Player Help Is 750 word too long for a backstory? [Archive]

Kurt Kurageous

2022-04-22, 11:31 AM

For me, anything more than your players race, class, background, why they became adventurers, and their goals/motivators (to become the...) are all I need. Anything more is unhelpful to me as the DM at 1st tier. We playing elsewhere, then you have a history. 1st tier, you have a short past and a longer future.

Your PC should not start as a fully realized personality. Where can you grow from there? It gets boring real quick. Why not learn by playing and let yourself enjoy the growth of your PC?

Of course, this is a lot like the marshmallow experiment. If you cant delay your gratification and MUST write a fanfic tribute, that's your fun. Don't expect me to read it, use it, or tailor the campaign to it.

And for the love of all lovely, please don't tell me about your dead, unknown, dethroned parents. It's so cliche I may want to kill the PC. If you got writing chops, real writing chops, I might read it. If you are in RL not a writer as a hobby, please just give me what I can use.

I know I will be the minority opinion here.

Mastikator

2022-04-22, 11:33 AM

Yes it's too long.

750 words is about 700 too many words.

My preference is between 1 and 2 paragraphs.

Khedrac

2022-04-22, 12:59 PM

For me the answer is "not necessarily". The problem I have with many PC backgrounds is that they write extra skills into the character (intentionally or unintentionally) and this can then cause problems when the GM rules that a character cannot do something (due to lack of skill on the character sheet) that the player thinks they should be able to based on their background.
For example, if you character has no ranks or skill is smithing, then a background as the child of a smith is probably a bad start - you would pick up some knowlege even if not being formally trained.

Very few games assume that starting characters are anything other than pretty inexperienced (traveller is the main counter-example) - most new PCs have at most just finished their apprenticeships, and they have virtually no experience of the world.

Now, one can write a long backstory that keeps the character young and inexperienced - my sister-in-law recently told me her newest characer's backstory and she managed quite an eventful one that still worked for a new character - but most, in my experience, don't.

So, first of all I would read your character's backstory and check to see if it is trying to give the chracter knowledge they should not have (skills or game-world geography). Then check to see if it is reasonable for the character's age.
Once this is done I would tell the DM that you have written quite a long backstory and give them a quick summary. If they then want the full background they can ask for it, but be warned, they may decide it's "too much" for how they plan the campaign to run.

Batcathat

2022-04-22, 01:10 PM

No, I don't think it's too long at all. It's probably longer than it needs to be, but I don't see why it'd be a problem. It's not like it's a very long read in the grand scheme of things.

As for my preferred length, I'm not really sure. Somewhere between a couple of sentences and a couple of paragraphs, I guess. I also think it depends quite a bit on the character.

JNAProductions

2022-04-22, 01:20 PM

I would say that having such inspiration is awesome!

But as a DM, give me cliffnotes. It's awesome that you're so invested, but I've got an entire campaign and world to manage-I do want the whole backstory, but I also want the abbreviated version so that I don't have to read the whole thing for little details.

Grod_The_Giant

2022-04-22, 01:47 PM

I don't require backstory from my players at all--if they're only interested in the campaign at hand, that's fine by me. Sometimes you come in with a fully fleshed out story and personality, other times you figure it out as the game unfolds. Both are valid.

If someone did give me a written backstory, I'd certainly read it. Heck, I'd read it even if there was a plot twist planned that would render it all moot. Having a player put that much extra time and thought into your game is one of the best compliments a GM can get, and reading the result is the least I can do to return the favor.

Do I have any sort of breaking point? I mean, probably, but (fairly or unfairly) it's going to be based on the quality of the writing. I can churn through a few pages of bad prose quickly, but I'm probably not going to do more than skim a twenty page novella if I have to struggle with each paragraph. On the other hand, if your backstory clocks in at three hundred pages but is a fun read in its own right...

I mean, I guess somewhere around the fifteen to twenty minute mark it switches from game preparation to literary workshopping. But seeing as how that's also something I greatly enjoy...

(I might ask you to give me feedback on my latest novel draft in return, though. Fair's fair.)

Tl;dr--I'm not going to ask for any sort of formal backstory, but if someone does go the extra mile I'll do my best to read the whole thing

Psyren

2022-04-22, 02:13 PM

Your backstory can be as long and detailed as you want it to be, but if your primary goal is to hand something to your DM that they can work from to generate hooks and relationships, I would boil it down to an executive summary / cliffnotes.

Palanan

2022-04-22, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant
Having a player put that much extra time and thought into your game is one of the best compliments a GM can get, and reading the result is the least I can do to return the favor.

+10 to this.

I have some players who struggle to put together a short paragraph, and I can work with that. But I deeply value a player who’s willing to spend the time and effort to write a detailed character background, because it tells me that player is imaginative and invested in the game.

So no, 750 words is not remotely too long. If you’ve written that much backstory, don’t for an instant feel bad about it, no matter what some people say. Be glad of the inspiration, and your DM will be glad as well.

And just because you develop a history and personality for your character, doesn’t in any way prevent you from growing and developing that character in the game.

Vahnavoi

2022-04-22, 03:22 PM

Depends on format of a game. I've written backstories of equal and greater length for play-by-post games, where a game master and other players have a lot of time between turns and can read such things at their leisure. For such games, a long backstory is a resource, just like all other preparatory game materials. Same applies for tabletop games where a game master has a long time between sessions to receive and review material from players.

For more traditional tabletop games where character creation is done at the table, it's excessive. You can communicate the gist of where your character comes from with three short sentences. Focus of the game also matters: when the focus is on the immediate situation or a location, player character backstories are de-emphasized. To get and keep things moving, personality and alignment (in the sense of values and objectives a character pursues) are far more important than backstory; backstory is mostly an explanation for why those things are as they are. "Why" can be kept short and vague, because "whys" of the initial position are naturally obsoleted and replaced by "whys" stemming from actual play.

Telonius

2022-04-22, 03:36 PM

I'd give that a bit, "It depends." For a first-level character? That's probably more than you need to give the DM. But, it might be exactly the right amount of backstory you need to play the character.

To put this another way, when I'm DMing, I fully expect about 75% of the background materials I prepare to never see the light of day. The players don't decide to interact with the world in that way; they go for the fancy hotel instead of the dive bar, they decide against two potential plot hooks and opt for a third, the awesome quirky merchant I prepped comes off completely wrong and they don't interact. Instead of info-dumping them, I give them what they need to know. I have the DM Notebook (TM) off to the side in case I need it, but I don't beat players over the head with it (unless they start building a Pun-Pun).

Absolutely don't feel bad about doing that much work, if it helps you to get into character. But unless the DM asked for something that detailed, all they really need to know is a general sketch. Who's your character, why are they there, general personality, any particularly strong motivations (feuds, oaths, family, relationships, any specific traumas like "family was killed by orcs" or "orphaned at a young age"). Give them the jacket blurb, not the full novel. And let them know that you have a longer version if they want to read it.

Thrudd

2022-04-22, 03:46 PM

It depends on the type of game and what function the backstory serves. If the GM intends to use PC backstories as a way to create content that will be personal to the players, then a longer, more detailed story can be good. In most other cases, a long backstory is totally unnecessary. If it's fun for you to write it, that's fine, and a polite GM will at least read it, regardless of whether they will use it in their prep. But you generally don't need that much.

You just want to establish generally what your character wants (as of the start of the game), their morals and ideals, whether they serve a cause or group greater than themselves, and maybe a couple general personality traits- so that you and the GM will both be on the same page about how to motivate that character into action. You don't usually need to decide the character's full life history, the exact details of their training, all the members of their family, the sources of their psychological trauma, etc. Don't expect that type of information to come into play, unless the GM tells you that's what they want.

That said, 750 words isn't really that much...what is that, 2 pages in 12 pt double spaced? I wouldn't write that much unless it was explicitly asked for, but I wouldn't necessarily see it as an imposition to read it as a GM, regardless of whether I'd use any of it.

vasilidor

2022-04-22, 05:05 PM

This is dependant on the DM and the type of game you are playing.
If the basis is the kick in the door and kill/loot monsters, then yes it is too much.
If the basis is some sort of intrigue/mystery game it may be just right.

Tawmis

2022-04-22, 07:14 PM

Others covered it nicely.

For me, as a player - having a backstory helps me set up myself mentally for stepping into my character's shoes (boots, whatever) right from session 1. Rather than going along the adventure, and eventually figuring out the personality. If I know the personality and backstory from the get go - I can RP the character that much faster. Characters should always grow, so things that happen to the character, may change their personality and views on things - and I think when that happens, it's pretty cool. And that's difficult to pull off if you're making up the personality as you go.

For me as a DM - since I never run existing modules, my world is all homebrew, I love me a good backstory - especially if it has hooks that I can use. And those hooks don't need to be immediate. But I always feel like if you use things from a character's background - that typically increases their investment in the campaign and story, and also makes them feel like they're more than just a character in the world. That something from their backstory is also an ongoing part of the world.

Hytheter

2022-04-22, 07:31 PM

The story happens at the table, not on your character sheet. I'm on the side of 'yes'.

Telok

2022-04-22, 07:56 PM

As a DM I'd rather several pages of backstory to "generic male elf wizard #37", no matter what the game.

Even in Paranoia, the ultimate game for disposable characters, I'd rather pages of backstory than someone who does not know anything about their character except the stats.

ngilop

2022-04-22, 08:06 PM

YES.

I think a couple paragraphs is plenty for 99% of all characters.

Of course.. there is 'hey we are starting at 16th level and middle aged+.. what did you do to get here" would be a bit more

as would the DM being a jerk and necessitating a 48 page backstory (times new roman 12 point maybe double spaced?)

Mr Blobby

2022-04-22, 10:26 PM

+1 for the 'well, it depends' crowd.

It depends on what game it is for.

It depends on the age/skill level of the character.

It depends on what kind of game you're playing.

It depends on what your writings cover.

It depends on what your GM desires.

Some games simply make heavier demands on creation, and then breed acres of 'supplementary material' while in-play. A very quick look at my Mage the Ascension char tells me they've got 1.1k backstory, 1.8k on their magic, 1.2k on various misc details [like possessions], another 400 as a kind of 'backstory suppliment' [NPCs they've met on the adventures so for etc] and another 500 on basic descriptions...

However, I will say this regardless; go back, re-read and do a 'prune'. I always see writing a backstory like doing an longer obituary; perhaps ~500 words for a basic/low level char. It's a bit of an art form; to boil down your char's very essance to the minimum of facts. In fact, I often advise to not be *too* precise in backstories; not only does it offer possible play-hooks for the GM, but allows you a bit of character flex/growth over time. [Yeah, I broke my own rule with my mage. Wasn't my 'fault'; she had a couple of semi-unicorn elements which needed 'explaining' to be allowed into the game].

And to ask your GM what they desire/expect.

Tanarii

2022-04-22, 10:34 PM

Anything more than 5-6 sentences, all of which describe your character motivations in some way, is too long. If I was your DM. YMMV with other DMs :smallwink:

By which I mean anything 'historical' must clearly call out what kind of motivation it is as a primary purpose. You've got a family? Great! It needs to phrased as something like:
- I promised my wife and children I'd always come back
or
- I steal gold to support my wastrel extended family of cousins

Cheesegear

2022-04-22, 10:58 PM

What is your preferred backstory-length?

Depends how good it is.

Typically, I don't give a **** about backstories, because backstories aren't for me. Backstories are for the player who writes them. In fact, I don't even care if a player has a backstory or not. Because when Session 1 hits, they - not me - need to know WTF they're roleplaying as:

1. Who are you? Where do you come from?
2. Why are you here? What are you looking for?
3. Where are you going? What are your goals?

If a player can answer these three questions, in the first 10 minutes of session 1, in-narrative or OOC, then their backstory is irrelevant.

Backstories happen 'off-screen', they are the least important part of anything. Very, very, very rarely have I even seen a player integrate their backstory into the narrative. I have to do that, and I can always choose not to - and I usually do. Because why would I focus on one player's character when there are four others at the table that I also have to take care of?

I'm more than happy with a single paragraph. But I'm also happy with no backstory at all...So long as you have an understanding of how to play your character.

If your backstory is longer than a single page, though...I'm almost definitely not even going to read it. That's too much detail for something that didn't even happen at the table.

Palanan

2022-04-22, 11:02 PM

Originally Posted by Tawmis
But I always feel like if you use things from a character's background - that typically increases their investment in the campaign and story, and also makes them feel like they're more than just a character in the world. That something from their backstory is also an ongoing part of the world.

Absolutely this. A player in my current campaign asked if one of his characters from another game could be his current character’s mentor—in the background only, with no mechanical benefit. I ended up incorporating his prior character into the broader storyline, and it’s added that much more depth to his character and the story overall.

Cheesegear

2022-04-22, 11:17 PM

Absolutely this. A player in my current campaign asked if one of his characters from another game could be his current character’s mentor—in the background only, with no mechanical benefit. I ended up incorporating his prior character into the broader storyline, and it’s added that much more depth to his character and the story overall.

A player in my last campaign wanted to rope everyone into looking for her rightful heirloom that was in her background, and didn't want to go on any quest that wasn't directly related to her family.

Umm...No?

Said player's backstory was also longer than a page, that I didn't read, and I wasn't aware that she was going to do that. If I'd read her backstory, I would have rejected it almost immediately. There are five players at the table, there's no such thing as a main character. D&D is a self-insert fanfiction, that is true. But it's a cooperative fanfiction with many self-inserts.

Tawmis

2022-04-23, 01:07 AM

A player in my last campaign wanted to rope everyone into looking for her rightful heirloom that was in her background, and didn't want to go on any quest that wasn't directly related to her family.
Umm...No?
Said player's backstory was also longer than a page, that I didn't read, and I wasn't aware that she was going to do that. If I'd read her backstory, I would have rejected it almost immediately. There are five players at the table, there's no such thing as a main character. D&D is a self-insert fanfiction, that is true. But it's a cooperative fanfiction with many self-inserts.

Ah, but why not make it that - whatever the campaign is - has something to do with an heirloom.
The big bad murdered her family or whatever the backstory was and took the heirloom as a "treasure" for the kill.
And now she's out to recover it and restore her family's honor.
So it's not the main story - but it's a PART of the main story.
(Like I said, no idea of the heirloom backstory - so just coming up with a quick example how a happy medium could have been found)

Rynjin

2022-04-23, 01:13 AM

Give your GM the Sparknotes version, because they probably won't have time to read a mini-essay for every character before the first session.

Mr Blobby

2022-04-23, 01:55 AM

A player in my last campaign wanted to rope everyone into looking for her rightful heirloom that was in her background, and didn't want to go on any quest that wasn't directly related to her family.

Umm...No?

Said player's backstory was also longer than a page, that I didn't read, and I wasn't aware that she was going to do that. If I'd read her backstory, I would have rejected it almost immediately. There are five players at the table, there's no such thing as a main character. D&D is a self-insert fanfiction, that is true. But it's a cooperative fanfiction with many self-inserts.

Well, you've only got yourself to blame for that, yes? The player *did* tell you - you simply couldn't be bothered to listen to them. Which to be frank, would make me somewhat wary of having you as *my* GM; it smells like you don't really care about player input.

In my experience, you can normally sniff out many a problem char/player at 'Sesson 0' when you're reading the backstory. Like for example, if they don't actually really get the kind of story you're planning to run.

Rynjin

2022-04-23, 02:02 AM

Well, you've only got yourself to blame for that, yes? The player *did* tell you - you simply couldn't be bothered to listen to them. Which to be frank, would make me somewhat wary of having you as *my* GM; it smells like you don't really care about player input.

Good communication involves communicating your intention in brief. In short: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaEL2q8WwAA-gI5.png

Tanarii

2022-04-23, 02:04 AM

In my experience, you can normally sniff out many a problem char/player at 'Sesson 0' when you're reading the backstory. Like for example, if they don't actually really get the kind of story you're planning to run.
Indeed. Turning in a backstory allows me to sniff that person out as a problem player right away.

Mr Blobby

2022-04-23, 02:20 AM

I see. They're all mysterious mystery persons with no history at all, where their motivations are unknowable and they're doing whatever they are just because?

Is my character even allowed a name, or is this too much backstory for you?

Good communication involves communicating your intention in brief. In short: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaEL2q8WwAA-gI5.png

'I don't have time to read all this... could you please produce a summary for me, please?'

Though this is partly 'your' fault for not specifying what you did/didn't desire to see. I'm inspired by the first 'proper' GM I ever met two quite literally gave us a photocopy of a ~400 word newspaper obit and said 'like this, just the bare-bones, no centres of attention or super-specialness, it's not a novel.'

Tanarii

2022-04-23, 02:44 AM

Is my character even allowed a name, or is this too much backstory for you?

Is it the Bob the Fighter II, younger brother of Bob the Fighter that died 15 minute ago? :smallbiggrin:

Schwann145

2022-04-23, 03:18 AM

Worth noting that 750 words is about a page and a half, for anyone who sees this and auto-thinks it's a full-on short story.

Is a page and a half too much back story? Short answer: probably. Longer answer: it'll depend on what level you're starting at, what your GM has asked/expects of the players, etc.

The important thing to remember is that your backstory is really only important to you. There may be some hooks provided that the GM possibly runs with in the future, and that's a nice gift to them, but otherwise it's pretty meaningless to anyone else.
The story that matters is the one that happens after the backstory - the game itself.

Now, again, details matter.
Are you level 1? You don't have a backstory. You have a circumstance that put you in an adventure. If you had relevant and exciting backstory, you wouldn't be level 1, would you?
Are you level 12? You obviously have quite a storied history. But is that history at all relevant to the game going forward, or is it just something neat for you to have tumbling around in your head to help you play your character? That will be an important question to answer, because saddling the GM with too much irrelevant story when they're already juggling every character, the NPCs, their own plans, etc is pretty self-serving.

Warder

2022-04-23, 03:19 AM

The simple truth is that no backstory is too long. You can get into your third cousin's favorite ice cream flavor in your backstory if you like and that is perfectly fine - don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

That having been said, what you have to remember if you write a long backstory is that you're doing it for yourself, no one else, and the love and care and thoughtful planning you pour into your 10 page masterpiece most likely will not evoke the same reactions in other people; they don't have your connection to your character, simple as that. So a core part of writing long backstories is making a TL;DR for your GM - a list of bullet points or a 1-2 paragraph summary of important points, and that is what you give to them to read. If they want to read your whole story, fantastic, but don't expect them to. Instead, treat your long version as inspiration for yourself when it comes to actually roleplaying your character.

Batcathat

2022-04-23, 03:53 AM

Give your GM the Sparknotes version, because they probably won't have time to read a mini-essay for every character before the first session.

Even if the GM isn't a very fast reader, reading 750 words is like two minutes. So even if the entire party have those, it's not really that time consuming.

Rynjin

2022-04-23, 04:17 AM

Even if the GM isn't a very fast reader, reading 750 words is like two minutes. So even if the entire party have those, it's not really that time consuming.

Being brutally honest, the issue is not really the length, but the fact that most players are not actually very good writers, and tend to bury the relevant information in irrelevant details and painful prose such that your eyes glaze over when word counts get this bloated.

I tell my players to give me like 100 words, or format it such that it reads less like a "story" and more like a list of details broken up into different brackets...if they want to write one at all.

When I hear "750 word backstory" what that actually reads to me is "wall of text that in the grand scheme doesn't contain anything of value". We've all written them; my first character backstory was just shy of 2000 words (1983 to be exact). Do you know how many words were actually relevant?

Just about 200; 100 for the basics of the backstory (born to a merchant family, traumatic event ensues), and another 100 for the personality section (proud, ruthless, honorable).

As you can see, I was able to distill it down to just 11 words and you probably get the shape of who this character is regardless.

Mastikator

2022-04-23, 04:17 AM

Even if the GM isn't a very fast reader, reading 750 words is like two minutes. So even if the entire party have those, it's not really that time consuming.

I think the issue is be that it might be boring. A long backstory should be packed with hooks and dynamite that the DM can easily use. Most backstories I've seen have been written in a vacuum, my instinct as a DM is to put the backstory into the context of the campaign setting, your character didn't just grow up in some village but a village the party can visit, your characters childhood friends should be NPCs that the other players can interact with. And to get to that part I have to change stuff about a PCs backstory, and that makes me unhappy.

Don't just write it by yourself and then dump it on me, tell me the idea, receive feedback from the DM and then write it.

Rynjin

2022-04-23, 04:28 AM

I think the issue is be that it might be boring. A long backstory should be packed with hooks and dynamite that the DM can easily use. Most backstories I've seen have been written in a vacuum, my instinct as a DM is to put the backstory into the context of the campaign setting, your character didn't just grow up in some village but a village the party can visit, your characters childhood friends should be NPCs that the other players can interact with. And to get to that part I have to change stuff about a PCs backstory, and that makes me unhappy.

Don't just write it by yourself and then dump it on me, tell me the idea, receive feedback from the DM and then write it.

Now, see, THIS I like. Especially when I'm making a whole setting from scratch, or semi-scratch.

I encourage players to create their own towns and villages, even cities and counties depending on how incomplete the setting is. Helps them feel more invested.

Batcathat

2022-04-23, 05:10 AM

Being brutally honest, the issue is not really the length, but the fact that most players are not actually very good writers, and tend to bury the relevant information in irrelevant details and painful prose such that your eyes glaze over when word counts get this bloated.

Sure, that's probably pretty likely, not everyone is a good and/or imaginative writer. But if I have to read 750 words (per player) of boring prose with maybe the occasional nugget of gold, that's still not really that big of an investment. I certainly wouldn't demand that length, but I fail to see how it'd be much of a problem either.

Silly Name

2022-04-23, 05:32 AM

Word-count, by itself, usually isn't a problem with me unless you're submitting a novella. 750 words is a pretty quick read overall, and I would never penalise anyone for being a little bit more prosaic than others. And as long as you've used proper punctuation and grammar (and paragraph breaks), I don't really care about the quality of the prose.

What I care about is the information contained within the backstory, and word count has nothing to do with that. Maybe you wanted your character to have a big family and you spent a couple paragraph describing your siblings -that's ok! That's more NPCs and potential plot hooks, stuff that ties your character to the world and gives you reason to care!

Did you write about an important experience in your character's life that shaped how they think and act? That's cool! It gives me insight on how the character thinks and what their values are, and, again, usually leads to having at least one "link" between the character and the world, whether it's an old mentor, a personal enemy or a philosophical stance.

The few things that could really get me upset are "main character syndrome" (it's ok if your character has a very important personal mission, but it shouldn't be framed in a way that makes it the main mover of the story), and having to read through information-less slogs: have you ever met someone who talked a lot without really saying anything of substance? That gets me annoyed. Like, if your 1000-words backstory spends more time describing minute, pointless details than actual events and characters in your PC's past, yeah, that's annoying to read through.

I would also go against the idea that "novice"/level 1 characters shouldn't have anything important in their background. While obviously you shouldn't write about how your level 1 fighter slew a dozen dragons, that doesn't mean his life has had to be boring and uninteresting before the start of the game. What's important is that the stuff the character has dealt with is commensurate to their starting level, that's all. And, hey, maybe you did met with something big and bad... and you ran away from it!

MoiMagnus

2022-04-23, 06:23 AM

Well, look at that. the other day I was writing about writers-block and today I had a surge of inspiration and wrote 750 words of backstory. Before I hit my poor DM with that: Is that too much? What is your preferred backstory-length? I know that this will vary from group to group, but I would like to know!

also, thanks to all the people who gave me tips about writer-block in the other thread :)

First, let's make it clear: When you have a surge of inspiration, use it. At worse, it's training for being better at writing. But there is some good change that even if you don't give it to your GM, it helps you to play your character in a more interesting way.

Then, do you "hit your poor DM" with it? Well, at the very list please do some editing on it so that it's not a big paragraph of 750 words totally unreadable. But IMO:
+ That's might be too much for before the first "real session". In general, I prefer characters that are not "written in stone" an can adapt a little their past for the group dynamics to be better.
+ That's absolutely great past that for me.

Cheesegear

2022-04-23, 08:25 AM

Give your GM the Sparknotes version, because they probably won't have time to read a mini-essay for every character before the first session.

There is a world of difference between;

'*Record Scratch* I bet you're wondering how I got here? The Duke sent his men to kill my mother and father, who were spies for a different ruler, I swore vengeance. However there may be political complexities in their deaths that I don't fully know about nor understand - they were spies, after all. I just know that they were my parents. However, I can't just go storming the Keep. I need allies and funds. Maybe a magic item or two. If I can, I might even try raising a militia. So here I am. Let's adventure!'

Perfect! I count at least three adventure hooks in those few sentences - I might even use one of them!

And...

'...It was a dark and spooky night, spooky men dressed in spooky clothes approached the house. At the time, my mother was reading me a bedtime story - Jack the Giant Slayer. Her name was Barbara - Babs, to her friends. She was a seamstress by trade, and my father was a Baker....
[700. Words. Later.]
...And that's when I swore I vengeance on the Duke.'

Mastikator

2022-04-23, 08:46 AM

Now, see, THIS I like. Especially when I'm making a whole setting from scratch, or semi-scratch.

I encourage players to create their own towns and villages, even cities and counties depending on how incomplete the setting is. Helps them feel more invested.

Indeed, but it takes DM collaboration for that. Without the DM's help the PC's backstory will feel out of place. Which is why short backstories are so much more robust, a small enough peg can fit in any hole. And then you expand it during play

Grod_The_Giant

2022-04-23, 09:19 AM

For whatever it's worth, I think my favorite approach to backstories was the Dresden Files RPG. In addition to the usual prompts, it asked everyone to come up with a full "first book in the series" adventure--and then turn to the players next to them. The person on your right played a role in your adventure, while you did the same for the player on the left. It let you start the game with a whole series of organic connections between characters, and helped make it feel like a *party* from minute one.

Backstories are for the player who writes them.
This is also an important point. You can figure out a lot about a character's personality and values in the process.

False God

2022-04-23, 09:48 AM

Indeed, but it takes DM collaboration for that. Without the DM's help the PC's backstory will feel out of place. Which is why short backstories are so much more robust, a small enough peg can fit in any hole. And then you expand it during play

I think this depends a lot on the campaign world. If your whole world is filled in already, then yeah, a player bringing unexpected details is going to be troublesome. But by the same token, if your world has open space, players can bring ideas you would never have thought of.

Tanarii

2022-04-23, 09:52 AM

Sure, that's probably pretty likely, not everyone is a good and/or imaginative writer. But if I have to read 750 words (per player) of boring prose with maybe the occasional nugget of gold, that's still not really that big of an investment. I certainly wouldn't demand that length, but I fail to see how it'd be much of a problem either.
It's the mindset. A player that thinks a backstory is useful is very likely one that doesn't understand what is necessary key information to develop for a new character they bring to the table, and also likely fails to understand that only what is established at the table has actually occurred for sure. One that understands motivations for what they're going to do and establish at the table is the useful character development is a player that is headed in the right direction.

Backstories are an outmoded concept, and one that modern game system have quite rightly moved away from. The Mutant Year Zero engine and D&D 5e (the PHB, not Xanathar's) are both good examples of properly establishing motivations. I haven't seen it in PF2 yet but I'm still wading through the bajillion pages of feats. :smallamused:

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-23, 10:05 AM

1. Who are you? Where do you come from?
2. Why are you here? What are you looking for?
3. Where are you going? What are your goals? That can take a paragraph or a page to describe.

If a player can answer these three questions, in the first 10 minutes of session 1, in-narrative or OOC, then their backstory is irrelevant. Not really; but doing that helps both the DM and the player to make sure the character is a good fit for the world that all of the players are in.

Very, very, very rarely have I even seen a player integrate their backstory into the narrative. I do it all the time. I work with my DMs/GMs. They have final editorial blue pencil, as the world builders.
If your backstory is longer than a single page, though...I'm almost definitely not even going to read it. That's too much detail for something that didn't even happen at the table. A single page is usually enough space if the person writing it can write well. Heck, it's often more than enough.

Don't just write it by yourself and then dump it on me, tell me the idea, receive feedback from the DM and then write it. This is what I do, and I ask my players to do the same for me as a DM. Some players do, which is great, and some can't be bothered, which is a disappointment. Our Salt Marsh campaign has 4 of 6 who bothered to, and I really appreciated that. One has had to drop out due to real life, so I now have 3 of 5 who worked with me to make the back story fit into the world and how (and why) they arrived in some place to start their adventures.

Now, see, THIS I like. Especially when I'm making a whole setting from scratch, or semi-scratch. I encourage players to create their own towns and villages, even cities and counties depending on how incomplete the setting is. Helps them feel more invested. As long as the GM has the latitude to fold that into the world and, if needed, do a bit of polish that ensures that the town/village fits the player background and the world itself.

First, let's make it clear: When you have a surge of inspiration, use it. Yes, and it never hurts to, after putting a page and a half together, take a look at it a day or two later and maybe tighten it up a bit. Depends on the writing quality.

Indeed, but it takes DM collaboration for that. Without the DM's help the PC's backstory will feel out of place. Which is why short backstories are so much more robust, a small enough peg can fit in any hole. And then you expand it during play That's pretty good advice.

I think this depends a lot on the campaign world. If your whole world is filled in already, then yeah, a player bringing unexpected details is going to be troublesome. But by the same token, if your world has open space, players can bring ideas you would never have thought of. Seen both ends of that spectrum.

For the OP: three to five sentences to describe who the PC is and why they are adventuring is a good framework. If you want to grow that into to 2 to 4 paragraphs to flesh that out (to make the character a bit more three dimensional) probably doesn't hurt but as you get to page length I'd make sure to check with the GM/DM to ensure that it fits 'the world as it is' before going further.

But most importantly: why are you asking the strangers on the internet? You should be asking your DM/GM this very question. "How much backstory do you want?" Then, if you have written a lot more than that, trim it to meet the GM's needs/desires.

Batcathat

2022-04-23, 10:12 AM

It's the mindset. A player that thinks a backstory is useful is very likely one that doesn't understand what is necessary key information to develop for a new character they bring to the table, and also likely fails to understand that only what is established at the table has actually occurred for sure. One that understands motivations for what they're going to do and establish at the table is the useful character development is a player that is headed in the right direction.

Backstories are an outmoded concept, and one that modern game system have quite rightly moved away from. The Mutant Year Zero engine and D&D 5e (the PHB, not Xanathar's) are both good examples of properly establishing motivations. I haven't seen it in PF2 yet but I'm still wading through the bajillion pages of feats. :smallamused:

Why treat backstories and motivations as separate (or even opposed to each other?) when they're usually anything but? Yes, motivations are what impacts the game in the present, but a backstory can explain and expand upon those motivations. You seem to argue that a player interested in exploring where their character has been can't also look where they're going, but that's never been my experience.

Take Spider-Man, for example (man, I'm sure using him a lot in discussions lately, what's up with that? :smallconfused:). His motivation can be conveniently summed up with his "With great power comes great responsibility" catchphrase, but I'd argue that he's a more interesting character (whether to read about or to play) if we know why he feels like that.

Tanarii

2022-04-23, 10:17 AM

Why treat backstories and motivations as separate (or even opposed to each other?) when they're usually anything but? Yes, motivations are what impacts the game in the present, but a backstory can explain and expand upon those motivations. You seem to argue that a player interested in exploring where their character has been can't also look where they're going, but that's never been my experience.
Because my experience shows me that they're far more interested in establishing history and/or writing a mini-story than they are are clearly delineating the motivations. An itemized list of one sentence motivations (which may include embedded personality traits and/or history) is both far more easily reviewable before a session as a reminder, and demonstrates they get it.

Take Spider-Man, for example (man, I'm sure using him a lot in discussions lately, what's up with that? ). His motivation can be conveniently summed up with his "With great power comes great responsibility" catchphrase, but I'd argue that he's a more interesting character (whether to read about or to play) if we know why he feels like that.Spiderman and any other book or comic book character is a great example of what I'm talking about. If you need to write a comic book's books worth of panels in prose to establish your character, something has gone wrong and you're focused on the wrong thing. Give me no more than 5-6 bullet points of single sentence motivations.

Let's do it with Spider Man in 5e format:

Personality: I'm bookish and unassuming, and generally don't stand up for myself
Ideal: With great power comes great responsibility (Good)
Bond: After my uncle died due to a mistake I made, I will do anything to protect my aunt May
Flaw: A threat to Mary Jane will distract me from a task or mission

(looked it up, 750 words translates to about 8 pages of comic book)

Batcathat

2022-04-23, 10:22 AM

Because my experience shows me that they're far more interested in establishing history and/or writing a mini-story than they are are clearly delineating the motivations. An itemized list of one sentence motivations (which may include embedded personality traits and/or history) is both far more easily reviewable before a session as a reminder, and demonstrates they get it.

I can't exactly argue against your experiences, but my own is more or less the opposite. The people who write a backstory tend to have an actual thought-out character, beyond just some self-insert or Generic Hero Personality.

That said, a list of motivations does sound like a good idea, I just don't think it should be used instead of a backstory.

JNAProductions

2022-04-23, 10:25 AM

I can't exactly argue against your experiences, but my own is more or less the opposite. The people who write a backstory tend to have an actual thought-out character, beyond just some self-insert or Generic Hero Personality.

That said, a list of motivations does sound like a good idea, I just don't think it should be used instead of a backstory.

Yee.

I will say, I used to be big on writing backstories and asking players for them, but after some experiences with my friend who could roleplay the ever-loving hell out of maybe two sentences written beforehand... It seemed less important to have that backstory.

I still write my own, but I keep 'em not too long. Couple paragraphs.

Batcathat

2022-04-23, 10:39 AM

If you need to write a comic book's books worth of panels in prose to establish your character, something has gone wrong and you're focused on the wrong thing.

Again, if that's your experience, I can't exactly say you're wrong, but it's certainly not some objective reality. Yes, the 5e list does give a decent idea about Spider-Man's motivations (and would be good to have as a quick reminder) but I don't think it'd give me the same feel for the character as an actually written out backstory and I certainly don't think it's somehow worse to have one.

Cheesegear

2022-04-23, 10:42 AM

I've also been burned several times by 'cool' backstories that the players simply can't deliver on.

Yeah, when there are no other players, no DM, and definitely no dice involved, you can write the coolest character ever who can do the coolest things.

But when push comes to shove, when the DM tells you 'Uhhh...Maybe not?' when other players want to do things that you're not good at, when the dice say that you simply fail...Suddenly you're not so cool anymore. You - the player - don't have the real world Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma to pull off playing the character that you have in your head. I know you've seen a movie, I know you've watched an animoo. But you - the player - don't have the...Personality...To be able to do that. To be that guy - not even pretend.

Keep your personality simple - for your sake.

I will say, I used to be big on writing backstories and asking players for them, but after some experiences with my friend who could roleplay the ever-loving hell out of maybe two sentences written beforehand... It seemed less important to have that backstory.

Right. I don't care if you write a backstory. I want you to have a clear idea of how you're going to play your character. If it takes a few sentences, that's okay. If it takes a page...I might read it. Is it good? If it's over a page, just to get an idea of who you want to be? ...I don't need to read that. Whatever plot hooks you have, just tell them to me. Whatever personality you have, play that. If your backstory is over a page long, I guarantee that about 90% of it doesn't need to be there.

I don't care if you write it, for yourself. But that's not something I want to read. I have four or five other players who all want their stories read and they're all going to have to mesh in some way, shape or form. The more specific you get, the harder that job is going to be. Keep it general. Keep it simple.

I don't know why anyone needs to write more than a paragraph or two to understand their own character. Besides, almost anything about your character could change in the very first session, the second you find out that your funny meme joke is only funny exactly once. And, as I said, sometimes you simply can't deliver on the character you want to be.

Tanarii

2022-04-23, 11:09 AM

Again, if that's your experience, I can't exactly say you're wrong, but it's certainly not some objective reality. Yes, the 5e list does give a decent idea about Spider-Man's motivations (and would be good to have as a quick reminder) but I don't think it'd give me the same feel for the character as an actually written out backstory and I certainly don't think it's somehow worse to have one.
It's worse because it's usually a replacement for motivation list, a focus on the wrong thing (backwards history instead of forwards play sessions; protagonist syndrome), and usually key campaign-touching points developed without DM input (who doesn't want to have to read this barely readable prose) are considered canon in the players head.

If a player has character history they want to make canon, I want a bullet point list to approve or disapprove. Not a self-imagined writer's torturing of the language. I also don't want to see the beginnings of that book they've inevitably got tucked away to finish some day and publish.

Edit: it's slightly possible I may have been marred by TSR-era "roleplaying" elitists and their backstories hahahaha

Grod_The_Giant

2022-04-23, 12:16 PM

But when push comes to shove, when the DM tells you 'Uhhh...Maybe not?' when other players want to do things that you're not good at, when the dice say that you simply fail...Suddenly you're not so cool anymore. You - the player - don't have the real world Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma to pull off playing the character that you have in your head. I know you've seen a movie, I know you've watched an animoo. But you - the player - don't have the...Personality...To be able to do that. To be that guy - not even pretend.
That's not a failure of backstory, though-- that's a failure of GMing. Either they didn't communicate the style of game they wanted and your character concept doesn't match the tone (by, say, trying to bring Conan to a game of commoners thrust into the spotlight), or they're failing at delivering the promised experience (by, say, having your badass super-spy trip over their own feet and faceplant when they fail to catch a fleeing foe).

Vahnavoi

2022-04-23, 12:25 PM

Let me try to bring some order into this chaos:

A backstory is a textual play resource. For any such resource, answer following questions:

1) What is its gameplay function?
2) When are you going to write it?
3) Who is going to read it?
3.1) Who needs to read it?
4) When are they going to read it?

Some commentary on each:

For 1), form follows function. The two common functions are to entertain and to communicate information. These two aren't necessarily congruent, so remember: you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Efficient communication isn't necessarily entertaining, and entertaining communication is rarely efficient, so know which is more important. More directly relating to the thread title, for every piece of information, there's hard minimum of words you need based on natural language you're using. So pick what's important.

For 2), the big distinction is between before coming to the table and after you're at the table. Obviously, the more time you have before coming to the table, the longer you can go without spending playtime.

For 3), the options are yourself, your game master, and some or all of the other players. 3.1) is direct follow-up: figure out who is the most vital recipient and format your resource to their needs.

For 4), the big distinction is between before a game starts and during a game. Again, obviously, the more time other recipients have to read your text before the game starts, the longer and fancier you can go. If the text is instead meant to be read during the game, you have to fit it to the rhythm of gameplay. For slow-paced play-by-post, you can go longer, for fast-paced in-person games, shorter is better.

Tawmis

2022-04-23, 12:50 PM

Tanarii

2022-04-23, 01:17 PM

These are players that are going to be literally spending endless hours, listening to you, the GM, weave a tale... and interact with that tale...Hopefully not. That sounds painful. As a DM I'd rather provide necessary details of the situation, keep it the minimum needed to communicate that necessary information. And spend as little time as possible resolving their interactions with that situation. The game should be about their decisions and how they impact the adventure (and campaign), not them having to listen to me spending endless hours weaving a tale.

And yet as a GM, you won't give the same courtesy back, to read a back story, and see how you might fit it somewhere along the way.As a courtesy for not inflicting endless hours of my weaving a tale, I expect them to make decisions and impact the adventure (and campaign) with them, at the table. Not give me homework. I've already got enough of that building a campaign for many players to bring any number of different characters they want to use.

Kraynic

2022-04-23, 01:36 PM

The thing I think is interesting is the GM's who don't really care about a character's backstory...

Because it won't impact the game they're about to GM.

These are players that are going to be literally spending endless hours, listening to you, the GM, weave a tale... and interact with that tale...

And yet as a GM, you won't give the same courtesy back, to read a back story, and see how you might fit it somewhere along the way.

Hmm, I think it depends a lot on your experience with backstories.

As a GM:
I once ran a game that was going to mostly happen in a frontier setting. This was told to the players upfront, they were shown where on the map world map it would be set.

One player made a backstory that I tried to weave in, but they complained about it. Why? Well, that would be due to them changing their backstory after giving it to me to read... without telling me...
Another player in the same game wrote a backstory that included missing parents, and they told me at one point that they were upset that I didn't include that in the game. Their missing parents happened a decade and over a 1000 miles away in a sea port. Remember this game is set in a frontier setting. Without something horribly and obviously contrived, there is really zero chance of that bit of backstory having any relevance in the game setting.
One player made a backstory that didn't contain anything that needed to be addressed by me. Pretty simple, so that character just got to grow and change from a basic beginning during play.
One player got my assistance to create a backstory that would possibly come up in game. Pretty simple again, and after some time there was something from the background that came up in game.

As a player among other players:
I have played with people that have to have CONFLICT in their backstory because "conflict breeds drama". What it really does is cripple the party in social interactions because everyone the party meets already knows that one character that has somehow manage to piss off everyone. You know, I really wish the GM just hadn't read that one. Actually make that 2 or 3. One particular player I know seems to do this sort of thing about 50% of the time.

I am not obligated to read anything a player writes while running a game. If I do read something written by a player, I am not obligated to make it a part of the world/setting in which the characters operate. If I have been upfront with the setting of the game, then players should have an idea on how to start constructing one (and can ask if they want or need help). If a player writes a backstory and it really doesn't fit where the game is happening, I would honestly prefer to not see it at all.

I really don't care a lot about backstories either way (GM or player), because what is done going forward is most important to me. As a player entering a game, I am certainly hoping for a game that is much more interesting than any backstory I might come up with, and write up with character backstories mostly for me to have a frame of reference from which they will change and grow over the course of a game. As a GM, if I haven't created a game that is more interesting setting to explore than a character's backstory, then perhaps that player should seek out a better GM/game.

Tawmis

2022-04-23, 02:45 PM

I should have been more clear - for myself, as a DM - I don't understand.
That is clearly not to say, my way is the right way. It's just the right way for me - and how I process stuff in my head.

Hopefully not. That sounds painful. As a DM I'd rather provide necessary details of the situation, keep it the minimum needed to communicate that necessary information. And spend as little time as possible resolving their interactions with that situation. The game should be about their decisions and how they impact the adventure (and campaign), not them having to listen to me spending endless hours weaving a tale.

Well, I am not sure how long your sessions are - but for example, in a 3 hour game (depending on the amount of players you have also) - you may, at the very least have talked 1.5 hours. With the other 1.5 hours being the players reacting. It's typically (again, varies on the group) - the DM weaving the tale, and the players reacting. So the DM describes a situation, "As you approach the castle, the sun setting behind it, you can see several guards posted along the wall." The players then react with the rogue saying, "Is there anything I can use for cover to stealth closer?" And you replying. Or players saying, "I attack with my flame blade, and rolled 17." And you replying if that hits or not, and flavoring it if that's your thing. As a DM, you're mostly doing the talking - whether it's describing the situation or replying to characters actions or questions or roleplaying the local smith NPC, etc.

As a courtesy for not inflicting endless hours of my weaving a tale, I expect them to make decisions and impact the adventure (and campaign) with them, at the table. Not give me homework. I've already got enough of that building a campaign for many players to bring any number of different characters they want to use.

Which is fine. Not saying your way is wrong.
I myself usually try to make some aspect of their background weave into the adventure somewhere down the line.
Even if it's just mentioning a friend that they mentioned in their background being somehow involved and renaming an NPC I had in mind to this friend.
Small tweaks that I think will spice up the adventure and make it more personal.
Again, this is just my thinking.

Hmm, I think it depends a lot on your experience with backstories.

101% true. It doesn't always work. It does truly depend on how the person writes their backstory.
Clearly if they write their backstory that they're this important chosen destiny person to be the sole person to slay Taimat... Yeah, that's not going to work.
But if they write about how they grew up, some friends they made along the way, how they became a (Fighter/Sorcerer/Wizard/etc) and some interesting characters in their background, I personally would try to inject their background stuff somewhere along the adventure.

Batcathat

2022-04-23, 02:53 PM

101% true. It doesn't always work. It does truly depend on how the person writes their backstory.
Clearly if they write their backstory that they're this important chosen destiny person to be the sole person to slay Taimat... Yeah, that's not going to work.
But if they write about how they grew up, some friends they made along the way, how they became a (Fighter/Sorcerer/Wizard/etc) and some interesting characters in their background, I personally would try to inject their background stuff somewhere along the adventure.

In addition to this, I doubt players who write a somehow problematic backstory will be ideal players otherwise. I think it's a pretty good guess that the player who writes ten pages about how awesome their character is and all the cool things they've done won't suddenly be a humble team player when the game starts. Or that the player who writes two thousand words about how their character has suffered and how misunderstood (but cool!) they are won't suddenly develop an appropriate sense of drama in the actual game. And so on and so forth.

False God

2022-04-23, 05:22 PM

To address the subject...

I always tell my players that I need "the basics", which is: all those goals and bonds and flaws lines filled out at a bare minimum. In many other systems, this information is mandatory, D&D is still a relatively low-RP system, requiring 90% of the RP to be done as a bonus fluff piece on the part of the players. For other systems, most of the character sheets include mandatory RP elements to be filled out, or the mechanics themselves determine the RP, or the RP determines the mechanics. "Fill out your character sheet fully." is not an optional rule. Unfortunately D&D does not make these elements mandatory. I do.

I encourage my players to write backstories. Your character is 18? 20? 45? Clearly They've led some kind of life up until this point. They've got 1 level of something. How did that happen? Was there a defining moment in their life, a time when they stood up to a local bully? It doesn't need to be exciting, maybe it was the time they realized they loved gardening. Heck, I don't even need to read it. I encourage them to do it for themselves to get a better feel for their character when it hits the table. These characters do not magically pop into existence on Session 1. They have lived lives in this world, maybe interesting ones, maybe mundane ones, and the player should know what kind of life that was.

If they do choose to write a backstory and they want me to read it, I'll tell them not to expect me to read any more than 4 pages. I expect it to be clearly written, using proper grammar and spelling, preferably typed, no less than 12-point Times New Roman (or comparable) font, with appropriate paragraph breaks. If they write more, they've been warned. If they write less, no biggie! And I always discuss with them if they're OK with me integrating what they wrote into the game, with the understanding I may take some liberties with the provided material. If they say "NO", that's fine! The backstory can still give me insight into them and their character.

I do tell them to keep the concept of the game in mind. I rarely need to work with people to ensure their backstory "fits". I find few people write anything that is so totally out of line with the game I am running as to require DM intervention. Though it happens from time to time, but I often find these folks will turn out to be troublesome players and I've had to remove a few folks who simply cannot be worked with.

ciopo

2022-04-23, 06:35 PM

Is it for a homebrew/sandboxy campaign, or is it for playing some published module/adventure/whatchamacallit?

For playing in published adventures, backstories are irrelevant, they have 0% impact on the plot except for maybe being integrated as a reskin of this or that event that would have happened anyway.

For sandbox, I suppose it gives hooks. Even on the campaigns I played that weren't published material the past of the characters never really had as much importance than what happens at the table.

Sure, the quest giver for this or that errand might be Bob's uncle instead of random local noble #234 but there will still be errands be they randomly generated or hooked . To me it matters not it's what happens at the table that makes the character, not off screen information

Theoboldi

2022-04-23, 06:55 PM

Tawmis

2022-04-23, 07:47 PM

Sure, the quest giver for this or that errand might be Bob's uncle instead of random local noble #234 but there will still be errands be they randomly generated or hooked . To me it matters not it's what happens at the table that makes the character, not off screen information

But that's RP for both player, and you as their Uncle.
"What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?"
Or can they get a discount since it's a family member?
Small, yes - but makes the player feel more connected to the world.

Thrudd

2022-04-23, 08:14 PM

Whether or not 750 words is too much is ultimately up to you and your GM, so I'll just weigh in with how I do things.

In my games, I explicitely ask players to keep their backstories to only a few paragraphs, three or two being optimal, as well as a seperate write-up on a general overview of their character's personality and motivations.

Typically, my games do not run too long, so having a ton of premade hooks is something of a waste. I even quite like the idea of negotiating character connections and allies after the fact as they become relevant in the game. It allows for some degree of flexibility and ensures nothing feels wasted.

Also, I find that establishing characters too heavily before the game is a detriment. No plan survives contact with the table, and I can count on one hand the characters I've seen played that stayed true to how they were originally planned. The party dynamics and adventures that happen during the game will mold the characters heavily, and it can easily clash with a too strongly defined background, or even just render some too specific aspects moot or redundant. They swiftly become less useful as a frame of reference and as a motivation guide.

It's an unavoidable consequence of going from a freeform writing exercise with a single author to a collaboratively improvised adventure with a bunch of other people and rules that rely on random dice rolls.

Right. The best way to do this is collaboratively with the other players and the GM, asking about what is appropriate for the setting and the campaign and coming up with ways the characters can be connected to each other through their backgrounds. If there is one thing that is helpful to establish in a back story, it is how all the characters met and why they're together as a party, and what that party's general aims are. Then you can skip the contrived first session where everyone "meets in a tavern" or is randomly caught up in a sudden attack and decides to team up for no real reason, and get right to the part where the group begins pursuing an adventure.

Cheesegear

2022-04-23, 10:40 PM

Then you can skip the contrived first session where everyone "meets in a tavern" or is randomly caught up in a sudden attack and decides to team up for no real reason, and get right to the part where the group begins pursuing an adventure.

But that's the best bit. Having all the characters' first impressions of each other, and how they're going to work as a team. It happens organically, at the table. The more things that happen at the table, the better.

That's another part of the reason why I don't particularly like detailed backstories, and I definitely don't like backstories that essentially contain entire adventure arcs. The more stuff that happens in your backstory, the more stuff doesn't happen in the game.

Thrudd

2022-04-23, 11:05 PM

But that's the best bit. Having all the characters' first impressions of each other, and how they're going to work as a team. It happens organically, at the table. The more things that happen at the table, the better.

That's another part of the reason why I don't particularly like detailed backstories, and I definitely don't like backstories that essentially contain entire adventure arcs. The more stuff that happens in your backstory, the more stuff doesn't happen in the game.

Depends on the game, for me, as well as how much time we have as a group to play. I agree with you for certain groups and certain campaigns. when I've got only a few hours once every couple weeks for D&D, I prefer spending as much time as possible on the actual adventure, and as little in down time as possible. I don't want an adventure arc in the backstory, either.

I want something like: PC1 and PC2 are siblings, looking for work as sellswords. PC3 is a wizard's apprentice who joins the siblings because he knows he needs friends to protect him. PC4 comes to town looking for partners to start an adventuring party, so he can fight evil monsters on behalf of his deity. PC1, 2 and 3 have always wanted to be adventurers and agree to join him. They decide they will split all profits evenly between all members. They travel to the Keep on the Borderlands to look for adventuring work beyond the borders of lawful lands. Session 1 begins as they arrive at the keep...

Tawmis

2022-04-24, 12:06 AM

Tanarii

2022-04-24, 12:15 AM

This is why I prefer campaigns (or 1st level adventures if it's just one group of players) that have a conceit built in. There's no reason to have to figure out if the characters know each other. They're adventurers for hire and took the job, or frequent the frontiers adventurers hangout and got in on the same quest the Old Man Quest Giver was handing out, or all live in the Ark, or troubleshooters for The Computer. And how they feel about each other comes about from table time. And I feel this is especially important for campaigns, when every session is probably different players and different PCs.

But yeah, both AW and MYZ (and most of the spin-off systems) have you pick a relationship attitude of your PC towards each other PC, and most of them establish history together in the process. Not only that, they often establish historical actions made by other player's PC, and the other player doesn't get a say in the matter. Which is an interesting take.

Cheesegear

2022-04-24, 12:23 AM

I guess the ultimate answer for the thread title is the question that comes before it:

What is a backstory for?

Can a backstory serve that purpose, in:
<750 words? Yes.
400< words? Certainly.
1-2 Paragraphs? Almost definitely. In fact most people prefer it.
1-2 Sentences? ...Uhh...Potentially.

Do you need a backstory at all? Maybe not. Depends. Maybe the purpose that a backstory serves, you don't need for this particular character.

I guess the point of this post is that it isn't that 750 words is 'too long' for a backstory. The real question, I suppose, is;

Can you define your character in less than [x00] words?
i) If so, why didn't you?
ii) If not, why not?

Tawmis

2022-04-24, 12:42 AM

This is why I prefer campaigns (or 1st level adventures if it's just one group of players) that have a conceit built in. There's no reason to have to figure out if the characters know each other.

So - the downside for characters not "knowing each other" - in an Out of the Abyss campaign - at the very start, if you're familiar with it - the situation is dire for the party. And eventually an escape happens - and we are pursued - both myself and my wife's character, ended up recaptured - and the other three paused - and I said, out of character, "You don't know us. We're just prisoners. Why risk getting captured again?" And so the other three fled, and my wife and I re-rolled new characters, because we didn't want them to try and do a rescue, and trying to escape again seemed logically impossible.

Where as if the characters knew each other, I feel like I wouldn't have said that - because we'd be friends as characters. :)

Mind you, I didn't mind that they fled - it was my idea, as one of the players.

Tanarii

2022-04-24, 01:38 AM

Mr Blobby

2022-04-24, 01:53 AM

Hopefully not. That sounds painful. As a DM I'd rather provide necessary details of the situation, keep it the minimum needed to communicate that necessary information. And spend as little time as possible resolving their interactions with that situation. The game should be about their decisions and how they impact the adventure (and campaign), not them having to listen to me spending endless hours weaving a tale.

As a courtesy for not inflicting endless hours of my weaving a tale, I expect them to make decisions and impact the adventure (and campaign) with them, at the table. Not give me homework. I've already got enough of that building a campaign for many players to bring any number of different characters they want to use.

I don't like your assumption that your [GM] 'necessary details of the situation' shall be 100% ham while mine [player] shall be 100% spam. Also, you the GM shall be doing it often when I the player shall only be doing it once [hopefully]. Remember, observation cuts both ways and a *complete* lack of interest in what I'd done suggests to me, a new player that you might be the kind of railroady GM who is in love with their own special NPCs and/or their own voice.

One thing that's not been asked yet is 'what is a backstory for?' (wait, Cheese just did but I can't be arsed to rewrite) From as far as I can tell, it's use is twofold;

- To allow GM to understand character.
- To allow player to understand character.

Now, these are two similar goals; however as pointed out the player does need to know more about the player than the GM does. Therefore, there's an discussion to be had regarding the production of two 'backstories'; the first being a bare-bones outline for submission (which may only be 100-200 words, including a description) and the thicker one for player IC use only (which may be a 'living backstory', with details being added as play happens from IC conversations, stories etc).

Cheesegear

2022-04-24, 01:55 AM

What matters is actually the character motivations, not the backstory. [...] Those motivations can reference or imply history, but that's not the relevant bit. What's important is what your character will decide to do during play, and the motivations that drive those decisions. Backstory is at best something fun to write to turn those motivations into an interesting story, and at worst a distraction that obscures them.

This. Perfectly said.

As I've said; I don't care if your 'backstory' involves plot hooks or adventure ideas. They can, but they don't have to. And even if they do, that's no guarantee that I'm going to care. Maybe your plot hooks are lame and bad? Oh cool, another '[X] killed my parents; I want vengeance.' character, haven't seen this character since last character. :smallsigh:

What I do want to know is;

'Guards are harassing someone at the gate. What do you do? Why? Why not?'
'A bounty has been placed on a creature. Do you go on the hunt? Why? Why not?'
'Two people are having a dispute. Whose side do you take? Why do you think that?'

When your character makes a decision, why?

Batcathat

2022-04-24, 02:01 AM

As I've said; I don't care if your 'backstory' involves plot hooks or adventure ideas. They can, but they don't have to. And even if they do, that's no guarantee that I'm going to care. Maybe your plot hooks are lame and bad? Oh cool, another '[X] killed my parents; I want vengeance.' character, haven't seen this character since last character. :smallsigh:

This part I do agree with. A backstory full of plot hooks can be a fun potential resource, but it's not an obligation.

And yes, motivations are important but so are the reasons behind them.

Cheesegear

2022-04-24, 02:06 AM

And yes, motivations are important but so are the reasons behind them.

Partial disagree.

'I think when monarchs use their power to abuse the peasantry, that's bad.'

Okay, cool. You don't like corrupt monarchs. Dope. Let's make a story. Something, something, Lawful Evil badman.

'No, for you see, when I was a child, there was an incident involving the local Duke [several bored minutes later], and to this day, I think bloodline-based government bad.'

Okaaay. I didn't ask for any of that. Sure. Whatever.

Theoboldi

2022-04-24, 08:19 AM

Right. The best way to do this is collaboratively with the other players and the GM, asking about what is appropriate for the setting and the campaign and coming up with ways the characters can be connected to each other through their backgrounds. If there is one thing that is helpful to establish in a back story, it is how all the characters met and why they're together as a party, and what that party's general aims are. Then you can skip the contrived first session where everyone "meets in a tavern" or is randomly caught up in a sudden attack and decides to team up for no real reason, and get right to the part where the group begins pursuing an adventure.

I somewhat agree half and half on that.

For one, I differentiate between the parts of the backstory that are about who this character is and how they fit into the setting, and the part that is about how they are connected to the other player characters and how they got involved with the adventure that we are playing. The former can be written away from the table or as part of the game application and then edited and corrected collaboratively, while the latter should be done in the group as part of the pre-game session zero/preamble or in proper play.

Part of that last point is that like Cheesegear, I quite enjoy seeing connections organically form between players as their characters interact. I do agree that it is good to have a small basis up-front ("We both served in the same mercenary group." or "We both work in the same guild." or something like that) but for the sake of keeping everything as well-flowing as possible I like to keep the initial relationship premise as basic as I possible can. One of my very favorite games I ever ran had the PCs become friends over the course of their first, low-stakes adventure together, so that colours my opinion a bit.

Another part is that I just like playing out that kind of initial "This is your mission." scene. I'm probably inspired by the Bond movies I used to watch as a kid on that part. :smalltongue:
But I also like how it turns what would otherwise just be a lore and exposition dump into something interactive and lets me give whatever quest giver there is a bit of personality.

Tanarii

2022-04-24, 09:38 AM

I don't like your assumption that your [GM] 'necessary details of the situation' shall be 100% ham while mine [player] shall be 100% spam. Also, you the GM shall be doing it often when I the player shall only be doing it once [hopefully].Backstories are maybe at best 50% spam, to throw out a random number. Because the useful parts are the motivation. The rest is just filler. Entertaining to the player, but there's a good chance nobody else cares unless it comes up at the table as part of a player decision for the PC's actions.

I do the best to cut out spam on my side. So a player being hurt because I won't take the time to sort through their mix of spam and non-spam is their problem. It also may be, but is not necessarily, an indication they won't be a very good fit with my table when it comes to play time.

And at worst, an indication they don't clearly know the motivations for the character at all.

Remember, observation cuts both ways and a *complete* lack of interest in what I'd done suggests to me, a new player that you might be the kind of railroady GM who is in love with their own special NPCs and/or their own voice.Your attempt to throw shade at the end there is laughable since it's the exact opposite of what I just said.

I don't write 700 word stories for an adventure or even campaign that are at best peripheral to the core information the players need to play and at worst confuse and hide that info, then expect the players to read it as homework for the game. They get clear and concise summary of the rules being used (e.g. classes/races available), and a few sentence synopsis of the campaign/adventure "motivation". They can do the same for me.

Give me the core details that you need to play the game and your character if you feel the need to give me anything. That may be, but is not necessarily, an indication you'll know what you're doing when it comes to play time.

However, I'll be brutally honest. In an open table campaign in multiple game stores with different players and characters every week, yes, my interest level in knowing even your new character's motivations is basicly nil, outside of the basic requirements: they're motivated to work with the party, and they don't regularly behave like the descriptions of 5e's Evil alignment associated behaviors.

In a one party adventure arc where the same players and party will stick together for a while? Sure, I'd love to know what class, race, and character motivations they're bringing to the table. And if they want to bullet point where they want to establish some major new facts for the world, I'll check those out too and we'll see if they can be incorporated. Then they can feel free to go write their blessed little heart out, for their own entertainment. It'll also be higher quality 'product' in the end, since they've done an outline and had someone else look at it first.

This part I do agree with. A backstory full of plot hooks can be a fun potential resource, but it's not an obligation.

And yes, motivations are important but so are the reasons behind them.Yes, but not the entire story. Its entirely possible to encompass the core event as part of a single sentence description that include the motivation. There's also the added benefit that a certain level of vagueness brings in terms of open future character development at the table.

But generally speaking I agree, when I say character motivations, they don't exclude an aspect of establishing some detail of history, and that detail can matter. To reuse the hoary old trope, if something something swear to avenge them/it, then "something something" should provide a target for vengeance*. If something something will do anything to protect them/it, then "them/it" should be defined.

------------------------

*Try bringing a character with a large and stable family, with no significant childhood trauma, with person who trained them also still alive and happily living with their big family. The DM may keel over from shock.

Alcore

2022-04-24, 09:44 AM

If I am using my own setting the players have never been in? What backstory?

A published setting? A paragraph or two detailing how you got to the start point.

My own setting that I give freely information about it? Enough to make it seem like they at least skimmed it.

I have had players give me several page biography and my eyes glaze over trying to read it. Worst still? Is i am expected to use it and while there are times I do; most of the time your “family” is safe.

Thrudd

2022-04-24, 10:39 AM

It's possible I have played with too many players who always make "loner" characters who act like they don't want to be in the party, and will absolutely walk away and try to pursue their own private goals as soon as they aren't forced by circumstance into cooperating. Or, at least they spend the entire first session refusing to join in, waiting for some very specific thing (that neither I nor the other players are aware of) to convince their character to join in.

This is partly why I started requiring PCs in D&D to begin as a recently established party with some agreement regarding what they're looking for (usually wealth, power and/or fame, possibly protecting people in general). This is a "session 0/1" thing, maybe not technically "backstory". I did feel the need to remind players that their characters need to be on a team. So let's skip the part where we act out a foregone conclusion, and begin their adventuring career...you can still RP your characters getting to know one another better and have IC conflicts along the way, but let's have it play out in the course of adventures, rather than acting like we might not decide to go on an adventure at all.

LibraryOgre

2022-04-24, 11:44 AM

So, back in the day, we had a DM who offered XP, on a per-page basis, for backstories. Some people wrote a page. Others wrote two.

My brother and I would regularly manage 5-10, both topping out about 20 pages.

6000 words, 20 pages. (https://www.mymegaverse.org/nexx/tsr/cormac.html)
4400 words, 8 pages. (https://www.mymegaverse.org/nexx/tsr/Ryan2.html)
13,000 words, 18 pages. (https://www.mymegaverse.org/nexx/tsr/Ryan3.html)
A "mere" 2800 words. (https://www.mymegaverse.org/nexx/tsr/ryan4.html)

Grod_The_Giant

2022-04-24, 12:51 PM

The more stuff that happens in your backstory, the more stuff doesn't happen in the game.
On the other hand, having some pre-established past adventures (especially if you can get the players to interweave their backtories) can help give the feel of a broader and more organic world than one seen purely through what's happening on the table. If you're starting as an experienced character, it's nice to know what those experiences were.

Batcathat

2022-04-24, 02:54 PM

So, back in the day, we had a DM who offered XP, on a per-page basis, for backstories. Some people wrote a page. Others wrote two.

My brother and I would regularly manage 5-10, both topping out about 20 pages.

I may be an ardent defender of long-ish backstories but that seems like too much by quite a lot. Though to each their own, of course.

Out of curiosity, what would the difference in starting XP be between like 20 pages and 20 words?

PhoenixPhyre

2022-04-24, 04:21 PM

Don't just write it by yourself and then dump it on me, tell me the idea, receive feedback from the DM and then write it.

This. Good backstories are a collaboration between the setting/narrative person (might be the DM, but a different hat than his DM hat) and the player.

For a game in my world, I want to be involved so I can build on and reconcile the story and the world. If I were running a module? Don't bother. Just give me the basics. But I don't run modules and there's plenty of room in the world. But I'd like to find somewhere it fits.

As for length, meh. I'm a fast reader. What I really need is decent formatting/writing and availability, so I can refer to it later.

LibraryOgre

2022-04-24, 04:23 PM

I may be an ardent defender of long-ish backstories but that seems like too much by quite a lot. Though to each their own, of course.

Out of curiosity, what would the difference in starting XP be between like 20 pages and 20 words?

Several thousand.

IIRC (this has been 20+ years), he was generally 500-1000xp per page. So, 20 pages at 500 XP was 10k experience... 4th level for anything except a thief or bard. Double that, and you've got 5th or 6th level.

EDIT: So, that 6000 word one was enough to get my 5/6 Druid/Bard. 12500+20000, so 32500 XP or so. That works out to a bit more than 5 XP per word, though he didn't "pay" by the word. But he might also have given me a bump, as I recall I was coming into a campaign later.

Calen

2022-04-24, 04:45 PM

All the comments about a few hundred words being the limit worry me.
My last 4 character backgrounds are in order of size...
250, 450, 1,300, and 2,200.

I think that (at least for me) writing a background helps define character traits and attributes. It helps me lean a little more into the character personality. I don't define everything, I leave a lot of room for integrating with the party but the story helps lay the foundation. Will the DM use it all? Probably not (the last campaign I completed used only three hooks from all the players backstories)

On the other side of the screen I have had players hand me a list of traits and associates that was 600 words, a little bio of 2,000, a couple 3,000 word write-ups, and a short story that was 6,000 words.
For each of those players I was able to generate some personalized hooks and some small campaign arcs that fit into the larger campaign. I think that the larger amount of writings made it easier to some degree but if I am honest I think the players remember the character arc that came from the 600 word write-up.

I guess the takeaway can be write what you feel you need to. The worse that can happen is the DM ignores it. :smallamused:

Mr Blobby

2022-04-24, 05:35 PM

...Your attempt to throw shade at the end there is laughable since it's the exact opposite of what I just said.

I don't write 700 word stories for an adventure or even campaign that are at best peripheral to the core information the players need to play and at worst confuse and hide that info, then expect the players to read it as homework for the game. They get clear and concise summary of the rules being used (e.g. classes/races available), and a few sentence synopsis of the campaign/adventure "motivation". They can do the same for me.

Give me the core details that you need to play the game and your character if you feel the need to give me anything. That may be, but is not necessarily, an indication you'll know what you're doing when it comes to play time.

However, I'll be brutally honest. In an open table campaign in multiple game stores with different players and characters every week, yes, my interest level in knowing even your new character's motivations is basicly nil, outside of the basic requirements: they're motivated to work with the party, and they don't regularly behave like the descriptions of 5e's Evil alignment associated behaviors.

In a one party adventure arc where the same players and party will stick together for a while? Sure, I'd love to know what class, race, and character motivations they're bringing to the table. And if they want to bullet point where they want to establish some major new facts for the world, I'll check those out too and we'll see if they can be incorporated. Then they can feel free to go write their blessed little heart out, for their own entertainment. It'll also be higher quality 'product' in the end, since they've done an outline and had someone else look at it first.

Yes, but not the entire story. Its entirely possible to encompass the core event as part of a single sentence description that include the motivation. There's also the added benefit that a certain level of vagueness brings in terms of open future character development at the table.

But generally speaking I agree, when I say character motivations, they don't exclude an aspect of establishing some detail of history, and that detail can matter. To reuse the hoary old trope, if something something swear to avenge them/it, then "something something" should provide a target for vengeance*. If something something will do anything to protect them/it, then "them/it" should be defined.

It's not 'laughable' because I may not know you one jot at this point. All I have to go on regarding your GM style is a very shallow and limited pool of evidence, just as you have a similarly shallow/limited pool regarding me a player. Yet... you're allowed to be judgemental but I'm not? Similar to your complaint about their stories being cliche - how do I know your game shall not be cliche plot-wise?

What's more, as it's already been pointed out we do not know what game the OP was talking about, or even what is in the backstory. 750 words on just a backstory for a L1 D&D hackfest? Yeah, I wouldn't bother with that detail; in fact, if you got one from me for that it would be 95% sure you're looking at an example of recycling from the hallowed stack of old characters. 750 words for either WoD game would be within 'tolerances' esp if that number included justifying a few sheet items. However, you did not put in any caveats to your earlier statement of basically 'backstories suck and I don't ever read them'.

*Try bringing a character with a large and stable family, with no significant childhood trauma, with person who trained them also still alive and happily living with their big family. The DM may keel over from shock.

I've played such characters. I've seen such characters played too. Okay, not 100% happy but within the tolerances of what could be considered 'average' for the time/location/situation.

Tanarii

2022-04-24, 06:44 PM

However, you did not put in any caveats to your earlier statement of basically 'backstories suck and I don't ever read them'.
Okay.

Caveated: Backstories are always worse than bullet points of motivations, and I don't ever read them any more.

Because IMX in addition to poorly serving the supposed purpose compared to modern tools, the ones I used to read have often sucked as well.

Lalliman

2022-04-24, 06:54 PM

For an experienced player bringing in a character for a serious, long-term campaign, 750 words is on the higher side of what I would want and expect to receive. Realistically I would expect around 200-300 words, though it depends on how it's written, because the amount of content is more important than the number of words. If you only give me three sentences, I'm going to invite you to brainstorm some more interesting character elements.

Tawmis

2022-04-24, 08:22 PM

There's a lot of assumptions there about personalities and motivations. Which is my point. History doesn't mean your PC will go back to rescue their friends, and a lack of history doesn't mean they won't. What matters is actually the character motivations, not the backstory. IMO the players are better served writing down explicit motivations that might help them make decisions about their team-mates, either directly about how they feel and react to them each (AW or MYZ style) or indirectly through things like Ideals and Flaws. Those motivations can reference or imply history, but that's not the relevant bit. What's important is what your character will decide to do during play, and the motivations that drive those decisions. Backstory is at best something fun to write to turn those motivations into an interesting story, and at worst a distraction that obscures them.

I mean, realistically, a group of random people, thrown together on a quest for the first time, with no bonds to one another - if it goes south, it's absolutely logical for some of them to flee the fight.
Because what's the value in staying? Why am I staying to risk my neck for these strangers, when three of the five of us have already fallen?
I don't know them. They don't know me. I could stay. Throw a few more spells. But I am almost out of spells. Better to flee and use those spells if they chase me.

That would probably be the more common, realistic reaction of a bunch of strangers thrown together - and their first session goes south.

But would that ever happen?

It might.

But not likely, because the other players would probably be upset. :)

So yes, things can happen after adventuring together - but I am curious about the amount of roleplay you have the players do (or if they're even interested in that)?

I always make it clear - some people play D&D to shoot and kill things, some play D&D just to be social and hang out, some play D&D to really step into the roles of their character and become someone else for a night.

One of my games that I run is very much a mix bag of all three.
Another game I run, is very much the last - like they've talked their way out of combat, spent an entire session doing a dating game thing, arguing (in character, but laughing in person) amongst one another...

I ask, because - it clear by my signature - I love backstories (and writing them for folks) - and I feel like (I sound like a broken record) that allows the player to know their character. They don't need to share their backstory with the DM all the time. Sometimes the player just needs it to get in that mindset. And some of my games I run, some people gave me backstories, asked me to write one, or didn't bother. I am fine with whatever the player wants.

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-24, 09:05 PM

I don't know why anyone needs to write more than a paragraph or two to understand their own character. Might be because you aren't a writer. :smallwink:
What I will often do is take traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws, background, class and sub class, and figure out who the character is.
Like this Ranger Hunter human who was a bounty hunter (see Backgrounds in PHB)
I kept it to one page. Each of us had forwarded to the other players their "introduce your character to the other players" story so that when session 1 hit, we had an idea who we were in a party with. (This story received a warm, welcome reception).
Zam, I am
I lost my horse to the mastiffs, so I had to drag the damned body for three days to collect the reward. He was wanted dead or alive. Or so I thought, as written on the poster.
Dead or alive, huh? Looks like they changed their minds. The bounty was only for “alive, 50 pieces of gold.” As it worked out, “dead” got me 10 pieces when I showed them the hand bill that I’d pulled off of the wall at the trading post. Maybe the blood stains swayed them.

He’d been using up good air for too long I reckon.

Marzol wasn’t just rustling cattle, he was rustling people – I figure due to the bodies and chains and such that I found in that hole under his barn. Did they believe me? No. Captain of the guard said I was a killer by preference; said there was blood on my hands; said I needed to clear out of town, before he changed his mind. He had enough pikemen with him that I didn’t argue.

Blood on my hands. That’s rich. Yeah, there’s been blood on my hands, has been since I can remember. Pa taught me to hunt. Taught me to butcher and skin my own game, only kill what you can eat, get rid of varmints, and keep an eye open when you sleep. (That last part’s trickier than it sounds). I cook my own food, not all fancy like these town folk.

Blood on my hands. I’d laugh if it hadn’t cost me my horse. I brought him in, as posted, but now they wanted “justice” and a trial so they could hang him. Pa told me to get rid of varmints, and I did. Might have done it for free if it were my goats, my sheep, and my oxen he’d been rustling, or if it had been my folk he’d been selling to flesh merchants.
After digging around in that hole and picking up sign, I’d say that my arrows brought him justice. Old Marzol sure looked surprised, sitting there looking up at me and then at the arrow in his chest, grabbing at the one in the back of his knee. When he saw my blades covered in his hired hands’ blood he ran. I must have looked a sight, with his dog’s blood all over me. I didn’t take too kindly to having to put down my horse.

His hired help, the three with the axes and shovels? There was no bounty on them. I didn’t tell those city fools about burying them all proper, the way we buried Ma and cousin Lemuel -- the way I buried Pa. I doubt he treated them well – men like Marzol use folks, or abuse them. He paid ‘em, they were loyal. I told them to back off, but they still came at me.
A decent burial was fair and proper. I played the same song on my pipes over their graves that I played over Lemuel’s. Asleep Under the Moon. Seemed fitting. Buried the dogs too. They were loyal, and it was a shame to kill them but they tore up my horse something bad. They’d have done me as well if they could. I was in their marked territory. Fair deal, all the way around. Carrying Marzol into town was for show. I dragged him on a litter most of the way. The guards at the gate weren’t happy to see me, but were happy to report that Marzol had been taken. I’d have liked to stay for a few pints but that Captain was insistent that I leave. I don’t borrow trouble. There’s bound to be someone needs a man like me pretty soon. This world’s full of filth like Marzol. Like Pa said, you kill the varmints to keep your place clean.But I can also do it shorter.

Or longer.

My Tempest Cleric's back story ran 11 pages.

Trafalgar

2022-04-24, 09:19 PM

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-24, 09:35 PM

So it cuts both ways.
If you offer the players world info and lore, and they ignore it, that's on them.

"Yes, the King of Spangleland has a standing bounty on wizard's heads. That information was provided in the campaign document I sent you last week.
Yes, you crossed the border into Spangleland yesterday.
Yes, that is in fact why five crossbows are now being pointed at you after that display of magic that you just performed at the tavern..."

Cheesegear

2022-04-24, 10:41 PM

Might be because you aren't a writer. :smallwink:

I've heard that a good writer tells their story in as much detail as possible; A great writer gets to the point without losing the detail.

What I will often do is take traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws, background, class and sub class, and figure out who the character is.

No waaay....That's craaazy.
I can't possibly understand. Because I'm not a writer. :smallwink:

I kept it to one page.

I've never written a backstory longer. Never. I don't hate my DMs. When I have written more than a page...I deleted, then deleted, then deleted some more, until I got a single page.

Each of us had forwarded to the other players their "introduce your character to the other players" story

Yep. Would never happen in one of my groups. You introduce your character at the table. You can mention pieces of your backstory in-narrative, in-character...But actually sending another player your backstory just...Wouldn't happen in my groups. I think I've mentioned in other threads that for the most part, if we didn't play RPGs together, we probably wouldn't even talk to each other. Actually bothering to send each other e-mails is almost certainly out of the question.

But I can also do it shorter.

I'll repeat what I said in one of my previous posts.

Can you describe and/or define your character in less than [x00] words?
a) If so, why didn't you?
b) If not, why not?

My Tempest Cleric's back story ran 11 pages.

And if I was your DM I probably wouldn't read it.

I feel like someone nailed it on the head a while back. You write a backstory for your DM, and you write a backstory for anyone who cares you - they should probably be different.

It feels a lot like academic reading.

Most people will only read the Abstract. Some will also read the Conclusion as a whole.
Only if something jumps out as particularly crazy will anyone actually read the whole paper, the rationale and methods, as well.

Actually yeah. That's exactly what I want; An Abstract.
You can write the whole 2000 words if you want. I'm not going to read it. But you can still write it, if only so that you can say that you did.

Tawmis

2022-04-24, 11:55 PM

I've never written a backstory longer. Never. I don't hate my DMs. When I have written more than a page...I deleted, then deleted, then deleted some more, until I got a single page.

PRO TIP: Decrease the font size till it reaches one page.

Kidding aside, it's a shame that the DMs you've had don't enjoy a solid, immersive backstory for your character.

It feels a lot like academic reading.

Question.

Does it bother you when your players are doing things on their cell phone while you're describing the town?

And are just waiting for combat to start, because they don't give a $#!+ about anything else.

And just wait - don't interact - until combat starts - because all that effing fluff about the town, the history, and the people doesn't interest them?

They just wanna kill $#!+?

After all such behavior isn't technically "disruptive"...

Why do they have to listen to you talk about the town and the people?

pwykersotz

2022-04-25, 12:04 AM

Hytheter

2022-04-25, 12:43 AM

If you offer the players world info and lore, and they ignore it, that's on them.

"Yes, the King of Spangleland has a standing bounty on wizard's heads. That information was provided in the campaign document I sent you last week.
Yes, you crossed the border into Spangleland yesterday.
Yes, that is in fact why five crossbows are now being pointed at you after that display of magic that you just performed at the tavern..."

Nah, sorry, that's on you.

Players don't live in the setting. They have lives outside the game and only a limited capacity to retain information about a world they are yet to become invested in. Expecting them to recall every detail from the homework you dumped on them is unreasonable. What is this, an exam? Maybe they accidentally glossed over that line. Maybe they got the details mixed up and thought Startown had the bounty. Maybe they just forgot. They're only human and they're allowed to do things like that.

And more, failing to convey this detail until after it becomes relevant is a failure on your part as a GM - the PC's do live in the world and it is literally your job to convey the world as understood by those PC's to the players behind them.

"I'm going to try and impress the bartender with minor illusion."
"Hold on! Merlin would know that Spangleland has a bounty on spellcasters, so you might want to reconsider."
"Oh, right! Sorry, I forgot about that."

How hard was that? Don't play "Gotcha!" and blindside them with surprise punishment while berating them for their ignorance. Tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it.

Cheesegear

2022-04-25, 12:59 AM

[COLOR="#0000FF"]Kidding aside, it's a shame that the DMs you've had don't enjoy a solid, immersive backstory for your character.

That's certainly an assumption you can make. You can write plenty-immersive things in a single page.

Does it bother you when your players are doing things on their cell phone while you're describing the town?

That depends if I plan on the town being central to the plot, of if it's just a town that the players only stop at because they need somewhere to sleep whilst they go somewhere else in the morning, then I'm probably not going to explain said town at all.

And are just waiting for combat to start, because they don't give a $#!+ about anything else.

I have had my players ask 'Is this important?', or 'Am I involved?' many times. Not all stories are winners. Not all stories, are for every player. There are many, many, many times, too many to count, when one player is roleplaying with me, and the others are simply checked out. As far as I know, this is normal.

Then, for my part, it's the same when I'm reading backstories, and judging from other responses in this thread, I know I'm not alone. Sometimes, your backstory is ****, uninteresting, or both. You're not as good a writer as you think you are. I've read your story directly out of that anime. I've seen this. You ain't slick. Add to the fact that you've made your ****, boring backstory, 6 pages, makes it worse not better.

The vast majority of players are not writers - let alone good ones. Their backstories will reflect this.
No backstory is better than a bad backstory.

because all that effing fluff about the town, the history, and the people doesn't interest them?

As I said, a good writer, a good storyteller, will say the important stuff. The important stuff, is the stuff that helps the players make decisions.

If I had unlimited time to play a session, if my players had unlimited attention spans...I could talk about all sorts of bulls*. I don't. Because I don't have unlimited time. My players attention spans are finite. If I can't say what I need to say in half a minute, I'm probably taking too long.

They just wanna kill $#!+?

If you're playing with children, sure.

However, all my players typically want to know who they're fighting and why. They want some backstory. Not a lot, but definitely some. But as I said, you say what's important, and don't say what isn't. If the players literally ask you a direct question about something, you can tell them, then. But only if they ask. If they don't ask, they don't care.

If I start a description with 'Four hundred years ago...' My players have already checked out. Four hundred years is already more than enough time to assume that none of that is relevant - unless my story is riddled with Elves. Since I hate Elves as a storytelling device, I rarely include them in my adventures.

After all such behavior isn't technically "disruptive"

Disruptive behaviour, disrupts the game, or more specifically the DM.

Playing on your phone while I drivel on about something that has no relevance to you - neither as a player, nor a character - isn't disruptive. I would hope, that I actually cut out all the drivel and I tell my players what they need to know.

'The town is run by a Merchant's Council, and trade is important, more specifically the mines. Town is mostly humans and dwarves. Go.'
If you found a way to already be on your phone during that description, I'd be impressed.

Why do they have to listen to you talk about the town and the people?

They don't. Which is why I wouldn't.

In perspective:
If I showed you a Google Doc of my current adventure, I have a feeling that most DMs would find my world mostly empty. Little history, and very few places, and definitely no maps.
If I showed my players that same Google Doc, they would find almost everything they've ever asked about, and it would be nearly complete telling of their current game. That they were involved in. That they were a part of. 90% of my world's history began when my players asked about it, not before.

Early on when I was DMing, a player - who is still my player - asked me about a history of a place that I was telling them;
'Why are you telling us about all this cool **** we didn't get to be a part of? ...Can't we play that? As us?'

And that has simply stuck with me ever since. Anything cool I can think up? I should make that an encounter, or a storyline. Anything my players can think up in their backstories? ...Damn, that's a good idea. We could've played that. Why didn't we play that?

Tawmis

2022-04-25, 03:13 AM

That's certainly an assumption you can make. You can write plenty-immersive things in a single page.

You certainly can. Most of the backgrounds I write fall under a single page.
But feeling like you have to do so is what I was implying.

The vast majority of players are not writers - let alone good ones. Their backstories will reflect this.

Absolutely true. But if they're playing D&D, they've probably got an imagination - otherwise, they're playing the wrong game.
So just because someone isn't a "great/good" writer, hardly seems like a good reason to excuse their attempt and delivering a character background.

'The town is run by a Merchant's Council, and trade is important, more specifically the mines. Town is mostly humans and dwarves. Go.'
If you found a way to already be on your phone during that description, I'd be impressed.

This works for you, which is cool.
You and I have different DMing styles.
I like to name things, so when players come to the town - there's familiar faces and places. Makes it feel like a living town.
Rather than every town being a mirror image of the other town they left three sessions ago.

If I showed you a Google Doc of my current adventure, I have a feeling that most DMs would find my world mostly empty. Little history, and very few places, and definitely no maps.
If I showed my players that same Google Doc, they would find almost everything they've ever asked about, and it would be nearly complete telling of their current game. That they were involved in. That they were a part of. 90% of my world's history began when my players asked about it, not before.

In the end, that is what matters.
What works for you.
And I can respect that, no matter how vastly different it is from my own ways.

Mastikator

2022-04-25, 03:36 AM

If I am running a character-focused campaign, I am interested in collaboratively establishing backstories with the characters so that there is unresolved drama that I can craft situations based off of it.
If I am running a module like Curse of Strahd or Dragon Heist, I don't care so much. Choose your motivations, and let's roll some dice.

But in all cases, I prefer to chat rather than read a backstory. If you wrote 750 words, great. Let's have lunch or talk on Discord and we'll come to an agreement about what is useful and what isn't. I'll read your backstory if you really want me to, but it's not as useful as a conversation to me.

I think this is the secret sauce, the DM explains the themes of the game and then the player explains their core motivations and themes which is now enriched with knowledge about the campaign. After talking you write the backstory. But even then I think conciseness is a virtue, don't blather on- get to the point.

LibraryOgre

2022-04-25, 07:31 AM

I actually did the opposite as a DM once. I wrote a 3000 word history of the realm and gave it to all the players to read before session 1. But I noticed in play if I brought up what I had written in the history, I got blank stares from the players. So it cuts both ways.

I think part of the reason many games wind up so generic is because they require a lot of buy-in from players... if your players don't want to know about the lore, you can't make them, so hinging anything on the lore means you get those blank stares.

Tanarii

2022-04-25, 08:25 AM

I but I am curious about the amount of roleplay you have the players do (or if they're even interested in that)?
Backstories are generally a poor tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs.

Motivations are a good tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs.

If you're interested in encouraging players to roleplay their PCs, it's time to drop the outmoded concept of backstories and move to lists of motivations. Because clearly stated motivations are what help players make decision during play for their characters in the fantasy environment, and that's what roleplaying is. Backstory may or may not include motivations, and if they do, they're not clearly stated.

Then and only then, if someone is a budding writer, should they consider moving from that list of motivations and for their own entertainment move on to a backstory. It'll be a better product anyway, because you've got an outline. And if someone else is entertained by reading backstories, they can share it. But backstory itself has very little TTRPG value, because the valuable thing has already been covered in the list of motivations it now contains, if done in the proper order.

Cheesegear

2022-04-25, 09:15 AM

What I will often do is take traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws, background, class and sub class, and figure out who the character is.

I actually already responded to this particular sentence sarcastically, because that's obviously how you're supposed to write a backstory, and who doesn't figure out their character that way? But Tanarii brings up a great point...

If you're interested in encouraging players to roleplay their PCs, it's time to drop the outmoded concept of backstories and move to lists of motivations. Because clearly stated motivations are what help players make decision during play for their characters in the fantasy environment, and that's what roleplaying is.

...That list of things that Korvin brings up? That is the backstory. If you have a Trait, an Ideal, a Personality and a Flaw...You're done. That's kind of one the geniuses of D&D character creation. It's done. You don't need to be a good writer. You don't need to have 'a conversation with your DM.' For D&D specifically, your Background already gives you everything you need to know who your character is, and how to play as them, in approximately four sentences. Just pick the ones that feel appropriate and just...Play that.

D&D is good that way. I don't know why people keep complicating it.

JNAProductions

2022-04-25, 09:16 AM

Because some DMs want to have players actively involved in the world, not just bystanders to a story.

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-25, 09:47 AM

Nah, sorry, that's on you.

Players don't live in the setting. They have lives outside the game and only a limited capacity to retain information about a world they are yet to become invested in. Nope, it's on the players. (And that document is always available for reference, it's not like they can't review it any time they like. Too lazy? That's on you).
Failing to care, or show any interest in the world that they are playing in is their failure. There's a bit of quid pro quo going on here. (As an aside: when players do invest at least a modest amount into the game world it makes the experience for everyone at the table improve. That's my experience, anyway.).
We are playing in an imaginary world. Get to know it. Yes, none of us lives in it, so make the most of the information you are given. And ask questions (that sometimes helps with world building, depending on how that conversation goes).

Quite frankly, I find that your Short Attention Span excuse is yet another illustration of the less savory elements of video game attitudes being imported to TTRPGs.

(And FWIW, in the West Marches campaigns the players have to care or there is no game).

@Cheesegear

The vast majority of players are not writers - let alone good ones. Their backstories will reflect this.
Not sure I agree, but there is such a broad cross section of people who play that the quality certainly varies.

No backstory is better than a bad backstory. Hardly, but your preference for keeping it short and sweet (Tanarii's general point on motivations isn't a bad place to start an character's career) isn't a bad preference; again, the cross section is quite broad, so DM's will have differing tastes.

And getting away from D&D a bit, one of my favorite bits about Traveller (the original) was that it had a mechanical way to walk the dog of "who is this character and what does he/she bring to the table" - I loved that chargen system (it was a bit of a mini game, I found it enjoyable). To a certain extent, the backstory wrote itself.

Backstories are generally a poor tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs. Not necessarily so: where am I from? is a question that traits/bonds/ideals/flaws doesn't answer, but that very piece can help ground the character in the game world.

Motivations are a good tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs. I think most of us are in violent agreement on this. :smallbiggrin:

If you're interested in encouraging players to roleplay their PCs, it's time to drop the outmoded concept of backstories and move to lists of motivations. False dichotomy detected. :smallwink: You can have both. But all of the points made in five pages on length and limits have been well made. As I said, I can do short, medium, or large and in one case I did a supersize. (For @Cheesegear not only the the DM read it, the other players read it (emailing a pdf is so easy) and a couple of them gave me big high fives for the story...but none of them felt like putting together such a story; it's a matter of taste).

LibraryOgre

2022-04-25, 11:58 AM

Nope, it's on the players. (And that document is always available for reference, it's not like they can't review it any time they like. Too lazy? That's on you).
Failing to care, or show any interest in the world that they are playing in is their failure. There's a bit of quid pro quo going on here. (As an aside: when players do invest at least a modest amount into the game world it makes the experience for everyone at the table improve. That's my experience, anyway.).
We are playing in an imaginary world. Get to know it. Yes, none of us lives in it, so make the most of the information you are given. And ask questions (that sometimes helps with world building, depending on how that conversation goes).

I don't expect you to know the world as well as I do; chances are, it's been living in my head for weeks, at least, and in some cases, years. I know the geography of the Forgotten Realms better than I know the geography of Canada or Mexico, and I can be in Nuevo Laredo, Tamulipas in under three hours. It's only about five to get to my wife's parent's hometown. I can day trip to Mexico, and I could still label countries, and probably cities, on a map of Toril with a lot more accuracy than I could Mexican states. I can do climate estimates for Tellene.

But, I'd kind of like you, the player, to know the world well enough to know that Mexico and Canada are the neighbors of the US. That the US gained its independence from another country across the sea about 250 years ago. I like, want, at least a minimum of buy-in. Know the names of the gods worshiped in your home village. Something.

It makes the game a lot richer if you know about the game setting. The DM can do something other than plop down the same set of adventures if you've got the gist of the world. It's about engagement with the fiction you're participating in.

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-25, 12:43 PM

I don't expect you to know the world as well as I do; That's not what I was asserting in my response up there ... as the DM is the source of info, any info that a DM gives to the players becomes a part of their IC knowledge.
Not sure how well that point came across, but that's the kind of thing that I was talking about.

It's about engagement with the fiction you're participating in. I am in violent agreement with you there. :smallsmile: (By the way, that 2200 word back story I'll have to read later; interesting that your DM awarded you guys XP for back story)

Finally:
in my current weekly game, in my brother's world, we have as players two published authors. One published a single novel, and the other has published numerous short stories, pulp mag offerings, and novels over a 40 year career (and he spent a number of years as an editor).
He, the published author/editor, asked me to be the scribe (the adventure summary for each session) when we all started out in 2014 on this edition. And I still am.

Tawmis

2022-04-25, 12:53 PM

I don't expect you to know the world as well as I do; chances are, it's been living in my head for weeks, at least, and in some cases, years. I know the geography of the Forgotten Realms better than I know the geography of Canada or Mexico, and I can be in Nuevo Laredo, Tamulipas in under three hours. It's only about five to get to my wife's parent's hometown. I can day trip to Mexico, and I could still label countries, and probably cities, on a map of Toril with a lot more accuracy than I could Mexican states. I can do climate estimates for Tellene.
But, I'd kind of like you, the player, to know the world well enough to know that Mexico and Canada are the neighbors of the US. That the US gained its independence from another country across the sea about 250 years ago. I like, want, at least a minimum of buy-in. Know the names of the gods worshiped in your home village. Something.
It makes the game a lot richer if you know about the game setting. The DM can do something other than plop down the same set of adventures if you've got the gist of the world. It's about engagement with the fiction you're participating in.

Aye - and something I've done is offer inspiration when someone recalls something about the world without me mentioning it.
Just as a means of encouragement, since my entire world is on my website (with history, maps, gods, notes, etc) so it's always accessible, even during game play.

LibraryOgre

2022-04-25, 01:03 PM

I am in violent agreement with you there. :smallsmile: (By the way, that 2200 word back story I'll have to read later; interesting that your DM awarded you guys XP for back story)

I didn't even link to the epic poem I wrote for the Druid/Bard.

Aye - and something I've done is offer inspiration when someone recalls something about the world without me mentioning it.
Just as a means of encouragement, since my entire world is on my website (with history, maps, gods, notes, etc) so it's always accessible, even during game play.

I like the idea of offering inspiration for that. In Savage Worlds, bennies would be a good idea.

Telok

2022-04-25, 01:16 PM

On the topic of "didn't read anything, got bit by it", I've found it goes both ways.

Supers game, one page bullet point timeline detailing rl history divergence @ WW2 & alien invasion -> big hero die-off in the 1960s.
Player: "Hey lets go to <city> for a thing!"
Dm: "Thats an army guarded containment zone full or rubble, mutagenic radiation, and zombies."
Player: "Bwuh? Well uh, ok. Whats the next fight?"

D&d game, handed the Dm a three paragraph character summary & copt of character sheet, asked for & got permission for the team-player support cleric to secretly belong to a doomday cult that was patiently waiting for a prophesy about an astrological conjunction to happen in about another 250 years. Dm was aghast when I started mind controlling enemy casters & sacrificing them to an atropal at night.
Self: "Its the second sentence in the character write-up and I crammed 'LG cleric @ day - CE cultist @ nite' into the alignment blank."
Dm: "So you did. And I did say it was ok... Just... don't abuse it. Ok?"
It all went fine after that, he even stopped detailing the captive's spell lists since they weren't going to survive the night.

Frankly I've known DMs & players for whom even D&d 5e's anemic 'pcs can be more than an mmo toon' stuff is too much to bother with. Those games always seem to just be mostly strings of hack & slash fights with a minimum of connective narrative justification tissue. Heck, I've been in games where a npc's horse had more personality than several of the pcs (we invested in that horse, took a couple magic items & scroll of miracle spell to keep it relevant, there were pcs we didn't even bother trying to raise dead because we didn't care).

I just can't see any backstory as flat out being a bad thing. Badly written, insanely long, conflicts with setting or lore? Sure, thats not great. But at least they care enough to try and you can start talking to them about it. Plus its not the 18th century dentistry of trying to get a batch of faceless murder-hobos to do something other than ride a train from one psychotic bloodbath to another.

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-25, 01:34 PM

D&d game, handed the Dm a three paragraph character summary & copt of character sheet, asked for & got permission for the team-player support cleric to secretly belong to a doomday cult that was patiently waiting for a prophesy about an astrological conjunction to happen in about another 250 years. Dm was aghast when I started mind controlling enemy casters & sacrificing them to an atropal at night.
Self: "Its the second sentence in the character write-up and I crammed 'LG cleric @ day - CE cultist @ nite' into the alignment blank."
Dm: "So you did. And I did say it was ok... Just... don't abuse it. Ok?"
It all went fine after that, he even stopped detailing the captive's spell lists since they weren't going to survive the night. Props to you both. (DMs and Players working together: what a concept! :smallbiggrin: )

Frankly I've known DMs & players for whom even D&d 5e's anemic 'pcs can be more than an mmo toon' stuff is too much to bother with. I don't mind that in a one shot, but in a campaign that sounds like a bad fit for me - a table full of folks like that.

LibraryOgre

2022-04-25, 03:11 PM

I'll also note... sometimes, my character background isn't for the DM. It's for me.

Sure, some of it is just "I am bored and want to write" (especially before I got into writing stuff semi-pro), but there's also a lot of value, to me, in writing, essentially, fan-fiction of my own characters, and figuring them out by understanding them better. The characters I've written 20 pages about? I *know* them. I know the tragic story of the love they lost that has 0 impact on the game. I know about their relationship with their father that's never, ever, going to come up.

I know my PCs better when I know who they were before I picked up the dice.

Kurt Kurageous

2022-04-25, 05:00 PM

This is the longest backstory I ever wrote. DM asked us to place ourselves in the Sword Coast, explain our childhood, and identify our goals and motivations. He asked for 2-3 pages, I gave him one and a half, 652 words. It was only this long because I decided to do it in the first person. Meet Guy Lanceur de Vache. May you find this/him entertaining. And judge him as you will. You can certainly tell how he will feel about it. My apologies to the native French speakers.

C’est les conneries! You want me to tell you about my earliest childhood memories? C’est Merde, tout merde. My parents were hard working farmers who succeeded seulement in having children. One a year for ten years! Once that was over, they turned to the bottle. It was their way of coping with the horror of their meaningless existence, and the beginning of my lifelong loathing of drinks and drunkenness. Unlike the halfling farmers to the east, they toiled their whole lives growing food for the lords of Elturiel, food that was re-sold for many times more than they sold it for, as I saw with my own eyes. Angry? Degage! I would not be exploited; I wanted no part of that life.

I was not an obedient child, taking every opportunity to slip away into the Trielta Hills, and earned a beating every time for shirking my chores. It was on one of these wanderings I first encountered the Forgotten Folk. You call them gnomes, je nien fiche! I found an opening in the hills covered by a trick of the light. The opening was only big enough to crawl into and the owner was at home and not pleased with what I had done. Namfoodl is what I came to call him, but he called himself by more names than I could remember. He understood my own childish ways, and I felt accepted by him. In the course of our friendship, he showed me the many clockwork gadgets he made or acquired. Most were then and are still now beyond my comprehension. From them I learned how important the small detail was to the functioning whole, and from this an ability to see things that others simply did not. When I was twelve I ran away from the farm for the last time. Namfoodl sold his hill during an outbreak of “gold on the brain,” and I insisted on accompanying him as his apprentice. As a token of our bond, he gave me a fire starter that I have with me to this day.

Toutefois I was no more disciplined as an apprentice as I was a farmer. I became fascinated with the commerce and the wealth it created by simply exploiting stupid farmers. Without means of support, I stole to live. And naturellement I was soon caught and jailed. My cellmates included men who were abusive in disgusting ways I care not to retell, enculer! To protect myself, I turned to a man who turned out to be my greatest teacher. He never told me his name, so I knew him only as “Master.” When I later learned his name, he said he would slit my throat for whispering it to the likes of you. And unlike you, he was no pervert.

Master exploited my youth, health, and face to steal the easy wealth of the caravanners. I had an uncanny ability to throw dice with great accuracy in the gaming rooms of The Randy Wench, a skill he used to great effect. We worked every tavern and inn, gathering information and hustling marks. Over time, Master taught me lock picking, trap building, and the dark science of poisoning. One morning he did not return. I took his tools and some other useful things and moved on. And if you think you will bring me to justice for this, fais attention, l‘ami. While I have not yet done you or anyone else here, I know many ways to bring about an end with a blade, a bolt, or a botanical.

C’est tout! I can think of nothing more to tell, and you can think of nothing to ask that might end badly for you before I leave. You and others will not remember my face for I am just another Guy in a crowd, rien de plus. But someday, I may be known as the greatest thief of this age.

LecternOfJasper

2022-04-25, 08:42 PM

I find it terribly hard to start running a game with people's backstories and pasts in the forefront. I generally give people a starting premise, and ask how their characters ended up there, and have a first dungeon/plan sorted out.

After that, and after I get a feel for what sort of characters people are trying to play, I will start trying to feed in pieces that they give me something about. You're family is a bunch of cultists? They'll probably turn up. Your stated goal is to find the biggest, baddest hammer possible? I can work with that.

That said, I like having the details beforehand to be interwoven as they make sense to me. A world is a big thing, and I want it to make sense in my head. If my players keep adding more suggestions for their character well into the campaign - set pieces they want to have happen, specific items they are looking for - I start to get a bit apprehensive and push back, unless they do something spectacular to make something different happen. It messes with my brain if someone specifically asks about magic items out of character that weren't laid out as items of special significance earlier, as an example I've noticed recently.

So yes, I'd love to have a longer backstory given to me beforehand, as it is good fodder for details and plot threads for me to include, and it generally means you won't try to introduce the same ideas half way through.

If you're going to give me a backstory at all, have it happen before the game starts. Two sentences is fine. Running through the Extended Backstory Randomizer Plus or whatever is fine, tell me the cool bits. Giving me several pages is pretty good, provided they are pretty good. Just give it to me beforehand so I can make it fit. Have patience, and I will try and make it work.

Vahnavoi

2022-04-26, 04:40 AM

@Tanarii:

Good stories are more memorable than lists - a feature of natural language. That's why many common tricks to memorize lists (and other useful things, such as your PIN) involve turning lists into short stories, poems and such. If you want to internalize who a character is and how they operate, explaining them through a story or poem may hence be preferable.

The caveat of course is that in order for this to work, a player has to actually have skill in creating stories or poems. And they aren't going to get it right without some good old trial and error. A recipient incapable or unwilling to give good feedback will ruin the entire excercise.

Mastikator

2022-04-26, 06:58 AM

Because some DMs want to have players actively involved in the world, not just bystanders to a story.

Yeah but that happens in the future, during the campaign, not in the past. And nothing stops the DM from just making PCs members of The Organization From The Campaign™. It's the DMs job to involve the PCs into the story, not the player, the player doesn't even know what they need to do to be involved so their backstory will be irrelevant without DM intervention.

Vahnavoi

2022-04-26, 07:35 AM

Let me provide some context from a different perspective: a game master generating characters and backstory for the players.

Because that's a pretty good way to explain how a player's character is involved in a situation.

750 words is still short enough to be read at the table as part of start-up phase of a game, the players don't have to know full backstories of all other characters, they can decide on their own how much they will reveal, and secret motives can be used to drive the entire game forward. Have used and seen this used to great effect at convention games.

Another case is a player stepping in to play character made by another player. Done this for a fair bit in freeform, when another player had to leave for whatever reason and agreed to leave a character to my care. A backstory goes a long way helping to get in the shoes of such a character. Of course, since these were play-by-post games, "backstories" weren't just quick summaries of pre-game events, they included a backlog of actual game posts a novel's length in total, some of which I'd read once already when they were first made. One positive side of a game format for automatically creating records of play. Of course, what made the exercise worth it was that the other players were good writers and I liked their work before they left.

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-26, 11:28 AM

I generally give people a starting premise, and ask how their characters ended up there, and have a first dungeon/plan sorted out. That's a good framework.

That said, I like having the details beforehand to be interwoven as they make sense to me. A world is a big thing, and I want it to make sense in my head.
Likewise, and when it doesn't I have an OOC discussion with the player to find a way, together, to get a better fit. Collaboration / brainstorming; call it what you like.

The caveat of course is that in order for this to work, a player has to actually have skill in creating stories or poems. And they aren't going to get it right without some good old trial and error. A recipient incapable or unwilling to give good feedback will ruin the entire exercise. When we play, we sometimes also learn. A lot of games involve passing along some kind of knowledge, or trying out something new or different. You get better by doing, or by trying, not by having someone stiff arm you during a leisure activity ... :smallcool:

It's the DMs job to involve the PCs into the story, not the player, Nope, its a two way street. And in games with very little scripting/authoring, something along the lines of Westmarches style campaigns, the burden is a lot more on the players to become involved and invested).

Xervous

2022-04-26, 02:38 PM

750 is probably unnecessary, but depending on the game it’s not unwelcome. If that’s what someone gave me after being read in on the setting that’s a lot of useful fodder.

Fodder for future events, obviously.

Fodder for refining the player’s understanding of the world, as more things get clarified.

And of course fodder for the cool ideas you’ll appropriate into the setting like Gozar bringing about the Staypuft Marshmallow Man.

Jay R

2022-04-27, 09:29 PM

When grading papers, I once told one student that his three-page paper was too long, and told another student that her eight-page paper was too short, on the same assignment.

It's too short if it fails to explain or back up the main points with description or relevant discussion.

It's too long if it is repetitive, or talks about things unnecessary for its purpose. Also, it's too long if it gets boring.

Write a backstory that explains the backstory.

I have had backstories that were a page long, and eight pages long, and everything in between. [The eight-page backstory came about from a lot of back-and-forth between me and the DM, and included all the aspects we had discussed. By the time it was finished, the DM had written almost half of it, and it included aspects of his background that were needed to make the character fit into the world.]

But do people ask to read your writing? Do they ask for more? Unless you can write in an engaging style that that DM enjoys reading, you should keep it pretty short.

I had a player whose backstory was always, “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.” I once insisted on at least a paragraph. He wrote (more or less):

Forlong grew up in a village where his favorite pastime was to watch the town guards at practice. He always wanted to be a warrior who could protect his friends and family. He considers his sword to be his closest friend, and he is always very careful about keeping it sharp and in good shape.

I never insisted on a backstory again. I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he'd have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-27, 10:29 PM

I never insisted on a backstory again. I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he'd have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”
Was his character named Rocky, by any chance?

LibraryOgre

2022-04-28, 10:18 AM

So, in Ars Magica's 5th edition, they have Flaws, some of which are related to your background. One of the things they make clear is that background flaws are, in part, describing the kind of stories you want this character to be in. If you have a fey background, a lot of stories featuring your character are likely to be fey related. Demons in your background? Gonna have demons in most of your stories. If you don't want those stories, don't take those backgrounds, because otherwise you're angling for free points. (Other flaws, like Small, are not so restricted; your dude is little. There are mechanical pros and cons to that)

It comes to me that, save in situations where you're being bribed for a background, most backgrounds should be like that. If I'm playing the exiled prince Humperdink, then I probably want stories/sessions that focus on me to have something to do with me being an exiled prince. If I'm playing Bob, the Fighter who likes to hit things, then the stories I want probably have to do with hitting things, or emerged from play.

To an extent, this goes to the thread already here, "Authored or Emergent". A character with a 750 word backstory is, to an extent, authoring their character... who they are, what they're like, what they want. The character with the "Bob is a fighter who likes to hit things" backstory is looking for emergent character development... who Bob is will come out from his interactions with other characters. And, to build on this bridge a bit further, this is also something of a difference between TD&D and WD&D character creation, with WD&D largely leaning towards authored (i.e. "This is the build I am going to follow"), while TD&D leaned towards the emergent ("My character is an elven ranger and we'll see how she develops from there.")

Tanarii

2022-04-28, 11:45 AM

Mastikator

2022-04-28, 12:41 PM

Alcore

2022-04-28, 03:41 PM

That is the backstory. If you have a Trait, an Ideal, a Personality and a Flaw...You're done. That's kind of one the geniuses of D&D character creation. It's done.

You’re not done… all you have done is make a stranger.

I hate that about 5e. Whenever I make a character and can’t make a backstory (for whatever reason) I find myself cherry picking those things from the small lists provided. Why is that his trait? How did he come to that ideal? Has he always had that flaw? What are the events that shaped him into the name he is today? I don’t know. He is a foreign construct that is barely known and made in a vacuum.

I may not be able to rattle off those things but all I need to do is read the character’s backstory and I will see the answers. Is 750 a little much? Nope. Is it much to give a DM? Yep!

The backstory isn’t for a DM; it’s so i can RP my character. So I know where he came from and what shaped him. He has many more traits and flaws than just one each and knowing the backstory can bring much needed depth.

Alcore

2022-04-28, 04:05 PM

I had a player whose backstory was always, “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.” I once insisted on at least a paragraph. He wrote (more or less):

Forlong grew up in a village where his favorite pastime was to watch the town guards at practice. He always wanted to be a warrior who could protect his friends and family. He considers his sword to be his closest friend, and he is always very careful about keeping it sharp and in good shape.

I never insisted on a backstory again. I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he'd have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”
It’s perfect.

As a DM it tells me all I need to hear.

As a player It gives me more than enough to expand;

1. He grew up in a village and knows something about farming or woodsmanship or a craft his family practiced.

2. He wants to be The Hero and that is his ideal… is he doing it for goodness sake or has his childlike innocence given way to riches? If I am to play him that needs to be decided or me and the DM can work together on a narrative adventure for character growth!

3. He is slightly insane thinking a piece of metal is his friend -or- a more charitable take; has grown increasingly superstitious over the time since he left home.

4. He is likely to be military minded. Not just a warrior but, possibly, well learned in tactics. Ties in with village as he might of had a side seat with monster battles.

One paragraph implies so much more.

JNAProductions

2022-04-28, 04:07 PM

It’s perfect.

As a DM it tells me all I need to hear.

As a player It gives me more than enough to expand;

1. He grew up in a village and knows something about farming or woodsmanship or a craft his family practiced.

2. He wants to be The Hero and that is his ideal… is he doing it for goodness sake or has his childlike innocence given way to riches? If I am to play him that needs to be decided or me and the DM can work together on a narrative adventure for character growth!

3. He is slightly insane thinking a piece of metal is his friend -or- a more charitable take; has grown increasingly superstitious over the time since he left home.

4. He is likely to be military minded. Not just a warrior but, possibly, well learned in tactics. Ties in with village as he might of had a side seat with monster battles.

One paragraph implies so much more.

But none of that is from the player.

Nothing wrong with a simple character, but it does sound like a player/DM mismatch there.

Jay R

2022-04-29, 12:06 AM

TBH I think that's a good backstory because it clearly outlines what the player wants from the game and what his character wants from the adventure: he wants to crack heads, take names, earn gold and power up. Throw orcs at him and he'll have a whale of a time

Yup. Once I accepted what he wanted, I could make an excellent game for him.

It’s perfect.

As a DM it tells me all I need to hear.

Exactly correct. It told me the two things I needed to hear. He wanted to play a Fighter, and he didn't want to bother with a backstory.

That's the origin of this rule from my Rules for DMs:

25. A backstory is like a sword. Some characters are incomplete without one, and others wouldn't use one even if they had it.

But none of that is from the player.

Nothing wrong with a simple character, but it does sound like a player/DM mismatch there.

A. You're right. None of that was from the player.

B. There was no player/DM mismatch. I knew Glen for 38 years. He wanted to play the fighter in the group. He was more interested in military tactics than in the specific rules of the game. [His only moments of frustration came when the rules didn't support his specific tactic. And often, if it fit the situation, I did anyway.]

Kane0

2022-04-29, 03:28 AM

Personally I limit it to 3 paragraphs or less.

Lacco

2022-04-29, 05:12 AM

It depends.

If it's the "this is the epic story of how my character became an adventurer, but please do not touch it, use anything out of it and do not even dare work the NPCs/events/anything described there into your dastardly GM plans!!!" then yes. It's too long. Around 750 words too long.

If it's the "here is the background of my character, please use anything because I want my character to be tied to the world and the NPCs and I want to give you ammunition/opportunity to make it personal for me"... it's nice. A list of hooks is always welcome. Especially if the player came up with them, so I know they are pre-approved.

If it shows me how the character thinks, gives me the basic idea of how to describe things to the character (not only to the player), what they value, what ticks them off and what works for them... it's great.

I'll read it, but my time is... limited. I won't spend time reading through a novella that will not be used in game (I do not like the "do not touch my backstory!" rule some player have).

Also, if I read it, expect comments, suggestions... mainly because I do not use published settings, so I'll try to work in most things the players come up with, but it has to work with the world as it exists in my head, or it falls apart quickly.

The best way to make a backstory is to talk to the GM. Give them idea about the character, but also try to find a balance between the backstory and the world.

Also, the systems that I usually play have backstories baked into character generation in certain way... so even "no player-written backstory" is acceptable because the character gets out of the chargen with some background. And I prefer "no backstory, let's see what we can find about this character" to "detailed backstory, do not touch".

However, for Shadowrun, I had this big list called "50 questions", which in the end contained somewhere around 247 questions (out of which at least 50 were supposed to be answered by the player) and it worked better than most backstories for me, as it painted a nice picture of the character.

Sometimes it's more important to know that the street samurai loves to bring his dates to Chez Pierre, or that the barbarian has dreams about finally meeting his father in Valhalla and getting his approval for his achievements, or that the fencer's family was disgraced for some mysterious reason by someone wearing certain crest... than to have a novella about a character that I can not use in game.

JNAProductions

2022-04-29, 10:00 AM

A. You're right. None of that was from the player.

B. There was no player/DM mismatch. I knew Glen for 38 years. He wanted to play the fighter in the group. He was more interested in military tactics than in the specific rules of the game. [His only moments of frustration came when the rules didn't support his specific tactic. And often, if it fit the situation, I did anyway.]

Fair enough! Glad you guys had a good time together. :)

PhoenixPhyre

2022-04-29, 10:07 AM

It depends.

If it's the "this is the epic story of how my character became an adventurer, but please do not touch it, use anything out of it and do not even dare work the NPCs/events/anything described there into your dastardly GM plans!!!" then yes. It's too long. Around 750 words too long.

If it's the "here is the background of my character, please use anything because I want my character to be tied to the world and the NPCs and I want to give you ammunition/opportunity to make it personal for me"... it's nice. A list of hooks is always welcome. Especially if the player came up with them, so I know they are pre-approved.

If it shows me how the character thinks, gives me the basic idea of how to describe things to the character (not only to the player), what they value, what ticks them off and what works for them... it's great.

This. Although I tend to mine things for hooks more--I see backstory and "background" (along with the trait/bond/ideal/flaw because I'm playing 5e) as being player-approved plot eyebolts. Places for me to attach hooks. Ways the player is saying they're willing to engage with.

I do have a standing (and articulated) policy of "I won't kill off or drastically alter named people from your backstory without giving you a chance to respond and stop it. For more 'hidden secret' types, I'll generally clear it with you unless you've explicitly left that open (such as by saying 'I don't know why X did Y')". So mysteries in backstories are often just as useful to me as clear statements. I had lots of fun (and so did the player) with a character whose backstory is

"I don't know who I am, or what I'm doing. I have this rune (from where I get my name) and a sword and some powers. I have vague memories of serving...something. Now I wander looking for my past and looking to survive."

because the player trusted me to make it engaging.

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-29, 11:04 AM

"I don't know who I am, or what I'm doing. I have this rune (from where I get my name) and a sword and some powers. I have vague memories of serving...something. Now I wander looking for my past and looking to survive."

because the player trusted me to make it engaging. Comment from a fellow player in that campaign: this worked for the whole group in that the mystery engaged us, and we helped the PC try to figure it out. (The other PCs all had a much better idea of who they were and where they were from).

PhoenixPhyre

2022-04-29, 11:35 AM

Comment from a fellow player in that campaign: this worked for the whole group in that the mystery engaged us, and we helped the PC try to figure it out. (The other PCs all had a much better idea of who they were and where they were from).

Yeah. Having a balance is useful.

Jay R

2022-04-29, 11:47 AM

If my DM said that he didn't want a backstory, and wouldn't read one, I would still have a pretty long one written by the time the character was completely designed. It's part of how I decide what skills and abilities he would have.

But that's my process for my purposes. If writing a backstory doesn't help you design the character, then don't do it my way.

Tanarii

2022-04-29, 12:07 PM

Tawmis

2022-04-29, 12:20 PM

What if you had 15 minutes to create your character at the table right before launching into the first adventure? Would you even be willing to play in such a game. Many TTRPGs are fully capable of doing that, and it's a great capability to have.

For me, I would. I wouldn't let the fact I don't have a background prevent me from playing.
But as we're playing, or even after, I'd probably be scribbling things down for what I'd want for my background to get a better feel.
And sometimes, a background isn't needed.

There two games I run - one I call "off week" (which is on the opposite Tuesday of my normal game I run) - where, as a DM I improvise everything. A few players joined. And it's just a ton of RP, where their personalities were developed as we played.

There's literally a game that's me and one other person (from all of my other games, and an excellent RP person) - who were were both like, "Man, I wish there was a game tonight." And I just said, "Screw it. Roll up a character on D&D Beyond. I'll make up an adventure by the time you're done." And we've been playing that every few days, just to kill time, laugh and have a good time. No background was needed. It happened during game play.

But for example, in Out of the Abyss game I play in (and said player above) is also in - we talked and wrote up how we're brother and sister, representing darkness and light in conflicting ways - I am a Tiefling Paladin, while she's a Fallen Aasimar Druid. So when I hit Level 3 I took Oath of the Ancients, to match her druid side.

Kurt Kurageous

2022-04-29, 12:31 PM

KorvinStarmast

2022-04-29, 12:43 PM

I didn't find the source of the quote, but the thought was filling out the 2x personality traits, idea, bond, flaw is enough. The reply was, "You've made a stranger."

Once upon a time I'd have agreed. I think the "you've made a stranger" is closer to the mark. The 2 T + B+I+F is a skeleton; you can put the flesh on the bones with the back story, be it obese or anorexic in terms of prose.

Not only that, but in D&D 5e background doesn't tell you anything about how you arrived at your choice for class since any background can be applied to any class. That little fleshing out - decide how you ended up as a Fighter, Sorcerer, Rogue, what have you - adds depth to the character. It need not be a paragraph, or paragraphs long, but it fills in something that the background does not.

Granted, if you choose Soldier background for Fighter or Paladin, that part is done. If you choose Entertainer background, though, or Urchin, for the Fighter or Paladin, you may need to add a little bit to tie it all together.

But it's still a case of 'who the character was' not "who the character will become as a result of embarking on this adventure" if they survive the first one. That latter part is why we play: we find out who the PC becomes through the course of their adventuring career.

Batcathat

2022-04-29, 04:08 PM

If you bring a fully actualized personality to the table, where's the growth? You have made a character that is doomed...to be boring.

Most of the arguments in this thread are a matter of taste (even if some people seem to believe their subjective opinion is more than just that), but this is just plain incorrect. There's no reason why having an actual backstory should make a static personality any more likely, much less a certainty.

Personally, I think having a character go somewhere is easier if they are actually coming from somewhere, but that part is probably subjective.

Tawmis

2022-04-29, 04:22 PM

Most of the arguments in this thread are a matter of taste (even if some people seem to believe their subjective opinion is more than just that), but this is just plain incorrect. There's no reason why having an actual backstory should make a static personality any more likely, much less a certainty.
Personally, I think having a character go somewhere is easier if they are actually coming from somewhere, but that part is probably subjective.

It's very much up to the player (and DM) - and their relationship to the campaign.
Most of my origins are of a small event that helped shape why my character chose the path they're on (Fighter, Druid, etc), and typically some NPCs that the DM can use if they want, but not expected to.
As I said, I've got two games where I DM and didn't ask for backgrounds - because the people involved are strong RPers.
But when you want to plan something to give to the DM - like two of the players being siblings, that deserves a write up if it's more than "We're brother and sister."
Like the OotA game I am in, I mentioned my character is a sibling to another - but it's a more complicated origin.
So we wrote up a single page and handed it to the DM. She used it as part of the tarot card reading. So it was a nice touch.

But, over all, I do love backstories. (My signature will verify that!) Both because I feel like it helps give a feeling for the player and the DM, what that character is like.
Yes, quick notes work too "Works hard, doesn't like dwarves, has a fear of water" - that's good info, sure. But why the dislike of dwarves? What happened to make them fearful of water?
Info that's NOT needed, really - if the person RPs the notes.

It is always a matter of preference, and there is no right or wrong answer.
Every table will have their own ways.

Jay R

2022-04-29, 08:33 PM

What if you had 15 minutes to create your character at the table right before launching into the first adventure? Would you even be willing to play in such a game. Many TTRPGs are fully capable of doing that, and it's a great capability to have.

Yes, I am willing to take on a challenge. There is no logical connection from "This is my usual process" to "I would never do anything else if that process weren't available."

If you bring a fully actualized personality to the table, where's the growth? You have made a character that is doomed...to be boring.

Gosh, I guess I've been bored all these decades when I thought I was enjoying role-playing games.

Hint: A "fully actualized" young adult who has never been on an adventure still has the potential for lots of growth.

Tawmis

2022-04-29, 09:43 PM

If you bring a fully actualized personality to the table, where's the growth? You have made a character that is doomed...to be boring.

You mean to tell me - since you hit the age of 18, in real life - your personality hasn't changed?
Things that have happened in your life (loss of a family member, pet, favorite pet rock) have had no impact on you?

If so, that's amazing.

While the core of who I am, hasn't changed - the numerous things, hell in the last two years alone (just in my own life, let alone the rest of the world), have drastically changed several things about how I act and view the world.

Coming to the table, with a fleshed out adult character, doesn't mean they're not going to change.
What if the characteristic is that they're this rough and tough kind of fighter, a gladiator sort, who has fought and killed for money.
But somewhere along the adventure, they see a village that orcs rampaged, and see several dead young and elderly.
And suddenly the idea of having killed others for sport and money isn't so great to them?

There's ample opportunities, for any person - if they're good at RP - to show character growth.

You can look at any movie, for example. These characters (say Star Wars) come in already with a backstory. Solo has a bounty on him. Seems to care only about money. Meets Leia, ends up falling in love, and he no longer is just out for the money. Luke, a dreamer, learns to become a Jedi, learns the truth about Vader, and is not only slightly changed - helps Vader find redemption.

These are they types of things that can happen in D&D too.

Alcore

2022-04-30, 11:08 AM

What if you had 15 minutes to create your character at the table right before launching into the first adventure? Would you even be willing to play in such a game. Many TTRPGs are fully capable of doing that, and it's a great capability to have.
The mechanics of the sheet is easy; I’ve already selected my character in my head and I am just trying to get my character sheet to match. Depending on the system stuff might get lost or added but it’s still the same character (often retaining growth unless I forgot he grew).

Backstory would have to be written later; it’s play time not writing time.

I didn't find the source of the quote, but the thought was filling out the 2x personality traits, idea, bond, flaw is enough. The reply was, "You've made a stranger."

Once upon a time I'd have agreed.

If you bring a fully actualized personality to the table, where's the growth? You have made a character that is doomed...to be boring.
That would be me. Though I think a difference in definition is the only reason for any disconnect.

As another pointed out; “you have made a skeleton”. I do agree that playing them can flesh them out you are often facing “early installment weirdness” instead. It would be like watching Pirates of the Caribbean: the Black Pearl with Jack Sparrow having a different personality every few scenes as Johnny discovered who Jack Sparrow is. Granted; that probably did happen off screen but by filming everyone was in character.

Traits, ideals, bond and flaws are like tropes. Great tools but can be misused. If you just handed me a list I would either flounder around until I discover my character or I would exemplify those tropes make a flat and boring character. Some people are great at improv and could flourish but i am not that person.

False God

2022-05-01, 10:48 AM

I didn't find the source of the quote, but the thought was filling out the 2x personality traits, idea, bond, flaw is enough. The reply was, "You've made a stranger."

Once upon a time I'd have agreed.

Now I tell my players in session zero to pick one out of the five and put it on the sheet. As we play, when you learn more about the character, write what you learned in the appropriate space and earn inspiration.

If you bring a fully actualized personality to the table, where's the growth? You have made a character that is doomed...to be boring.

I don't mind a loose backstory as long as I get an idea about the PCs personal goals and motivations. I don't care or use much more than that.

A "fully actualized person" is more likely to be open to growth and change than one who isn't. That's part of what self-actualization is.

Not knowing something about the character is not the same as the character not knowing something about themselves. Many people will go through their whole lives without ever truly knowing anything about themselves. But that doesn't mean they don't like chocolate or puppies, that they do or don't want to get married, that they enjoy time alone in the woods or that they enjoy working with their hands. It just means they'll never know WHY.

Understanding the why of your character is where the growth happens.

Theoboldi

2022-05-01, 12:29 PM

As another pointed out; “you have made a skeleton”. I do agree that playing them can flesh them out you are often facing “early installment weirdness” instead. It would be like watching Pirates of the Caribbean: the Black Pearl with Jack Sparrow having a different personality every few scenes as Johnny discovered who Jack Sparrow is. Granted; that probably did happen off screen but by filming everyone was in character.

Traits, ideals, bond and flaws are like tropes. Great tools but can be misused. If you just handed me a list I would either flounder around until I discover my character or I would exemplify those tropes make a flat and boring character. Some people are great at improv and could flourish but i am not that person.

As much as I disagree with Kurt on this, I do want to point out that in my experience, that kind of "early installment weirdness" happens anyways. Fleshing out a character with two paragraphs of backstory or five pages of it does not make a difference in this regard, as it's not so much a matter of not knowing who the character is, but there being a difference between portraying a character in a story written on your own, versus portraying that same character at a table with 4 other people vying for spotlight and a GM presenting you with situations that you yourself did not plan.

In my mind, creating a skeleton is the best you can do, focusing on providing the important fundamentals of a backstory (What is my place in this setting? Why am I involved in this adventure/profession/scenario? Where could we draw out some hooks for the GM to use?) and leaving yourself open and flexible to elaborate on details, specific contacts, and personality features in play. By establishing too much too early, it's trivial to have hooks that are soon no longer interesting or too difficult to integrate into the game's plot, contacts that become irrelevant, and most importantly, a characterization that clashes with what is seen at the table.

Some amount of backstory is important. I think, like you said, that it can actually help quite a bit with making an interesting character that has clear motivations. It gives them some actual grounding, a genuine foundation to build from and actually allow the details that require flexibility to be built.

Tanarii

2022-05-01, 01:37 PM

Jay R

2022-05-01, 02:21 PM

We're not going to agree about this and there's nothing wrong with that.

Some of us want a detailed character backstory. Others don't. And people have fun both ways.

I have had fun both ways. When I started playing original D&D in 1975, I would build a character in three minutes, half of which was rolling the dice and writing down 6 numbers. And I had lots of fun.

Now I want to go back and forth with the DM to have a character with a clear place in the world, with connections, goals, character traits, and abilities that occasionally come from that. And I have lots of fun.

I told the story about Glen ("He's a fighter who likes to hit things") because he reminded me, after I had gotten too focused on my approach, that you can play just fine with no interest in a backstory.

A backstory is like a sword. Some characters are incomplete without one, and others wouldn't use one even if they had it.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Batcathat

2022-05-01, 02:31 PM

Why is it a different personality? That's the point, it's been established, via the personality system. What hasn't been established is historical events, beyond what is included that actually created a motivation as part of the personality system. The other history is just chaff, since it doesn't come with motivations, it doesn't affect decision making.

Again, motivations are important, but they're not everything. Yes, a character might not need more than motivations to play, just like a house doesn't need more furniture than bed, toilet and kitchen to live in or a resolution system doesn't need more than something like "Roll a d20, if it's under 10 you succeed". Having more than the bare necessities is often preferable, I think.

We're not going to agree about this and there's nothing wrong with that.

Well, yeah. That's like 98 percent of the discussions around here.

Theoboldi

2022-05-01, 02:43 PM

Well, yeah. That's like 98 percent of the discussions around here.
Indeed. Nobody's really in the wrong about what they enjoy when it comes to a topic as inconsequential as character backstory. The only thing that matters is whether the player enjoys the used method and whether its a good fit for their group.

We can still discuss the various benefits and drawbacks of our methods, though, and the utilities they may provide for various kinds of games. Its nice to see some different perspectives.

KorvinStarmast

2022-05-02, 12:01 PM

The other history is just chaff, since it doesn't come with motivations, it doesn't affect decision making. That's the part that's just wrong. (See how easy it is to dismiss something out of hand by using the word "just?") As I mentioned above "how did you end up being a wizard/bard/paladin/rogue" is a part of the back story, and if nothing else it's very helpful for the player in terms of drawing a more fleshed out/three dimensional picture of who and what motivates this PC.
(Does that need to be more than a sentence or two? Probably not).

The tone that comes across in that opener *The other history [B]is just chaff* is as bad and unhealthy as the response that opens up 'that's just fluff'

Tanarii

2022-05-02, 03:37 PM

That's the part that's just wrong. (See how easy it is to dismiss something out of hand by using the word "just?") As I mentioned above "how did you end up being a wizard/bard/paladin/rogue" is a part of the back story, and if nothing else it's very helpful for the player in terms of drawing a more fleshed out/three dimensional picture of who and what motivates this PC.If how they became their class includes some kind of motivation for decision making, then it's not chaff. It's history without resulting motivations that is chaff.

Making me get all tautological here. :smallamused:

However, I will concede there can be possible motivations (and accompanying history for them) other than 5e's Alignment/Personality/Ideal/Bond/Flaw categories. And the quote I was responding to about personality changing scene to scene was in the context of that system. I still don't think it's a result that follows, consistency of personality is more likely, not less. Which is why the stereotypical comment for actors is "What's my motivation?"

Talakeal

2022-05-02, 09:22 PM

I would say some people care for backstory, some don't, and that's ok.

I personally like PC backstory, both as a player and a DM, but I recognize that isn't everybody's thing. I would prefer everyone at the table had the same love of it that I do, but I am not going to force it on people who don't.

Personally, I think its something similar to the old GNS divide. Those who are really into world-building and lore enjoy backstory, those who prefer drama see it as an impediment to having fun in the moment, and more gamist players see it as a pointless chore. This is, of course, a generalization.

What I do see as a problem, and this goes both ways, both players and DMs, is people who care about THEIR story and shutdown everyone else. Excessively long backstories can be a warning signof this in a PC, and refusing any backstory can be a warning sign of this in DMs.

Now, maybe I am just hardened to this after having gone through so many creative writing workshops in college, but 750 pages is not a novel. Its not a novella. Its not a short story. Its barely even flash fiction. I read and write several forum posts longer than that each day (this one is almost 300 words). That can fit on a single page, depending on the spacing, at a normal font size. It takes a few minutes to read, tops. Even if it is the worst written piece of cliched trash ever, who cares? You are really willing to spend 3-6 hours a week with this person engaging in games of imagination, but can't read 750 words of their prose? Seriously?