irrelevant to the person they are now.

Talakeal
2015-05-28, 04:30 PM
Furthermore, even if you are a totally different person your backstory still happened.

Aside from those who are now dead, your friends and family still care about, and your enemies still hate you. You still have debts and obligations, and are owed some in return. Even if your adventures didnt shape you, they still happened. You have memories and know tour homeland better than places you have never been. Even You starting equipment had to come from somewhere.

Now, you could choose to ignore most of this stuff and ask the DM and other players to do the same, you can even destroy most of it with a rogue dragon or conquering army, but it still had to have existed for your character to exist.


The Man With No Name is a very interesting character concept btw. Just make sure the rest of your group is on board with it, and dont begrudge the other players for having more of a connection to the world than you do.

Telok
2015-05-28, 04:59 PM
I just think it's odd that for some people The Man With No Name is the only character concept. Especially because Mr. NoName is also Mr. NoFriends. I've seen DMs forced to say "Ok, starting the adventure you are all already friends and know each other for reasons."

It's just not a great way to kick off roleplaying. Although I understand the trust issue too, if you play with jerks you end up playing pretty defensively.

Karl Aegis
2015-05-28, 05:23 PM
I find it easier to just assume the characters have relationships and stories and introduce who these people are and what they did as they become relevant. If the starting scenario you're in is you are an ace armour rider surrounded by armour hunters in the woods the fact that you have a crush on your cousin's excessively formal friend isn't exactly relevant yet. It becomes relevant when you get home and visit your cousin to find out where her friend is so you can boast about your heroic exploits to her, giving the opportunity for your cousin to tease you about your crush along the way.

kyoryu
2015-05-28, 07:47 PM
It was something like that. Basically we each go to "guest star" in one of each of the other character's previous adventures and we had 100% narrative control over everything that happened in that adventure including what the character whose backstory it was did during it.

It's mostly the same as SotC. To be honest, the interpretation you played with is a bit extreme. I certainly wouldn't have a "guest star" have 100% narrative control over the actions of the PC, in SotC or Core.

So, imagine it without the insane part.

goto124
2015-05-29, 01:45 AM
What is the purpose of forcing someone to write a backstory?

The Evil DM
2015-05-29, 02:23 AM
What is the purpose of forcing someone to write a backstory?

I will bite

As DM I need to know five things.

Which cultural/ethnic group you are a member of
What is your home settlement and by extension which nation or kingdom are you from
Are you a member of a religion - Optional
Are you a member of any guilds or social groups - Optional.

I do not need to know who your mother is, or your mentors. I need to know where you fit in the setting. Once I know where you fit into the setting I will give you NPC contacts. They are not necessarily people who are near and dear to your character, but maybe it is the Guildmaster of the guild you are part of, or a priest of your religion you know you can return to for inexpensive healing.

I have made it as simple as I possibly can by explicitly including these things in the character creation process for my campaigns. All material necessary is provided.

However, I still occasionally have a player that tries to avoid a little reading and just skips or randomly selects these things. When that occurs the player does not last long. The cultural information includes important details such as, "The Mongols kill the Roman's on sight" If a player refuses to read the provided details, makes a Roman character and then subsequently blindly wanders into a Mongol city, so be it. Add one character to the dead pool.

When players of this sort cry about unfairness and "How were they supposed to know that Roman's were KOS for Mongols" well I point to the background material provided and then typically rather unpolitely tell them they can leave. I don't have time for them.

Bottom Line. I require that you follow the process I outline and give me a few background details so I know where you are from. It also serves as a convenient gateway to screen out players I won't want in my game anyway.

Karl Aegis
2015-05-29, 02:24 AM
What is the purpose of forcing someone to write a backstory?

You'd think it would be to clear up any confusion as to the origins of a character and their equipment between the players and the game master. You can assume things about a character based on their stats and gear, but different people could come up with a different interpretation when presented with the same information.

However, most of us have lived in an era of asymmetric information. Information isn't shared freely. Expectations have to be guessed at. The premier example of this is the Tomb of Horrors module whose difficulty stems from trying to guess what the author was thinking in order to solve puzzles that have only one solution (or no solutions) that aren't obvious at all.

Apparently a DM needs a named hostage instead of just some random member of your extended family. Your character probably has a gigantic extended family, you don't need to name them all. You don't need to name your immediate family, mentors, primary health care physician, or barber until they become relevant to the story. If your character doesn't have any of those, you should probably share that before your DM looks more foolish than they already are for using a hostage.

WarKitty
2015-05-29, 02:45 AM
What is the purpose of forcing someone to write a backstory?

As a GM: it's one of the best ways for me to figure out who your character is and what they care about, and to get them involved in the world in more ways than just "here's a random plot element go get it." It helps avoid the whole but my character wouldn't do that objection. It also, as people have mentioned, helps avoid getting players who just want to murderhobo the whole time, if that's not the sort of game you want.

5a Violista
2015-05-29, 05:18 AM
Answering this question and how I like handling it:

How do other people handle character backgrounds in games? How much preparation do you require, if any?

I love coming up with all sorts of backstory and background, all the time. It just seems to flow into my mind. Sometimes, while I'm walking to work I get random thoughts like "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if...?" when I'm following random links on Wikipedia I come across an ancient culture I've never heard of before and I think "Hey! That would be so awesome if <my character>'s culture had that belief, too!" Some of these random thoughts, I write down so that other players can reference my character's background whenever they want. Sometimes, I just drop random pieces of information that I've been thinking about when it becomes relevant (or, alternatively, I make it relevant if I think it would be fun enough). Many times, I write down my random thoughts on pieces of paper or between the lines in my homework notebooks or on .txt files, so that the information is written down but only for me. I occasionally return to that information whenever I come to a situation where I think "Hey, what would my character do in this instance?" so it makes it much more natural to do what my character would do rather than what seems to be mechanically the optimum decision. The rest of the information, I just let it float around in my head, without ever writing it down. If it becomes relevant, then it's relevant but if not I just color it to another character or story later down the road.

When I make characters or when I drop information, I usually give more information than necessary (in regards to background and motivations). I love it when other players (and sometimes the DM) grab random bits of what I wrote and run with those, but I don't mind if other players completely ignore and don't care about anything I wrote. I love it even more when they take it in directions I wasn't expecting. "Your character's relative that you thought was your best bud for all life has been secretly been jealous and hating you and betrays you without a moment's hesitation"? I think that would be fantastic. "You name-dropped this character as your friendly, kind, motherly (but a little bland) mentor, but she's actually an anarchic witch"? Suddenly became my favorite character. "Since your character was an orphan with unknown magic powers, let's make your mother be an corrupted monster (and you have the same curse!) and you're actually getting your powers from a dead elder god, being subtly manipulated into nefarious schemes that may or may not cause the end of the world even though your character's greatest (and only) goal in life is 'to become a great hero like the ones told in stories'." Things like that are what I think makes roleplaying exciting. If I say that there was a random orc who was my character's hunting partner for a couple months, and then another player decides that that orc was an exile who mentored that player's character, then I'm in love. If another player suggests that my character be a crazy stalker in order for them to have met and join up pre-game? I say 'absolutely'.

But when I want to make connections between characters pre-game, saying "Hey, let's say our characters met before, briefly so when they finally meet in-game they'll have some way to break the ice" and the response is "No. My character hates going to the market and would never talk to anybody and I prefer when my characters are vacuums who have no meaningful past beyond the purpose of mechanical abilities" then...I can live with that. I'm disappointed, but I can understand it. If the DM doesn't want to use the obvious plot hooks and sinister twists I leave scattered throughout my backstory, then I'm fine with it because maybe the DM had a different story to tell.

Then, as I play my character more, even more ideas come to mind, further defining my character's belief system, relationship with parents and siblings, why my character was excommunicated from the knight's order and what decisions she made leading up to that action, why my character made this decision that was completely arbitrary at the time, why my character's personality is like this and why she hates magic so much, and so on.

(Note: all the examples I gave actually happened to my characters.)

To put it simply, I love making background for my characters. As I play my characters, I continue to create more background, but I only tell other people this background when I think it would be fun or exciting, or if there's possibilities for unexpected twists. Also, I don't require any background from other players, but I love it when I get it.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-29, 05:52 AM
What is the purpose of forcing someone to write a backstory?

"Forcing" is a pretty strong word. This shouldn't be like a book report in school that you need to do just because. No need to get performance anxiety...this is supposed to be a game. The game is about shared storytelling.

Really, as a GM, I want to know how you see your character. That collection of stats on your paper is only part of the story. If we are roleplaying, then what role are you playing? As Karl Aegis said, different people can interpret the same information differently.

"Human barbarian" could describe an inbred bayou dweller who wrestles alligators, a noble horse warrior from the steppes, a desert tracker who has mystic visions, or any other number of things.

The PC's are the central characters in this shared storytelling we are doing. As such, it's sort of expected that we will know something about those central characters, maybe quite a bit in an ongoing game. The role of the player is to provide those story details, just like the role of the GM is to provide the details about setting, supporting cast, and villains.

goto124
2015-05-29, 05:56 AM
Would you say writing out a personality is more important than a backstory?

So if I write a barebones backstory, I'll put down basic personality and where my character is from. Like "the brash barbarian from the Carion Bayou". Sounds good?

Mastikator
2015-05-29, 06:41 AM
The way my groups have always done it is the players show up with vague ideas. And the process of making a character simply includes a backstory that involves the ideas. The DM is part of the process and knows the back story and can easily figure out how to involve it into the campaign. You don't even have to write down the backstory, you (and the DM) just know that...
"Jorgrim grew up on a farm, was drafted at a young age, went home after the war, started a family at his farm, his family went into debt because of a couple of bad harvests and was forced to become a mercenary to pay of his debt, one night after a hard day of being a body guard he got drunk, wandered into the forest to take a leak and got bitten by a werewolf... and in the morning the party found him covered in blood and naked." (that's a real one I used).
That's half a paragraph of backstory, I think it's enough, you can add a bunch of detail about "the war" or his time spent as a mercenary, or about his family, or what will happen if he doesn't pay his debt but all of that is stuff you talk about in character around the camp fire.

I don't get why anyone would bring a finished character and backstory to a game before it even began, you kinda have to make a character that would make sense in the context of the game, they can't just exist in a vacuum.

hewhosaysfish
2015-05-29, 07:17 AM
As a player, I've found that I am not really capable of developing a backstory during play.

I think of elements that I could introduce but I internally shoot down my own ideas as being inconsistent with what I have portrayed up until that point: if I really was motivated by this particular formative event then I wouldn't have made some of the decisions I made; if I really did have a connection with such an NPC then surely we should have met them earlier because it was revelvant then; if I really did have a grudge agianst some old enemy then it should have came up when we clashed with their forces before; etc, etc, etc... I'm my own worst critic sometimes.

This often leads my "organically grown" backstory to consist entirely of elements that are unconnected the the other PCs, major locations and important events of the campaign.

So I like to have at least a rough map of the steps that led to my character being where he is at the start of the campaign and doing what he's doing, and names for the dramatis personae he met on that journey. That way, bits of my backstory can appear in play early and tie my character into his surroundings and I can feel more confident to embellish the established steps with specific anecdotes and minor players when appropriate.

Of course, this doesn't really work if I find myself sitting down to create a character with little or no idea where the campaign will start, who the other PCs will be or what hook will be that pulls them together...

DigoDragon
2015-05-29, 08:46 AM
What is the purpose of forcing someone to write a backstory?

Forcing, no. I have begged on occasion. :smallbiggrin:

Really, I think the most important thing I want out of a character backstory is their motivation to adventure. Did something in their life change? Did a loved one die or did the player get back-stabbed by a former friend? Coming of age story? I just need something to work with so that when I write the campaign's story, there's a hook to keep the character interested. If the player doesn't want any family or old colleagues showing up, I can live with that.

goto124
2015-05-29, 09:23 AM
did the player get back-stabbed by a former friend?

No, why would anyo-URGH!

*gasp* *gurgle*

:smalltongue:

Anyway, I wonder how it'll be like to bring in a character from another campaign, such that her backstory is what had happened in said campaign.

DigoDragon
2015-05-29, 09:55 AM
Anyway, I wonder how it'll be like to bring in a character from another campaign, such that her backstory is what had happened in said campaign.

That would be interesting. The backstory is already "written" as it were, and if the previous campaign ended decently well then there shouldn't be any surprise lose ends if one didn't want them. I should write that idea down and try it some time.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-29, 09:58 AM
Would you say writing out a personality is more important than a backstory?

So if I write a barebones backstory, I'll put down basic personality and where my character is from. Like "the brash barbarian from the Carion Bayou". Sounds good?

I think personality emerges with game play. You can establish it ahead of time if you want, but it's not necessary (in D&D at least) and may be subject to change based on circumstances, like who else you're with.

Your past, however, has supposedly already happened. Details like you would put on a job application or resume are helpful -- place of birth, education, former employer(s), duties performed at past job(s), and motivation for leaving.

"Grew up making a subsistence living in the Carrion Bayou, trapping crawdads, hunting 'gators, and getting into brawls. Left to find a better life", would work. It's a bit thin, but it gives a little insight into who this person is.

Not to say that you couldn't retcon some details if it became necessary. At least there's something to go on. Would it work for you? I hate to see this be a painful process for anyone.

EDIT: obviously different GM's will have different requirements. I'm just trying to help you get the ball rolling.

The Evil DM
2015-05-29, 10:03 AM
Would you say writing out a personality is more important than a backstory?

So if I write a barebones backstory, I'll put down basic personality and where my character is from. Like "the brash barbarian from the Carion Bayou". Sounds good?

So take my five bullets


Which cultural/ethnic group you are a member of
What is your home settlement and by extension which nation or kingdom are you from
Are you a member of a religion - Optional
Are you a member of any guilds or social groups - Optional.

And Maglubiyet's comment


Really, as a GM, I want to know how you see your character. That collection of stats on your paper is only part of the story. If we are roleplaying, then what role are you playing? As Karl Aegis said, different people can interpret the same information differently.

"Human barbarian" could describe an inbred bayou dweller who wrestles alligators, a noble horse warrior from the steppes, a desert tracker who has mystic visions, or any other number of things.

Mash them together.

I am the brash barbarian from the Carion Bayou - gives a personality adjective, hint about class/role and a cultural link.

My tribe known as the Bone Breakers - give a bit more focus on where your from, in terms of a barbarian a tribal link of this sort would define your "Home Settlement" in my world.

Bone Breakers are known for their Alligator Warriors and I seek to prove myself worthy of wearing the Alligator Hide - The tribe as a special warrior guild of sorts you seek to join. In my world Alligator Warrior might be something like a special prestige class.

Crom is my patron on my quest and through Crom's will I have arrived here in (insert DM Starting point) - Tells me you are a member of the Religion of Crom and that Crom led you to the start of the current adventure.

Put it together

I am the brash barbarian from the Carion Bayou. My tribe known as the Bone Breakers. Bone Breakers are known for their Alligator Warriors and I seek to prove myself worthy of wearing the Alligator Hide. Crom is my patron on my quest and through Crom's will I have arrived here in (insert DM Starting point)

It has everything I need as DM to place you in the world, it tells me where you are from, what god you worship, a little about your personality and an objective you have that I can work with. It also serves as a good introduction for your character to other players.

This is minimum bare bones. It hits main bullet points and answers Maglubiyets, What Role are you Playing?

icefractal
2015-05-29, 02:15 PM
While a backstory can be a good source of inspiration, and can provide useful hooks for the GM, I think it's more important to have a strong read on the character's current personality and responses. Which can be informed by the backstory, but are a separate thing.

I originally focused mostly on the backstory for fleshing out a character. Then I realized that often I'd end up with interesting things that, IC, I'd want to keep secret from the other PCs, or at least not blurt them out randomly. And that it didn't say so much about how the character acts right now. I'd sometimes end up with a bland-appearing character that was only interesting inside my own head.

So I switched methods. I still often come up with a backstory, but the primary thing I focus on is how the character would act in a variety of situations:
* Everything's going smoothly according to plan.
* Things are chaotic, the plan is FUBAR, and we're scrambling to stay alive.
* We saved the kingdom, everyone loves us.
* We doomed the kingdom, everyone hates us.
* Nothing's happening, we've got some time to relax and have fun.
* Confronted by a scary foe we probably can't defeat.
* Confronted by a laughably weak foe.
* Just got lucky and survived something that in all probability we shouldn't have.
And so forth.

Those actions are what the other players see, and what they're going to remember.

Centik
2015-05-30, 04:21 AM
I've always enjoyed D&D and other RPGS due to the rich history, lore and worlds themselves. I don't play to roll a few dice and exclaim in nerdy glee that "I hit that dragon for 2d4+5+4+5+6 damage! Did I win?!" I play to engross myself in the story; and that story includes my backstory, and those of my comrades. A character is just a hollow, nobody murder-hobo without one.

Grim Portent
2015-05-30, 09:51 AM
I generally detest backstory requirements, I prefer to work out my character's origins and motivations over the first five sessions or so when I know how I actually play them rather than based on how I plan on playing them, and having a written backstory generally stifles my mood when playing.

If absolutely required to write a backstory I usually draft up something grim that justifies the callous killing of or complete indifference to any NPCs that appear from it. Or just have pretty much everyone in the backstory be dead, that works too.

goto124
2015-05-30, 10:12 AM
*kills parents in backstory*

Yup, I did the thing. Also they were the only people in the backstory, apart from the PC himself.

Keltest
2015-05-30, 11:02 AM
*kills parents in backstory*

Yup, I did the thing. Also they were the only people in the backstory, apart from the PC himself.

I see. Your PC is obviously a hermit who lived on an island.

Karl Aegis
2015-05-30, 12:44 PM
*kills parents in backstory*

Yup, I did the thing. Also they were the only people in the backstory, apart from the PC himself.

You were doing so well with the bayou-dwelling barbarian, but you ruined it. You should have stopped while you were ahead.

ExLibrisMortis
2015-05-30, 03:25 PM
Two things I prefer:

1) IC introduction to the party. You don't reveal anything to the DM, that you wouldn't reveal to an NPC. Anything you haven't told an NPC is undecided or secret. Secrets can be found out, of course. Which brings us to...
2) Using mechanics to write backstory. In D&D terms: write down the information that a bardic knowledge check or divination spell reveals about you. If an NPC wants to find out about you, this is how they're going to do it. So why not present your backstory in a standard format?

Shadowsend
2015-05-30, 05:30 PM
What I like:

3 summation traits that have something to do with the character's habits or thought processes
1-2 people already known
how they got to the area they are adventuring in
1+ goals
1 major regret so far.

I find it creates deeper experiences.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-30, 06:43 PM
*kills parents in backstory*

Yup, I did the thing. Also they were the only people in the backstory, apart from the PC himself.

The thing is, would you accept this kind of behavior from a GM? Evasive, passive-aggressive reticence in providing full descriptions?

PC: "Okay, I'm looking for people who may be potential contacts to the Inner Sanctum -- guys in gold robes or with eyelid tattoos. What do I see in the tavern?"

GM: "There's nothing in the tavern."

PC: "Nothing? Right, well, what kind of people do I see then?"

GM: "Just people."

PC: "Like, friendly people, any allies here? What races are here? Maybe there are Outlanders or anyone from the Guild?"

GM: "You just see people."

PC: "Ooookay. Um...what do these people look like?"

GM: "They look like people."

PC: "..."

Necroticplague
2015-05-30, 10:01 PM
The thing is, would you accept this kind of behavior from a GM? Evasive, passive-aggressive reticence in providing full descriptions?

Not passive-aggressive (because that's pretty inherently a negative trait), but I'm certainly O.k. with them not giving me a bunch of extenuous detail that isn't of significant importance. Like in that case, I'd simply assume the other people weren't important. If I get annoying about asking, I'd rather they just flat out say 'quit asking, it's unimportant and I hadn't bothered to think of it because of that' than try and make up something on the spot (a.k.a, generate red herrings).

Telok
2015-05-30, 10:53 PM
Would you say writing out a personality is more important than a backstory?

So if I write a barebones backstory, I'll put down basic personality and where my character is from. Like "the brash barbarian from the Carion Bayou". Sounds good?

I'll take that. I'd take a bad pun or a kill list.

All I really ever want from a backstory is an indication that the character is more than an MMO toon for killing and looting. Any backstory, even just the kill list, is evidence that the person has thought about the character beyond the stat numbers.

Plus if the kill list is something stupid and evasive like "all goblins" I get to use the Inigo Gobboya clan of goblins for the whole campaign. I'm perfectly happy to turn two word backstories into running gags that drop loot and plot info/hooks.

Shadowsend
2015-05-31, 04:52 AM
The thing is, would you accept this kind of behavior from a GM? Evasive, passive-aggressive reticence in providing full descriptions?

PC: "Okay, I'm looking for people who may be potential contacts to the Inner Sanctum -- guys in gold robes or with eyelid tattoos. What do I see in the tavern?"

GM: "There's nothing in the tavern."

PC: "Nothing? Right, well, what kind of people do I see then?"

GM: "Just people."

PC: "Like, friendly people, any allies here? What races are here? Maybe there are Outlanders or anyone from the Guild?"

GM: "You just see people."

PC: "Ooookay. Um...what do these people look like?"

GM: "They look like people."

PC: "..."

I wouldn't call this "passive-agressive GM," I would call it "lazy GM". The player is asking questions because they want to interact with the setting. The GM is there to create/provide that interaction, important or not. By being specific, it creates a flavor for the establishment as well, aka human only Chelish bar with halfling "servants" is going to have a very different feel than Mos Eisley, where they only care about how scummy you are. It can even create conflict for PCs because they might walk into an establishment not knowing the local customs.

A more correct response might be "No one in here fits that description. In the bar you notice mostly small parties of humans, eyeing everyone else and talking quietly amongst themselves. A party of elves sits secluded in the corner by a window, seemingly more interested in the street than in their drinks, and a lone dwarf sits at the bar, with many empty mugs in front of him. The half-orc barkeep seems to be strangely patient for his race, and the serving girls are a mix of races, the cutest one half-elven. There's also a rather large fellow leaning against a wall next to an interior door. He looks you over, and immediately dismisses you. You'll have to try to strike up a conversation to get an idea of their affiliations."

TheCountAlucard
2015-05-31, 04:57 AM
By being specific, it creates a flavor for the establishment as well, aka human only Chelish bar with halfling "servants" is going to have a very different feel than Mos Eisley, where they only care about how scummy you are.Not true; they don't serve droids on principle, remember? :smalltongue:

Shadowsend
2015-05-31, 05:02 AM
Not true; they don't serve droids on principle, remember? :smalltongue:

Very few droids can be scummy. Just the few in the LucasArts RPGs.

omnitricks
2015-05-31, 09:59 AM
I really hate making backstories after a bad experience with a GM and his requirement of players providing backstories which actually do nothing in the long run other than to provide more levels and wealth when players are starting out.

As a result anyone (barring that specific gm) who plays with me regularly knows better than to ask me for a backstory. At most in the campaign when I have to introduce my PC, I give them a description/idea in a quick narrative which doesn't take more than a few minutes. Throughout the game, I will expand on elements related to it as and where it comes. I will never again provide [insert pages to fit an amount of words requirement] backstory to a GM. Especially when I don't trust them with it (high character turnover, ignorance, favoritism, etc)

So far it has worked for both me and the GMs which allow it. Most times my PC becomes more relatable to the setting/plot than anyone forced to provide a backstory where elements from it wouldn't be used. Of course it only works well if the GM is alright with discussing briefly during the game like "hey I'm from criminal cowboy land right? Are there any convoys from there around here so I can see if any of my criminal buddies are around for their own criminal stuff?"

Socratov
2015-05-31, 10:33 AM
if I might chip in with some cp...

A character, when starting out play, has tow aspects: the what and the who.

Now the what is the collection of ability scores and numerical stuff on the sheet. It's there to describe the ways you characters has when interacting with the world.

The who part is harder: it's the backstory, mixed with a bit of what is to come to determine personality. One could go slightly overboard and really create a big backstory in which the character's hopes, dreams, history, childhood friends, etc. is represented. And here lies the problem: just like people have a habit to change over time, you character should do too (or you risk playing something one-dimensional). So, your backstory can only have the part of who your character has been up until that point. When play start at the very first second of the very first session, that backstory is outdated. So, instead I'd like to include what has kept my character busy every day. What her general outlook is on life. That sort of stuff really forms a base on which you can make decisions for the character...

Bard1cKnowledge
2015-05-31, 05:59 PM
I LOVE making up back stories for all of my characters. Even if its not asked for.

Heck, I give backstories for any NPCs I make up

I find it adds color to any game, no matter what you're playing.

Example : "Örgen was a simple dwarf, good life, good income. Horrible customers though. His armory only stayed in business due to the idiots flocking to Thundroum to take part of the gladiatorial events run by the nobels. Still though, stupid gold spends well as any gold. Sometimes he wishes he can go back to his old party, but he gave that life up a long time ago. Adventuring is a young mans game, and young he was not.

.....Although, there have been rumors of some rare ores that can make exquisite weapons and armor."

Honest Tiefling
2015-05-31, 08:23 PM
I far prefer the method of expecting a backstory within the first five sessions. Should give you plenty of time to tie your characters together, get some conflicts that won't end in murder, and some motivations that are similar enough. I know a lot of people make good characters by playing the character as opposed to sitting down, but I do draw the line at five sessions, because I don't really understand how you can't give me even a few bullet points at that stage.

Through I also prefer the idea of granting bonus experience/goodies, as opposing to requiring it. People just won't cough up a backstory if they are not inclined to do so, but I rather not boot people for that, even if I have to explain to them that it would really help me to know certain things of their characters. Some people really don't like doing so, so okay, fine, but I still see it within my rights to give a tiny little bonus to the person helping me out as long as they cannot massively outpace the others.

However, if they want to be terribly setting relevant, nope, we gotta sit down and talk about how your princess assassin came about. Not doing that one again, I want some details to work with here, and we need to be on the same page for this sort of thing.

Marillion
2015-05-31, 08:31 PM
I play 7th Sea mostly, and "backgrounds" are actually a mechanic. If you like, you can select from a list of categories, such as Amnesia, Rivalry, Romance, Lost Relative, Debt, Obligation, Hunted, and so on. The amount of points you spend on that determines the severity of the background, ranging from 1: petty (you owe a small amount of money, your 5th cousin you've never even met has been kidnapped) to 4: Life ruining and potentially significant to the larger plot (you owe a very large favor to an extremely dangerous man, you've started an affair with the queen).

You and the GM hammer out the specifics ("Who's your rival?" "My childhood friend who was always just that little bit better at everything than I was"), and the background is introduced into the game. The party earns a small amount of bonus xp when the background comes up, and a large amount of xp when it's resolved, at which point you can buy a new background if you like.

I really like it; you aren't forced to have a background if you don't want, but it's a great way to help flesh out your character AND everyone gets a small but significant reward for you doing so. Everyone can have a background, so we take turns in the spotlight.

And if you like playing on hardcore, there's an advantage you can buy called Foul Weather Jack: You start off with a 4 point background of your choice, but when it's resolved the GM selects another 4-point background, and another when that one's resolved. You are a living jinx, and it's hilarious.

neonagash
2015-06-02, 03:30 AM
I will bite

As DM I need to know five things.

Which cultural/ethnic group you are a member of
What is your home settlement and by extension which nation or kingdom are you from
Are you a member of a religion - Optional
Are you a member of any guilds or social groups - Optional.


As someone who hates writing back story here's my answer to those.

1. Cultural groups are a creation of the political class to separate the common man from his brethren. I claim no culture but that of the working man.

2. Destroyed, by rapacious nobles and their lackeys. Also see #1.

3. Yet another tool to divide me from my brothers. Agnostic.

4. I am a member of the working class.

(note not my personal beliefs IRL, but I effing hate back story coming up in game).

Also I was raised in a monastery, by monks I didn't like. And my mentor was a cold hearted bastard who did it out of a sense of duty, not compassion, and I think he made an unwanted sexual pass at me once. So I don't care about any of them.

Why did I write characters I didn't care about into my background? Because some jerk DM made me write a backstory when I didn't want to. Thereby telling me that whether I have fun in this game is less important than what he wants even before we started. So I'm really not expecting much out of this.

Takewo
2015-06-02, 05:06 AM
I wouldn't call this "passive-agressive GM," I would call it "lazy GM". The player is asking questions because they want to interact with the setting. The GM is there to create/provide that interaction, important or not. By being specific, it creates a flavor for the establishment as well, aka human only Chelish bar with halfling "servants" is going to have a very different feel than Mos Eisley, where they only care about how scummy you are. It can even create conflict for PCs because they might walk into an establishment not knowing the local customs.

I think the point was that this is the same as the behaviour of a player who as a background story says: "there is nothing important, everyone I knew is dead".

If the game master's role is creating and providing interaction with the setting, it is, nonetheless, the player's role to provide a reason that explains why their character is in the setting. Well, unless you play this kind of mindless killing roleplaying style or the story is only background for murdering monsters. But if I am the game master and I am to provide enough context for creating a worthwhile story, I need to know why the characters are there, what they aspirations are, and this kind of stuff.

At the end of the day, everything depends on the style of game you are playing. Trouble comes when different people on the table understand it in different ways, that's why it's important to spend a bit of time talking about what kind of game we want.



Why did I write characters I didn't care about into my background? Because some jerk DM made me write a backstory when I didn't want to.

I am not judging and you are on your right to decide to play like this. But do you really think a bad experience is reason enough to close the door to this kind of game?

neonagash
2015-06-02, 05:27 AM
I am not judging and you are on your right to decide to play like this. But do you really think a bad experience is reason enough to close the door to this kind of game?

yes.

But more than that I don't want to play out my characters history. I want to play his present and future.

i have almost no interest in where he came from. It's past, it's gone, move on.

I want to know what the adventure is NOW. What am I doing NOW. DM don't worry about it. Play out the big bad you had planned and his evil scheme. I want to play the game. I'll find a way to make myself involved.

All you need to know is I am more competent at violence then most and willing, nay, eager to get into crazy situations. If not I wouldn't have come to game night. I would have gone out to the bar instead.

So throw your crazy situation at me and let's roll some dice. That's what I'm here for.

Lurkmoar
2015-06-02, 06:26 AM
I like backstories, but I won't make a player make one up if they don't want to.

More interested in their current goals and what they hope to achieve. If they want to just kill things and/or get more powerful, I'll inwardly sigh and have them plow through goblin hordes, bugbears, orges, hill giants and hags until they find out they've been used by a Death Knight in an elaborate game of chess against his hated Vampire rival.

That said, backstories are nice. They should just be in the back. The characters don't just drop out of the sky one day with no past. Though that would be an interesting hook...

DigoDragon
2015-06-02, 06:55 AM
As someone who hates writing back story here's my answer to those.

Well, that is technically a background so I'd accept it and move on.

Actana
2015-06-02, 07:22 AM
Backstories are useful tools, but are often used in a way that makes them rather cumbersome. Above all, a backstory should be used to supplement the character in a way that increases their present or future depth, instead of just being frilly background decoration that is never used.

When writing a backstory, I usually have a few things to go by:

Backstories should be relevant and interesting. I don't care about the day you went to the store to buy some milk and nothing happened. That's just not interesting, nor does it really achieve anything, unless...
Backstories should be important to the player. Since backstories are there to supplement a character, the things that it should focus on are the things the player cares about. Usually this also overlaps with things that are important to the character, but not always.
Backstories should have things that the player wants to use. It's no use writing a background that never comes up.
Backstories should be cooperative. Both the player and the GM should set their expectations accordingly on the what, how and when of the backstory and its uses in game. If a player is adamant on a certain NPC not being used to blackmail the character at a later date, the GM should respect that. Likewise, however, the player should respect that the GM's job is to sometimes make life difficult for the PC and using a backstory as motivation is a great way to accomplish that. A mutual understanding is essential for a game (which of course goes far beyond just backstories).
Backstories should tie into the game somehow, but the exact way really depends on the game. If it's a game about being in the military, I'd probably require something about a character's civilian life, training and perhaps even attitudes towards war. However, if the aim is to run a highly political game in Rokugan, specific requirements might be clan background beyond just the clan name, any specific morals they have, and something to do with loyalty and how they view it.

Of course there's more to it than that, since backstories are rather complicated matters and should always be taken individually for each game and character. Given that I play Fate a lot, my approach is generally to have aspects for the relevant parts of a character's background I want to see. In a game I currently have planned which is about a rebellion against a usurper tyrant, I want the game to focus on the PCs' place in the world relating to the rebellion. The three background aspects I use in this game deal with 1) the player's motivation for rebelling, 2) a specific thing about the world that they are connected to (be it a person, place, object or even concept), and 3) a specific relationship with another person, be it a PC or NPC.

I also really dislike the novella approach to backstories and much prefer clean and simple bullet points for each interesting bit. A character should have a backstory so the people around the table know how they fit into the world. The exact details and secondary characteristics can be hashed out later once or if they become more relevant. Keeping backgrounds straight and to the point is important to me, as I rarely have interest in reading half a dozen pages of what is essentially badly written fanfic about a character.

goto124
2015-06-02, 07:46 AM
i have almost no interest in where he came from. It's past, it's gone, move on.

Alright, let's focus on the present. What does he want? What's his basic personality?

JAL_1138
2015-06-02, 07:50 AM
I do a couple different things for backstory; not mutually exclusive, so sometimes one, the other, or both.

1) Explain the stats, briefly, which gives me some personality quirks to work with a lot of the time. E.g., "This character has an abysmal CON. Why?" Maybe he was kicked in the ribs by a horse as a kid, nearly died, and it never healed right. Now he's afraid of horses and while he'll ride in a cart, he's not riding a horse if he can possibly help it. Or maybe he's been killed before, back when getting rezzed dropped your CON by one point each time. Or maybe he caught some kind of plague when younger. Something like that.

2) There is no reason why my character is "adventuring" before the game starts. They're not an adventurer, in fact. But hey, those cultists tried to kill me yesterday (or today, depending on the intro); or the town watch is too understaffed and incompetent to do anything about the goblins and bandits; or like hell I'm going to let a dragon burn the city down, I live here and you schmucks setting out to kill it need someone with my skillset. I'm not questing to return the Lost Soup-Ladle of Yngrvortalmaraganurwen to the Blue Temple of Psovenquobizzix with the campaign as a series of diversions from my real objectives--I just get roped in to these sorts of things. The campaign might not be my first rodeo, I might have done this sort of thing before, but I got roped into it then too rather than being a professional adventurer.

Edit: And also
3) Back in the meatgrinder days of low-level AD&D, where I died to such things as falling down the stairs drunk at the inn we all met at because I had one hit point at full health, or getting headbutted by a goat in a barnyard, or getting killed by the first arrow shot by a lone goblin in the first combat the character ever saw, or losing initiative to a couple-three squirrels, "I'll come up with something beyond "mercenary" or "general do-gooder" if he lives long enough."

GrayGriffin
2015-06-02, 09:12 AM
You know...isn't "my parents died when I was young" something that begs you to give even more backstory? Who raised you? Do you have any memory of your parents at all, or what killed them? If no one raised you, how did you learn to speak, use a weapon, do magic?

JAL_1138
2015-06-02, 09:55 AM
You know...isn't "my parents died when I was young" something that begs you to give even more backstory? Who raised you? Do you have any memory of your parents at all, or what killed them? If no one raised you, how did you learn to speak, use a weapon, do magic?

Sometimes it's funnier to leave that as a great big ?. Take Stanley Howler from Discword, for example. Raised by peas. Not on peas, by peas. Has a slight tendency to lean towards the sun. And of course he occasionally has one of his Little Moments. No further explanation is ever given.

cobaltstarfire
2015-06-02, 10:47 AM
My feeling on "backstories" is pretty flexible.

As a player, my backgrounds are usually pretty concise. Here's a broad idea for their personality, here's how they fit in with their community, here's why/how they are now adventuring. I don't like being required to write more than is really necessary though, if the GM has questions they are free to ask them of me.


As a GM I normally expect about the same as I'd put out as a player. When I've GM'd most of my players write hooks into their backstories, and I actually really appreciated it cause it made it easier to personalize the world/story I was going to tell to their characters.

For players who don't want to provide any background, I don't really mind. Either they'll get involved in the story one way or another or they'll just be along for the ride. If the latter is the case I guess I'd just try to give them challenges that cater to them mechanically so they can still be involved.

DigoDragon
2015-06-02, 10:52 AM
Sometimes it's funnier to leave that as a great big ?. Take Stanley Howler from Discword, for example. Raised by peas. Not on peas, by peas. Has a slight tendency to lean towards the sun. And of course he occasionally has one of his Little Moments. No further explanation is ever given.

I'm reminded of the little girl Ru from a very strange RP I was part of. Ru was a human girl born with wolf eyes from a watermelon. No one knew who the father was.

JAL_1138
2015-06-02, 12:28 PM
I'm reminded of the little girl Ru from a very strange RP I was part of. Ru was a human girl born with wolf eyes from a watermelon. No one knew who the father was.

As in, hatched out of a watermelon like it was an egg?

...the father was probably That One Bard from Fredrik K. T. Andersson's work.

If you're not familiar, he'll boink anything female whatsoever (except the elf in the party), and there will always, always be a halfbreed as a result, even if it shouldn't be possible. Culminating in this.https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0e/f6/88/0ef688d372658efbaefcbbaf919a146e.jpg

DigoDragon
2015-06-02, 12:38 PM
As in, hatched out of a watermelon like it was an egg?

Eeyup. Even RP'd that scene out, with the team chemist and computer programmer doing the delivery while the rest of us were trying to stop armed soldiers from a drug cartel that wanted to torch the building we were hiding in.



...the father was probably That One Bard from Fredrik K. T. Andersson's work.

*Snerk* Might as well have been for all we knew.
Poor kid fit right in with the rest of us weirdos. :smalltongue:

The Evil DM
2015-06-02, 02:14 PM
As someone who hates writing back story here's my answer to those.

Since you have decided to select a quote from my response and then clearly respond in such a manner that indicates you took no time to read the remainder that you clipped off I am compelled to reply.

Also, unlike Takewo who said


I am not judging......

I am clearly and intentionally judging you, and if I violate rules of this forum, so be it.


As someone who hates writing back story here's my answer to

1. Cultural groups are a creation of the political class to separate the common man from his brethren. I claim no culture but that of the working man.

This comment is both snarky and asinine. It clearly demonstrates that you don’t even know what a culture is. Culture is not something created by political class. Culture is the collected knowledge, skills, materials, customs, and beliefs, amongst other achievements, possessed by a group.

If you had considered some of what was included in the material clipped,


I do not need to know who your mother is, or your mentors. I need to know where you fit in the setting. Once I know where you fit into the setting I will give you NPC contacts. They are not necessarily people who are near and dear to your character, but maybe it is the Guildmaster of the guild you are part of, or a priest of your religion you know you can return to for inexpensive healing.

I have made it as simple as I possibly can by explicitly including these things in the character creation process for my campaigns. All material necessary is provided.

and actually looked at other areas in the overall discussion,


I agree with a lot of what Red Fel has posted here. However as a GM I have solved some of this in my own games by doing to following - (explaining by using a D&D model here)

Typical character creation has the following steps.

Ability Scores
Race
Class
Skills/Feats
Equipment
Put a minimal amount of thought into personality

Ready to go

However hidden within "Race" are cultural elements that have never been extracted. So In my campaigns I have extended this to:

Ability Scores
Race
Culture
Home Settlement - Which also give a home nationality or kingdom.
Religion - Not required and can be skipped
Associations - Not required and can be skipped, used to model participation in a guild or some other entity.
Class
Skills/Feats
Equipment
NPC Contacts - One line name/profession of NPCs that are derived from home settlement, religion, or guild associations. Could be a fence, shop keeper, high priest etc.

My campaign has run for 20 years and I have many of these things pre-defined. The player only needs to go through lists of available cultures and religions to choose what they want. Some of them give bonuses, for instance all the women in the Amazon culture get a free weapon specialization with spear.

The player only needs to provide a bit of additional personality.

While playing the selections here don't necessarily provide fodder for railroading. However, I have large matrices that describe the relationships between various nations and cultures. A character from a Roman Culture who finds himself in the wilds of Gaul might have some additional difficulty negotiating with a Gallic inn keeper.

The character creation process is a little longer and more in depth but the player doesn't necessarily need to give me any additional detail in background. The process of selecting culture and home settlement places the character in the setting and I know what is happening around that location.

In the end, you select your race - For instance, assume Human. Then you select a Culture. Are you a Mongol? or a Viking? Depending on the selection you might get some extra advantages and possibly disadvantages. Mongols have advanced riding and mounted archery skills and the Vikings have ocean going sailing and navigation bonuses.


2. Destroyed, by rapacious nobles and their lackeys. Also see #1.

So you are telling me that you are too lazy to look at the map of the campaign area and select a city to be your home city? What happens after you select is I give you the sheet of data for that city to be used as common knowledge. It also includes a list of people in the city who are public that might be useful in the campaign. Something like - The village of Tholen has a man named Ethan the Fletcher. His arrows cost a little more but they are so well balanced and perfectly crafted that they increase the range increment of long bows and long composite bows by 15 feet.


3. Yet another tool to divide me from my brothers. Agnostic.

Being a member of a religion was clearly indicated as optional and Agnostic or even Atheist is a perfectly valid selection. The choices will impact you in the campaign during social interactions. Attempting to receive services from a Temple as an Atheist might be a bit more challenging.

I don’t have an issue with the selection, but the asinine attitude displayed in the comment prior to the selection is what I have issue with.


4. I am a member of the working class.

Again, guild membership is optional but once again your response shows ignorance. Maybe there are guild’s you wish to be a member of. Wizards who are members of the wizard’s guild might have some special access in campaign areas where the wizards guild is strong. Is an armorsmith a working man? Maybe you are a warrior who selected armorsmithing as a craft and need to work your trade. If you are not a member of the Armorsmith’s guild you may be legally disallowed from crafting in the cities where the guild is strong. You can still attempt to craft in those areas but consequences may occur.


(note not my personal beliefs IRL, but I effing hate back story coming up in game).

Also I was raised in a monastery, by monks I didn't like. And my mentor was a cold hearted bastard who did it out of a sense of duty, not compassion, and I think he made an unwanted sexual pass at me once. So I don't care about any of them.

I won’t quote it again here but in the material I posted I specifically called out NOT needing any of this information. I don’t need to know about these people. If you want to tell me about them fine. What is important is what documents do I give you to detail your characters common knowledge about the campaign area. When you select I am a Viking from Oslo Norway out comes a 2-4 page document - that you get to keep - about the Vikings and another 2-4 page document - that you get to keep - about Oslo Norway. Also included with the selection of Oslo Norway is a short document describing the Viking nation.


Why did I write characters I didn't care about into my background? Because some JERK DM made me write a backstory when I didn't want to. Thereby telling me that whether I have fun in this game is less important than what he wants even before we started. So I'm really not expecting much out of this.

Highlight on “JERK DM” is mine.

This right here is the reason I am calling you out for being a jackass and using my quote to display your ignorance. Should you show up at my gaming table with the attitude you expressed here you would be thrown out of my house within about 10 minutes. You probably wouldn’t even make it to the first die roll. Simply put attitudes like this is what starts the stories of bad players.

If you are too lazy to provide me with four bullet point decisions: Culture, Hometown, Religion and Guild Participation you are not worthy to sit at the table with the rest of my players who would likely just ask me to kick you out anyway.

To quote Red Fel


I get that some people genuinely don't like putting pen to paper (or the digital equivalent). But in my mind, if I'm going to dedicate a ton of work to building an entire world in which your characters can play, I would hope you'd be willing to dedicate a few minutes to coming up with a quick explanation of who this character is as a person. If you can't even produce that, what reason do I have to expect that you'll devote any effort to RP?

You could be the best RPer in the world. You could improvise incredible characters, create tremendous emotional depth and motivation at the drop of a hat. But I generally don't see the future, and I don't know that in advance of the campaign. All I know of your character's complexity, if anything, is what you've told me or written down. And if you can't be bothered to create depth in advance of the game, I have no reason to assume that you're going to do so once gameplay has begun.

That, for me, is a yellow flag. Not a red flag, but a yellow one.

For me it is Red Flag, a finger pointing to the door and GTFO

Segev
2015-06-02, 03:12 PM
When I run games (which is, admittedly, rather rarely), I require at least enough backstory to answer two questions:

1) "How did you get to the point where the game is starting?"
2) "What makes your character want to interact with and join the party?"

I'm willing to work with players on both of these, but it is their job to provide reason and means for their characters to be part of the game.


When I create characters, I tend to be seeking to answer both of those questions, as well as to build answers to myriad other questions that arise from the build and concept. "How did I get to the starting point wherein I join the game?" expands to "How did I get to be the personality and mechanical build that I am?"

Sometimes, these turn into novellas. Others, they're a page or less. But the goal is always to be able to answer questions about who I am and why I am the way I am.

My dragon PC in a Rifts game reflects my OOC ignorance of the setting by being from another one entirely. Because I'm not familiar with Paladium settings in general, I made one up. He's well-versed in technology and magic because he's from a sci-fi setting wherein magic is just another tool. (He was the engine on a space ship; a well-paid position that used his innate supernatural powers to enable FTL travel.) His ship encountered a negative space wedgie that happened to be a Rift into Rifts Earth and crashed them in Coalition territory. They slew his friends and captured him (not knowing what he was other than "magical dimensional being"), and now he wants revenge (after having escaped because they had no idea what they were holding and the party was executing a jail break).

I chose to be captured by the CS in my backstory because I knew the existing party was planning said jailbreak, and it seemed a reasonable way to meet up with them. Having lost all my friends and all contact with my home dimension as well as having a burning desire for revenge against the killers of my friends gave me reason to hang out with this competent group of people who know the region.

Honest Tiefling
2015-06-02, 03:25 PM
Why did I write characters I didn't care about into my background? Because some jerk DM made me write a backstory when I didn't want to. Thereby telling me that whether I have fun in this game is less important than what he wants even before we started. So I'm really not expecting much out of this.

I hate to say it, but...I would not want this sort of player in my table. If you cannot come up with a basic backstory eventually, nor interact with the world enough to be from a particular culture...That's just not a character. People's current decisions are informed by their past decisions. Without it, it might as well be a cardboard cutout one takes from place to place. I have to repeat what others have said, if you cannot give me just a few bullet points after a few sessions to help me out, then I wonder why you care so little about the game and my work to not help out a teensy bit.

neonagash
2015-06-02, 10:33 PM
Alright, let's focus on the present. What does he want? What's his basic personality?

Depends on the game.
Usually I think to myself "this character is in an unusual high risk job. Why"

Which leads me to assuming that he's either a religious fanatic, a highly patriotic character on a mission or a desperate person on the run.

I find desparate characters more interesting. So he's probably interested in wealth and power and hiding out till he gets them.

neonagash
2015-06-02, 10:54 PM
Since you have decided to select a quote from my response and then clearly respond in such a manner that indicates you took no time to read the remainder that you clipped off I am compelled to reply.

Also, unlike Takewo who said



I am clearly and intentionally judging you, and if I violate rules of this forum, so be it.



This comment is both snarky and asinine. It clearly demonstrates that you don’t even know what a culture is. Culture is not something created by political class. Culture is the collected knowledge, skills, materials, customs, and beliefs, amongst other achievements, possessed by a group.

If you had considered some of what was included in the material clipped,



and actually looked at other areas in the overall discussion,



In the end, you select your race - For instance, assume Human. Then you select a Culture. Are you a Mongol? or a Viking? Depending on the selection you might get some extra advantages and possibly disadvantages. Mongols have advanced riding and mounted archery skills and the Vikings have ocean going sailing and navigation bonuses.



So you are telling me that you are too lazy to look at the map of the campaign area and select a city to be your home city? What happens after you select is I give you the sheet of data for that city to be used as common knowledge. It also includes a list of people in the city who are public that might be useful in the campaign. Something like - The village of Tholen has a man named Ethan the Fletcher. His arrows cost a little more but they are so well balanced and perfectly crafted that they increase the range increment of long bows and long composite bows by 15 feet.



Being a member of a religion was clearly indicated as optional and Agnostic or even Atheist is a perfectly valid selection. The choices will impact you in the campaign during social interactions. Attempting to receive services from a Temple as an Atheist might be a bit more challenging.

I don’t have an issue with the selection, but the asinine attitude displayed in the comment prior to the selection is what I have issue with.



Again, guild membership is optional but once again your response shows ignorance. Maybe there are guild’s you wish to be a member of. Wizards who are members of the wizard’s guild might have some special access in campaign areas where the wizards guild is strong. Is an armorsmith a working man? Maybe you are a warrior who selected armorsmithing as a craft and need to work your trade. If you are not a member of the Armorsmith’s guild you may be legally disallowed from crafting in the cities where the guild is strong. You can still attempt to craft in those areas but consequences may occur.



I won’t quote it again here but in the material I posted I specifically called out NOT needing any of this information. I don’t need to know about these people. If you want to tell me about them fine. What is important is what documents do I give you to detail your characters common knowledge about the campaign area. When you select I am a Viking from Oslo Norway out comes a 2-4 page document - that you get to keep - about the Vikings and another 2-4 page document - that you get to keep - about Oslo Norway. Also included with the selection of Oslo Norway is a short document describing the Viking nation.



Highlight on “JERK DM” is mine.

This right here is the reason I am calling you out for being a jackass and using my quote to display your ignorance. Should you show up at my gaming table with the attitude you expressed here you would be thrown out of my house within about 10 minutes. You probably wouldn’t even make it to the first die roll. Simply put attitudes like this is what starts the stories of bad players.

If you are too lazy to provide me with four bullet point decisions: Culture, Hometown, Religion and Guild Participation you are not worthy to sit at the table with the rest of my players who would likely just ask me to kick you out anyway.

To quote Red Fel



For me it is Red Flag, a finger pointing to the door and GTFO

Lol yeah it truly was ignorant and asinine. Feel free to pass that on to Marx for me if you see him before I do.

But if you want more serious answers here's a few.

1. I did not go point by point because my phone doesn't copy and paste. So multi quote is a pain in the butt.

2. Don't hand me a bunch of world data I'm supposed to read and either memorize or haul back and forth each week hoping it may matter if we ever happen to wander into my home town. Because I'm not going to.

I didn't come to game night to do homework.

I came to shut my brain off for a few hours and relax and de-stress from the week with friends, beer and monster bashing.

Please respect the fact that I should be allowed to enjoy the game too and just do the reasonable thing and ask for a knowledge roll when entering a new area and let's see who has heard what about the area and get on with the game

neonagash
2015-06-02, 11:07 PM
I hate to say it, but...I would not want this sort of player in my table. If you cannot come up with a basic backstory eventually, nor interact with the world enough to be from a particular culture...That's just not a character. People's current decisions are informed by their past decisions. Without it, it might as well be a cardboard cutout one takes from place to place. I have to repeat what others have said, if you cannot give me just a few bullet points after a few sessions to help me out, then I wonder why you care so little about the game and my work to not help out a teensy bit.

I don't need to WRITE a backstory in order to have a background.

Last character was a ranger with an island focus who was the classic beach bum. His goals were to start start a tour fishing company and upgrade the lean to he lived in on the beach to something a girl would want to live in with him.

He only got roped into adventuring because he happened to be visiting the town for a festival the day goblins attacked it And things got out of control from there.

He was a fun character with a strong, clear personality and I came up with absolutely none of it in advance. The whole thing was made up during the first hour of play.

Actually this is the first time I've ever written anything about it.

No written backstory was required, and no story existed other than beach ranger before the first goblin died

JAL_1138
2015-06-02, 11:31 PM
He only got roped into adventuring because he happened to be visiting the town for a festival the day goblins attacked it And things got out of control from there.


I heartily approve.


Like I said earlier I usually use this kind of "reason for adventuring." I'm just trying to get by prior to the campaign start and get roped in somehow. The campaign feels more personal to the character because they don't have any ulterior motive.

If I have some other motive--looking for the Six-Fingered Man, for instance--I can't know Count Rugen's going to show up with the BBEG's forces, so why am I helping a bunch of heavily-armed people do something that as far as I know is completely unrelated and that they seem like they could handle on their own unless I'm somehow railroaded into it or massive unlikely coincidences happen to align our goals in a way that my character most likely could not have predicted when initially asked to join the party? Why wouldn't I say "Ok, you heavily-armed fellows go deal with those goblins you're so worried about, I'll continue tracking my non-goblin adversary elsewhere, good luck?"

Marlowe
2015-06-02, 11:48 PM
Lol yeah it truly was ignorant and asinine. Feel free to pass that on to Marx for me if you see him before I do.


I'm pretty sure Marx would have something to say about somebody raised by Monks claiming to be a member of "the working class". I'm pretty sure he'd say something about the total irrelevance of this sort of rhetoric when referring to a pre-industrial economy as well.:smallbiggrin:

neonagash
2015-06-03, 01:37 AM
I heartily approve.


Like I said earlier I usually use this kind of "reason for adventuring." I'm just trying to get by prior to the campaign start and get roped in somehow. The campaign feels more personal to the character because they don't have any ulterior motive.

If I have some other motive--looking for the Six-Fingered Man, for instance--I can't know Count Rugen's going to show up with the BBEG's forces, so why am I helping a bunch of heavily-armed people do something that as far as I know is completely unrelated and that they seem like they could handle on their own unless I'm somehow railroaded into it or massive unlikely coincidences happen to align our goals in a way that my character most likely could not have predicted when initially asked to join the party? Why wouldn't I say "Ok, you heavily-armed fellows go deal with those goblins you're so worried about, I'll continue tracking my non-goblin adversary elsewhere, good luck?"

Exactly. Everyone is talking about a believable character with a hook to the world. But to me the concept of professional adventurer itself defies belief. It seems much more like a temporary mission or a crazy situation that got out of hand.

To me that's a believable character. Like you said all this backstory stuff seems more like reasons to tell that group of armed nutcases to take a hike and get back to your well detailed life

neonagash
2015-06-03, 01:46 AM
I'm pretty sure Marx would have something to say about somebody raised by Monks claiming to be a member of "the working class". I'm pretty sure he'd say something about the total irrelevance of this sort of rhetoric when referring to a pre-industrial economy as well.:smallbiggrin:

Read the totality of his writings then. He referenced pre industrial society several times. Often as some sort of idealistic existence before industrial companies and the ultra rich "stole " everyone's unity and hope of a better life.

He did write more than one book ya know?

I would also question anyone who thinks they know exactly where he would fall on this subject.

Granted he hated religion. But this character was also a clear victim of a predatory ruling class and then kicked out on his age of majority without a penny to his name and nowhere to go and no social safety net to fall back on.

I think it's a complicated situation (also the background of my 2nd favorite rogue character ever) and no one can say where he or most other historical figures would fall on it .

The fact that he did turn to a life of crime rather than overcoming the odds to be part of society hints where some figures from history would judge. But I don't think Marx is one of them

Kami2awa
2015-06-03, 02:16 AM
I don't require players to have backstories. I'm quite happy for them to write one, or just tell me about it, but I have a few problems with them:

- A PC's backstory might not be well communicated to the other players. This means that if events happen based on that backstory, the other players are left out or confused as to what is happening. "Who is this guy? He seems dodgy as hell. Why are we trusting him? You know him? How? Was this in the session I missed?"
Even worse is when a player forgets their own backstory... "Before you stands Aldric the Black, your life-long rival and greatest enemy!" "Sorry, who?" This can happen quite easily as campaigns go on for a long time, there can be long inter-session gaps, and its easy to forget what you made up months ago.

- A player may find that after playing a PC for a bit the way they play them doesn't fit their backstory at all. In addition, the backstory may not even be well represented in the system or the PCs stats ("How did you ever get a reputation as a master thief? You've failed three stealth rolls in a row!") In my experience I don't know what characters are like until I play them for a while.

- Backstories are "Tell, don't show," which is often considered poor storytelling. Reading a character's epic backstory is nowhere near as interesting as playing it out, even for the writer themselves.

My ideal would be a backstory of a line or so that tells you the character's origins, but leaves plenty of scope for expansion later. Even this, I find, is not that necessary.

Yukitsu
2015-06-03, 02:36 AM
Why would a back story be telling rather than showing in a narrative sense? That's only true if you write it that way.

If you're claiming it is telling rather than showing because everything that's written is, well, that's all stories, but if you're talking about it in the way writers use it, then that's an issue with your writing, not the medium. And at any rate, that "rule" is only useful as a very general guideline, most good stories do include a significant amount of telling.

Personally, I use back stories as a way of testing whether or not players read my campaign notes, or if they're actually interested in the campaign at all. If they don't seem to know that, let's say the campaign I'm currently writing, features one province isolated in a tiny caldera while the rest of the world has turned to a completely uninhabitable ball of ice and claim they're playing a wanderer from a distant land, then I'm going to ask them to read the campaign notes. If they can't be arsed to write up a paragraph, I'm going to assume they don't actually want to play it. If they can't be arsed to read the campaign notes or write up a paragraph long back story or even bullet point list, I'm definitely going to assume they have no interest.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 03:20 AM
Why would a back story be telling rather than showing in a narrative sense? That's only true if you write it that way.

If you're claiming it is telling rather than showing because everything that's written is, well, that's all stories, but if you're talking about it in the way writers use it, then that's an issue with your writing, not the medium. And at any rate, that "rule" is only useful as a very general guideline, most good stories do include a significant amount of telling.

Personally, I use back stories as a way of testing whether or not players read my campaign notes, or if they're actually interested in the campaign at all. If they don't seem to know that, let's say the campaign I'm currently writing, features one province isolated in a tiny caldera while the rest of the world has turned to a completely uninhabitable ball of ice and claim they're playing a wanderer from a distant land, then I'm going to ask them to read the campaign notes. If they can't be arsed to write up a paragraph, I'm going to assume they don't actually want to play it. If they can't be arsed to read the campaign notes or write up a paragraph long back story or even bullet point list, I'm definitely going to assume they have no interest.

Expecting people with lives, jobs and real world responsibilities to read your home brew fan fic, often on little notice is passive aggressive gming.

Just TELL them the idea of the game when you tell them you have a game. Don't give them homework. It pisses people off and they simply won't do it.

To the extent that it's almost a tired meme as shown by webcomics like DM of the rings and Darth's and droids.

I almost always GM. But as a player I beseech you to learn JUST EXPLAIN THE DAMN WORLD IN SIMPLE, VERBAL (not written) LANGUAGE BEFORE THE GAME.

Do not send check lists, questionnaires or pages of crap for me to read.

Take 10 minutes, call me on the phone, and explain the campaign.

If you as the GM can't take 10 minutes to do that then how do you have any right to get butthurt that I don't have a half hour to read your notes?

Telok
2015-06-03, 03:25 AM
One thing I did once was to fire up DwarfFortress and screenshot-print one of the dwarves. I whited out the names, wrote my character's name at the top and handed it to my DM telling him to fill in the blanks as he liked.

Unfortunately it was a DM who "didn't do" backstories despite twenty pages of setting info for the players. The characters were a bunch of random murderhobos who were a group for "reasons" (seriously, DM's own words) and got offered a job (for no reason ever explained).

PersonMan
2015-06-03, 03:50 AM
I don't require players to have backstories. I'm quite happy for them to write one, or just tell me about it, but I have a few problems with them:

- A PC's backstory might not be well communicated to the other players. This means that if events happen based on that backstory, the other players are left out or confused as to what is happening. "Who is this guy? He seems dodgy as hell. Why are we trusting him? You know him? How? Was this in the session I missed?"

See, I don't think this is a problem at all. After all, if the player is confused and curious, the character is a lot more likely to act confused and curious than to just stand there and go 'aha, ok, alright, good'.

icefractal
2015-06-03, 03:51 AM
When you select I am a Viking from Oslo Norway out comes a 2-4 page document - that you get to keep - about the Vikings and another 2-4 page document - that you get to keep - about Oslo Norway. Also included with the selection of Oslo Norway is a short document describing the Viking nation.
I came to shut my brain off for a few hours and relax and de-stress from the week with friends, beer and monster bashing.What's obvious to me here is that you two should not be in the same game. Vastly different gaming styles. Neither is "wrong", but they don't mix well.

Which means this ...
Please respect the fact that I should be allowed to enjoy the game too and just do the reasonable thing and ask for a knowledge roll when entering a new area and let's see who has heard what about the area and get on with the game... is wrong. The "reasonable thing" to do is not play in a game that has an incompatible style. If The Evil DM is running, that's a game that you should skip, rather than try to play beer-n-pretzels style in a serious setting-heavy campaign.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 04:23 AM
What's obvious to me here is that you two should not be in the same game. Vastly different gaming styles. Neither is "wrong", but they don't mix well.

Which means this ...... is wrong. The "reasonable thing" to do is not play in a game that has an incompatible style. If The Evil DM is running, that's a game that you should skip, rather than try to play beer-n-pretzels style in a serious setting-heavy campaign.

I suppose part of my issue comes from the fact that my group is friends.

We've known each other a long time (mainly) and alternate GM duties.

So if I just ran a 6 month campaign for you, where I made a lot of compromises for your enjoyment. And now it's your turn and your all...

" this is the way it is, deal with it or hit the bricks "

Yeah I'm going to be pissed.

NichG
2015-06-03, 04:36 AM
As a GM, I don't really care about backstory in the sense of details or specific events or relationships in a character's past, and I don't even need or really want to know what kind of person the character is until they hit the actual situations in game.

But what I absolutely need the player to have thought deeply about and to be totally confident in is the character's motivations. And I need to know those ahead of time so that I can make sure that the PCs have a reason to interact with each-other and to keep interacting with each-other of their own volition.

The biggest problems I have are players who have no clue what they actually want out of the game, and then basically are expecting me to provide the motivation (especially when combined with 'nah, I'm not going to bite'). If a player has a character who is going to have to be cajoled, bribed, or tricked into joining the party, then that needs to be found out before game starts and corrected, because otherwise what will happen in game is 'okay, the party goes one way and you go another - tell me about your new character'.

So the number one and two rules are that a character must want something non-trivial to achieve that will enable them to proactively drive plot in the absence of GM pressure or nagging, and that what they want must be compatible with working together with the other players' characters to achieve it. If I say 'you are in the world - what are your plans today, this month, and this decade?' they should be able to give me reasonable answers for those things that aren't some variety of 'sit around and wait for you to hook me in'.

A backstory can be a good method for getting to that level of familiarity with one's character, but its not the only method. If a player can do that without a backstory, then that's fine by me.

goto124
2015-06-03, 07:12 AM
While we're at it, is there a list of 'typical generic backstories for when you're not being creative'?

Kriton
2015-06-03, 08:04 AM
Lol yeah it truly was ignorant and asinine. Feel free to pass that on to Marx for me if you see him before I do.

I'm fairly sure Marx,(or Engels for that matter) never attributed the creation of culture to any "Political" class. Please don't push the responsibility for your ramblings on them.

boomwolf
2015-06-03, 08:39 AM
While we're at it, is there a list of 'typical generic backstories for when you're not being creative'?

5th rulebook has back stories section. It even have mechanical effects for each archetype (wanderer, merchant, farmer, whatnot) and each has a few sets of motives, mindsets and such that Ightfield fit that background.
Heck, in 5th you literally have no excuse, just pick a major type if the list and roll a few dice if you are lazy/unimaginative

Red Fel
2015-06-03, 08:54 AM
While we're at it, is there a list of 'typical generic backstories for when you're not being creative'?

Nobody says you have to be creative. But as a DM, I like to know that the players are putting some pre-game investment into their characters. I don't expect the next Great (insert nationality here) Novel, or anything like that.

I've seen a lot of, and don't object to: Orphan who grew up on the streets, and became enamored of the mystique of a traveling (insert class here), and resolved to become one. This gives me hooks - who were her real parents? Are they still alive somewhere? Who was this traveling (class)? Does the PC want to meet him someday? Raised a slave, trained to fight, escaped from slavery. Again, I have hooks - who were the slavers? Is there a Javert to the PC's Valjean? Does he have any fears or traumas resulting from slavery? Grew up on a farm or in a small village, quiet happy life as a farmer/craftsman/tradesman/guardsman, until either his village was destroyed or wanderlust took him. Hooks exist in either case. Isolated brainiac. Raised in a castle around books, or in a monastery, or at Hogwarts. Out to see the world for the first time. Hooks, hooks, hooks.
See my point? It doesn't have to be Tolkien or Tolstoy. It just has to give me a little. The stuff above you can tell me, to my face, in about three sentences. If you tell me that your character sprung fully formed from the fabric of the universe, no friends, no family, and no history, I see a lot of flags and I'm reluctant to let you sit at my table unless I know you.

I just need to see that the character is a person, instead of a mechanical murderhobo engine, and that the player is invested in the game world, and not just there to roll dice and claim loot.

JAL_1138
2015-06-03, 09:39 AM
It's not hard to rope one of my characters in; I can't recall a time regardless of edition or DM where the initial meeting-of-characters wasn't enough, even if they weren't actively adventuring at the time.

My motivations? What motivations could my character possibly have to join the campaign before I hear the hook? Seriously, how can I have an in-character motive to join a campaign my character doesn't know is going to happen?

My motives are "Egad, the NPC who just burst in the door to deliver the initial plot hook said there was a zombie in the cemetary, someone had better do something about it. Crap, I'm one of the only four schmucks with a sword in here, aren't I. That makes me one of the someones in question. Welp, here we go again." And then things keep happening, and before long I'm up to my elbows in it, and by now I like the other people in the party well enough, because they were there for the zombie thing that kicked this mess off, we've fought alongside each other, and they're in it as deep as I am.

What's my character going to do in the absence of the various quest hooks? If a bard, try to make a living. Just trying to make a buck. Maybe run a confidence scheme against someone well-off but a jerk, or maybe just play the lute with the case open in front of me until I've got enough money to sleep with a roof over my head. If a cleric, heal people, do various and sundry other cleric-y things, like fighting evil when it crops up in the vicinity. No idea what that evil might be, because how could I predict it? If in Sigil, work with my faction, further its goals, and try to make a living. Unless I'm already in the party, because it shouldn't take me long to form a bond with these people and help them.

I tend to play characters with Chronic Hero Syndrome, not in the sense of wanting to be a great hero, but who can't look themselves in the mirror in the morning if there's a problem they could solve that they don't do something about. Maybe with a resigned sigh, maybe with boundless energy, but either way it needs doing.


I don't see why a character needs a grand goal unrelated to the adventure(s). Not everyone makes big plans or has a huge ambition beyond "I'd like to have a decent living and be able to enjoy myself from time to time." As an over-arching, long-term goal prior to the start of the campaign. Once the green slime hits the gnomish device and things kick off, that's another matter. I'm in it now.

The only time I'm not going to bite the quest hook is if it looks too trivial (which is hard to do but I've seen it done), or if it seems like a horrible idea that will lead to certain death but not solve anything (e.g., "hey, let's get on a boat in AD&D")--in which case I'll still go along if the rest of the party does, although I'll start filling out a spare character sheet--or if it's something a reasonably-moral individual of my alignment would balk at, or if it doesn't seem trivial but we're trying to solve a bigger and more immediately-pressing problem and must reluctantly pass it by. Otherwise, I bite.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-03, 09:43 AM
While we're at it, is there a list of 'typical generic backstories for when you're not being creative'?

The entire world of literature, if you just white-out a few names.

My character grew up a poor moisture potato farmer raised by his aunt and uncle in a remote, desolate part of the galaxy kingdom. He hated farming and always wanted to become a pilot Cavalier. One day, his uncle brought home two escaped droids halflings being hunted by the Empire a lich. When Stormtroopers Deathknights came looking for them, they killed his guardians. He fled his home with the droids halflings and joined the Rebellion took up a life of adventure. As a consequence, he hates the Empire undead with a vengeance.

Also pretty much every famous person in history has an Early Life biography section in Wikipedia. Change "Missouri" to the Misty Mountains and "Confederate Army" to elven militia (or orcish hordes) and you'll end up with some cool stories.

Segev
2015-06-03, 10:14 AM
Like I said, the biggest things you need in a backstory are:

Why are you where the adventure starts?
Why should the party want to keep you around when things get rough?
Why do you want to stick with the party when things get rough?

You must be able to answer these questions - and, in particular, ensure that none of them are answered with, "I'm not," "They don't," or "I don't," - to be able to ensure you fit into the game. If you can't answer those, there's no guarantee you'll be in the game. Not because anybody explicitly excludes you, but because your character may just not stay with the party, and the GM has no obligation to run a solo game for you while the others sit and wait.

NichG
2015-06-03, 10:26 AM
It's not hard to rope one of my characters in; I can't recall a time regardless of edition or DM where the initial meeting-of-characters wasn't enough, even if they weren't actively adventuring at the time.

My motivations? What motivations could my character possibly have to join the campaign before I hear the hook? Seriously, how can I have an in-character motive to join a campaign my character doesn't know is going to happen?

My motives are "Egad, the NPC who just burst in the door to deliver the initial plot hook said there was a zombie in the cemetary, someone had better do something about it. Crap, I'm one of the only four schmucks with a sword in here, aren't I. That makes me one of the someones in question. Welp, here we go again." And then things keep happening, and before long I'm up to my elbows in it, and by now I like the other people in the party well enough, because they were there for the zombie thing that kicked this mess off, we've fought alongside each other, and they're in it as deep as I am.

What's my character going to do in the absence of the various quest hooks? If a bard, try to make a living. Just trying to make a buck. Maybe run a confidence scheme against someone well-off but a jerk, or maybe just play the lute with the case open in front of me until I've got enough money to sleep with a roof over my head. If a cleric, heal people, do various and sundry other cleric-y things, like fighting evil when it crops up in the vicinity. No idea what that evil might be, because how could I predict it? If in Sigil, work with my faction, further its goals, and try to make a living. Unless I'm already in the party, because it shouldn't take me long to form a bond with these people and help them.

I tend to play characters with Chronic Hero Syndrome, not in the sense of wanting to be a great hero, but who can't look themselves in the mirror in the morning if there's a problem they could solve that they don't do something about. Maybe with a resigned sigh, maybe with boundless energy, but either way it needs doing.


I don't see why a character needs a grand goal unrelated to the adventure(s). Not everyone makes big plans or has a huge ambition beyond "I'd like to have a decent living and be able to enjoy myself from time to time." As an over-arching, long-term goal prior to the start of the campaign. Once the green slime hits the gnomish device and things kick off, that's another matter. I'm in it now.

The only time I'm not going to bite the quest hook is if it looks too trivial (which is hard to do but I've seen it done), or if it seems like a horrible idea that will lead to certain death but not solve anything (e.g., "hey, let's get on a boat in AD&D")--in which case I'll still go along if the rest of the party does, although I'll start filling out a spare character sheet--or if it's something a reasonably-moral individual of my alignment would balk at, or if it doesn't seem trivial but we're trying to solve a bigger and more immediately-pressing problem and must reluctantly pass it by. Otherwise, I bite.

There are more possible characters than there are suitable characters. No doubt lots of people would just like to have a decent living and be able to enjoy themselves, but those are the people whose stories end when they find a king's ransom or a guaranteed no-twists wish or a powerful NPC who they can convince to do the job in their stead or any one of the thousand opportunities to get out of the line of fire that a successful adventurer will come upon.

Its the characters who know what they want and why they're there and have that at hand at every moment whose stories don't end, because even when the world is quiet it still isn't the life they want or the world the way they want. A character with their own fire will make their own hooks without the GM needing to do so, which means that rather than the GM playing 'how can I motivate these guys' the GM can instead think in terms of bigger picture things - situations, opportunities, forces, actions and reactions. It means you can have more subtle things going on than just 'these guys are attacking, if we don't fight then everyone dies' or the like, because the players themselves will decide the roles of new elements coming on scene. 'This guy is a potential ally', 'I don't like this guy, lets take him down', 'there are resources here that would let us do X', etc.

You mentioned Planescape in your post. Are you familiar with the Infinite Staircase? There's a door which leads to your heart's true desire - people who go through don't come back. The kinds of characters that really make for a strong campaign are the type who could go through that door and find a reason to return.

Segev
2015-06-03, 10:28 AM
This is also why a GM, in pitching the game, should tell the players where the game will start and, if possible, what the primary hook will be. The latter is a bit more optional if the GM is willing to work with the players in some back-and-forth to work out individual hooks, but if the GM can and does provide a primary hook, he should tell them, and then it's the players' job to concoct their backstory such that they're ready and willing to bite.

Aotrs Commander
2015-06-03, 10:37 AM
I will sometimes require a PC to have a background for some campaigns. (Some, especially if it's a module or something, I won't.)

When I do call for backgrounds, though it is on the understanding that I am prepared to do most of the work, and the player can contribute as much or as little beyond the minimum as they choose. (And even if they do a full background, I will go through and make any necessary adjustments for place names or something if we are on one of my campaign worlds - where the PCs may not have access to everything, since often, stuff is created only when I come to write the adventure - and or to give a quick addition as to what the PC is doing here right this moment if that has not alrady been provided.)

I required the players to give me some background when I started Rise of the Runelords - which has a fair whack of roleplaying elements right at the start - for example, which could be as in-depth or as short as they liked, after some basic decisions, with me filling in any gaps. When I ran my 3.5 conversion of Night Below, I didn't, since it really REALLY didn't matter!

It should be noted, however, that I general use backgrounds in this fashion as a handout to the PCs for "what happened to your character up until this point" or "why your character is here," at campaign start, rather than as a source of plot-hooks for being mean to the players. If the PCs give me something in their backstory that warrents that, I will attempt to incorporate it at some point if I'm writing my own adventures (when I'm running a module or an adventure path, I generally don't), but I won't make up plot hooks, nor give nor take away family/loved ones. I might mention people that they would have known in passing, but mostly it's to say how your character got obtained your [class/skills/features], where you are from and why your character is in this exact spot at the start of the adventure. (I particularly use this is I'm doing a more interesting start than "you all know each other and start in the pub."

(Notably, for Rise of the Runelords, getting the backgrounds and stuff meant that we went the entire first session before I read more than the introductary paragraph of the module as the PCs interacted.)

I also use a similar sort of handout sometimes when we're playing a day-quest party (that will have some gap in time between adevntures), especially if their character missed out on the last adventure, or if I want to slip the PCs some information or clues pertaining to the current adventure.

Let me chuck out a couple of illustraive examples, because it takes no more effort than opening document and clicking copy-paste... The first is the background, entirely DM-created (from the player's class, race and culture (which in the campaign world in question is a (mandatory) psuedo-feat that every character gets)) for the starting advanture in my Dark Lord's black ops party. Basically, I started the general narration, and as each PC was mentioned, I handed them their background, which took them to where they were as they went about that day's business and found Things Had Gone Horribly Wrong, before they all ended up in the boss' office, trying to tell him that and the adventure proper started. (Which beats the hell out of the old "you are in a pub" starter...)

Ossask Kralikk Toskantor, Volu-Skar Repository Garrison, formerly 45th Shadow Guard Army, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Battalion, 5th Lutossiti, 3rd Tosti

You were born in the north of the Dark Lands, in the city of Gasaloti. Your intelligence and martial aptitude were noted early on. You ended up being apprenticed to Nathlo Doronask, a Hobgoblin warrior-priest of the Dark Lord. Under his tutelage, you learned much. Nathlo gave you the startings of your fascination with history and a solid grounding in the school of life as you travelled up and down the Dark Lands. Your apprenticeship ended when Nathlo said he had no more to teach you, but sponsored your entry into the Dark Army.

You entered service in the 45th Shadow Guard Army. The 45th spends most of its time on garrison and peace-keeping duty in the north-west of the Dark Lands, in the more fractious areas. With your sponsorship and considerable ability, promotion was not long in the offing. It came when your tosti’s (10-soldier unit analogous to a Validus Contubernium) tulask (sergeant), a grizzled old goblin was crippled in a fall. The ossask was promoted, and selected you as the new ossask.

Even so, your career was relatively dull until recently. Your lutossiti (100-soldier unit, analogous to a Validus Century), the 5th, went on a short campaign to deal with a large renegade band of Orcs that were becoming problematic. The commanding officer manhandled the entire operation, and while the culminating battle was a victory, it was at considerable cost. The entire vakoino (ten-strong command element) was wiped out, and the rest of the lutossiti suffered considerable casualties.

You had only a minor part in the battle, since your tosti was assigned to reconnoitre to the rear of the enemy force and locate and destroy their supplies. Due to the general incompetence of the 5th’s deployment, you ran right into the enemy forces. Six of the group were killed, including the tulask. Isolated, with no help coming, you were forced back to a narrow cleft, where you held off nearly six-to-one odds, though it cost you two more of your compatriots.

The 5th lutossiti was so badly damaged that it was decided to replace it with a fresh batch of new recruits, with the survivors being reassigned. You were given several choices. The one which most appealed was to join the garrison at the Volu-Skar Repository. While the work has been no more thrilling than garrison duty anywhere else, you have full run of the repository and all the history located within, which is enough history to sate even your appetite for the foreseeable future.

Though that future was about to be much different that you had expected...

Your morning started like so many others. Your rank does not exclude you from guard duty, merely meaning more paperwork. Still, you reflected, it would at least be a fine day for wall patrol. As you head out to the walls, you run into Ossask Soola Nadafini, a Dark Mistress also formerly of the 5th. Due to various circumstances, she is also taking her wall shift this morning, and her position is just slightly further along the wall than yours. The two of you make your way out of the ground floor of the Repository to the stairway to the wall-walk and head on up to take your posts.

The second is from the most recent quest for the same party, being an update for one of the PCs who'd missed the previous day-quest - and again, this was to impart information to the PCs. (Actually, also so that the boss could call on him to brief his cell in-character!) And the background details for his and another couple of players were there so that when the PCs found a prophecy (not the one they'd gone looking for), they could be allowed the chance to work out it was bad themselves, raher than having to be told by the DM.

Andrus Lardus Assus Malahominis

Napask Skooreeiat’s words echoed back to you...“Make your preparations, Umbra Vigiles, as your heading north – into the heart of the Validus Empire...” The thought was exciting. To head into the North, across the plains, into the Northern Nations to wreck havoc at the Iron Master’s behest, on the unsuspecting Lidusain, from within their own cities.

Unfortunately, fate had other ideas.

At times, the Umbra Vigiles has to kerb its operations when things become difficult. Despite your success in your last mission, the local Validus Legion garrison became suspicious, doubly so since their centurion went missing. Your superiors decided that, with the Night Elf assassin Umbra apparently operating in the province, and that mysterious alliance, it was simply too dangerous to attempt any further operations at the current time. Thus, the Vigiles cut back to the smaller, information-gathering operations, relying on individual agents. The cell was put on reserve service. This is a practise in the Umbra Vigiles; when times such as this strike, the larger cells are not spilt up or put to languish on guard duty (for which you are thankful!), but rather are assigned as trouble-shooters in home territory. The usefulness of adventurers has never gone unnoticed by the Dark Lord, or the Iron Master, and the cells are essentially fulfilling the same role, but with official support and sanction from local garrisons.

You, however, remained behind as a sole agent, to start laying the ground work for future operations. You were chosen, rather than Juliastus (who is also a Lidusain native as well) for several reasons. The largest was that your identical twin brother Lardus Assus had, once the quadran had dropped, joined the Legion in the search for the missing centurion that your cell had killed. Your knowledge of your brother was instrumental in distracting him from the trail. (And you, thanks to your brother’s constant interference, are below the Legion’s sight, and, more pertinently, not wanted in Nepitar.)

Shortly thereafter, you were requested by Iluask (battalion captain) Vaeluneir – head of the Vigiles operations in Nepitar (and a Dark Elf like yourself) – personally. The Iluask had his eye on you and your cell, and had ear-marked you for several operations. While your compatriots went south to Shannoloku in the Conquered Realm, you trekked north, slowly, in a reverse of the journey you undertook not so long ago. Eventually, you reached Nepitar, and have been working with the Ilusask since, while awaiting your cell to head back north.

You have been here a little over ten quadmens – it took you six quadmens to work your way north. You companions have had a much longer journey. From what you understood before they left, they were taking a magically- expedited route south. Even with the magical assistance rendered by the private teleport network of Napask Hooltuka, your Intulo commanding officer’s contacts, it would take them a month to travel the 1300 miles and back again, and their journey north would take twice as long by the more mundane methods of foot and boat.

One of the tasks you undertook was pleasant enough – research. A minor senator died, leaving his estate to his son and his growing family. The son – by all accounts not much of an intellectual – decided he didn’t want or need his family’s private library, which was old and quite extensive. To some minor consternation, he elected to sell what he could, and dispose of the rest to anyone who cared to take it. Some of the books thus went to private parties, but the majority of the collection ended up being placed in a recently-opened new public library. Your recent experience in a Repository on top of all your other skills made you the ideal candidate to go on what the Iluask called a “fishing expedition.” Simply, you were to go through the library in search of any information that might be useful. Ossasks Ithulon Thuliko (a Kobold) and Vulass N’haril (a Dakr Mistress) were assigned to help you. While not having your Repository experience, they were quite well-versed in history.

Such fishing expeditions are not uncommon, Iluask explained. Low-priority and seemingly unimportant though they appear, this sort of information gathering could nevertheless be critical. And he was right.

Your perusal of the library found you reading several very old journals, dating back from the period just after the Dark Wars, during the reconstruction of Nepitar. The author was the one who began the family library. In between the more normal entries, was one in which he lamented the loss of so much culture in the razing of the city. He recounted an anecdote from his youth, when he visited a small temple to the Oracles. His father had taken him there for some small matter of some sort, and while there, he was entertained by one of the priests who showed him a round and the many wonders – to a small boy, in any case – the temple contained. Their most favoured item – and the mention that caught your interest – was a book in which they had collected many prophecies that had not yet come to pass. It was, apparently, so beautifully calligraphied that it quite caught his eye, and helped start his interest in books.

This was exactly the sort of thing Vaeluneir has told you to be on the lookout for. As it happened, the Iluask realised this could be a very potentially important discovery. The Iluask then assigned you the job of trying to locate where this old temple may have been – which required quite a lot more research, even with assistance from some of the other Vigiles – especially the aformentioned Ossasks – ( and the Iluask himself on a couple of occasions.) You found yourself missing the assistance of your own cell – Kralick in particular would have very much enjoyed this sort of work, you suspect, though Ithulon seems to be quite well versed in history himself.

Eventually, between you, you believe you have found a probable location of the temple. Like many of the older buildings, it was essentially buried and built over during the reconstruction, forgotten in the rubble. The most likely region lies near the base of one of the hills that Nepitar was founded on, which was once the religious district. The razing and subsequent damage from weather caused a landslide, which was one of the reasons the temple was lost so completely. None of the priests or attendants survived the Fall of Nepitar, meaning it was largely forgotten in the upheaval that followed. You suspect the entrance should be somewhere in this approximate area.

The final piece of information you found was from an old adventurer’s journal, dating back to the late 2680s, about eighty years ago. He had briefly found a place while exploring the sewer system. A careful examination of the information suggested that it was quite well protected. He had passed a couple of magical traps, but had run into some “spectral terrors” which guarded the lower reaches and fled. You are not clear as to what these “spectral terrors” were, but incorporeal Undead seems most likely.

Thus, your investigation has been put on hold until your cell arrives and you can reconnoitre in force.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 10:56 AM
There are more possible characters than there are suitable characters. No doubt lots of people would just like to have a decent living and be able to enjoy themselves, but those are the people whose stories end when they find a king's ransom or a guaranteed no-twists wish or a powerful NPC who they can convince to do the job in their stead or any one of the thousand opportunities to get out of the line of fire that a successful adventurer will come upon.

Its the characters who know what they want and why they're there and have that at hand at every moment whose stories don't end, because even when the world is quiet it still isn't the life they want or the world the way they want. A character with their own fire will make their own hooks without the GM needing to do so, which means that rather than the GM playing 'how can I motivate these guys' the GM can instead think in terms of bigger picture things - situations, opportunities, forces, actions and reactions. It means you can have more subtle things going on than just 'these guys are attacking, if we don't fight then everyone dies' or the like, because the players themselves will decide the roles of new elements coming on scene. 'This guy is a potential ally', 'I don't like this guy, lets take him down', 'there are resources here that would let us do X', etc.

You mentioned Planescape in your post. Are you familiar with the Infinite Staircase? There's a door which leads to your heart's true desire - people who go through don't come back. The kinds of characters that really make for a strong campaign are the type who could go through that door and find a reason to return.

I don't see the problem with playing a character that gets rich and quits.

It's a good opportunity for believable characters in the world. You get the kings ransom and retire say goodbye to the party and roll up a new one.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Honest Tiefling
2015-06-03, 11:13 AM
I don't need to WRITE a backstory in order to have a background.

Last character was a ranger with an island focus who was the classic beach bum. His goals were to start start a tour fishing company and upgrade the lean to he lived in on the beach to something a girl would want to live in with him.

He only got roped into adventuring because he happened to be visiting the town for a festival the day goblins attacked it And things got out of control from there.

He was a fun character with a strong, clear personality and I came up with absolutely none of it in advance. The whole thing was made up during the first hour of play.

Actually this is the first time I've ever written anything about it.

No written backstory was required, and no story existed other than beach ranger before the first goblin died

The mere fact that you are willing to write this on forums, to complete strangers, and yet would not provide the exact same information in written form to a DM is boggling to me.

Eisenheim
2015-06-03, 11:16 AM
So, there have been a lot of references in this thread to plot hooks/backstory element being used to be mean to or screw over players. That's clearly terrible use of those things: if you're GM and you only use backstory elements to punish characters or players, shame on you. If you're a player and your GM does that, tell them to stop, or find a better GM.

That's not all those hooks can be used for. As a player, the issues and plots highlighted by a backstory and character description are a way to highlight for your GM issues you want to explore with the character.

As GM, good backstories (not necessarily long or extensive ones, just good) can be a road map of what your players are most interested in. I think of a good campaign as largely about the characters, not a set of events that would proceed with any generic set of adventurers slotted in. For a game like that, rather than a stock module, getting cues about what's important to my players from their backstory is fundamental.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 11:29 AM
The mere fact that you are willing to write this on forums, to complete strangers, and yet would not provide the exact same information in written form to a DM is boggling to me.

Came up with it all on the spur of the moment.

Basically due to some bad communication two of us brought rogues to the game. The other player was a cute girl so I let her have her way. All the party bases were covered and I hadn't played a ranger in a while so I threw one together in the first 20 minutes of play with and did what I always like to do..... Spur of the moment improvising for the start of the campaign while I feel out what kind of character will work best with the group and adventure.

I think its kind of funny how people in this thread keep saying that backstory can be hooks and clues to exploring issues from the past despite being repeatedly and clearly told over and over by those of us who don't like them that we don't want to do that.

I don't want to explore issues from a fake persons youth, I don't want to run into some old relatives or training partners with drama, or even just have a pleasant chat and move on.

We want to play the current adventure, against the current threat, we will take care of hooking ourselves into the adventure. You don't have to. In fact please don't try. It usually comes off as hamfisted.

Just play the npcs and monsters. We will take care of our characters ourselves

JAL_1138
2015-06-03, 11:59 AM
I don't see the problem with playing a character that gets rich and quits.

It's a good opportunity for believable characters in the world. You get the kings ransom and retire say goodbye to the party and roll up a new one.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Agreed.

Or you do get the king's ransom, and would gladly retire, but you've heard of a dark lord in another land, your friends are probably going to fight him, and you realize you could buy a sizeable amount of gear with the king's ransom that would be of tremendous use in, say, toppling a dark lord (and you don't want your friends to get killed in your absence if they do go), so you say "Aw @#$%" and go shopping, because you've got Chronic Hero Syndrome and can't sit back and relax while there's something going on you could do something about.


There are more possible characters than there are suitable characters. No doubt lots of people would just like to have a decent living and be able to enjoy themselves, but those are the people whose stories end when they find a king's ransom or a guaranteed no-twists wish or a powerful NPC who they can convince to do the job in their stead or any one of the thousand opportunities to get out of the line of fire that a successful adventurer will come upon.

Its the characters who know what they want and why they're there and have that at hand at every moment whose stories don't end, because even when the world is quiet it still isn't the life they want or the world the way they want. A character with their own fire will make their own hooks without the GM needing to do so, which means that rather than the GM playing 'how can I motivate these guys' the GM can instead think in terms of bigger picture things - situations, opportunities, forces, actions and reactions. It means you can have more subtle things going on than just 'these guys are attacking, if we don't fight then everyone dies' or the like, because the players themselves will decide the roles of new elements coming on scene. 'This guy is a potential ally', 'I don't like this guy, lets take him down', 'there are resources here that would let us do X', etc.

You mentioned Planescape in your post. Are you familiar with the Infinite Staircase? There's a door which leads to your heart's true desire - people who go through don't come back. The kinds of characters that really make for a strong campaign are the type who could go through that door and find a reason to return.

Tales from the Infinite Staircase was a fun module, and the Staircase cropped up regularly in non-module games too.

Had that ever come up, I'd probably have responded: "Let's see, I could go through this door to the Demiplane of Boundless Eternal Euphoria, or I could not abandon my friends and Powers-know how many lives to the soulplague of corrupted Order called the Iron Shadow that threatens the multiverse at large on a cosmic timescale and a lot of good (and even not-so-good) people in the present and immediate future just so I can be happy (until the Modron Flu catches up to me there anyway). Damn, I really wanted to go to the Demiplane of Boundless Eternal Euphoria, too, and this was my one chance. Welp, come on, gang, we've got work to do in Hell. If we're lucky, we might not be torn limb from limb or have our souls devoured."

You're assuming that without a pre-adventure motive, I won't react to anything but immediate threats to life and limb. That it won't snowball. Or that "there's a problem" means there is an immediate need to go solve it NOW or else. Say I get wrapped up with one quest out of the campaign involving cultists. I'm probably going to keep investigating, even if I've killed the couple-three that threw a firebolt at me. Because now I've gotten roped in, and it's snowballed. Could imply something big's about to happen, like a concerted effort to summon eldtritch horrors and conquer the land, or there could just be a lot of deranged cultists in the area for no readily discernible reason.

There are resources over there that would let the city build a hospital or an orphanage or something, but there's monsters preventing them from getting said resources? ...Ok, guess I'm going monster hunting. Saying I got roped in doesn't mean you had to drag me kicking and screaming into the plot. Just that my involvement is more likely to snowball from the initial encounter, before which I wasn't looking to go a-questin', rather than my character being Lord Boldhammer the Ambitious, Conqueror of Worlds.

NichG
2015-06-03, 12:01 PM
I don't see the problem with playing a character that gets rich and quits.

It's a good opportunity for believable characters in the world. You get the kings ransom and retire say goodbye to the party and roll up a new one.

There's nothing wrong with that.

The problem with it is that it doesn't really support continuity of the campaign as a whole. A new character brings with it a host of problems - now you have an established group of people who work together and then there's the new guy. I've been in campaigns that died because no one from the initial group was still there, and lots of the things that made the campaign compelling had been tied to those initial characters over many sessions.

From a GM point of view I don't really care so much about characters being believable. First priority is that the characters have the right kind of dynamic to support the campaign - they get along well enough, are driven, etc. If that's missing, the game falls apart or stagnates or otherwise suffers. Considerations of characterization quality come after those necessities.


You're assuming that without a pre-adventure motive, I won't react to anything but immediate threats to life and limb. That it won't snowball. Or that "there's a problem" means there is an immediate need to go solve it NOW or else. Say I get wrapped up with one quest out of the campaign involving cultists. I'm probably going to keep investigating, even if I've killed the couple-three that threw a firebolt at me. Because now I've gotten roped in, and it's snowballed. Could imply something big's about to happen, like a concerted effort to summon eldtritch horrors and conquer the land, or there could just be a lot of deranged cultists in the area for no readily discernible reason.

I'd rather ask than assume. If you're bringing in a character, I'll ask something like I did in my previous post. "You're in the world, its a big wide world, what are your plans today, this month, and this decade?"

If your answer is 'what is the local king asking me to do?', I'll ask you to make a character with more solidly defined motivations, because 'GM, tell me what I should be doing' isn't sufficient. But if your answer is 'I seek out evil and suffering and kick its butt' then that will do. The key point is the 'seek' there - even on a blank slate, there's the mindset that 'I don't just sit still and wait for plot to come to me, I go find it or make it'. That's what I'm looking for. I don't want you to be thinking in terms of quests, because that means you're waiting for me as the GM to go and tell you what to do. But I'm not going to do that, I'm going to present situations or opportunities, and so I don't want players who have to be given a direct hook, I want players who will actively seek to become involved even if nothing is apparently going on.

JAL_1138
2015-06-03, 12:08 PM
The problem with it is that it doesn't really support continuity of the campaign as a whole. A new character brings with it a host of problems - now you have an established group of people who work together and then there's the new guy. I've been in campaigns that died because no one from the initial group was still there, and lots of the things that made the campaign compelling had been tied to those initial characters over many sessions.

From a GM point of view I don't really care so much about characters being believable. First priority is that the characters have the right kind of dynamic to support the campaign - they get along well enough, are driven, etc. If that's missing, the game falls apart or stagnates or otherwise suffers. Considerations of characterization quality come after those necessities.

Back in AD&D we died like flies (and we liked it too, ya dagnabbed whippersnappers, git off my lawn) so that was something we had to just deal with and get very good at dealing with. Heck, a lot of my characters had numbers after their names. Campaigns still worked fine.

Characters tended not to start living very long until lower mid-levels, 5-ish and up.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 12:12 PM
The problem with it is that it doesn't really support continuity of the campaign as a whole. A new character brings with it a host of problems - now you have an established group of people who work together and then there's the new guy. I've been in campaigns that died because no one from the initial group was still there, and lots of the things that made the campaign compelling had been tied to those initial characters over many sessions.

From a GM point of view I don't really care so much about characters being believable. First priority is that the characters have the right kind of dynamic to support the campaign - they get along well enough, are driven, etc. If that's missing, the game falls apart or stagnates or otherwise suffers. Considerations of characterization quality come after those necessities.

Actually there can be game continuity with characters retiring. I know so because I have done so.

As stated, I don't need hooks or motivations for your characters. I need to know where you are in the setting. Culture, Settlement at a minimum. Religion and Guild membership optional.

It is not because I have written pages of fiction that I eagerly want to share with the players. It is because my campaign setting started in 1992, and what I have done is carefully recorded all the adventures, all the stories and many characters have built fortresses and retired. The Cultures I allow people to choose from have been largely created through the adventures of past players. As have the religions and many of the gods.

There is more than 20 years of real life history, hundreds of years of in game history, and many other gems left behind by players.

There is a lake - called the Lake of Certain Doom, because Josh, a player in 1999 discovered the lake and his fear of sea monsters influenced choice when he exercised his right to name the lake. The name became significant because over the years, many other characters heard tales of the Lake of Certain Doom and few dared go there. Not because the lake was dangerous, but because the Josh named it thus.

The campaign has tremendous continuity with hundreds of retired PCs in the NPC roles. 6 GMs, 200+ players and years of contributions and now my teenage sons are picking up the mantle and continuing.

What my campaigns offer is the ability to play a character and have that character become a fixture in a much larger setting. If someone views reading somewhere between 5-10 pages of material as "Homework" you do not belong in that group.

Yukitsu
2015-06-03, 12:23 PM
Expecting people with lives, jobs and real world responsibilities to read your home brew fan fic, often on little notice is passive aggressive gming.


It's about half a page, plus all the house rules. If you can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes, then no, I don't want you in my game. I usually hand out campaign notes 2 months before I start as well because I want to give people a chance to criticize it.

@The Evil DM

I think you're describing more or less world continuity. That's distinct from campaign continuity. If say, Josh names a lake that endures in the world for a thousand years, OK, that's all well and good for setting continuity, but if Josh decided to become mayor of a lake community instead of adventuring, suddenly, someone who theoretically was supposed to help drive the main quest forward is gone. I don't actually think this is a problem, it's just extremely difficult for the players in my experience to provide any compelling reason why the new guy would instantly be trusted as much as the prior one, and making it so he's just as motivated as the rest of the team to help resolve the major plots is often fairly contrived. It's typically something I have to just basically handwave.

NichG
2015-06-03, 12:43 PM
Actually there can be game continuity with characters retiring. I know so because I have done so.

'Can' is not 'will'. Certainly it can happen, but in my experience it often doesn't.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 12:54 PM
'Can' is not 'will'. Certainly it can happen, but in my experience it often doesn't.

I agree with you that can is not will, but I think there is more to it. Many things can change campaign dynamic. If key player is a member of the armed forces and gets redeployed out of state or overseas is a big change.

Being able to adjust with a changing dynamic is what keeps a game alive for very long periods of time.

JAL_1138
2015-06-03, 01:14 PM
Actually there can be game continuity with characters retiring. I know so because I have done so.

As stated, I don't need hooks or motivations for your characters. I need to know where you are in the setting. Culture, Settlement at a minimum. Religion and Guild membership optional.

It is not because I have written pages of fiction that I eagerly want to share with the players. It is because my campaign setting started in 1992, and what I have done is carefully recorded all the adventures, all the stories and many characters have built fortresses and retired. The Cultures I allow people to choose from have been largely created through the adventures of past players. As have the religions and many of the gods.

There is more than 20 years of real life history, hundreds of years of in game history, and many other gems left behind by players.

There is a lake - called the Lake of Certain Doom, because Josh, a player in 1999 discovered the lake and his fear of sea monsters influenced choice when he exercised his right to name the lake. The name became significant because over the years, many other characters heard tales of the Lake of Certain Doom and few dared go there. Not because the lake was dangerous, but because the Josh named it thus.

The campaign has tremendous continuity with hundreds of retired PCs in the NPC roles. 6 GMs, 200+ players and years of contributions and now my teenage sons are picking up the mantle and continuing.

What my campaigns offer is the ability to play a character and have that character become a fixture in a much larger setting. If someone views reading somewhere between 5-10 pages of material as "Homework" you do not belong in that group.

Josh had the appropriate attitude towards water in AD&D :smallbiggrin:

I have no problem with telling where my character is from, general personality, (probably) religion, a few personality quirks, etc. You've got to be from somewhere.

And as a former 2e player and (very rarely) DM, well, 2e diehards are setting junkies. New settings and especially box sets are more addictive than cigarettes, and that's coming from a chain smoker. I greatly appreciate basic setting documents (and house-rule documents).

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 01:16 PM
@The Evil DM

I think you're describing more or less world continuity. That's distinct from campaign continuity. If say, Josh names a lake that endures in the world for a thousand years, OK, that's all well and good for setting continuity, but if Josh decided to become mayor of a lake community instead of adventuring, suddenly, someone who theoretically was supposed to help drive the main quest forward is gone. I don't actually think this is a problem, it's just extremely difficult for the players in my experience to provide any compelling reason why the new guy would instantly be trusted as much as the prior one, and making it so he's just as motivated as the rest of the team to help resolve the major plots is often fairly contrived. It's typically something I have to just basically handwave.

I can agree with that point as well and look above to my response to NichG.

Within the context of the long running settings we have had many small scale story arcs come and go. They are all however bound into one large scale story arc that affects the entire setting. The campaign is built on layers of stories where the low level story arcs might only affect a tiny piece of the overall big picture while the epic campaigns produce ripples felt setting wide.

As far as instant trust no, but - why should there be instant trust? Also after a major loss why should a party simply toss in a new character and continue. Typically after a major loss, a period of regrouping is in order. What typically happens in my game is when a loss of a character occurs (for what ever reason) the players retreat and figure out new strategies. In the context of that new characters might be introduced or might not be.

Granted. most of my players are veterans. The current group has played with me for 11 straight years. But, changing dynamics are not an insurmountable problem.

Think like this, - what happens in the real world when a general gets fired and replaced with a new one. There is certainly a period of adjustment.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 01:25 PM
Josh had the appropriate attitude towards water in AD&D :smallbiggrin:

I don't disagree. Falling into a deep lake in plate armor is a death sentence. Waterborne adventures are always high risk.

Recording the campaign has been a lot of work but also rewarding at times.

Josh is infamous for about 60 players who came after him and encountered. The Lake of Certain Doom. The Island of Certain Doom, the Cavern of Certain Doom, the Door of Certain Doom and so on.

As a GM I have fun digging into the old tales and bringing them back to life.

NichG
2015-06-03, 01:25 PM
I do consider a shared universe history different than actual campaign continuity, but this is a semantics thing. Its hard to define precisely unless you do it artificially and say 'this is the start of a new campaign' or 'the campaign has ended', but at least in the gaming circles I'm in its pretty standard to actually go and do that by-hand delineation.

E.g. one of my DMs ran a series of campaigns that all had a shared continuity, but each was a fresh 'start' - you could know nothing about what came before that starting point and still be fully engaged with what was happening. Each campaign was about 2 years long, and so the whole thing has about 10 years of history now with recurring ideas, NPCs, locations, etc. But each 2 year segment can stand on its own - you could have played in it from start to finish and that would be a self-contained storyline, even if it links to or references other things. So I'd call those 2-year segments campaigns, rather than the whole 10-year thing.

Yukitsu
2015-06-03, 02:57 PM
I can agree with that point as well and look above to my response to NichG.

Within the context of the long running settings we have had many small scale story arcs come and go. They are all however bound into one large scale story arc that affects the entire setting. The campaign is built on layers of stories where the low level story arcs might only affect a tiny piece of the overall big picture while the epic campaigns produce ripples felt setting wide.

As far as instant trust no, but - why should there be instant trust? Also after a major loss why should a party simply toss in a new character and continue. Typically after a major loss, a period of regrouping is in order. What typically happens in my game is when a loss of a character occurs (for what ever reason) the players retreat and figure out new strategies. In the context of that new characters might be introduced or might not be.

Granted. most of my players are veterans. The current group has played with me for 11 straight years. But, changing dynamics are not an insurmountable problem.

Think like this, - what happens in the real world when a general gets fired and replaced with a new one. There is certainly a period of adjustment.

Speaking from my player point of view here, I never enjoy those sessions. They're usually slow, dull and don't advance the plot. As a DM I generally try to reduce that period because of my player experiences.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 03:08 PM
Speaking from my player point of view here, I never enjoy those sessions. They're usually slow, dull and don't advance the plot. As a DM I generally try to reduce that period because of my player experiences.

We have drifted off the backstory subject quite far, but as a note I don't control the plot. I won't go into details because there is a lot of mathematical tedium involved but the setting runs on a numeric simulation model that handles many global aspects of the setting (conflict, regional trade, population, migration and so on). Actions of the players can inject perturbations into the model. The more powerful the character and stronger the action, the larger the perturbation.

Players in my game control their own plot, set their own objectives and make decisions relative to the conditions in the setting. With multiple groups and DMs operating simultaneously it is possible that various groups are working counter to each other - not necessarily directly but within context of the simulation. For instance the group focusing on druidism is taking actions that are pro-environment while the group of conquering zealots burns the forests as necessary to defeat their foes.

The changes to the dynamics of the world happen very slowly but change can occur. If players make a decision to retreat and regroup it is their choice I have no input to that decision. At the same time, if the players knowingly and willingly attack a foe way out of their league they are highly likely to lose. All I do as GM is manage the inputs and outputs to the system and provide a narrative link to the numbers.

This is why I need to know where a character fits in the setting. Culture, Hometown, Religion and Guilds form a piece of your character in that system that cannot be ignored.

By the way, I am currently in processes of figuring out how to migrate the simulation to something web accessible.

Yukitsu
2015-06-03, 03:14 PM
I was more answering why I feel it's necessary to have the players integrate and begin cooperating and trusting one another very quickly. The other elements I'm perfectly fine with, but a replacement or lost character does really change the dynamic in a way I don't particularly like.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 03:30 PM
I was more answering why I feel it's necessary to have the players integrate and begin cooperating and trusting one another very quickly. The other elements I'm perfectly fine with, but a replacement or lost character does really change the dynamic in a way I don't particularly like.

I didn't think you were knocking my play style, I just wanted to point out I don't require that players do anything.

The group of old timers that play in my game can get very into planning and discussion on what they should do or want to do. About three months ago we had a game session where everyone showed up, they moved their group to a local tavern and rented a private chamber.

They ordered food, and began discussion a grand scheme they were considering executing. I rolled for the off-chance of some disruption or encounter and nothing came up.

The party went for 8 hours in this one room. I went out on my back porch and ran a BBQ. Occasionally one would ask me some question about a piece of lore or some other detail.

I served some BBQ ribs and the discussion continued. At the end of it all they had a many stage series of actions they were going to take in order to affect the big picture on the continuous nature of the setting.

When they Left I recorded 8 hours of discussion into my notes - advanced the campaign timeline for their group by 1 day and that was the whole game.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 03:32 PM
The problem with it is that it doesn't really support continuity of the campaign as a whole. A new character brings with it a host of problems - now you have an established group of people who work together and then there's the new guy. I've been in campaigns that died because no one from the initial group was still there, and lots of the things that made the campaign compelling had been tied to those initial characters over many sessions.

I dont see it as being any more of a problem then a character dying. Some of my best campaigns have had more then half the characters be different from the ones who started as players come and go.

New characters might bring some problems, but they also bring new opportunities.


From a GM point of view I don't really care so much about characters being believable. First priority is that the characters have the right kind of dynamic to support the campaign - they get along well enough, are driven, etc. If that's missing, the game falls apart or stagnates or otherwise suffers. Considerations of characterization quality come after those necessities.

See as a player i DO care about having a believable character. If he's not believable I cant feel any connection to him.



I'd rather ask than assume. If you're bringing in a character, I'll ask something like I did in my previous post. "You're in the world, its a big wide world, what are your plans today, this month, and this decade?"

I wouldnt have any problem with this, but I'm also not writing it down ahead of time and firmly maintain my right to change it.

My background is a guide for me as a player to use to know my motivations and goals. I dont want the GM mucking around with it, and the best way to keep the GM from mucking around is to never tell him what it is in the first place.


Actually there can be game continuity with characters retiring. I know so because I have done so.

As stated, I don't need hooks or motivations for your characters. I need to know where you are in the setting.


Shouldnt the characters be wherever in the setting you wanted to start the campaign?

Or are the first few sessions all the characters starting alone and journeying to meet up in the center somewhere?


It's about half a page, plus all the house rules. If you can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes, then no, I don't want you in my game. I usually hand out campaign notes 2 months before I start as well because I want to give people a chance to criticize it.


2 months? Good god, even if i did read it I've forgotten it by the time 2 months have gone by.

When I GM i have everyone sit down and take 15 minutes in the first session and explain the campaign history.

Works much better. You would be amazed how many more questions and how much more clarity players get when they ask in a group and are already sitting down to play. Captive audience and all that.

JAL_1138
2015-06-03, 03:48 PM
I'd rather ask than assume. If you're bringing in a character, I'll ask something like I did in my previous post. "You're in the world, its a big wide world, what are your plans today, this month, and this decade?"

If your answer is 'what is the local king asking me to do?', I'll ask you to make a character with more solidly defined motivations, because 'GM, tell me what I should be doing' isn't sufficient. But if your answer is 'I seek out evil and suffering and kick its butt' then that will do. The key point is the 'seek' there - even on a blank slate, there's the mindset that 'I don't just sit still and wait for plot to come to me, I go find it or make it'. That's what I'm looking for. I don't want you to be thinking in terms of quests, because that means you're waiting for me as the GM to go and tell you what to do. But I'm not going to do that, I'm going to present situations or opportunities, and so I don't want players who have to be given a direct hook, I want players who will actively seek to become involved even if nothing is apparently going on.

I think we're using "hook" differently. I may not necessarily "seek out" evil. My character may not be ambitious. He may grumble about "ah hell, why does this keep happening to me." But if you tell him "there is a thing over here, and another thing over here," I'll come up with a reason to go. Conscience won't let him sit still, etc. I'm not asking for actual directions of Go Here, Do X. I just need something to bite. I hear a rumor there's a ghost in the lighthouse? I'll look into it. There's a new weaponbroker in the market? Sure, why not. A new noble has taken power? Well, I should probably go see what all the fuss is. Klatch is claiming ownership of Leshp, which was clearly (re)discovered by a Morporkian? Time to either join the regiments or try to prevent a stupid and pointless war over a useless rock, depending on how it's been presented thus far. Goblins have been seen in the hills? Ah hell, I just got here, why does this keep happening everywhere I try to make a buck, grumble, gripe, grumble, draws sword and heads for the location. There's a weird-looking tower in the Forest of Doubt no one comes back from? Well clearly this is a job for more of the hapless schmucks the king keeps throwing at it to no avail, I'm not letting any more of these poor rubes throw their lives away, I'm rolling up my sleeves and going.

Bard example: My plans are to attempt a relatively modest lifestyle of peeling coin out of various and sundry berks (generally not decent but clueless folks, though) and playing my lute so's I can afford a decent kip and a hot meal, but it never seems to work out that way; there's always something that needs doing (i.e. points of interest in the campaign, be it plot or sandbox); and one thing leads to another I end up on the special forces team of the rebellion against the Red Duke, neck-deep in planning raids on supply lines and wilderness outposts and gathering intel in heavily-fortified strongholds, in it WAY too deep to back out now.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 03:56 PM
Shouldnt the characters be wherever in the setting you wanted to start the campaign?

Or are the first few sessions all the characters starting alone and journeying to meet up in the center somewhere?


See some of the other material I posted above on how the setting runs on a model and multiple parties contribute to the changes in the model simultaneously.

Its not so much about where with regards to the party, it is about where with regards to the setting model. Things change for your character based on Culture, etc etc. To the point where Race is divided into Race/Culture during character creation (as noted far above) and Culture produces effects on your character relative to the model.

You might also get feats / skill mods out of it. Like taking a one of the background feats in the Forgotten Realms setting.

Keltest
2015-06-03, 04:11 PM
See some of the other material I posted above on how the setting runs on a model and multiple parties contribute to the changes in the model simultaneously.

Its not so much about where with regards to the party, it is about where with regards to the setting model. Things change for your character based on Culture, etc etc. To the point where Race is divided into Race/Culture during character creation (as noted far above) and Culture produces effects on your character relative to the model.

You might also get feats / skill mods out of it. Like taking a one of the background feats in the Forgotten Realms setting.

I think youre overcomplicating things. If youre going to give feats based on background, good on you. But hand out information on a want-to-know basis. handing out a pamphlet 2 months in advance with an abridged history of your culture is a largely wasted gesture, or at least it would be among my group. They aren't going to remember or care about most of it save how it affects their immediate situation. Have the information available, sure, but don't expect them to actually retain much of it unless it comes up frequently.

Yukitsu
2015-06-03, 04:19 PM
2 months? Good god, even if i did read it I've forgotten it by the time 2 months have gone by.

When I GM i have everyone sit down and take 15 minutes in the first session and explain the campaign history.

Works much better. You would be amazed how many more questions and how much more clarity players get when they ask in a group and are already sitting down to play. Captive audience and all that.

Normally someone complains about such and such a thing, or wants such and such a thing. An example from my last one was like, 3 people wanted to play catfolk for some reason, and catfolk with a specific cultural style. I agreed to add it into the world, and that took time and effort on my part, and then I had to redo the bit of lore. By the time the game actually did start, I'd gone over the bits that people wanted to change to help accommodate their specific character, or clarify parts of the world I hadn't considered. I don't care if they remember, I care if they're going to be willing to put in some effort to be invested in the world outside just their own character. I get the feeling you wouldn't which is fine, but I'm not willing to DM for a player like that.

The reverse of this is the DM that runs things all at the last minute and 3 of 4 of us end up having to do character re-writes since we're either not following his house rules, or the specifics of the campaign world make the concept something we're not happy about. I've even had one game where all of the players had to do a nearly complete rewrite.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 04:19 PM
I think youre overcomplicating things. If youre going to give feats based on background, good on you. But hand out information on a want-to-know basis. handing out a pamphlet 2 months in advance with an abridged history of your culture is a largely wasted gesture, or at least it would be among my group. They aren't going to remember or care about most of it save how it affects their immediate situation. Have the information available, sure, but don't expect them to actually retain much of it unless it comes up frequently.

Its a totally different game paradigm. And what is lost in translation is making some of this a comparison of apples to oranges.

Most of you campaign in a vacuum. A group of friends playing out a story. Whether or not it is a hack-n-slash, horror, comedy or some other game it is in a vacuum.

My campaign has several interconnected players, gms and multiple groups. Some of the players have older retired characters that provide large scale objectives that other GMs and players may choose to take on.

For instance, one player who moved to Texas a few years ago put his characters into Semi Retirement and started his own group in the campaign world there. But his character "Igor" is the leader of a small nation. Now in the context of being the Leader, Igor is now the king who sends the young rubes out into the dark forest. But.... its not me.

Igor writes the objectives and what is trying to accomplish and sets the reward. Then another group - Maybe Spuke in California might have players that want to accomplish Igor's mission. So they run with it. Spuke talks to igor, gets the details of what Igor wants and what is the reward for his players and DM's that particular thread.

At the end - the reward is removed from Igor's resources.

Sometimes players complain that Igor can be a bit of a Richard when it comes to negotiating the reward for a task. But in the end I have no control over that.

At the individual character level, culture and religion control many aspects of the big picture social model in the campaign setting.

Edit

Also I am not the one who send things out 2 months in advance.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 05:43 PM
I think youre overcomplicating things. If youre going to give feats based on background, good on you. But hand out information on a want-to-know basis. handing out a pamphlet 2 months in advance with an abridged history of your culture is a largely wasted gesture, or at least it would be among my group. They aren't going to remember or care about most of it save how it affects their immediate situation. Have the information available, sure, but don't expect them to actually retain much of it unless it comes up frequently.

Exactly. That whole thing is just waaayyy too much.
Also not a fan of a computer program deciding what happens in the campaign rather then a GM, but different strokes for different folks i guess. It wouldnt work for me though.


Normally someone complains about such and such a thing, or wants such and such a thing. An example from my last one was like, 3 people wanted to play catfolk for some reason, and catfolk with a specific cultural style. I agreed to add it into the world, and that took time and effort on my part, and then I had to redo the bit of lore. By the time the game actually did start, I'd gone over the bits that people wanted to change to help accommodate their specific character,

Theres your problem right there. Dont do that. Last time someone asked me for a cat person in my medieval setting I said they were all eaten by dog people, who were wiped out by the dwarves in an ancient war. Now pick something out of the PHB.



I get the feeling you wouldn't which is fine, but I'm not willing to DM for a player like that.

I dont like phony caring because of backstory. I prefer real caring that comes from in game play and interacting with other players and NPC's and locations during the actual game.



The reverse of this is the DM that runs things all at the last minute and 3 of 4 of us end up having to do character re-writes since we're either not following his house rules, or the specifics of the campaign world make the concept something we're not happy about. I've even had one game where all of the players had to do a nearly complete rewrite.

I prefer all characters be made together in the first session. Makes it much easier to have them integrated with each other and the starting adventure. Which I find a heck of a lot more important then being integrated with a bunch of NPC's they made up in their own heads.

Hawkstar
2015-06-03, 07:13 PM
Theres your problem right there. Dont do that. Last time someone asked me for a cat person in my medieval setting I said they were all eaten by dog people, who were wiped out by the dwarves in an ancient war. Now pick something out of the PHB. I thought you said you don't like backgrounds. In fact, I find this attitude exceptionally odd coming from you and your own view on backgrounds and pre-game effort. They want to play a cat-person - why does it matter where said cat person comes from? They just want to play the game. If you feel that trying to accomodate a character that doesn't fit into your idea of your campaign setting is too much work and you'd rather not have them - well, I know even more DMs who'd say the same thing about trying to accommodate a character of absolutely no background.


I prefer all characters be made together in the first session. Makes it much easier to have them integrated with each other and the starting adventure. Which I find a heck of a lot more important then being integrated with a bunch of NPC's they made up in their own heads.
This is my favorite character generation procedure as well, but even then, we still work out effective backgrounds (Hammered out over the next few sessions)

Yukitsu
2015-06-03, 07:52 PM
Theres your problem right there. Dont do that. Last time someone asked me for a cat person in my medieval setting I said they were all eaten by dog people, who were wiped out by the dwarves in an ancient war. Now pick something out of the PHB.

That sounds limiting, arbitrary and over controlling over what the players get to play as.


I dont like phony caring because of backstory. I prefer real caring that comes from in game play and interacting with other players and NPC's and locations during the actual game.

That's all well and good, but characters have a past, being someone that just doesn't know anyone, wasn't raised anywhere in particular and who doesn't have any motivations isn't very interesting. I wouldn't ever let you later on, claim you knew such and such a person, or would know something because you were from X, and that really can only be mechanically modeled through back story. If your DM lets you completely avoid having any tie ups from back story, only to reveal something potentially advantageous later, that's up to him. I wouldn't ever allow it.


I prefer all characters be made together in the first session. Makes it much easier to have them integrated with each other and the starting adventure. Which I find a heck of a lot more important then being integrated with a bunch of NPC's they made up in their own heads.

I don't, though that's because I'm fast. I'll be done in about 45 minutes with a full back story that's tied into the background of the setting. Everyone else will take up the entire session just looking at what classes exist. If you're slow, those are good sessions because you can use everyone else as a sounding board for your character, but if you're quick you may as well just go home or play a video game, since you're waiting for everyone else to do something that took you less than an hour. I always get sheets in a week in advance.

The Evil DM
2015-06-03, 07:54 PM
Exactly. That whole thing is just waaayyy too much.
Also not a fan of a computer program deciding what happens in the campaign rather then a GM, but different strokes for different folks i guess. It wouldnt work for me though.

I think you should qualify what you mean by having a computer make decisions. The setting simulation I wrote doesn't make game play decisions. It only monitors and adjusts very macro scale variables in the campaign.

If a drought occurs it adjusts the campaign setting's prices to reflect increased demand for grain in a region.
If a war occurs it adjusts data to reflect an increase in troop or refugee movements.

This occurs in such a manner so that all the GM's using the system have the same up to date setting information.

But -

At game play scale the GM runs everything. The system doesn't generate bandit encounters for you or tell the GM's how to run a bandit encounter. Just that there is an increase in bandit activity in a particular region.

If you are familiar with the original AD&D Oriental Adventures there is an encounter system used in that. I started there and turned it into a massive matrix to make a global model for the various populations.

The cooperative nature between many games and players makes for some interesting opportunities not easily available in a vacuum.

Assume you are a wizard and you need some rare components. It is possible for you to place a need on the objectives forum. If a gaming party wants to take on that objective they can get their GM to incorporate it into their adventures.

You as the wizard can go do something else and in however many game sessions required you have an object delivered.

When wars occur the system does have the means of generating a result using various combat models, but the players can intervene directly. In 2008 we had a war ongoing in the campaign. We planned to play out the major engagements of the war using miniatures based off old Battlesystem rules. (I have about 10,000 warhammer models, I just appropriated them for D&D.

We planned the war resolution to occur over spring break. 15 people flew in to Tucson AZ to join the 10 people here. Some people were generals on the field others were captains at smaller skirmishes.

48 hours of gaming over three days with 8 battle tables spread through the house and garage we played three large engagements on my 6 x 14 garage table and 63 smaller engagements on the smaller tables.

After it was all said and done I collected the outcomes of the battles and input the data into the system for the outcome of the wars.

Was good times all around. 5 dragons died in the battle, along thousands of humanoids (orc, hobgoblin). In total there were 100,000 individual soldiers involved with the battle spread out amongst all the different engagements. Some people didn't even sleep for the three days.

Can't be done by a small group playing in a vacuum.

NichG
2015-06-03, 09:31 PM
I think we're using "hook" differently. I may not necessarily "seek out" evil. My character may not be ambitious. He may grumble about "ah hell, why does this keep happening to me." But if you tell him "there is a thing over here, and another thing over here," I'll come up with a reason to go. Conscience won't let him sit still, etc. I'm not asking for actual directions of Go Here, Do X. I just need something to bite.

Yeah, I get that, but what I'm saying is that for me and my games, that's not sufficient in a player. I know it will cause problems so rather than wait for that to happen, I want to be crystal clear with the player up front what the requirement is and whether what they currently have in mind would fulfill it. Part of the reason is that I don't have a list of specific plots I want to get through. Instead, I want the players to be continuously creating the plot based on their own desires and interests. I'll run the world, but the less I need to have the world go out of its way to pull the players in, the better.

Campaign examples follow:


My current campaign started with the players creating 'guardian spirits' - sort of baby deities - who have the ability to each pick one mortal and give them blessings, gifts, and generally take control of them and their lives. The players then play the mortal 'heirs'. There's a shattered world and a clump of provinces that have aggregated together to form a bit of a continent, along with a couple pre-existing nations, but its up to the players to decide what they want out of the world - who do you conquer, how do you change your culture, etc. There is an overall pattern of pressures, but most of them are hidden rather than presented outright. One player created the idea of corporations and developed a network of business contacts across the land in order to gain sway over others, rather than actually trying to hold land and run a government. One player made a religious cult dedicated to their guardian spirit whose main tenet was 'life is the most important thing', with the long-term goal of inventing civilization-wide immortality. One player decided in his backstory that his guardian spirit used to be watching over a magical island, but then was ripped free from it, so he is systematically trying to explore the world to find that island once again. But I also had a player who had difficulty getting involved in aspects of things and gradually did fewer and fewer things in game, and has since dropped.

In the previous campaign, I explicitly said 'no backstories, but you must have a single driving purpose or need that you remember'. The characters were in a bombed-out steampunk London where they had the ability to actively change the present by 'remembering' bits of their backstory during game. Again, some players got the idea about having a driving purpose, and others gave it lip service but then didn't actually pursue it during game, leading to a lot of confused moments during sessions of 'well, what do we do next?' and the like.

The campaign before that was a Mana-Khemia themed game where the PCs were a study-group in magic highschool and then graduated to form a 'workshop'. They had to decide what kind of work their workshop did, and how it would garner wealth and reputation.


In all of these cases, players who didn't have ambitions for their characters ended up not really engaging in the game. So its not an optional thing, its a requirement.

neonagash
2015-06-03, 11:29 PM
I thought you said you don't like backgrounds. In fact, I find this attitude exceptionally odd coming from you and your own view on backgrounds and pre-game effort. They want to play a cat-person - why does it matter where said cat person comes from? They just want to play the game. If you feel that trying to accomodate a character that doesn't fit into your idea of your campaign setting is too much work and you'd rather not have them -

mainly I just hate oddball characters. And I really hate cats. So no cat people.

And maybe I'm odd but over 21 years of gaming I've had 1 GM ask me for a backstory. Didn't have it ready because I had switched characters last minute and it never came up again.

No one has ever cared at all

neonagash
2015-06-04, 12:19 AM
I don't, though that's because I'm fast. I'll be done in about 45 minutes with a full back story that's tied into the background of the setting. Everyone else will take up the entire session just looking at what classes exist. If you're slow, those are good sessions because you can use everyone else as a sounding board for your character, but if you're quick you may as well just go home or play a video game, since you're waiting for everyone else to do something that took you less than an hour.
Or you could grab a beer and help the slow people finish faster..... But maybe I'm crazy

Yukitsu
2015-06-04, 12:31 AM
Or you could grab a beer and help the slow people finish faster..... But maybe I'm crazy

When the typical response to an offer to help is literally "I don't even know what sort of character I want to play" there isn't a whole lot I can do to pitch in, and the venue we use doesn't allow beer. If it gets to the mechanics, the group is fine, but they don't know what the setting is ahead of time, they are literally starting without any idea what they want to make and change their minds about things as they get more information about the world. It's not like these guys don't know the rules or how to build a character or anything, they just don't know how to make something that they find compelling or want to actually play, so they waffle around on the creativity aspect for hours on end.

neonagash
2015-06-04, 12:47 AM
I think you should qualify what you mean by having a computer make decisions. The setting simulation I wrote doesn't make game play decisions. It only monitors and adjusts very macro scale variables in the campaign.

If a drought occurs it adjusts the campaign setting's prices to reflect increased demand for grain in a region.
If a war occurs it adjusts data to reflect an increase in troop or refugee movements.

This occurs in such a manner so that all the GM's using the system have the same up to date setting information.

But -

At game play scale the GM runs everything. The system doesn't generate bandit encounters for you or tell the GM's how to run a bandit encounter. Just that there is an increase in bandit activity in a particular region.

If you are familiar with the original AD&D Oriental Adventures there is an encounter system used in that. I started there and turned it into a massive matrix to make a global model for the various populations.

The cooperative nature between many games and players makes for some interesting opportunities not easily available in a vacuum.

Assume you are a wizard and you need some rare components. It is possible for you to place a need on the objectives forum. If a gaming party wants to take on that objective they can get their GM to incorporate it into their adventures.

You as the wizard can go do something else and in however many game sessions required you have an object delivered.

When wars occur the system does have the means of generating a result using various combat models, but the players can intervene directly. In 2008 we had a war ongoing in the campaign. We planned to play out the major engagements of the war using miniatures based off old Battlesystem rules. (I have about 10,000 warhammer models, I just appropriated them for D&D.

We planned the war resolution to occur over spring break. 15 people flew in to Tucson AZ to join the 10 people here. Some people were generals on the field others were captains at smaller skirmishes.

48 hours of gaming over three days with 8 battle tables spread through the house and garage we played three large engagements on my 6 x 14 garage table and 63 smaller engagements on the smaller tables.

After it was all said and done I collected the outcomes of the battles and input the data into the system for the outcome of the wars.

Was good times all around. 5 dragons died in the battle, along thousands of humanoids (orc, hobgoblin). In total there were 100,000 individual soldiers involved with the battle spread out amongst all the different engagements. Some people didn't even sleep for the three days.

Can't be done by a small group playing in a vacuum.

For a lot of people that sounds awesome.

I'm just not one of them. I don't want a 20 year campaign history, or dozens of interacting players over years.

I don't like to play the same character for more than a few months.

Ideally we switch campaigns and campaign types at that same rate.

I don't even want to play the same game system for more than a year or I get bored.

For players like me what you describe is stifling.

I definitely understand how for some it would be awesome though

neonagash
2015-06-04, 12:50 AM
Yeah, I get that, but what I'm saying is that for me and my games, that's not sufficient in a player. I know it will cause problems so rather than wait for that to happen, I want to be crystal clear with the player up front what the requirement is and whether what they currently have in mind would fulfill it. Part of the reason is that I don't have a list of specific plots I want to get through. Instead, I want the players to be continuously creating the plot based on their own desires and interests. I'll run the world, but the less I need to have the world go out of its way to pull the players in, the better.

Campaign examples follow:


My current campaign started with the players creating 'guardian spirits' - sort of baby deities - who have the ability to each pick one mortal and give them blessings, gifts, and generally take control of them and their lives. The players then play the mortal 'heirs'. There's a shattered world and a clump of provinces that have aggregated together to form a bit of a continent, along with a couple pre-existing nations, but its up to the players to decide what they want out of the world - who do you conquer, how do you change your culture, etc. There is an overall pattern of pressures, but most of them are hidden rather than presented outright. One player created the idea of corporations and developed a network of business contacts across the land in order to gain sway over others, rather than actually trying to hold land and run a government. One player made a religious cult dedicated to their guardian spirit whose main tenet was 'life is the most important thing', with the long-term goal of inventing civilization-wide immortality. One player decided in his backstory that his guardian spirit used to be watching over a magical island, but then was ripped free from it, so he is systematically trying to explore the world to find that island once again. But I also had a player who had difficulty getting involved in aspects of things and gradually did fewer and fewer things in game, and has since dropped.

In the previous campaign, I explicitly said 'no backstories, but you must have a single driving purpose or need that you remember'. The characters were in a bombed-out steampunk London where they had the ability to actively change the present by 'remembering' bits of their backstory during game. Again, some players got the idea about having a driving purpose, and others gave it lip service but then didn't actually pursue it during game, leading to a lot of confused moments during sessions of 'well, what do we do next?' and the like.

The campaign before that was a Mana-Khemia themed game where the PCs were a study-group in magic highschool and then graduated to form a 'workshop'. They had to decide what kind of work their workshop did, and how it would garner wealth and reputation.


In all of these cases, players who didn't have ambitions for their characters ended up not really engaging in the game. So its not an optional thing, its a requirement.

Pointless and arbitrary.

Even if you can force someone to write a backstory you can't force someone to care about it or react to anything you pull out of it .

NichG
2015-06-04, 01:03 AM
Pointless and arbitrary.

Even if you can force someone to write a backstory you can't force someone to care about it or react to anything you pull out of it .

I don't care about backstory, I care about ambition and purpose. I want the player to know what their character wants out of life, so that they can provide direction to the game.

The Evil DM
2015-06-04, 01:25 AM
For a lot of people that sounds awesome.

I'm just not one of them. I don't want a 20 year campaign history, or dozens of interacting players over years.

I don't like to play the same character for more than a few months.

Ideally we switch campaigns and campaign types at that same rate.

I don't even want to play the same game system for more than a year or I get bored.

For players like me what you describe is stifling.

I definitely understand how for some it would be awesome though

I never once claimed it was for everyone. But I can point out a few bits where you have some assumptions off.

The overall setting hasn't changed but play style and characters can change regularly depending on story arcs, timeline and even different worlds or planes (it is a multi world setting). It is possible to have very different activities on a six month to a year basis. This is how the different GM's usually start. They play in my game for a year or two and then want to break a group off within the campaign universe and run down an alternate rabbit hole with only the very big picture.

I will however concede that the system doesn't change. It is fixed and integrated into the model.

neonagash
2015-06-04, 01:29 AM
When the typical response to an offer to help is literally "I don't even know what sort of character I want to play" there isn't a whole lot I can do to pitch in, and the venue we use doesn't allow beer. If it gets to the mechanics, the group is fine, but they don't know what the setting is ahead of time, they are literally starting without any idea what they want to make and change their minds about things as they get more information about the world. It's not like these guys don't know the rules or how to build a character or anything, they just don't know how to make something that they find compelling or want to actually play, so they waffle around on the creativity aspect for hours on end.

I fix this by telling people "don't worry, if you want you can respec between sessions for level 1".

As for pick a class stuff. As GM I keep it simple. Pathfinder wiki except for gunslinger and summoner are the options.

Still not sure?

Do you want to fight, be tricky or use magic?

then just a few more clarification questions based on the last answer and your pretty quickly down to one or two options. Roll for stats.

Also not requiring a backstory really speeds this up

neonagash
2015-06-04, 01:35 AM
I don't care about backstory, I care about ambition and purpose. I want the player to know what their character wants out of life, so that they can provide direction to the game.

Sure. But me writing "get famous and marry princess so and so in order to free my home village from oppression " on a sheet of paper in no way makes me actually care about it as a player who is supposed to react to these things.

All it really means is that I did my homework. And I probably care about it as much as I cared about real homework. Which is not at all.

So you didn't actually accomplish anything.

neonagash
2015-06-04, 01:38 AM
I never once claimed it was for everyone. But I can point out a few bits where you have some assumptions off.

The overall setting hasn't changed but play style and characters can change regularly depending on story arcs, timeline and even different worlds or planes (it is a multi world setting). It is possible to have very different activities on a six month to a year basis. This is how the different GM's usually start. They play in my game for a year or two and then want to break a group off within the campaign universe and run down an alternate rabbit hole with only the very big picture.

I will however concede that the system doesn't change. It is fixed and integrated into the model.

What I mean by game style is like sword and sorcery for a few months, then some Star Wars style space opera, then maybe a gritty film noir style 50"s crime drama, then back to high fantasy.

You just can't really do that well with one setting. No matter how vast.

Lord Raziere
2015-06-04, 01:48 AM
How do other people handle character backgrounds in games? How much preparation do you require, if any?

I love making backstory, for me it is one of the most important parts of the character. I cannot make a character without having a history behind them, an explanation for they came to be the person they are today. if I do not have a good backstory, I do not have a character!

of course, GM's require certain things of the background for their games, but this is no matter! these requirements provide context, a direction, or a destination to better narrow the field when my mind is of constant limitless imagination that sprays forth a fountain of ideas like a rainbow colored liquid raining down upon all the world, whose droplets land upon the blank earth and start growing the craziest plants you ever seen in your life but always with the most beautiful flowers blooming from them.

I always strive for quality character backgrounds, and that includes striving to meet the requirements of the game I am interested in, but of course I am reasonable towards others when I am the GM and accept backstory as long as its reasonable for a backstory, even though I like to make art of mine own backstories. not everyone is me after all.

The Evil DM
2015-06-04, 01:52 AM
What I mean by game style is like sword and sorcery for a few months, then some Star Wars style space opera, then maybe a gritty film noir style 50"s crime drama, then back to high fantasy.

You just can't really do that well with one setting. No matter how vast.

Once again I disagree. While I have not cloned star wars into the setting, with elements of chronomancy, and technomancy, the universe itself is capable of supporting modern, space, sword and sorcery and even pure faerie.

What is part of the universal picture I have defined is the creation myth, cosmology and how certain structures in the universe flow through everything defining mortality, defining life, death and the afterlife, definitions of souls, spirit and how those things remain constant throughout the various histories of the various worlds in the universe. On top of it all - a force much like Cthulu exists in the background working against everything. The elder evils are an ever present but not always perceivable factor.

Granted most of the time we are working in a sword and sorcery type area. But my group is preparing to transition into a high-fantasy environment with primitive humans - pre bronze age - where all PCs are some sort of elemental spirit creature or faerie. (their plan not mine) The players are in complete control of what they build. One is taking over the GM role while I work on taking the setting model I have and transporting it to a web enabled interface to see if I can scale it beyond a half a dozen GMs.

neonagash
2015-06-04, 02:58 AM
Once again I disagree. While I have not cloned star wars into the setting, with elements of chronomancy, and technomancy, the universe itself is capable of supporting modern, space, sword and sorcery and even pure faerie.

What is part of the universal picture I have defined is the creation myth, cosmology and how certain structures in the universe flow through everything defining mortality, defining life, death and the afterlife, definitions of souls, spirit and how those things remain constant throughout the various histories of the various worlds in the universe. On top of it all - a force much like Cthulu exists in the background working against everything. The elder evils are an ever present but not always perceivable factor.

Granted most of the time we are working in a sword and sorcery type area. But my group is preparing to transition into a high-fantasy environment with primitive humans - pre bronze age - where all PCs are some sort of elemental spirit creature or faerie. (their plan not mine) The players are in complete control of what they build. One is taking over the GM role while I work on taking the setting model I have and transporting it to a web enabled interface to see if I can scale it beyond a half a dozen GMs.

Everything you do sounds interesting in an academic way.

But as a player or GM I am just not comfortable with anyone outside of our personal play table influencing our game or my character.

I don't run published settings for this reason.

For me gaming is sitting down and relaxing with people I consider friends and tuning everyone else out for a while.

What you describe feels like it would broaden my game far more than I want it broadened. So while i can see the appeal, I just don't share it.

The Evil DM
2015-06-04, 03:10 AM
So while i can see the appeal, I just don't share it.

This was known after your first response, but I couldn't let layers of assumptions cloud how it is all viewed.

Bottom line....

I really don't do backstories.. Its more like back data points.
You might have to read a little

But the universe is vast. If you like a vast universe its worth it. If you don't then ah well. And to quote myself.


It also serves as a convenient gateway to screen out players I won't want in my game anyway.

NichG
2015-06-04, 04:26 AM
Sure. But me writing "get famous and marry princess so and so in order to free my home village from oppression " on a sheet of paper in no way makes me actually care about it as a player who is supposed to react to these things.

All it really means is that I did my homework. And I probably care about it as much as I cared about real homework. Which is not at all.

So you didn't actually accomplish anything.

What I accomplished was giving you fair warning and established concretely what the expectations are. That's the chance for you to say 'oh, that doesn't sound fun for me' and decide not to play, rather than finding that you're bored out of your mind four weeks in.

If you go and write down some gibberish that you intend to ignore just to make me happy, then I'll take you at your word and give you the thing you asked for. And then when you ignore it, I'll go on to ignore you and focus on the players who are actually being proactive. You'll basically end up as a sidekick. If I didn't warn you ahead of time I'd feel it was my responsibility as a host to try to draw you in, but I know that that's a frustrating and often fruitless endeavor. So rather than get into a situation where I feel like its my responsibility to try to make you have fun, I'm warning you ahead of time that I won't do that, and that your engagement is your own responsibility, and I'm offering my help as GM to make that easier for you.

If you refuse or waste that help, then from that point on its on you.

Hawkstar
2015-06-04, 08:27 AM
Being a sidekick is fun, especially in larger groups. Especially if I'm a hypercompetent sidekick. I let other players focus on getting stuff done, and enjoy sitting back and optimizing my characters to assist the group in achieving their goals while blasting away those who stand in the way, and protecting the party when they end up in trouble.

neonagash
2015-06-04, 08:58 AM
Being a sidekick is fun, especially in larger groups. Especially if I'm a hypercompetent sidekick. I let other players focus on getting stuff done, and enjoy sitting back and optimizing my characters to assist the group in achieving their goals while blasting away those who stand in the way, and protecting the party when they end up in trouble.

Exactly. Sometimes it's fun just to be everyone's go to guy.

Like doc holiday in the movie tombstone. What's his backstory? I'm sick, I love to gamble, I'm a Badass, oh and I'm messing around with some Hungarian chick.

Pretty thin. But he's probably the coolest character in the movie. Definitely the coolest good guy.

Thrudd
2015-06-04, 09:24 AM
For D&D: briefly answer two related questions: what does your character want and why have they decided to be an adventurer? (it is required that the character has decided to be an adventurer)

Optional group questions: how or why did the party come together and what are your group's rules/bylaws/expectations?

For Star Wars: where is your character from, what is their relationship to the prevailing galactic organizations, and what do they want in life?

Group questions: how/why did the group come together and what are the characters relationships to each other?

Feng Shui: what does the character want and why (the hook). What is their relationship to the world they are aware of (be it the overall secret war or a single juncture).

Group questions, similar to above: what are preexisting character relationships, if any.

Aotrs Commander
2015-06-04, 10:51 AM
I work on the basis that, if I as DM and spending tens (hundreds of the course of a party's lifetime) of hours setting up and preparing the game (which includes chasing the players to get the date for the game sorted 95% of the time, save the rare occasion I can foist that off when someone else runs...), I am entitled to ask the players to put in half an hour or so of effort once in a while. Especially when I only do it occasionally.

(And if someone doesn't want to, well, I currently have 50% more players than I have space at my table, I can afford to be picky and bias towards the ones who are most keen and enthusiatic and prepared to at least try meet me half-way.)

For example, my current brief to the players for the party I'm setting up right now is basically:

Race (from the short list of human Lich, Elf Lich, Half-Elf Lich, "putting some significant effort into a background for a pre-existing setting alien race" Lich)
Profession (i.e. Class, but we're playing Rolemaster)
Speciality (i.e. army officer, army enlisted, navy officer, navy enlisted, fighter officer)
Planet of origin (list of appoximately 1070 planers/locations visited in living universe dating as far back as thirty years provided)
What your character did before being recurited into the Army Of The Red Spear (i.e. the organisation to which the party belong)
What your character did to get themselves noticed to be recruited
Why your character wanted to be recruited, how your character died (with "volentarily to become Lich" being a noted option)
What attributes, skills or experience (etc) make your character suitable for being hand-picked for exploration operations

and a note that "mavericks/rebel who doesn't play by the rules" are forbidden character concepts, since those are exactly the sort of people that wouldn't be recruited by the Aotrs. (Nor would good characters, for that matter, but I think that sort of goes without saying, at least as far as all but maybe three/twelve players know anyway.)

The answers to which can be pretty short and succient (do-able in a sentence, I think) if the player does no want to elaborate (but then I will, in their background handout, subject to my normal self-imposed restrictions).

neonagash
2015-06-04, 11:31 PM
When I GM my bias is to people who I want to have a conversation and a beer with.

Maybe best expressed as.... We aren't gaming and socializing, we are socializing with a game going on.

Aotrs Commander
2015-06-05, 04:12 AM
I don't drink and, for that matter, I don't even pub or equivilent (i.e. "going to a place to socialise" is not something I do for choice). So I have never been interested in the - as Full Thrust succinctly put it "having a few beers and boldly going" - style of play, myself, which is sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from where I stand. My Wargaming is no different - as my Dad says, a good wargame should come away with you having a headache after having to think really hard about the tactics, having to "solve the puzzle" as it were. Heck, these days, if we have to cancel our regular evening RPG session, if me and one of chaps can't organise a wargame, I politely will bow out if the remaining folk want to play board games/card games, because those no longer have any appeal to me anymore.

(The only excepion is when we go to put a demo game on at a wargames convention, where the point is specifically to talk to the punters, and if you have to actually play the game, it's a sign of a bad convention.)

So I play to play/run the game, not to socialise with maybe a game involved.

(Which is probably as well, since otherwise, when you're trying to run for a group of eight or nine players, if you don't have some discipline, there would be no game at all. I always said that was on the upper limit of what I was comfortable with and actually having that many players have proved me entirely correct. Even if you could physically fit everyone round the table on a day quest (where there are about three more players who can't make the regular sessions), I wouldn't even considering TRYING to run with a dozen players.

(Oh and before anyone asks why we don't split the group up, I will add that of that, there are only two of us willing to DM on the evening sessions these days, and three of us for the day quests (one of whom who has only just started DMing again a year or two because as a policeman he can run his Judge Dredd without a lot of difficulty and the other I ask to run maybe once a year (and he's said he can't do that this year)); so the majority (perhaps only a slight majority for the evening sessions) of the DMing (and 95% of the organisation) falls to me. And none of us are off-the-cuff DMs, which all means a great deal of preparation work.)

Yukitsu
2015-06-05, 11:36 AM
When I GM my bias is to people who I want to have a conversation and a beer with.

Maybe best expressed as.... We aren't gaming and socializing, we are socializing with a game going on.

I'm kind of assuming your DM doesn't spend very much time or effort outside of the campaign setting the game up then. I'd honestly just start bringing board games if you're more interested in drinking beer and talking than actually gaming, it's not worth the prep time if you're more interested in beer and talking than the game.

neonagash
2015-06-06, 08:39 AM
I'm kind of assuming your DM doesn't spend very much time or effort outside of the campaign setting the game up then. I'd honestly just start bringing board games if you're more interested in drinking beer and talking than actually gaming, it's not worth the prep time if you're more interested in beer and talking than the game.

He's like me. Runs ap's with heavy improv and digital tools. So no not much time between games is spent preparing. And we do fine, lots of good gaming happens.

Knaight
2015-06-06, 09:10 AM
Personally, I want a short backstory. Emphasis on short. There needs to be enough to give a bit of meat to the character and establish who they are to some extent, but that can be a sentence or three. Defining too much prevents the character from being integrated into the game in my experience, as defining backstory through play has consistently worked better.