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2017-12-13, 10:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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#42
Bugbear in the Playground
Re: What drives your initial character development
I tend to have a mix, sometimes it is the class that gives me the initial hook, sometimes a cool idea I want to try, sometimes the story of the character.
After I've got the hook I tend to refine and adjust, get a cool trinket that makes me think of adding X, if I grab a morningstar instead of a sword that might mean Y. Just tweaking things until it is time for the game to start.
As to writing backstories, I tend to write a page or two. I try and keep it short, but it is way more interesting and useful to me than trying to write some motivation sentences. Especially since a lot of the ideals, bonds and flaws in the PHB are kind of crappy and/or useless.
I think the biggest use out of writing the backstory is the connections. Sure I can write "Make my Family Proud" under ideals, but that doesn't tell me who my family is, and if I begin writing and figure that my family is a noble house with a long line of clerics devoted to this temple, then I can do two things. 1) I can talk about them like real people and 2) I can find other motivations, things I might have missed or overlooked if I thought about them in distinctive chunks instead of as a whole.