Why meatgrinders are terrible for creating backstory

[Tanarii]

Time played isn't story, it's experience. Backstory is, by it's very nature, a story. There's a difference between the two, and table shared experience with the other players > story for establishing who a character actually is. Backstory may or may not matter for a given session or campaign, but what happens in play always has some level of impact. Of course, it might be "got chewed up by a meat grinder and died" ... which is a mighty short 'character development arc'.

Meatgrinders have the potential to create a bonding experience for the players, and since player-character separation is a myth, that trickles down to the surviving characters. Of course, they also have the potential to leave a sour taste in the mouths of the players, even if they thought they knew what they were signing up for.

Meatgrinders / character funnels can work to establish why otherwise low personality / history characters work together, and gives some opportunity prior to the main adventures to establish personality and maybe even a bit of winging-it-sharing-a-character's-history for the survivors 'at the table', which is the most important place it can happen. Or it might not work. But for a higher investment character (be it character build time, significant advance development of personality, or writing a story about their history), it's obviously a terrible idea, because of the chance of character loss.

The long and short of it is anything written down about a character in advance of bringing them to the table doesn't actually 'exist' yet. It's only once it's revealed or impacts a player decision at the table that it 'exists' and is actually a part of that character. Before then it's all just theoretical.