Is 750 word too long for a backstory?

[KorvinStarmast]

So it cuts both ways.

If you offer the players world info and lore, and they ignore it, that's on them.

"Yes, the King of Spangleland has a standing bounty on wizard's heads. That information was provided in the campaign document I sent you last week.
Yes, you crossed the border into Spangleland yesterday.
Yes, that is in fact why five crossbows are now being pointed at you after that display of magic that you just performed at the tavern..."

[Cheesegear]

Might be because you aren't a writer.

I've heard that a good writer tells their story in as much detail as possible; A great writer gets to the point without losing the detail.

What I will often do is take traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws, background, class and sub class, and figure out who the character is.

No waaay....That's craaazy.
I can't possibly understand. Because I'm not a writer.

I kept it to one page.

I've never written a backstory longer. Never. I don't hate my DMs. When I have written more than a page...I deleted, then deleted, then deleted some more, until I got a single page.

Each of us had forwarded to the other players their "introduce your character to the other players" story

Yep. Would never happen in one of my groups. You introduce your character at the table. You can mention pieces of your backstory in-narrative, in-character...But actually sending another player your backstory just...Wouldn't happen in my groups. I think I've mentioned in other threads that for the most part, if we didn't play RPGs together, we probably wouldn't even talk to each other. Actually bothering to send each other e-mails is almost certainly out of the question.

But I can also do it shorter.

I'll repeat what I said in one of my previous posts.

Can you describe and/or define your character in less than [x00] words?
a) If so, why didn't you?
b) If not, why not?

My Tempest Cleric's back story ran 11 pages.

And if I was your DM I probably wouldn't read it.

I feel like someone nailed it on the head a while back. You write a backstory for your DM, and you write a backstory for anyone who cares you - they should probably be different.

It feels a lot like academic reading.

Most people will only read the Abstract. Some will also read the Conclusion as a whole.
Only if something jumps out as particularly crazy will anyone actually read the whole paper, the rationale and methods, as well.

Actually yeah. That's exactly what I want; An Abstract.
You can write the whole 2000 words if you want. I'm not going to read it. But you can still write it, if only so that you can say that you did.

[Tawmis]

I've never written a backstory longer. Never. I don't hate my DMs. When I have written more than a page...I deleted, then deleted, then deleted some more, until I got a single page.

PRO TIP: Decrease the font size till it reaches one page.

Kidding aside, it's a shame that the DMs you've had don't enjoy a solid, immersive backstory for your character.

It feels a lot like academic reading.

Question.

Does it bother you when your players are doing things on their cell phone while you're describing the town?

And are just waiting for combat to start, because they don't give a $#!+ about anything else.

And just wait - don't interact - until combat starts - because all that effing fluff about the town, the history, and the people doesn't interest them?

They just wanna kill $#!+?

After all such behavior isn't technically "disruptive"...

Why do they have to listen to you talk about the town and the people?

[pwykersotz]

If I am running a character-focused campaign, I am interested in collaboratively establishing backstories with the characters so that there is unresolved drama that I can craft situations based off of it.
If I am running a module like Curse of Strahd or Dragon Heist, I don't care so much. Choose your motivations, and let's roll some dice.

But in all cases, I prefer to chat rather than read a backstory. If you wrote 750 words, great. Let's have lunch or talk on Discord and we'll come to an agreement about what is useful and what isn't. I'll read your backstory if you really want me to, but it's not as useful as a conversation to me.

[Hytheter]

If you offer the players world info and lore, and they ignore it, that's on them.

"Yes, the King of Spangleland has a standing bounty on wizard's heads. That information was provided in the campaign document I sent you last week.
Yes, you crossed the border into Spangleland yesterday.
Yes, that is in fact why five crossbows are now being pointed at you after that display of magic that you just performed at the tavern..."

Nah, sorry, that's on you.

Players don't live in the setting. They have lives outside the game and only a limited capacity to retain information about a world they are yet to become invested in. Expecting them to recall every detail from the homework you dumped on them is unreasonable. What is this, an exam? Maybe they accidentally glossed over that line. Maybe they got the details mixed up and thought Startown had the bounty. Maybe they just forgot. They're only human and they're allowed to do things like that.

And more, failing to convey this detail until after it becomes relevant is a failure on your part as a GM - the PC's do live in the world and it is literally your job to convey the world as understood by those PC's to the players behind them.

"I'm going to try and impress the bartender with minor illusion."
"Hold on! Merlin would know that Spangleland has a bounty on spellcasters, so you might want to reconsider."
"Oh, right! Sorry, I forgot about that."

How hard was that? Don't play "Gotcha!" and blindside them with surprise punishment while berating them for their ignorance. Tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it.

[Cheesegear]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]Kidding aside, it's a shame that the DMs you've had don't enjoy a solid, immersive backstory for your character.

That's certainly an assumption you can make. You can write plenty-immersive things in a single page.

Does it bother you when your players are doing things on their cell phone while you're describing the town?

That depends if I plan on the town being central to the plot, of if it's just a town that the players only stop at because they need somewhere to sleep whilst they go somewhere else in the morning, then I'm probably not going to explain said town at all.

And are just waiting for combat to start, because they don't give a $#!+ about anything else.

I have had my players ask 'Is this important?', or 'Am I involved?' many times. Not all stories are winners. Not all stories, are for every player. There are many, many, many times, too many to count, when one player is roleplaying with me, and the others are simply checked out. As far as I know, this is normal.

Then, for my part, it's the same when I'm reading backstories, and judging from other responses in this thread, I know I'm not alone. Sometimes, your backstory is ****, uninteresting, or both. You're not as good a writer as you think you are. I've read your story directly out of that anime. I've seen this. You ain't slick. Add to the fact that you've made your ****, boring backstory, 6 pages, makes it worse not better.

The vast majority of players are not writers - let alone good ones. Their backstories will reflect this.
No backstory is better than a bad backstory.

because all that effing fluff about the town, the history, and the people doesn't interest them?

As I said, a good writer, a good storyteller, will say the important stuff. The important stuff, is the stuff that helps the players make decisions.

If I had unlimited time to play a session, if my players had unlimited attention spans...I could talk about all sorts of bulls*. I don't. Because I don't have unlimited time. My players attention spans are finite. If I can't say what I need to say in half a minute, I'm probably taking too long.

They just wanna kill $#!+?

If you're playing with children, sure.

However, all my players typically want to know who they're fighting and why. They want some backstory. Not a lot, but definitely some. But as I said, you say what's important, and don't say what isn't. If the players literally ask you a direct question about something, you can tell them, then. But only if they ask. If they don't ask, they don't care.

If I start a description with 'Four hundred years ago...' My players have already checked out. Four hundred years is already more than enough time to assume that none of that is relevant - unless my story is riddled with Elves. Since I hate Elves as a storytelling device, I rarely include them in my adventures.

After all such behavior isn't technically "disruptive"

Disruptive behaviour, disrupts the game, or more specifically the DM.

Playing on your phone while I drivel on about something that has no relevance to you - neither as a player, nor a character - isn't disruptive. I would hope, that I actually cut out all the drivel and I tell my players what they need to know.

'The town is run by a Merchant's Council, and trade is important, more specifically the mines. Town is mostly humans and dwarves. Go.'
If you found a way to already be on your phone during that description, I'd be impressed.

Why do they have to listen to you talk about the town and the people?

They don't. Which is why I wouldn't.

In perspective:
If I showed you a Google Doc of my current adventure, I have a feeling that most DMs would find my world mostly empty. Little history, and very few places, and definitely no maps.
If I showed my players that same Google Doc, they would find almost everything they've ever asked about, and it would be nearly complete telling of their current game. That they were involved in. That they were a part of. 90% of my world's history began when my players asked about it, not before.

Early on when I was DMing, a player - who is still my player - asked me about a history of a place that I was telling them;
'Why are you telling us about all this cool **** we didn't get to be a part of? ...Can't we play that? As us?'

And that has simply stuck with me ever since. Anything cool I can think up? I should make that an encounter, or a storyline. Anything my players can think up in their backstories? ...Damn, that's a good idea. We could've played that. Why didn't we play that?

[Tawmis]

That's certainly an assumption you can make. You can write plenty-immersive things in a single page.

You certainly can. Most of the backgrounds I write fall under a single page.
But feeling like you have to do so is what I was implying.

The vast majority of players are not writers - let alone good ones. Their backstories will reflect this.

Absolutely true. But if they're playing D&D, they've probably got an imagination - otherwise, they're playing the wrong game.
So just because someone isn't a "great/good" writer, hardly seems like a good reason to excuse their attempt and delivering a character background.

'The town is run by a Merchant's Council, and trade is important, more specifically the mines. Town is mostly humans and dwarves. Go.'
If you found a way to already be on your phone during that description, I'd be impressed.

This works for you, which is cool.
You and I have different DMing styles.
I like to name things, so when players come to the town - there's familiar faces and places. Makes it feel like a living town.
Rather than every town being a mirror image of the other town they left three sessions ago.

If I showed you a Google Doc of my current adventure, I have a feeling that most DMs would find my world mostly empty. Little history, and very few places, and definitely no maps.
If I showed my players that same Google Doc, they would find almost everything they've ever asked about, and it would be nearly complete telling of their current game. That they were involved in. That they were a part of. 90% of my world's history began when my players asked about it, not before.

In the end, that is what matters.
What works for you.
And I can respect that, no matter how vastly different it is from my own ways.

[Mastikator]

If I am running a character-focused campaign, I am interested in collaboratively establishing backstories with the characters so that there is unresolved drama that I can craft situations based off of it.
If I am running a module like Curse of Strahd or Dragon Heist, I don't care so much. Choose your motivations, and let's roll some dice.

But in all cases, I prefer to chat rather than read a backstory. If you wrote 750 words, great. Let's have lunch or talk on Discord and we'll come to an agreement about what is useful and what isn't. I'll read your backstory if you really want me to, but it's not as useful as a conversation to me.

I think this is the secret sauce, the DM explains the themes of the game and then the player explains their core motivations and themes which is now enriched with knowledge about the campaign. After talking you write the backstory. But even then I think conciseness is a virtue, don't blather on- get to the point.

[LibraryOgre]

I actually did the opposite as a DM once. I wrote a 3000 word history of the realm and gave it to all the players to read before session 1. But I noticed in play if I brought up what I had written in the history, I got blank stares from the players. So it cuts both ways.

I think part of the reason many games wind up so generic is because they require a lot of buy-in from players... if your players don't want to know about the lore, you can't make them, so hinging anything on the lore means you get those blank stares.

[Tanarii]

I but I am curious about the amount of roleplay you have the players do (or if they're even interested in that)?

Backstories are generally a poor tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs.

Motivations are a good tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs.

If you're interested in encouraging players to roleplay their PCs, it's time to drop the outmoded concept of backstories and move to lists of motivations. Because clearly stated motivations are what help players make decision during play for their characters in the fantasy environment, and that's what roleplaying is. Backstory may or may not include motivations, and if they do, they're not clearly stated.

Then and only then, if someone is a budding writer, should they consider moving from that list of motivations and for their own entertainment move on to a backstory. It'll be a better product anyway, because you've got an outline. And if someone else is entertained by reading backstories, they can share it. But backstory itself has very little TTRPG value, because the valuable thing has already been covered in the list of motivations it now contains, if done in the proper order.

[Cheesegear]

What I will often do is take traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws, background, class and sub class, and figure out who the character is.

I actually already responded to this particular sentence sarcastically, because that's obviously how you're supposed to write a backstory, and who doesn't figure out their character that way? But Tanarii brings up a great point...

If you're interested in encouraging players to roleplay their PCs, it's time to drop the outmoded concept of backstories and move to lists of motivations. Because clearly stated motivations are what help players make decision during play for their characters in the fantasy environment, and that's what roleplaying is.

...That list of things that Korvin brings up? That is the backstory. If you have a Trait, an Ideal, a Personality and a Flaw...You're done. That's kind of one the geniuses of D&D character creation. It's done. You don't need to be a good writer. You don't need to have 'a conversation with your DM.' For D&D specifically, your Background already gives you everything you need to know who your character is, and how to play as them, in approximately four sentences. Just pick the ones that feel appropriate and just...Play that.

D&D is good that way. I don't know why people keep complicating it.

[JNAProductions]

Because some DMs want to have players actively involved in the world, not just bystanders to a story.

[KorvinStarmast]

Nah, sorry, that's on you.

Players don't live in the setting. They have lives outside the game and only a limited capacity to retain information about a world they are yet to become invested in.

Nope, it's on the players. (And that document is always available for reference, it's not like they can't review it any time they like. Too lazy? That's on you).
Failing to care, or show any interest in the world that they are playing in is their failure. There's a bit of quid pro quo going on here. (As an aside: when players do invest at least a modest amount into the game world it makes the experience for everyone at the table improve. That's my experience, anyway.).
We are playing in an imaginary world. Get to know it. Yes, none of us lives in it, so make the most of the information you are given. And ask questions (that sometimes helps with world building, depending on how that conversation goes).

Quite frankly, I find that your Short Attention Span excuse is yet another illustration of the less savory elements of video game attitudes being imported to TTRPGs.

(And FWIW, in the West Marches campaigns the players have to care or there is no game).

@Cheesegear

The vast majority of players are not writers - let alone good ones. Their backstories will reflect this.

Not sure I agree, but there is such a broad cross section of people who play that the quality certainly varies.

No backstory is better than a bad backstory.

Hardly, but your preference for keeping it short and sweet (Tanarii's general point on motivations isn't a bad place to start an character's career) isn't a bad preference; again, the cross section is quite broad, so DM's will have differing tastes.

And getting away from D&D a bit, one of my favorite bits about Traveller (the original) was that it had a mechanical way to walk the dog of "who is this character and what does he/she bring to the table" - I loved that chargen system (it was a bit of a mini game, I found it enjoyable). To a certain extent, the backstory wrote itself.

Backstories are generally a poor tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs.

Not necessarily so: where am I from? is a question that traits/bonds/ideals/flaws doesn't answer, but that very piece can help ground the character in the game world.

Motivations are a good tool to encourage players roleplaying their PCs.

I think most of us are in violent agreement on this.

If you're interested in encouraging players to roleplay their PCs, it's time to drop the outmoded concept of backstories and move to lists of motivations.

False dichotomy detected. You can have both. But all of the points made in five pages on length and limits have been well made. As I said, I can do short, medium, or large and in one case I did a supersize. (For @Cheesegear not only the the DM read it, the other players read it (emailing a pdf is so easy) and a couple of them gave me big high fives for the story...but none of them felt like putting together such a story; it's a matter of taste).

[LibraryOgre]

Nope, it's on the players. (And that document is always available for reference, it's not like they can't review it any time they like. Too lazy? That's on you).
Failing to care, or show any interest in the world that they are playing in is their failure. There's a bit of quid pro quo going on here. (As an aside: when players do invest at least a modest amount into the game world it makes the experience for everyone at the table improve. That's my experience, anyway.).
We are playing in an imaginary world. Get to know it. Yes, none of us lives in it, so make the most of the information you are given. And ask questions (that sometimes helps with world building, depending on how that conversation goes).

I don't expect you to know the world as well as I do; chances are, it's been living in my head for weeks, at least, and in some cases, years. I know the geography of the Forgotten Realms better than I know the geography of Canada or Mexico, and I can be in Nuevo Laredo, Tamulipas in under three hours. It's only about five to get to my wife's parent's hometown. I can day trip to Mexico, and I could still label countries, and probably cities, on a map of Toril with a lot more accuracy than I could Mexican states. I can do climate estimates for Tellene.

But, I'd kind of like you, the player, to know the world well enough to know that Mexico and Canada are the neighbors of the US. That the US gained its independence from another country across the sea about 250 years ago. I like, want, at least a minimum of buy-in. Know the names of the gods worshiped in your home village. Something.

It makes the game a lot richer if you know about the game setting. The DM can do something other than plop down the same set of adventures if you've got the gist of the world. It's about engagement with the fiction you're participating in.

[KorvinStarmast]

I don't expect you to know the world as well as I do;

That's not what I was asserting in my response up there ... as the DM is the source of info, any info that a DM gives to the players becomes a part of their IC knowledge.
Not sure how well that point came across, but that's the kind of thing that I was talking about.

It's about engagement with the fiction you're participating in.

I am in violent agreement with you there. (By the way, that 2200 word back story I'll have to read later; interesting that your DM awarded you guys XP for back story)

Finally:
in my current weekly game, in my brother's world, we have as players two published authors. One published a single novel, and the other has published numerous short stories, pulp mag offerings, and novels over a 40 year career (and he spent a number of years as an editor).
He, the published author/editor, asked me to be the scribe (the adventure summary for each session) when we all started out in 2014 on this edition. And I still am.

[Tawmis]

I don't expect you to know the world as well as I do; chances are, it's been living in my head for weeks, at least, and in some cases, years. I know the geography of the Forgotten Realms better than I know the geography of Canada or Mexico, and I can be in Nuevo Laredo, Tamulipas in under three hours. It's only about five to get to my wife's parent's hometown. I can day trip to Mexico, and I could still label countries, and probably cities, on a map of Toril with a lot more accuracy than I could Mexican states. I can do climate estimates for Tellene.
But, I'd kind of like you, the player, to know the world well enough to know that Mexico and Canada are the neighbors of the US. That the US gained its independence from another country across the sea about 250 years ago. I like, want, at least a minimum of buy-in. Know the names of the gods worshiped in your home village. Something.
It makes the game a lot richer if you know about the game setting. The DM can do something other than plop down the same set of adventures if you've got the gist of the world. It's about engagement with the fiction you're participating in.

Aye - and something I've done is offer inspiration when someone recalls something about the world without me mentioning it.
Just as a means of encouragement, since my entire world is on my website (with history, maps, gods, notes, etc) so it's always accessible, even during game play.

[LibraryOgre]

I am in violent agreement with you there. (By the way, that 2200 word back story I'll have to read later; interesting that your DM awarded you guys XP for back story)

I didn't even link to the epic poem I wrote for the Druid/Bard.

Aye - and something I've done is offer inspiration when someone recalls something about the world without me mentioning it.
Just as a means of encouragement, since my entire world is on my website (with history, maps, gods, notes, etc) so it's always accessible, even during game play.

I like the idea of offering inspiration for that. In Savage Worlds, bennies would be a good idea.

[Telok]

On the topic of "didn't read anything, got bit by it", I've found it goes both ways.

Supers game, one page bullet point timeline detailing rl history divergence @ WW2 & alien invasion -> big hero die-off in the 1960s.
Player: "Hey lets go to <city> for a thing!"
Dm: "Thats an army guarded containment zone full or rubble, mutagenic radiation, and zombies."
Player: "Bwuh? Well uh, ok. Whats the next fight?"

D&d game, handed the Dm a three paragraph character summary & copt of character sheet, asked for & got permission for the team-player support cleric to secretly belong to a doomday cult that was patiently waiting for a prophesy about an astrological conjunction to happen in about another 250 years. Dm was aghast when I started mind controlling enemy casters & sacrificing them to an atropal at night.
Self: "Its the second sentence in the character write-up and I crammed 'LG cleric @ day - CE cultist @ nite' into the alignment blank."
Dm: "So you did. And I did say it was ok... Just... don't abuse it. Ok?"
It all went fine after that, he even stopped detailing the captive's spell lists since they weren't going to survive the night.

Frankly I've known DMs & players for whom even D&d 5e's anemic 'pcs can be more than an mmo toon' stuff is too much to bother with. Those games always seem to just be mostly strings of hack & slash fights with a minimum of connective narrative justification tissue. Heck, I've been in games where a npc's horse had more personality than several of the pcs (we invested in that horse, took a couple magic items & scroll of miracle spell to keep it relevant, there were pcs we didn't even bother trying to raise dead because we didn't care).

I just can't see any backstory as flat out being a bad thing. Badly written, insanely long, conflicts with setting or lore? Sure, thats not great. But at least they care enough to try and you can start talking to them about it. Plus its not the 18th century dentistry of trying to get a batch of faceless murder-hobos to do something other than ride a train from one psychotic bloodbath to another.

[KorvinStarmast]

Spoiler: D&D example

Show

D&d game, handed the Dm a three paragraph character summary & copt of character sheet, asked for & got permission for the team-player support cleric to secretly belong to a doomday cult that was patiently waiting for a prophesy about an astrological conjunction to happen in about another 250 years. Dm was aghast when I started mind controlling enemy casters & sacrificing them to an atropal at night.
Self: "Its the second sentence in the character write-up and I crammed 'LG cleric @ day - CE cultist @ nite' into the alignment blank."
Dm: "So you did. And I did say it was ok... Just... don't abuse it. Ok?"

It all went fine after that, he even stopped detailing the captive's spell lists since they weren't going to survive the night.

Props to you both. (DMs and Players working together: what a concept! )

Frankly I've known DMs & players for whom even D&d 5e's anemic 'pcs can be more than an mmo toon' stuff is too much to bother with.

I don't mind that in a one shot, but in a campaign that sounds like a bad fit for me - a table full of folks like that.

[LibraryOgre]

I'll also note... sometimes, my character background isn't for the DM. It's for me.

Sure, some of it is just "I am bored and want to write" (especially before I got into writing stuff semi-pro), but there's also a lot of value, to me, in writing, essentially, fan-fiction of my own characters, and figuring them out by understanding them better. The characters I've written 20 pages about? I *know* them. I know the tragic story of the love they lost that has 0 impact on the game. I know about their relationship with their father that's never, ever, going to come up.

I know my PCs better when I know who they were before I picked up the dice.

[Kurt Kurageous]

This is the longest backstory I ever wrote. DM asked us to place ourselves in the Sword Coast, explain our childhood, and identify our goals and motivations. He asked for 2-3 pages, I gave him one and a half, 652 words. It was only this long because I decided to do it in the first person. Meet Guy Lanceur de Vache. May you find this/him entertaining. And judge him as you will. You can certainly tell how he will feel about it. My apologies to the native French speakers.

C’est les conneries! You want me to tell you about my earliest childhood memories? C’est Merde, tout merde. My parents were hard working farmers who succeeded seulement in having children. One a year for ten years! Once that was over, they turned to the bottle. It was their way of coping with the horror of their meaningless existence, and the beginning of my lifelong loathing of drinks and drunkenness. Unlike the halfling farmers to the east, they toiled their whole lives growing food for the lords of Elturiel, food that was re-sold for many times more than they sold it for, as I saw with my own eyes. Angry? Degage! I would not be exploited; I wanted no part of that life.

I was not an obedient child, taking every opportunity to slip away into the Trielta Hills, and earned a beating every time for shirking my chores. It was on one of these wanderings I first encountered the Forgotten Folk. You call them gnomes, je nien fiche! I found an opening in the hills covered by a trick of the light. The opening was only big enough to crawl into and the owner was at home and not pleased with what I had done. Namfoodl is what I came to call him, but he called himself by more names than I could remember. He understood my own childish ways, and I felt accepted by him. In the course of our friendship, he showed me the many clockwork gadgets he made or acquired. Most were then and are still now beyond my comprehension. From them I learned how important the small detail was to the functioning whole, and from this an ability to see things that others simply did not. When I was twelve I ran away from the farm for the last time. Namfoodl sold his hill during an outbreak of “gold on the brain,” and I insisted on accompanying him as his apprentice. As a token of our bond, he gave me a fire starter that I have with me to this day.

Toutefois I was no more disciplined as an apprentice as I was a farmer. I became fascinated with the commerce and the wealth it created by simply exploiting stupid farmers. Without means of support, I stole to live. And naturellement I was soon caught and jailed. My cellmates included men who were abusive in disgusting ways I care not to retell, enculer! To protect myself, I turned to a man who turned out to be my greatest teacher. He never told me his name, so I knew him only as “Master.” When I later learned his name, he said he would slit my throat for whispering it to the likes of you. And unlike you, he was no pervert.

Master exploited my youth, health, and face to steal the easy wealth of the caravanners. I had an uncanny ability to throw dice with great accuracy in the gaming rooms of The Randy Wench, a skill he used to great effect. We worked every tavern and inn, gathering information and hustling marks. Over time, Master taught me lock picking, trap building, and the dark science of poisoning. One morning he did not return. I took his tools and some other useful things and moved on. And if you think you will bring me to justice for this, fais attention, l‘ami. While I have not yet done you or anyone else here, I know many ways to bring about an end with a blade, a bolt, or a botanical.

C’est tout! I can think of nothing more to tell, and you can think of nothing to ask that might end badly for you before I leave. You and others will not remember my face for I am just another Guy in a crowd, rien de plus. But someday, I may be known as the greatest thief of this age.

[LecternOfJasper]

I find it terribly hard to start running a game with people's backstories and pasts in the forefront. I generally give people a starting premise, and ask how their characters ended up there, and have a first dungeon/plan sorted out.

After that, and after I get a feel for what sort of characters people are trying to play, I will start trying to feed in pieces that they give me something about. You're family is a bunch of cultists? They'll probably turn up. Your stated goal is to find the biggest, baddest hammer possible? I can work with that.

That said, I like having the details beforehand to be interwoven as they make sense to me. A world is a big thing, and I want it to make sense in my head. If my players keep adding more suggestions for their character well into the campaign - set pieces they want to have happen, specific items they are looking for - I start to get a bit apprehensive and push back, unless they do something spectacular to make something different happen. It messes with my brain if someone specifically asks about magic items out of character that weren't laid out as items of special significance earlier, as an example I've noticed recently.

So yes, I'd love to have a longer backstory given to me beforehand, as it is good fodder for details and plot threads for me to include, and it generally means you won't try to introduce the same ideas half way through.

If you're going to give me a backstory at all, have it happen before the game starts. Two sentences is fine. Running through the Extended Backstory Randomizer Plus or whatever is fine, tell me the cool bits. Giving me several pages is pretty good, provided they are pretty good. Just give it to me beforehand so I can make it fit. Have patience, and I will try and make it work.

[Vahnavoi]

@Tanarii:

Good stories are more memorable than lists - a feature of natural language. That's why many common tricks to memorize lists (and other useful things, such as your PIN) involve turning lists into short stories, poems and such. If you want to internalize who a character is and how they operate, explaining them through a story or poem may hence be preferable.

The caveat of course is that in order for this to work, a player has to actually have skill in creating stories or poems. And they aren't going to get it right without some good old trial and error. A recipient incapable or unwilling to give good feedback will ruin the entire excercise.

[Mastikator]

Because some DMs want to have players actively involved in the world, not just bystanders to a story.

Yeah but that happens in the future, during the campaign, not in the past. And nothing stops the DM from just making PCs members of The Organization From The Campaign™. It's the DMs job to involve the PCs into the story, not the player, the player doesn't even know what they need to do to be involved so their backstory will be irrelevant without DM intervention.

[Vahnavoi]

Let me provide some context from a different perspective: a game master generating characters and backstory for the players.

Because that's a pretty good way to explain how a player's character is involved in a situation.

750 words is still short enough to be read at the table as part of start-up phase of a game, the players don't have to know full backstories of all other characters, they can decide on their own how much they will reveal, and secret motives can be used to drive the entire game forward. Have used and seen this used to great effect at convention games.

Another case is a player stepping in to play character made by another player. Done this for a fair bit in freeform, when another player had to leave for whatever reason and agreed to leave a character to my care. A backstory goes a long way helping to get in the shoes of such a character. Of course, since these were play-by-post games, "backstories" weren't just quick summaries of pre-game events, they included a backlog of actual game posts a novel's length in total, some of which I'd read once already when they were first made. One positive side of a game format for automatically creating records of play. Of course, what made the exercise worth it was that the other players were good writers and I liked their work before they left.

[KorvinStarmast]

I generally give people a starting premise, and ask how their characters ended up there, and have a first dungeon/plan sorted out.

That's a good framework.

That said, I like having the details beforehand to be interwoven as they make sense to me. A world is a big thing, and I want it to make sense in my head.

Likewise, and when it doesn't I have an OOC discussion with the player to find a way, together, to get a better fit. Collaboration / brainstorming; call it what you like.

The caveat of course is that in order for this to work, a player has to actually have skill in creating stories or poems. And they aren't going to get it right without some good old trial and error. A recipient incapable or unwilling to give good feedback will ruin the entire exercise.

When we play, we sometimes also learn. A lot of games involve passing along some kind of knowledge, or trying out something new or different. You get better by doing, or by trying, not by having someone stiff arm you during a leisure activity ...

It's the DMs job to involve the PCs into the story, not the player,

Nope, its a two way street. And in games with very little scripting/authoring, something along the lines of Westmarches style campaigns, the burden is a lot more on the players to become involved and invested).

[Xervous]

750 is probably unnecessary, but depending on the game it’s not unwelcome. If that’s what someone gave me after being read in on the setting that’s a lot of useful fodder.

Fodder for future events, obviously.

Fodder for refining the player’s understanding of the world, as more things get clarified.

And of course fodder for the cool ideas you’ll appropriate into the setting like Gozar bringing about the Staypuft Marshmallow Man.

[Jay R]

When grading papers, I once told one student that his three-page paper was too long, and told another student that her eight-page paper was too short, on the same assignment.

It's too short if it fails to explain or back up the main points with description or relevant discussion.

It's too long if it is repetitive, or talks about things unnecessary for its purpose. Also, it's too long if it gets boring.

Write a backstory that explains the backstory.

I have had backstories that were a page long, and eight pages long, and everything in between. [The eight-page backstory came about from a lot of back-and-forth between me and the DM, and included all the aspects we had discussed. By the time it was finished, the DM had written almost half of it, and it included aspects of his background that were needed to make the character fit into the world.]

But do people ask to read your writing? Do they ask for more? Unless you can write in an engaging style that that DM enjoys reading, you should keep it pretty short.


I had a player whose backstory was always, “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.” I once insisted on at least a paragraph. He wrote (more or less):

Forlong grew up in a village where his favorite pastime was to watch the town guards at practice. He always wanted to be a warrior who could protect his friends and family. He considers his sword to be his closest friend, and he is always very careful about keeping it sharp and in good shape.

I never insisted on a backstory again. I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he'd have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”

[KorvinStarmast]

I never insisted on a backstory again. I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he'd have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”

Was his character named Rocky, by any chance?

[LibraryOgre]

So, in Ars Magica's 5th edition, they have Flaws, some of which are related to your background. One of the things they make clear is that background flaws are, in part, describing the kind of stories you want this character to be in. If you have a fey background, a lot of stories featuring your character are likely to be fey related. Demons in your background? Gonna have demons in most of your stories. If you don't want those stories, don't take those backgrounds, because otherwise you're angling for free points. (Other flaws, like Small, are not so restricted; your dude is little. There are mechanical pros and cons to that)

It comes to me that, save in situations where you're being bribed for a background, most backgrounds should be like that. If I'm playing the exiled prince Humperdink, then I probably want stories/sessions that focus on me to have something to do with me being an exiled prince. If I'm playing Bob, the Fighter who likes to hit things, then the stories I want probably have to do with hitting things, or emerged from play.

To an extent, this goes to the thread already here, "Authored or Emergent". A character with a 750 word backstory is, to an extent, authoring their character... who they are, what they're like, what they want. The character with the "Bob is a fighter who likes to hit things" backstory is looking for emergent character development... who Bob is will come out from his interactions with other characters. And, to build on this bridge a bit further, this is also something of a difference between TD&D and WD&D character creation, with WD&D largely leaning towards authored (i.e. "This is the build I am going to follow"), while TD&D leaned towards the emergent ("My character is an elven ranger and we'll see how she develops from there.")