No Backstory

[Tobrian]

Isnt that the point of D&D?

On the danger of making myself unpopular i'd say it's the point of character creation in many games like Star Wars, GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, Kult etc. Not neccessarily in D&D... something called character background or development was practically nonexistant or at least heavily optional in AD&D, and frankly D&D d20 has moments where they try to pretend that the game is about more than just class, race and level, and they publish supplements about making your characters and villains more interesting and rounded but frankly...the game does not require you to create any backstory for your character beyond "grew up became an adventurer" or "want to get revenge on monster race X". Similarly, the generic adventurer is never married, doesnt even have a permanent home, has no family or siblings or other attachments that could get in the way of dungeon crawling.

I've the same problem with several of my players in my D&D group, although it's not this drastic. Two of them seem generally desinterested in writing anything about their character's background; one flat-out refused to come up with anything, another said he needed to know more about the game world first before he could come up with anything for his fighter (oh come on, he's a mercenary), anf the third (he plays a lot of computer games too) at first didnt come up with anythiung more complex beyond a basic "I want to play a gnome alchemist/sorcerer" idea but ignored all my attempts to coax him into making up some background for his character's family ("they died") and the teacher he is apprenticed to. Now suddenly last session he handed me a page of character background, only he has decided to completely rewrite the character (at level 9!), kick out the alchemy stuff he never used (not my problem if he doesnt show interest) and give his sorcerer a mysterious dragon or half-dragon teacher who for unknown reasons tutored him when he was young and then mysteriously disappeared. Eh. I'm smelling a rat. A Dragon Disciple sized rat. I definitely outlawed that PrC in my campaign, grrr. But that player is really into dragon power since he read that sorcerers have dragon blood (and told him it could as well be fey or demon blood, and the whole thing is a rumour anyway, but he ignored it). So there you have it, a "background" story that really isn' one, but is only geared towards explaining the characters class and sneaking in some dragon or half-dragon NPC mentor.

My advice: Come up with a questionnaire, similar to the ones in the GURPS, Mage, Vampire or Vampire Dark Ages rulebooks for example. It forces the players to think about "minor unimportant" things like, does my character have siblings, where are they, did he like them, did he have an apprenticeship before he want out into the world as adventurer, is he religious and devout or not, what's his personal world view, does he have likes, dislikes or phobias, does he have embarrassing secrets? Did he have a pet when he was smaller? Is he ascetic or does he like to eat nice things if he can afford them? Does he have scars (beyond those who only exist to make him look cool), a neighing laugh, jug ears, a good singing voice without being a bard? Does he have an ear ring, wear an amulet, what is it's story? Did he buy his sword, or was it a family heirloom ,or did he take it off the first guy he ever killed on a battlefield? What kind of women/men/elves/orcs/goats does he want to get into bed/drag behind the bushes?

Stuff like WoW is the scourge of roleplaying. Characters in a standard computer game or MMORPG do not have to have their own personality, because they're simply a stand-in for the player to move around the virtual world and use the character's stats to solve quests someone else has written, without being expected to come up with his own motivations for doing anything. The only motivation for doing anything in a computer game is because you want the XP and "solve" the story. Characters in a team are pretty much exchangable, they're there for their special powers, nothing else.

If that guy rather wants to mine gold and quest for epic armor to put on his virtual Ken doll, I'm afraid my answer is: Let him. Play without him, then make sure he's present the next time when you and your friends talk about your latest cool adventure and how the half-orc fighter among yourselves.

Or look for a Play-By-eMail or play-by-chat game on the internet.

Elaborate character histories, basically small works of fiction starring the player's character, I see no point in. All they do is supplant the function of the actual campaign. What I do want from my players, however, is a backstory that explains why they're an adventurer. "Small town background, wanted to see the world" is sufficient. For the purposes of the campaign, neither I nor the player needs an elaborately crafted set of events, just a basic character sketch to start roleplaying with. Interesting, deep characters will emerge from the decisions they make over the course of the game. Endless preplanned detail tends to just get in the way.

Personally I like "elaborate character histories" for my own characters, I don't "preplan" them , they just... happen. They just grow in my head while I create the character, or during the first few sessions. Well, not for each and every character but for most of them. They're character background stories, as opposed to character life stories which are created by what happens during the course of the campaign.

But I disagree that deep characters will automatically emerge just because stuff happens to them. I've seen characters that havent changed on iota even after they've run through a long campaign. Dealing with present events like slaying monsters does not neccessarily mean a player will come up with anything new, on the contrary, who needs the past when you can level up?

I've seen gamemasters express the prejudice, sometimes without consciously realizing they're doing it, that if a player comes up with "too much backstory" it only gets in the way of the gamemaster's glorious campaign so it must be discouraged, or that any player inventing backstory NPCs or an old schoolyard nemesis of his character's is secretly trying to undermine the campaign and "dictate" events and NPCs to his gamemaster. Meh. Nonsense. I hate PCs with no better background story than "I'm an adventurer, I want to solve the quest"... because it's the player's motivation, not the character's.

Having a rich backstory with deetails and plot hooks is not the same as making up a backstory and motivations that mean the character is incompatible with any story other than the one his player secretly wants to play... I've seen such a player once, but usually you can spot them from a mile away. They're not even interested in playing, they just want to talk about their cool character (usually a lone wolf type of guy). They should write a story about it.