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animorte
2022-09-19, 08:18 PM
I wrote this thing probably 15 years ago. My wife and I shared a lot of our writing with each other years ago (hint: hers is much better than mine). She commented that I write with the pretentiousness of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. That inspired me to design a PC, using this exact page as their background:


Abandoned. No, not the sort of desolation we all imagine with the word. It's the worst kind of loneliness, that which presents itself despite the most important of individuals at your side.


I suppose it comes with this life gifted me. No. Unpleasantly bestowed upon my maternal predecessor, by that of an outsider, as they say. It brings the smallest amount of comfort though, as a dim candle casting indecisive shadows among the rows of a coliseum, to acquire from early memory in closing moments of an initial installment. If I recall correctly, something similar to the idea of what life is given matters not as much as that which is done with it.


This is where my difficulty becomes most prominent. My response to this, as is the only logical answer to any problem, is a solution. It's a lifetime in the making. The value lies not in effort as encouragement would like for one to believe. Success.


To place satisfaction on the opposite end of goals is dangerous and eternally inconclusive, but when the concern relies on its own pervasive nature, what choice have we got?


Not knowing precisely the emergence of my scenario is what assembles us in this fashion. There are minor details that I will supply you with as they become relevant, for this particular point in time has left us with a compelling story, a miserable introduction.



Often, I will read through some old writings and pull something out, just like the example from above. Other times I will just look at the type of abilities I want, whether that be inspired by some existing media source (movies, shows, books, these here forums) or just sifting through my D&D collection for the 4,217,913 100th time. I also come up with a lot of these before I ever get the opportunity to play them so that when I need a new character or something just fits for the campaign I'm DMing, I can make some minor adjustments and slot them right in.

So, how do you come up with the backgrounds of your characters? Does anybody care to share the inspiration for their character concepts here?

Cluedrew
2022-09-19, 09:14 PM
To answer your question perhaps more directly than you intended. First I figure out the character I want to be playing at the beginning of the game. Then the backstory is just the things that need to happen to lead to that. And sometimes I will get inspired and go into more detail, but that's all I need to start.

I like to use Quotes you can Build a Character off of as inspiration.

False God
2022-09-19, 09:45 PM
I suppose "How does the assortment of numbers and nouns on my character sheet shape how my character would respond to a difficult situation?" would be my answer. Usually I'll write a short story, a "day in the life" that reflects elements of what brought them to this point based on what stats, skills, class, race, background and so forth I wrote on the page, and use that to see how it frames the actions they took today in response to whatever event is happening.

If the story flows from my brain to my hands to the page, then I've got a character I can play. If it doesn't I'll start examining if its the story or the stats, and see what needs to be adjusted in order to make a character I can play at the table.

Yora
2022-09-20, 03:04 AM
My characters never really have a backstory, and I don't ask one from players. The kinds of games I play and run don't really have a use for them.
All the kind of books and movies that inspire me have characters whose backstory consists of a single sentence at most, It's a background, not a story.

Mastikator
2022-09-20, 05:03 AM
I prefer to come up with something extremely basic when I make my character, then if I want to I'll flesh it out once I figure out what the DM is doing. I tend to use my character's capabilities and motivations as a blueprint for their backstory, if they know a skill then where and when they learned that skill is a dot I can use and if I have a goal then I use that too, then I draw lines between the dots. The backstory emerges semi-organically.

I never go for prose, I don't think it belongs and I'm not good at it. I'd rather just have a bullet list of formative events and important NPCs and their relations.

As a DM I prefer shorter backstories over long ones, especially on young characters, if it's a 300 year old elf I can accept that they may have done many things, but even then please give me the important parts and trim the fat.

That is not to say I don't enjoy backstories, I'll gladly use them as props in games, just don't give me so much homework.

john toliver
2022-09-20, 06:25 AM
i didnt find it necessary for my playing character to have a backstory but morely i will focus on the game that what it requires and my game plan strategy that i must compliment the abilities of my character and backstory is something that will go on with my character

KorvinStarmast
2022-09-20, 08:38 AM
What I did with my Hound in our Blades in the Dark game was choose where he was from, how he ended up in Doskvol, and who he was connected to in Doskvol.
(His name (Gunnar) is derived from Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock, the legendary USMC sniper and marksmanship instructor)
One of the other players decided that their character was also from the Dagger Isles, so we jointly figured out that we knew one another by reputation and didn't run in the same circles. That gave me all that I needed as I decided on my vice. Because the game has a default and well fleshed out setting, I had a lot of hooks that I could grab on to.

ReallySeamus
2022-09-20, 10:16 AM
I typically start with a game mechanic or typical feature that I'm interested in and then ask myself, "How can I thwart this in a way that motivates adventure?" This creates a conflict or contradiction, and then I can have their backstory flow out of that while still having it influence RP opportunities in the moment. A couple examples:


I wanted to use the Rage mechanic because I find damage reduction more fun than high AC. So I decided that I'd make a Half-Orc Barbarian who hates losing his temper. He is gentle and trusting, and was so afraid of hurting someone in his home village that he went out into the world hoping to find a way to master his primal instincts.
I wanted to play a Battle Master fighter because maneuvers are interesting, and I opted for a Mountain Dwarf because I prefer taking feats and half-feats to straight ASI and I needed that +2 to strength (I also like darkvision so I don't have to remember torches). So I thought about the "typical" Dwarf and decided my guy would not have a beard. Why? To me, the most interesting option was that he was the only survivor from a battle and his face was so scarred that he COULDN'T grow a beard. But couldn't magic fix that? Sure, but his father was ashamed of the defeat and forbade him from having the scars healed. So my character went into exile from his clan, determined to gain glory on the battlefield so that he can return home in honor.
I wanted to play a Swashbuckler Rogue because I wanted to be a skill monkey who could still do melee combat. So I decided that my high-charisma character would have an alter ego that is not a braggadocios party face. When about town, he is a mild-mannered man of noble birth. When danger strikes, he dons a mask and cape to become the Midnight Cloak. The family dynamics that flow from that are well-worn territory in the world of superheroes.

They don't have to be the most "creative" ideas in the world, but basically I find that undercutting a traditional expectation helps keep my attention and give me something to draw on as a backstory until I bomb the wrong dex save and wind up as a blob of jelly at the bottom of a cliff.

rel
2022-09-20, 12:30 PM
For me a backstory needs to do a few things:

- justify the things my character knows and can do
- give the character a rock solid reason to work with the rest of the party and engage with the games premise
- give some explanation for the characters personality, outlook and how they will be played.

As such I start by setting out those design goals then creating backstory elements to address each point. Then I connect the elements together into a coherent story.
This approach leaves the character in the right place to participate in the campaign with the other PC's with backing for my planned playstyle, characterisation and so forth.
The backstory works for me, not the other way around.

Example:

The GM pitches a game in which the PC's will play adventurers exploring strange ruins in a jungle wilderness slowly uncovering an ancient mystery.

Talking to the other PC's I find out they plan to be foreigners from the next continent over, recently arrived friends setting up an expedition into the unknown wilds.

I decide to play a cheerful skills focused character, someone who can solve puzzles, disarm traps and also act as a knowledge character.



So the goals are:
- character must know a lot
- be especially knowledgeable about, ancient traps, puzzles and so forth.
- should probably know about jungle environments specifically
- needs a reason to stick around in a steaming jungle with the assorted weirdos that are the other PC's
- one or two demonstrations of cheerful optimism, even in the face of danger.

I then start coming up with elements to address each goal.
- know it all: parents were locals booksellers, grew up reading a hundred stories of grand adventure.
- tomb raiding specialty: set out against families wishes on their own great adventure,signing on under a famous explorer as a porter. worked for several years gradually becoming the expeditions trap specialist
- jungle specialist: famous explorer was exploring the very jungles the party plans to explore
- reason for exploring: want to complete mentors quest, which was left unfinished
- reason for hanging with the PC's. Huge fan of the PC's culture,met one of the PC's who came in a few months back to do groundwork. became fast friends and jumped at the chance to sign up to a new expedition as a local guide.
- optimism: interactions with PC and mentor

I'll run the elements past the GM and other players to make sure there are no problems.
let's say the GM asks that my familiarity be with some other jungle although they're fine with me being local.
And another PC wants to be part of the legwork crew.
legwork crew requires no real change.
shifting familiarity while being local means a bit of adjustment so I add a few elements
-character used to go for trips into the local jungle as a child and always wanted to really explore the deeper local jungles like the heroes in the books
-parents disapproved of desire to be an adventurer, character ended up leaving the city and going to a different locale to chase their dream

At this point I know enough to actually build the character mechanically. Lets say I end up with a male halfling that fights with a bow.

So I modify the point about being a porter to being a cook, a much more halfling profession and add in an element to justify bow skill
- the expedition scouts taught the character the skills of the bow that were honed foraging for the expedition.

At this point everything is in place. I call my new PC Mirth and start connecting things together:
- Mirth was born to a pair of local booksellers
- His education was mostly reading through the families extensive library
- He became obsessed with stories of grand adventure in exotic locales, particularly the stories of a particular heroic explorer from the country the other PC's come from.
- this combined with occasional trips into the tame areas of the local jungle as a child led to a lifelong ambition to explore the deep jungles near his home like the heroes in books
- once he came of age, Mirth ignored his families wishes and set out across the ocean to begin his own grand adventure.
- an explorer mounting expeditions into jungles much like those near mirth's home was impressed by Mirth's upbeat attitude and persistence and allowed him to sign on as a cook.
- Mirth turned out to be a competent cook and quickly learned bow skills from the expeditions front runners, joining them on their scouting trips where he honed his archery hunting to supplement the provisions.
- All the while Mirth continued to learn, adding practical knowledge to his already impressive academic skills.
- this lead to him being promoted to an apprentice trap finder
- in this new role, Mirth flourished and gained a lot of experience with traps, puzzles and mechanisms in the various ruins the expedition explored.
- after some years of working as part of the explorers crew, Mirth decided his apprenticeship over, and it was time to move on. He bid his friends farewell and returned to his homeland to pursue his dream.
-shortly after returning home, Mirth met the other PC's preparing for an expedition of their own.
-delighted to finally meet people that so reminded him of the heroes of his childhood, mirth quickly fell in with them and his credentials and boundless optimism quickly landed him a place in the new expedition.

animorte
2022-09-20, 12:41 PM
I like to do a bit of both sides. Sometimes I will design whatever backstory I need to go with the character concept and abilities I have in mind. Other times I will have written something (as with my initial example above) and create something around that. Every once in a rare while I will actually roll some information from the book randomly and see what I can do with it. That can be an interesting ride all its own.

I appreciate all of the detail some people are providing. This presents a lot of what I was looking for and some neat details I hadn't quite considered. I hope people can come to this thread and be inspired by the concepts within.

gbaji
2022-09-20, 01:07 PM
I think the most important thing for character backstory is that it needs to be useful in terms of figuring out how you are actually going to play that character in the game.

Some of this stuff can be simple. Name. Age. Sex.
Other useful things. Where did you grow up? Rural community, mid sized town, large city?
What did your parents do for a living (did you grow up on a farm or ranch, or working in the family restaurant, or helping out at the forge as the local blacksmith kid, or whatever)?

Finally, add in some personality bits. Specifically focus on why this character is doing whatever it is they are doing that's going to get them involved in whatever adventure is being played out. Did they come to the big city to seek their fortune? Child of a local merchant who has gotten in trouble with a local lender/legbreaker and needs to earn cash? Debutant looking for some fun? Short timer who just mustered out of a few years military service and looking to work? Small time thief looking to make bigger riches (and maybe escape some local trouble)?

You don't need to be overly fancy with this. Just enough. It's also better (unless your GM really really loves this stuff) to avoid the more exotic backstories. Every character at my table does not need to be the long lost heir to the throne of <wherever>, who needs to find the proof of their heritage, the lost relics of rulership, and then depose the current baddie who usurped the throne 20 years ago. Or the secret love child of a minor deity who's powers will slowly manifest over time. Or a time traveler from the future who has amnesia, and will through the course of game play end up being his own grandpa or something. Those are frankly tired and old tropes and rarely actually add anything to a game world when played out.

I'd rather have players who play a character with consistent objectives and personality, and that doesn't require much in the way of backstory. If it gives me something as the GM to hook into if I want or need to, that's great. But most of the time, in my game (obviously there are many different GM styles), the adventure isn't really about *you*. It's usually things going on around you that the characters may be aware of and choose to interact with. What you do with that is up to you. And that's where the player roleplaying (or just playing) comes in. I shouldn't need to determine (or write) that you are hooked into a storyline involving X because it ties into your backstory. I should just present X, and you should say "Hey. I'm interested in that because of my background where X is relevant". Or not. It's the player's choice.

Obviously, there are many different ways to GM. But that's pretty much what I'm looking for. And yeah. Prose isn't really helpful. Write it for yourself if you want to inspire yourself in terms of how you play the character, but I'm not searching for deeper meaning in your character's personality (only you are). I just need to know if there's something in your backstory that might interact with something else I'm doing in my world.

Tanarii
2022-09-20, 05:06 PM
I'm not a fan of backstories. They tend to focus too much on history and story. I prefer a bullet point list of motivations, things that tell me how I'm going to make decisions differently from just being myself, each one a sentence or so in length.

Some history is valuable. For example, where the Character is from may impact what I assume the character knows and doesn't know, and how I already feel about the other party members (if I know them) is always useful.

Also anything that can be used as a DM adventure hook is useful if the DM wants one.

I do like systems that call out backgrounds and motivations, to let you know what the focus of them for the game should be. Bonus when it ties into the system some how.

5e handles some of this with its Personality system (Alignment, Personality Trait, Ideal, Bond, Flaw). In particular the Bond is the adventure hook trait, where you put the character stuff the DM is 'permitted' (air quotes) to mess with in your background. If you don't want them to kidnap your family as a hook, you don't put it here. :smallamused:

Free League Mutant Year Zero games have an emphasis on intra-party relationships.

Free League Forbidden Lands also has that, but includes a Pride (which grants mechanical benefit) and Dark Secret (explicit DM hook, grants XP if used).

AW has intra-party relationships that grant mechanical effects if I recall correctly.

LibraryOgre
2022-09-20, 06:12 PM
Somewhat depends on the game, and the table.

For example, Hackmaster can hit you with some really serendipitous results. Because attribute generation is random, and you get a bonus for keeping your attributes in rolled order, you often make the character the dice decide. And because sometimes the dice decide really weird things, you might make someone unexpected. This guy (https://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2013/09/momma-tried-character-intro-for.html), for example, got most of his background from accidentally rolling a higher Cathedral of Light religion skill than his own priesthood, the Journeymen. In another case, I realized a character was firebug because of a chance penetration on their fire-starting skill dice.

In 5e, I tend to shop my character concepts to the stats... I want to be proficient in skills A and B, what backgrounds get me there? But if the GM says "Ok, I need everyone to be from this mining town", then I'm going to go where I need to.

I usually don't write huge backstories, unless there's XP involved.

Shpadoinkle
2022-09-20, 07:45 PM
Last couple characters I played - well, the last couple I gave anything remotely resembling a crap about, anyway - I pretty much made mechanically first, then came up with a backstory explaining why they wound up that way.

One was a dwarf fighter (PF1) who specialized in throwing an adamantine light hammer. Between Startoss Style and Ricochet Toss, she was basically a walking hailstorm. The backstory I came up with for her based on that is thaton the same day she was born, a meteorite containing just over two pounds of adamantite landed in her parents' backyard, and her parents considered it a sign, so they used the metal to make a weapon for her.

The other was an archery-focused Slayer (PF1,) who had the Trap Finder trait. I figured she came from a minor noble family, who owned a decent swath of land that had some mines on it. She learned to spot dangerous terrain and traps because she was taken along on her parents' surveys of the mines, and over time she learned how a mining operation worked, including how to spot dangerous terrain and such. She learned to handle a bow because she needed to be able to defend herself, and her parents didn't want her risking herself in hand-to-hand combat, hence she was encouraged to keep her distance.

Jay R
2022-09-20, 10:36 PM
First I read through anything the DM has sent about his game, twice, thinking about what would be fun to do in this world.

I will often choose a fictional character as a base. But when I do, I immediately find some aspect that makes him different from the base. I built Treewalker, a 2e Thief, based on Tarzan, but he was an elf. I built a superhero PC named Dr. MacAbre (John MacAubrey, Ph.D.) based on Dr. Strange, but he had an uncontrolled multiform that would sometimes turn him into a wolf, bat, or mist, so he was worried that he was becoming a vampire. I built a Rogue in Flashing Blades named Jean-Louis based on Aladdin, with the climbing buildings and the desire to get out of that life, but his backstory included being abandoned on the steps of Notre Dame. [No, I didn’t base that on Quasimodo. This was before that Disney movie came out, and I never read the book.]

When I decided to build Gwystyl, a 3.5e gnome illusionist, I was a little off-balance at first, because I had no fictional basis to draw on. So instead I read through the gnome section in [I]Races of Stone, and started playing with the gnome approach to names. [“Gnomes love names, and most have half a dozen or so.”] I had six names for him when I started, and knew where each of them came from.

The character and the backstory are inter-connected and created simultaneously. I sometimes take skills I’m not interested in just because of the backstory.

Examples:

Gustav (my 3.5e Ranger) had lived alone in the woods. Therefore he had 1 point in Perform(stringed instrument) and paid for a lyre and a masterwork axe (not a weapon – a wood-cutting axe). Why? Because I’ve known three people who lived alone in the woods, and they all played a musical instrument, and they all were proud of the quality of their axe.

I built Gwystyl (the 3.5e gnome illusionist) in a world in which the DM had written, “Particularly happening among the gnomes and dwarves, primitive mechanical and scientific advancements have been made. To this extent, gnomes are divided into two groups now. There are those that cling to magic and the old ways. These are traditional DnD gnomes. The second group tend toward steam punk. They prefer mechanical over mystical.” I decided he came from a mechanics-minded tribe who weren’t happy with his magic. So he had 4 ranks in Craft (mechanics) and in Knowledge (engineering), because that’s what he’d been trained to do (against his will).

Often, some change in the backstory occurs that I didn’t plan at first. When we got to the first game, I discovered that one player had dropped out, and we had no caster. The party was a Fighter, a Ranger, a Paladin, and my Thief. So I quickly re-arranged some stats and made Treewalker a multi-class Thief / Wizard, and changed his backstory to include it.

Sometimes part of the backstory will have reasons that just seem right. Here's a (long) example.
I was building a Gwystyl to grow into a shadowcraft mage gnome illusionist, who would start at third level. I had just read about the Ancestral Relic feat, and it seemed like a good idea to build a character around. [Yes, adding an extra feat is not optimal for a Shadowcraft Mage build. I accept that.]

So I designed a gnome hooked hammer as an Ancestral Relic, which would function as a staff in his hands.

While I was designing it, and deciding if it had some kind of quest attached to it, I heard about the untimely death of Alan Rickman, and suddenly the whole thing came together.

When he first picked it up, he heard a voice in his head intoning a prophecy. The voice – a god, the power of the hammer, a delusion, who knows? – told him that he must seek out the truth of the hammer. That was the first time he could detect magic on the hammer, and the last until he reached level six. He did not feel its power again until he awakened it. Was it magic from the hammer? A prophecy of the gods? A delusion? He does not know, but he wants to believe it.

The prophecy was great and momentous, but he can no longer remember it. All his mind still holds was the final line: “If you do not discover the secrets of this hammer, they will be lost forever.”

So he is on a quest to do something, given him by he knows not whom, requiring him to learn about the hammer, with no idea of where such knowledge could be found. A human, elf, or dwarf might be discouraged by this. To a gnome’s way of thinking, it’s just a great practical joke, and one he’s willing to play out. It’s an excuse to wander and learn, and avoid having to make more cogs and spokes.

There was a time in which he considered turning away from his quest. He eventually realized that it would be impossible to turn away from the quest until he found out where the quest was supposed to take him. This seems to him like the greatest joke of all – a quest he cannot undertake, and cannot avoid.

This led to the following conversation on the second adventure
Gwystyl: I'm on a quest.
PC2: Oh, what are you supposed to do?
Gwystyl: I don't know. I need to find out.
PC2: Well, where are you supposed to go to find out?
Gwystyl: I have no clue.
PC2: Who put you on this quest?
Gwystyl: No idea.
PC2: This is dumb; why don't you abandon the quest?
Gwystyl: How? Until I know where the quest is supposed to take me, how can I turn off that path?

The DM and I know its history, but Gwystyl does not. Gwystyl’s ancestor Grabthar used it to win a great battle, in an alliance with the dwarven king Warvan and his sons.

Someday, when it’s appropriate, after Gwystyl learns the history of his weapon, he is going to swear, “By Grabthar’s hammer, by the sons of Warvan, you shall be avenged!”

By the time I’m done, I usually have 4-6 pages of backstory. I will do this even if the DM will never see the backstory, because it’s part of how I design the character.

Obviously, it’s better for me if the DM reads it, and uses it, but even if he doesn’t, the PC doesn’t feel like a real person to me until I know where he comes from.

Pauly
2022-09-21, 05:18 AM
I’m a big fan of procedurally generated characters, such as in Traveller, where you roll on a bunch of tables to determine your origin. For these type of games backstory is simply finding a way to thread all the things together.

For a more traditional D&D points buy type character my character gackground generation process is:
1) is there anything lacking that the party needs?
2) what is a build concept that answers (1) which appeals to me?
3) why is this character adventuring?
4) Why has this character decided to join this party?

Quertus
2022-09-21, 10:54 AM
So, I’d have to say, my method looks a lot like this:



To answer your question perhaps more directly than you intended. First I figure out the character I want to be playing at the beginning of the game. Then the backstory is just the things that need to happen to lead to that.

But with a lot more detail, and a lot more fail.

So, most of my characters are an attempt to understating the alien creatures that surround me. “How the ****can you be so self-absorbed that…”, “why the **** would anyone ever…”. I start with those kinds of questions, those incomprehensible (to me) bits of the human experience, and attempt to build a psychological model that would produce such behavior.

But, to me, a program is the algorithms + the data.

So, I need both Bruce Wayne’s underlying processing methods, *and* the foundational events that, when do processed, produces his current behavior.

The events are easy: death of parents by gun in “random” mugging, childhood scary encounter with bats, etc.

The hard part is creating the psyche that turns those events into Batman, vs Bruce Payne, Ratman who shoots criminals.

So, I have an objective, and I build a mental model + events, then roleplay at the table to see how close my Simulation runs to my hypothesized outcome.

This method produces a lot of failure - for example, even if it is “successful”, there’s no guarantee that the character will be fun to play.

oxybe
2022-09-21, 02:24 PM
A quick descriptive line and a reason why they're adventuring is all I need at most.

My Starfinder character? A starry-eyed gearhead out to explore the stars and expand their horizons. That's Glitch the skittermander in a nutshell.

My Pathfinder 2 character? A ratfolk chef looking to have a taste of life away from the warren, wanting to apply his eclectic set of skills he learned from the large extended family he grew up with.

My Adventures in Middle-Earth PC? A wandering Beorning labourer, looking for a place to call home. After years of in-game time and effort (ie: we played this campaign for quite a bit) he's managed to earn the title of Thane and owns a nice-sized sheep farm.

If I'm going to write something, a line or two is all the prompting and backstory I need. Anything more, I'll probably make it up as needed.

zlefin
2022-09-21, 04:27 PM
While my backstories tend to be fairly poor quality, and terse because I don't have much to say; I can still answer the question!

I don't actually understand the 'how' of where the backstories I develop come from. I get a concept for a character, that usually focuses on their class and some basics of their build; and that forms a sort of gestalt impression in my mind. Then I can ask questions about that character, how they behave etc, and I get an answer. I don't really know where the answers come from, or how my mind had already decided that this person 'is' a certain way. So I get some more details about their personality that way; and then fill out a basic family chart and try to figure a plausible path that would've led them to where they are today at the game start, covering their education/teachers and major life events if any. I tend to stick to fairly straightforward and common reasons that seem more like regular lives.

If I ever got a game to last long enough, I might fill out more of their background as it comes up in play; but mostly the play itself would become their background.

I also tend not to play games that are too RP-heavy, as I'm not so good at that; so there's less need of developed backstory. It also avoids the problem that a more thoroughly developed character needs both a reason to adventure, as well as some goals that would probably lead them to stop adventuring. But those goals could often occur at times inconvenient to the larger narrative and the party structure/group.

One other thing I realized now, is that I nearly always use 3rd person for developing the chars. I'm describing them; I rarely quote things from their perspective for the backstory. If I have quotes they're just to show personality traits or beliefs.

gbaji
2022-09-21, 07:10 PM
As a corollary to the purpose for character backstory, I do also think that keeping a backstory relatively simple is important because a complex backstory tends to crowd out character growth that occurs once you actually start playing the character. One of the great things about RPGs (IMO) is that they provide relatively endless possibilities for the players to experience different things in the guise of their characters. If you start out writing a character backstory but include a very specific set of things in that backstory, with a very specific story arc you intend for this character to go through going forward, then you aren't really playing that character, you are following a plot/script for that character. That's great if you're writing a novel or something. Not as good when playing an RPG.

I tend to avoid that method, and encourage my players to do so as well. For one reason, because it constrains future adventures to some degree (the GM now feels obligated to write things into the world to match up with the proposed character development path as written), but also leaves the player more or less locked in to a path written at the start. I'd rather let the series of adventures the characters actually engage in, the decisions made along the way, the random stuff that happens, decisions or other players and their characters, and a host of other things that happen at the table, (which are largely unpredictable) to mold the character over time into what they are today. The focus should really be on the playing of the character, not on what happened before that. Backstory should explain starting character personality, skills, and motivations, and not a whole lot more. Let the character grow over time.

One of my favorite characters started out as a soldier/spy for an enemy island nation near where most of the PCs were located. There was a war going on, and she'd received training and sent on a mission to cause trouble for said nearby nation where the PCs were located (and were trying to protect). She was a junior member of a larger team, and while this was in motion and they were getting infiltrated on shore, the war ended. A large multi-kingdom faction had defeated her kingdom and terms were in process of being made. Her kingdom was more or less "evil", in that they were primarily worshippers of a somewhat evil deity (deity is abjectly evil, but followers can be more or less so), and had caused large problems for shipping for the better part of a century (naval interdictions, trade controls, etc). The backstory was that she was a more or less good person, but had been raised in this kingdom and felt loyalty to it. She'd joined the military as a scout/skirmisher type, and then been recruited due to her stealth skills for this mission.

After the war ended, her group was split on what to do. Most just wanted to return (war's over right, time to rebuild). But some were more of the "true believers in the cause" types and decided to go on a mission of vengeance against the kingdoms who'd defeated them, and were willing to do some really nasty and nefarious things, specifically to the kingdom where the primary PC group was living and affiliated with (despite it being a relatively minor player in the entire war). She and a few others decided to stick around and try to do the right thing and warn them (the PCs) about this plot and try to save lives. That's how she came to join the party, complete with some baggage and a secret of how she got there that she had to keep hidden while still trying to provide assistance and warning about bad things to come. It was fun playing that character due to this background, but didn't prevent her from advancing in other ways.

Over time, the initial plots were foiled and bad guys defeated, and she'd manage to keep her secret, and she mostly was just one of the adventurers in the party. Occasionally, however, we'd have an adventure that would intersect with the island nation she was from, and she'd have to be careful. Said nation was extremely isolated and didn't allow outsiders to even visit, or learn their local language. Obviously, the aftermath of the war changed some aspects of that, but she had to figure out how to help out while being vague about why she could speak their language, and knew their culture and geography so well, and why she knew so much about the inner workings of their religion to what was objectively a pretty nasty evil deity. Some PCs suspected things about her, but she was always a model adventurer and seemed to be helping out, so it was good enough that she was "on our side".

She also had a series of crisis points. One specifically where she was given an opportunity to advance in worship of her deity. It was actually a difficult roleplaying decision for me to make. On the one hand, advancement would increase her power via access to more powerful spells. On the other, it would dramatically increase her odds of being detected and possibly killed (and would take her down the path towards more closeness to an evil deity). Ultimately, I went with the RP angle, and decided that while she still loved her nation, and its people, she would no longer support their deity and went in a different direction. After this point, she had some other issues, like specifically concern about her afterlife (the deity she worshipped, even no longer actively, still basically had a hold on her soul, and given her actions, her afterlife would be pretty horrible). During various adventures, we did some serious favors for a couple of other deities (huge favors) where one of the rewards was initiation into their religion (and some free spells) for those who wanted and were willing to worship them (even at an entry level). She choose to join, figuring it would give her a chance to survive after death (a possible option for a better afterlife).

This, in turn, further adjusted her outlook. She still never fully committed to a religion though, basically seeing them as problematic, but needed to "save her soul". She basically "dabbled" in various beliefs, but that was it. This meant she was more or less locked out of more powerful spell progression, but she was also more of a jack of all trades character instead (jane of all trades?). Over even more time, she advanced even more, branching out into more varied skills and abilities. Eventually, on one adventure, she was able to sever her connection to her original deity. This finally freed her from this issue, but she still retained a basic distrust of gods, and lack of desire to advance in that way. That continued for even more time, until we were on a specific quest in which various characters were there representing their deities in specific tasks for the quest. She was left out, of course (as were several other members of the party, since only a small number of deity's representative/avatars/whatever were actually needed). As it happened, there was a deity that no one else really represented well, that was a relatively old and primitive deity of hunting. She, with her very high scouting/tracking abilities by this point, was the best candidate. So the deity directly approached her and tested her. She passed. Again, I had to consider whether she was actually willing to take on this new responsibility, basically bringing worship of this old forgotten deity back into the world and "fixing" it's mistake in the original god-quest which we were repeating/following. I decided that her need to do the right thing and fix things that were broken outweighed her distrust for deities, so she agreed and served in the task on behalf of this deity.

Thus, after an extremely long run as a character, she finally "found her place" in the world. Never in a million years would I have considered that this character, starting out as she did, would have ended out as she did. But because I didn't have any particular direction for her (other than her initial motivation for joining up in the first place), I just let the events that happened, well, happen. Each step was a single decision about the character. No step was planned out in terms of destination, but the end result was very satisfying and "made sense" in the long run. Her backstory certainly influenced the decisions she made (in a large way, in fact), but absolutely did not define the path she took. But that's what it's about IMO. It's not about what you plan, it's what actually happens. And that's how a character that started as a soldier/scout from a large powerful civilized island nation ended up as a hunter/tracker who uses the pelts of animals she's taken to empower herself and who now also acts as a semi-prophet for this new (old) deity to bring its worship to mostly primitive/barbarian tribes for whom hunting is of major importance.

Of course, this doesn't stop her from also having an array of pretty powerful items packed away in various pockets and pouches under that non-descript outer clothing, a somewhat ridiculous number of different skills and abilities that allow her to escape from just about any prison/trap that could be imagined, and the ability to stand toe to toe with a giant in direct melee combat if she wants to as well. But she appears to be a normal looking hunter. Well, mostly...

Quertus
2022-09-22, 11:09 AM
As a corollary to the purpose for character backstory, I do also think that keeping a backstory relatively simple is important because a complex backstory tends to crowd out character growth that occurs once you actually start playing the character. One of the great things about RPGs (IMO) is that they provide relatively endless possibilities for the players to experience different things in the guise of their characters. If you start out writing a character backstory but include a very specific set of things in that backstory, with a very specific story arc you intend for this character to go through going forward, then you aren't really playing that character, you are following a plot/script for that character. That's great if you're writing a novel or something. Not as good when playing an RPG.

I tend to avoid that method, and encourage my players to do so as well. For one reason, because it constrains future adventures to some degree (the GM now feels obligated to write things into the world to match up with the proposed character development path as written), but also leaves the player more or less locked in to a path written at the start. I'd rather let the series of adventures the characters actually engage in, the decisions made along the way, the random stuff that happens, decisions or other players and their characters, and a host of other things that happen at the table, (which are largely unpredictable) to mold the character over time into what they are today. The focus should really be on the playing of the character, not on what happened before that. Backstory should explain starting character personality, skills, and motivations, and not a whole lot more. Let the character grow over time.

… I find your lack of faith in backstories disturbing?

Yeah, I wasn’t sure how to open my response.

So… hmmm… in writing, if you want your character to change, they have to change from something. And there needs to be an instigating event, a reason why they change.

And… hmmm… as much as a regularly vehemently disagree with the “just choose differently” crowd as being clueless wrt character and roleplaying, they are onto something, in that there are multiple possible outcomes from any given instigating event, especially if the character - and, more importantly, the why of the character - is undefined.

Of course, you’re not actually roleplaying if the “why” is undefined.

Anyway, if you want events to meaningfully change the character, then they need to already be some way. And backstory (like “parents killed by gun in ‘random’ mugging”, “raised by butler”, “scary encounter with bats”) is great for creating and explaining that state of being, and for understanding what transformational events might impact them, and how.

But if you aren’t doing single author fiction, and haven’t read the module ahead of time, and therefore don’t know what kind of instigating events you’ll encounter, you can’t craft “exactly that minimalist backstory that covers the upcoming character growth”, and therefore need more, broader backstory, to cover a broader range of potential transformational events.

There’s definitely lines of thought that say that you should never have a character change without the corresponding backstory already in place. So I’m struggling to imagine who you’d consider backstory antithetical to character growth, rather than a requirement for it.

What have you experienced, that makes you believe the opposite of what is considered good for character growth? :smallconfused:

Tanarii
2022-09-22, 11:45 AM
As aThe focus should really be on the playing of the character, not on what happened before that.
Right. That's why character motivations are important, not so much history. Clear statements that will help the player consider how they want to make decisions for the character, aka roleplaying.

Backstory is far too often focused on history and story. And even when those things include motivations, they're usually buried in the prose. Bullet point style motivations are a far superior way to go.

gbaji
2022-09-22, 07:52 PM
So… hmmm… in writing, if you want your character to change, they have to change from something. And there needs to be an instigating event, a reason why they change.

This isn't writing. It's roleplaying. I even talked about the difference between writing script/plot for your character and having that story play out in the game versus having simple background past and motivations that are just sufficient to get you into the story in the first place. I've seen a whole lot of people (on this forum even) describe "backstories" that contain not just who the character is, where they come from, childhood experiences, etc, but go further to state what they want that character to progress through, including telling the GM "I want my character to explore his <whatever>, eventually discovering <some thing>, and ultimately choosing to do <some other thing>".

That's not "backstory". That's you scripting future events. The "back" part of "backstory" is the first clue. It's what has happened to you up to the point you start playing the character at the table. Nothing more. The moment you start projecting into the future with what your want for your character's development path, you are no longer writing a backstory. You are writing the plot to a story. You can do that. And some GMs are fine with that. But that's *not* actual "backstory".



And… hmmm… as much as a regularly vehemently disagree with the “just choose differently” crowd as being clueless wrt character and roleplaying, they are onto something, in that there are multiple possible outcomes from any given instigating event, especially if the character - and, more importantly, the why of the character - is undefined.

Of course, you’re not actually roleplaying if the “why” is undefined.

What part of me saying that "Backstory should explain starting character personality, skills, and motivations, and not a whole lot more." makes you think there is no "why" to the character for the player to base their RP on? I was specifically saying to include things like events in your past that drive your motivations, but to *not* include future progression in your backstory.



Anyway, if you want events to meaningfully change the character, then they need to already be some way. And backstory (like “parents killed by gun in ‘random’ mugging”, “raised by butler”, “scary encounter with bats”) is great for creating and explaining that state of being, and for understanding what transformational events might impact them, and how.

Um. Yeah. That's more or less what I said you should do. What I said you should not do is the equivalent of going to the GM and saying "So, I want a series of adventures where I learn how to overcome my scary encounter with bats, learn how to fight from Mr. Ghul, then break free and return to Gotham and don a bat motif costume to fight crime". If you're starting the adventure as a young Bruce Wayne, you should just play a young Bruce Wayne, taking into account the backstory, and see where events take you. That's actual roleplaying. It might lead to that character becoming Batman. Or it might go in a completely different direction. Because you are playing the character, not just following a pre-written script.


But if you aren’t doing single author fiction, and haven’t read the module ahead of time, and therefore don’t know what kind of instigating events you’ll encounter, you can’t craft “exactly that minimalist backstory that covers the upcoming character growth”, and therefore need more, broader backstory, to cover a broader range of potential transformational events.

Uh. No. A character's backstory does not need to interact in any meaningful way at all with the currently run adventure. It may. It may not. it's odd that you think that every adventure being run has to have some sort of special hook into every character's personal backstory and character development. That's simply not true. The backstory is about how you, the player, play the character on day one. Characters can continue to develop as they adventure (should, in fact). Just because a character has a fear of bats does not mean that the GM has to make sure to put bats in the adventure in order for that character to have a development moment. The backstory should never drive future events IMO. It should merely be there to inform the player as to how they may choose to react to the things that do happen during play (ie: taking the backstory into account when making decisions in game).

And I've also found that some of the most fun/amusing gameplay situations have occurred when the player put something in their backstory, having no clue it may be relevant at all, and the GM put something in their adventure (before knowing anything about that character's backstory), and they just happen to intersect in a completely unpredictable way. Same deal with multiple characters having backstories that interact in "interesting" ways. There's just a whole lot to be said for not trying to force gameplay paths IMO.

Additionally, sometimes the best character development occurs when things happen that have nothing to do with the backstory at all. Your character encounters an annoying halfling merchant who rips him off. So now he's developed a mistrust for halflings, especially if they are trying to sell him something. That becomes a new part of the character's personality. Personality, likes/dislikes, objectives, etc, do not stop being generated when you stop writing the backstory. Most of the character's life and experience will happen *after* you start playing it actively at the table. So let that process happen. If the GM is restraining himself to tie things in to a crafted backstory and desired future development, then both the GM and the player are losing out on a wide world of other potential character development possibilities. Character development can come from the unlikeliest of situations and in ways that are utterly unpredictable ahead of time. That's the point. That's what makes RPing fun. You don't know where this character may end up. And that's a good thing.


There’s definitely lines of thought that say that you should never have a character change without the corresponding backstory already in place.

That's true if we are writing a novel. That is absolutely not true if we're playing a character in an RPG.



So I’m struggling to imagine who you’d consider backstory antithetical to character growth, rather than a requirement for it.

What have you experienced, that makes you believe the opposite of what is considered good for character growth? :smallconfused:

I never once said that backstory was "antithetical to character growth". Where the heck did you get that from? I said that backstory should be limited to the stuff that happened *before* you start playing your character (it's literally "back" story). I further said that you should not introduce said character with a specific "forward story" in mind.

I will say, having experienced both in gameplay, that the latter (pre-planning a character development arc) almost always results in far less satisfying actual gameplay than just creating minimal backstory and letting the character develop from there. It's not the opposite of character growth. You will have greater character growth if you don't try to control it from day one by writing stuff on the back of your character sheet and asking the GM to enable it for you.

Again. it's the difference between scripting the life of your character and playing the life of your character. The former is relatively pre-destined and ultimately boring and unsatisfying (and often can fall into "wish fulfillment fantasy"), while the latter is completely unrestrained and allows for endless actual real roleplaying opportunities. You don't create everything about your character on day one. You just start with the bare bones basics. You fill that in and add to it by playing it over time at the table. The focus should be on the paying, not the writing.


As an accommodation to your position, I will acknowledge that if you are running a single shot adventure or campaign, then that is a case where interweaving character development and taking the backstory into account will tend to work well. Because these are characters that literally only exist for the purpose of running them through this specific set of adventures/encounters/whatever, so their own foibles, fears, likes, dislikes, etc can (and perhaps should) be a consideration along the way. But that's pretty much the only case. I'm also not a huge fan of that style of RPG playing to start with. I want characters that exist and have meaning and purpose outside of the specific adventure they are running in. I want my players to be able to re-play those characters in future adventures as well. So locking them into development paths is extremely problematic.

I've run (and written) tourney RPG scenarios. That typically means writing not just the adventure but also the characters the players (competitors) will play. And in that case, the design of the adventure and the characters is specifically crafted to allow for the players to be able to use their respective skills/abilities/items in meaningful and useful ways, and to also have personality bits that will tie into specific events in the scenario so as to give them RP opportunities. So yes. I'm fully aware of the necessity of tying that in. But, again, those players are never going to play those characters again, so it's not really about character development so much as the table GMs being able to accurately assess the player's skill at playing the character they were assigned to determine who goes on to the next round of play (and to ultimately rank the players at the final table). This is something I would never do for players at my own table though. Like. Ever. it's incredibly constraining.

Quertus
2022-09-23, 09:02 AM
@gbaji - sounds like my reading comprehension has failed me yet again, and we’re in violent agreement. :smallredface::smallbiggrin:

So, the small piece that we do disagree on… no, reading more carefully, we don’t even disagree on that.

I guess the only thing we disagree on is what each other’s positions are!

That said, I’m glad of the thoroughness of your reply, not only because it allowed my feeble reading comprehension the opportunity to ascertain your position, but because you have clearly thought about some of the… boundaries and consequences of our shared position in more detail than I have, and you’ve given me a good bit to think about.