Do you ever regret old character backstories?

[90sMusic]

Just out of curiosity.

Many DMs require you to make a backstory for your character as part of joining a game. Have you ever found one of these old backstories you wrote up from a year or so ago and thought to yourself "Man, this sucks" or were just unhappy with it in general?

[BWR]

No.

Since the forums won't let me post that short a response, I will elaborate: I have never regretted a background mostly because I don't write backgrounds. At best I will come up with a basic personality and a background that is one or two sentences long, subject to alteration once I get to know the character. My characters often end up quite different in play than whatever I envisioned to begin with, so rather than going to a ton of trouble making something that might end up being wrong I'll just let it develop freely. Sometimes this is because of the lack of proper setting information and culture and history to work with in the games I play (as is the case in several D&D games). On the rare occasion I play in a setting with plenty of information about culture and history, like L5R or Ars Magica, and I bother to make a background, the background works even if the initial personality didn't.

[Quertus]

No.

Note that I go the opposite route, and develop extensive backgrounds and scenarios and responses, wherein the character's history informs their personality.

Now, sometimes, I produce a character that I don't enjoy playing. And sometimes (when I'm dumb enough not to insist on running a character who's "not from around here") I create a character who just doesn't fit - their background just doesn't correctly match the setting. But, Ignoring all that, even when I look back on my cheesiest backgrounds, they were what made that character who they were when I started playing them.

[Tinkerer]

Yep. There is a saying from somewhere that goes "Having an old shame is nothing more than proof that you've grown"... or something to that effect. Looking back on characters and being embarrassed by them is nothing more than proof that you've grown more discerning in your story creation. Or possibly an element of self loathing. I've had both.

I would have to say that of the characters I've written up no more (and probably less) than half get played so that's a fair number of characters made over the years. A number of them probably wouldn't pass my normal muster but they were made in the heat of the moment and there is usually a good reason why they turned out the way they did.

[Slipperychicken]

My first character was a knight (dnd 3.5 crusader) named Max Payne who rode his horse, which was named Samson. Not even a class feature - he was attached to a completely ordinary horse. I did not know until I started playing that Max Payne was the name of a video-game character either. My roleplaying of him was the same as any first-time player's paladin. I was a teenager and thought I was being really clever.

I didn't regret much about his backstory. I made it by filling out a backstory questionnaire form meant for authors. Mercifully, perhaps, I seem to have lost it over the years. I recall that his favorite food was fish and he had a barbarian mother who raged at him.

[RazorChain]

No

Backstories are meant to flesh out characters, else the character is just a cardboard cutout. Everybody has a past and characters have it as well when they enter play. Finding out who your character is means you have to know where he comes from.

Backstories don't have to be long or detailed. Being a farm boy that picked up a sword and wanted to make a name for himself is perfectly viable. In downtime you may invite your adventuring buddies to taste Ma's delicious cherry pie while you tell her of your recent adventure. Your fellow players aren't going to remember that fighter who had this and that stat or feat, but they'll certainly remember that fighter who always insisted they'd stop at his farm to meet his mom and have some cherry pie.

Knowing where your character came from helps developing his personality as well. Being a farm boy, your character could be a little naive, have respect for animals, not afraid to get his hands dirty...there are numerous traits you might think of just from being a farm boy.

[Algeh]

I regretted that I bothered to write a backstory for my character at all in a Feng Shui game once, does that count?

This was over a decade ago, so the details are murky. The game itself was a two session game that was basically "break into the building because a McGuffin is in there and you should go do something about that", which is a perfectly good plot structure for a Feng Shui game of that length.

I threw together a character who had the backstory of pretty much just having had a country western song happen to him: lost the wife, the dog, and the truck. Now he's looking for meaning and a chance to start over. (Hey, I didn't say it was a detailed backstory: I knew I was writing for a short game without a lot of character growth potential, but I'm pretty sure the GM asked for some kind of backstory anyway, so I threw something together.) I no longer remember the character's name, maybe Roland?

Our opening scene was some shadowy agency or other pulling the PCs into a briefing room and the opening motivation is that "we each open an envelope with a picture of the person we care about most".

Algeh: "Ummm....so-and-so's entire backstory is kind of that he doesn't have anyone like that, you see...." (the idea being I'd quickly suggest a different motivation for my character to take the quest to keep the plot moving)
GM: (glaring) "Then it's a picture of your dog"
Algeh: (chooses not to mention losing the dog was specifically part of the backstory because seriously, this is a dumb argument let's go play): (in character, acts shocked) "Not FLUFFY!"

There are also several later bits like that, which I started by reacting to similarly and after the first couple went directly to the equivalent of "not FLUFFY!" rather than trying to talk the GM into adjusting any part of their planned scenario to make sense for my specific character. The GM had such a specific scenario to run that it would have been better to show up with nothing but stats and maybe a catchphrase, so I quickly decided to ignore everything in my backstory and hope the GM would not also be the kind to ding you for ignoring your backstory since she started it. (She indeed never called me out on not playing according to backstory, and I think we successfully did whatever it was we were supposed to be accomplishing. The game itself went basically just fine, I just wish I hadn't bothered to pull together a specific backstory in the first place since it was way more trouble than it was worth.)

[Guizonde]

i don't regret my way of doing backstories. i write up a paragraph detailing the looks, personality and vague back-story of a character, and then rp and ad-lib it all with the group. that's why my current inquisitor has got awful accents speaking foreign languages and has mom-issues. we played it off as "smart kid, bookish, not great in language classes, possible speech impediment". the mom thing is that his dad is human his mom is a drow. we don't talk about that too much. whether it was rape, forbidden love, culture clash, we don't know yet. we find it's better for roleplay that nothing is fixed in stone.

one backstory i "regret" are the circumstances of the creation. as you can imagine when creating a character's backstory with a group, when there's real-life beef between the participants things can get petty very quickly. i had a paladin who was a veteran of the war against iuz in the return to the temple of elemental evil. pretty dour girl. she went in that game, and it crashed and burned before the 3rd session. the dm was so pissed off by the attitude of the other players that he killed off the entire group out of session. of course, that blows (there are enough threads on here to make my point). then, after much real-life squabbling, he gave me back the sheet, saying that my pally was turned into a necropolitan against her will, lost her paladin levels, and told me to look into the "unearthed arcana", "heroes of horror", and the pf phb books to give her class levels and things so long as i never showed up to play with her again. that character reminded him too much of that time.

the character works, and the backstory is delightfully tragic in an over-the-top way. what i regret are the unfortunate circumstances behind that backstory. seeing a friendship broken in front of you, seeing the bad blood perpetuate, and of course having a constant memento of that time in the form of a character backstory (that bends the 4th wall, to boot), it's kind of unpleasant. at least just remembering that event gets me in the somber and dour mood needed to roleplay my little pink-haired undead: avenging the wronged, aggression, spite, foul language.

[Eldan]

Eff yeah. My first ever character was a total mess.

So, my first ever game. We were... fifteen? Sixteen? And bored during lunch breaks. So we did this strange roleplaying thing. We didn't write backstories as such. We just had them. Anyway. My first character was a lawful evil elf wizard and so edgy, you'd cut yourself looking at the character sheet. He was dark and broody. Check. Hated everyone. Check. Only ever spoke in what I thought was highly intelligent sarcastic wit. Check. Was secretly deposed royalty from the elven kingdom and the last of his bloodline. Check check and check. Of course, he was also intelligent, charismatic, super-dextrous, a master-bowman and the greatest wizard alive, ever. At level 1.

[Sajiri]

Not really. There are two situations that come kinda close though.

My very first character was a gloaming duskblade (magus when we converted to pathfinder). I didnt really know what to do, so I made up her background based on a lot of points that were 'typical' of gloamings in the book. Later in an argument with the DM he accused me of making my character a mary-sue, and I realised then that the whole race was kinda mary-sueish. Later we restarted the game and I recreated the character with a more original version of that background.

I have another character who's background I've regretted parts of, but not because I thought it sucked. She was the wife of a nobleman who had his lands invaded, conquered and then he and their sons were executed, it was the setup for the characters to turn to piracy. I had her father already have died and her mother remarried so there wasnt any opportunity to say 'oh well I have rich family lets just go take shelter there', but as I decided to flesh out her background more as the game went on, her late father was defined as being quite the badass. I started to regret killing him off because I thought "He would make such an awesome NPC." Since expressing that though, the DM has hinted that maybe he isnt dead after all, or at least has some relevance to the plot, as he died after his daughter was already married and living in another nation, so she wasnt actually around when he seemingly passed away.

[Mordaedil]

I don't remember any character I was emberassed about in that sense. My D&D experience started with Neverwinter Nights, playing on persistent worlds there and some of those had very hardcore requirements for even playing on some of them, some of which included making a backstory that wasn't tired cliché, so I had a lot of practice writing interesting characters when I went over to play D&D to begin with.

The first character I made I never really did a backstory on, but I only attended one session as I wasn't super comfortable with those people I played with, but it was a lot of causation of a language barrier; I wasn't comfortable roleplaying D&D in my native language of Norwegian. Maybe it'd have felt better if I made a viking character.

Ever since I haven't made any I feel that bad about, most of them feel rather made with the intention for setting the DM up for making use of it and I often talk to my DM's about how I'm comfortable with it being used and even add details over time as I grow more familiar with my character and figure out more motivations for keep adventuring. (as getting rich is often covered by a few sessions and doesn't really justify becoming a legend in the setting)

[Honest Tiefling]

For past games? A little, but any hobby is about improvement. If you ever wish to embarass an artistic friend, ask to see their early work. They have probably burnt it already.

For current games? I try to talk to the DM about it. If I think something isn't working or clashes with the setting, I try to see if the DM will let me retcon for the sake of the game if it hasn't had a huge impact in the game. If they don't...I'd probably need a good reason or I'd consider that a bit of a red flag.

[Mastikator]

I've regretted making characters that had only the bare bones of a backstory, the regret being that I didn't put more effort into them. Obviously the goal is never (for me) to write something long and convoluted but write something that ties into the campaign setting directly, that grounds the character in the world and offers many hooks for the DM to pull the character into the story.

I've never regretted making a character that did have a well fleshed out backstory. They inform the way I play the character and make it easier to not just play as myself in the game world.

[Nifft]

I've certainly thought "man, this sucks" about fiction I've written, but I don't seem to ever feel that way about old character backstories.

Those backstories were just a foundation for a character, and so far I haven't particularly regretted any characters.

Even the most cliche things have yielded pleasing results.

Nope, no regrets here.

[2D8HP]

I used to be annoyed with GM's who ignored the lengthy back-stories that they required for PbP games, but then I realized that they just skim them a to see if I can write in English and otherwise go by word count.

The few GM's that do actually read the B.S. (Back-story), seem to be most accepting of Batman/Mad Max expulsion claptrap, so now I just copy and paste some doggerel, and write a parody:

'As the rain came down Darkblade Mourncloud's hooded and implacable face, he whispered "There will be a reckoning!".

Darkblade Mourncloud always spoke in the second person.

Darkblade Mourncloud's just likes to say Darkblade Mourncloud.

Darkblade Mourncloud!''

Jokes on them when "Mournblade Stormwind" turns out to be played as a combination of Captain Haddock, Julio Scoundrél, and Pepé Le Pew



Mournblade Stormwind
(or Darkfire Steelheart, or Dagger Coldedge, Grim McAngsty, Steeldark Darksteel, or whatever)

Fortunately PC creation may be systemized:
Name:

Edgy name generator! Roll 3d20!

d20	First name	Last name (1st half)	Last name (2nd half)
1	Agony	Beast	Arrow
2	Dagger	Black	Blade
3	Ghost	Blood	Blood
4	Ghoul	Cold	Bone
5	Gloom	Dark	Crow
6	Misery	Despair	Dark
7	Mist	Doom	Demon
8	Moon	Ever	Death
9	Pain	Fright	Eye
10	Raven	Fury	Flame
11	[Refuses to state first name]	Grim	Heart
12	Shadow	Hate	Ice
13	Shudder	Never	Mark
14	Spider	Pain	Martyr
15	Talon	Poison	Scar
16	Twilight	Razor	Shackle
17	Venom	Steel	Skin
18	Wander	Storm	Skull
19	Whisper	True	Snow
20	Wolf	Vengeance	Sword

A few try-outs:

Talon Despairmartyr
Dagger Razorflame
Twilight Poisonice
Venom Darkcrow
Misery Whisperdeath

Working as intended, it seems.

Class, Race, and Tragic Events:

Well, here is an edgy character generator I made for 5th edition D&D. Use with the name generator. Enjoy!

1d6	Race
1	Human
2	Half-orc
3	Drow
4	Half-drow
5	Tiefling
6	Ghostwise Halfling

1d10	Class
1	Fiend Warlock
2	Shadow Sorcerer
3	Assassin Rogue
4	Undying Warlock
5	Death Cleric
6	War Cleric
7	Berserker Barbarian
8	Hunter Ranger
9	Vengance Paladin
10	Shadow Monk

1d8	Backstory p1	1d8	Backstory p2
1	I was abused by	1	Family member(s).
2	I hate	2	Dragon(s).
3	My family was killed by	3	Orc(s).
4	I am a transformed	4	Demon(s).
5	I am in love with a	5	Devil(s).
6	I killed a	6	Drow
7	I have the soul of a	7	Ghost(s).
8	I work for	8	Assassin(s).

Alignment:

I'll add some stuff to the class table.

Alignments that are edgy? I would say CG, CN, TN, LN, LE, NE. Gives us a nice 6 alignments.

1d6	Alignment
1	Chaotic good, Probably racist.
2	Chaotic neutral, 'classic' edgy character.
3	True neutral. Pragmatic to the core.
4	Lawful neutral. Probably serves an evil higher power.
5	Lawful evil. Lives by her own code.
6	Neutral evil. Like chaotic good, but probably racist towards more people.

Edit: The characters that are being ended up with are awesome. My tables do have a lot of bugs (killing an orc isn't much), but with the working for your family, what if your family is evil?

Fashion accessories:
(Sadly requires some actual creativity, but fortunately not much)

Grimblade Mourncloud rued birth into this world of pain and especially wearing spiked bracelets and skull epaulets to the mall that matched those adorning Darkfire Stormwind who's tragic deal and awesomicity had no match. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
Verily if Darkfire Stormwind had any tears left to shed, surely they would turn to steam upon release due to the bitter fires that rage inside one such as Darkfire Stormwind! Just a gaze from Darkfire Stormwind steel colored eyes (which were set off well by the spiked bracelets, and skull epaulets) was enough to turn one such as Grimblade Mourncloud into a mere tepid stain at the mall!
Darkfire Stormwind tragic deal and awesomicity were such that Darkfire Stormwind only spoke of Darkfire Stormwind in the third person. Darkfire Stormwind just liked to say Darkfire Stormwind!

This personality is good for any campaign!

Well, hold on, I think we're missing one of the most important parts of the proper edgelord here.

He's got to be misunderstood! His misanthropic nature is simply the outward manifestation of a deep-seated insecurity, resulting from the internalization of the notion that he is apart from others and always will be, that he somehow stands alone, and that no one will ever truly understand the incredible, titanic struggle within himself, nor will he ever truly be able to relate this to another person, no matter how close they become.

Darkedge Shadowblade's behavior and affectations are, in large part, due to this deep-seated need for understanding and acceptance. And yet, as a half-tiefling, half-aasimar assassin, given incredible gifts in the art of death that, in truth, are more of a burden than a boon, who can truly claim to understand or know him? Of course, he does what he must do to survive, and so he will tell himself, as his black-edged knife cuts the throat of one more unsuspecting nobleman, fatted on the wealth of the nation that he's enslaved with his unjust regime; but there will always be that shadow of self-doubt. The kind that can usually only be expressed during brooding internal monologues while Darkedge Shadowblade crouches, hunched and ready to leap at a moment's notice, on the silent gargoyles of the largest church in the city -- itself an impossibly large symbol of greed and lust for power given form in unfeeling stone -- as the rain pours down his hooded and implacable face.

You gotta' have the rain. That makes the whole scene.

It's all 'bout word count, and packing in angst and tragedy.

[Nifft]

Shadow Darkdark, I am a Ghostwise Halfling Shadow Monk, my backstory is that I am a transformed family member.

Hmm.

[Lord Raziere]

There is one I technically regret, but I've fixed it to better reflect something I'm comfortable with if I ever play that character again. A small change was all that was needed really.

[FreddyNoNose]

Just out of curiosity.

Many DMs require you to make a backstory for your character as part of joining a game. Have you ever found one of these old backstories you wrote up from a year or so ago and thought to yourself "Man, this sucks" or were just unhappy with it in general?

I try not to do this and tell players not to create backstories if they play in my game. Kind of putting the cart before the horse, plus they don't know what is appropriate. Better to learn about their character as they play it. Plus, what if you spend hours on a back story and die in the first 10 minutes?

[Concrete]

Only once.

Not knowing the group I was about to play with, I wrote up a far too grim backstory, and kept to it for far too long, thinking I was counteracting the groups silliness with my seriousness, when in reality, I was counteracting the groups fun with my edgelordness.
It worked out in the end, but I really should have been better at reading the room.

[Tinkerer]

I try not to do this and tell players not to create backstories if they play in my game. Kind of putting the cart before the horse, plus they don't know what is appropriate. Better to learn about their character as they play it. Plus, what if you spend hours on a back story and die in the first 10 minutes?

Hahaha, yeah I've definitely had people who have gamed with me before make a character and wind up liking them too much to risk them getting injured in my world (I'm not a killer GM but I definitely let the dice fall where they may in a quite lethal rule system). So they hang their head and say that they need to make up a new character. At the same time though making a backstory is definitely a part of character creation in my world, I just offer the advice of keeping it to a page or less. Certain aspects of the mechanics come from the backstory.

[FreddyNoNose]

Hahaha, yeah I've definitely had people who have gamed with me before make a character and wind up liking them too much to risk them getting injured in my world (I'm not a killer GM but I definitely let the dice fall where they may in a quite lethal rule system). So they hang their head and say that they need to make up a new character. At the same time though making a backstory is definitely a part of character creation in my world, I just offer the advice of keeping it to a page or less. Certain aspects of the mechanics come from the backstory.

That is a whole other thing! But anything you write before hand can be written afterwards and with more information to make a informed choice from.

[Samzat]

Yeah, because they were generic as **** and edgy. Since then, I realized that there are only 3 (sometimes only 2 depending on the setting) things that are important to my background:
1. Location: where do they come from, and what does that say about them?
2. Vocation: what did they do before? Why did they stop? Did they enjoy their former job?
3. Motivation: I ususally play rather mundane people with ambitious dreams, so the core of almost all my characters is what their end goal is. Wealth? Power? Revenge? Knowledge? Something else? Also important is worldview. Optimist or Pessimist? Selfless or selfish? Pro human or anti human (in a world with other races)?

I use this so I can have my character develop over time from a minimal starting point, allowing me time to get into the role in advance of having a serious one.

[FreddyNoNose]

Yeah, because they were generic as **** and edgy. Since then, I realized that there are only 3 (sometimes only 2 depending on the setting) things that are important to my background:
1. Location: where do they come from, and what does that say about them?
2. Vocation: what did they do before? Why did they stop? Did they enjoy their former job?
3. Motivation: I ususally play rather mundane people with ambitious dreams, so the core of almost all my characters is what their end goal is. Wealth? Power? Revenge? Knowledge? Something else? Also important is worldview. Optimist or Pessimist? Selfless or selfish? Pro human or anti human (in a world with other races)?

I use this so I can have my character develop over time from a minimal starting point, allowing me time to get into the role in advance of having a serious one.

Reasonable!

[Rynjin]

The only backstories I regret writing are the ones for games that ended very prematurely, or were lengthy recruitments that ended up with myself not being selected.

I rarely bother with a proper backstory anymore regardless, and go with a detailing of personality and appearance with maybe 1-2 sentences about how he was a merchant's son or what have you that then went off on adventure. You keep your sanity longer that way. Every now and then I get a character burning in my head and write a full backstory, but then never get to play them and eventually stop trying, so meh.

My first ever backstory was kind of edgy I guess (long story short, he was a Lawful Evil Monk who worshipped both Irori and Achaekek, had a vendetta against the Red Mantis Assassins for killing his family and leaving him to die, and was obsessed with becoming perfect in every way, thinking that stripping himself of "soft" emotions was part of that. Also he was an alcoholic) but I never regretted it, Sun Xiao was hella fun to play and I had him develop a lot.

[Lord Torath]

'As the rain came down Darkblade Mourncloud's hooded and implacable face, he whispered "There will be a reckoning!".

Darkblade Mourncloud always spoke in the second person.

Darkblade Mourncloud's just likes to say Darkblade Mourncloud.

Darkblade Mourncloud!''

Technically Darkblade is speaking in Third Person, not Second Person.

First Person: I am Darkblade Mourncloud!
Second Person: You should bow down to acknowledge the awesomeness!
Third Person: Darkblade Mourncloud knows Darkblade Mourncloud is just too cool! Much too cool to bother with personal pronouns!

[2D8HP]

Technically Darkblade is speaking in Third Person, not Second Person....

Darkblade Mourncloud wails in agony:

Curse you cruel fate!

One such as Darkblade Mourncloud's has incomplete grammar education.

YOU MANIACS!

DARN YOU! DARN YOU ALL TO HECK!

[Eldan]

...[Mournblade]...

Rub it in, won't you

I don't even remember what my first elf wizard (mention above) had as a last name, but it had dark in it. Darkwood, Darkblade, Darkstar? Something stupid like that.

[Quertus]

So, I rolled up a whole party of angst:

Agony Coldsnow, human shadow sorcerer. Family killed by demons.

Venom Furydemon, human barbarian berserker. Actually a transformed dragon.

Talon Coldarrow, tiefling hunter ranger. Has the soul of a devil.

Wander Darkbone, ghostwise halfling vengeance paladin. Works for a devil.

Gloom Hateskin, drow assassin rogue. Family killed by demons.

I rerolled a duplicate first name, and the classes when 4(!) came up "hunter ranger". If I reroll the duplicate background, Agony Coldsnow is in love with a drow. I think they just need a Death Cleric, and they could be a pretty (dis)functional party.

[FreddyNoNose]

Darkblade Mourncloud wails in agony:

Curse you cruel fate!

One such as Darkblade Mourncloud's has incomplete grammar education.

YOU MANIACS!

DARN YOU! DARN YOU ALL TO HECK!

Now you need to roll a d20 for your Darn to Heck skill check.

[Nifft]

Now you need to roll a d20 for your Darn to Heck skill check.

That's just Craft (sewing) with heckish thread.