How much back story for a low-level PC?

[Nagol]

Well, I guess it is more common than I suspected, based on the rash of quick replies here, at least. Huh.

I agree, talking with the players about this kind of thing, or at least knowing in advance how they're going to take it is pretty key.

I'm definitely with Mallus on this one, though... if you think it's "dickery" to have the GM actually use the stuff in your background, then just write it up for yourself and don't even give it to the GM. Or don't bother writing it at all. Apparently it's completely irrelevant to anyone except yourself anyway.

Of course you never said that. Because she wasn't when she was in your backstory. That's the stuff that happened afterwards.

I'm curious if there's a correllation between people who think this is the GM stepping on the PC's territory and those who earlier in the thread were talking about the opposite; it "sitting wrong" with them to have players treading into GM territory.

To me, this is clearly GM territory. I mean, it's about as clear as can be. It's a setting element, pure and simple.

If the GM had come up with some random liche in some random town that had all the exact same attributes except not related to one of the PCs, would the PCs actions really have been any different?

Other than being disconnected and random, I mean?

You see the problem here is the character originally had nothing for a background:

A funny bit, though, was one no background character was getting close to her hometown in game – so, I asked her if she wanted to fill in any details on her family.

who when pressed by the DM, came up with a simple prosaic family

She then said that her father was a follower of the same god as her cleric and had died as a hero when she was young, but her mother was a frail and bitter and angry woman who resented how close she was to her father. She (the PC) left home a decade ago to follow the calling of her Goddess, and had only been home once in that time to see her sister, with whom she was still friendly with. (Really, only a paragraph then)

OK. So the mom and sister become fair game within the parameters provided by the player.

Since the mom was frail, I had her as having recently passed away (heh heh heh). The sister that stayed behind was rather rude, though. She became a cleric as well, though, but of a lawful good deity (instead of the PC’s chaotic good one) – the sister said it was because both she and her god believed in “loyalty, duty and honor” – unlike others in the family.

This part is fine. People do die so the mom dying off camera is fine. It would make sense that the sister who remained didn't earn levels as quickly as the successful adventurer, but becoming a classed character is fine. The player may decide to reconcile, with the sister or ignore her and move on as the group travels.

However, the bitter and angry mom was not quite done yet. Her death was just the beginning of her transformation into a lich, who then literally moved heaven and earth in her attempt to get revenge on her wayward daughter. She sent them back in time, then gated in a balor to soften the party up before attempting to kill the party herself. (She failed, but it was a fantastic encounter where the party was in serious danger and both the lich and the party really were down to their last hit points and spells… The lich’s phylactery was also concealed within the now dead body of the lawful good sister.)

That's the dickery. It goes outside the parameters defined by the player and introduces elements that probably don't coincide with the player conception: namely high level spellcaster, unalterably evil, morally capable of becoming a lich, tremendous power (even more than a high-level spellcaster), and vengeful hate for her successful offspring.

You can even tell the group considered it dickery because of the other player comments:

After the campaign, though, the player who wrote the complex double-agent background said that in order to prevent a lich-mom type scenario, he would write a background so detailed, yet so mundane, that it would be impossible for me to come up with anything bad. On the other side, everybody else said that they would go for the “blank slate” background to prevent a lich-mom scenario.

If someone wants the extra attention and campaign to focus on specific elements, bully for them. They can make a larger background for the DM to use in terms of plotting at his discretion.

If the DM forces the attention and focus on unwanted sections of a character's past then it can turn into dickery.

Now does that mean every adventure would have been off limits? No. The player did define a mother and sister.

You could run a scenario where the player is offered an opportunity to help/reconcile with the sister. You could use something the mother knew as a key for an adventure necessitating a trip through the mom's diaries, known assocates in town, and interaction with the sister -- or even a planar adventure to track down the mother's spirit for questioning/final words. You could even *eye-roll* kidnap the sister for the PC to save.

 

[The Ghost]

Yeah - I was up with it until the "turning the mom into a lich" thing. That seems a might bit over the top.

Same here.

For me, a background is guideline for role-playing MY character; NOT a plot hook for the DM to exploit.

 

[Dausuul]

You could run a scenario where the player is offered an opportunity to help/reconcile with the sister. You could use something the mother knew as a key for an adventure necessitating a trip through the mom's diaries, known assocates in town, and interaction with the sister -- or even a planar adventure to track down the mother's spirit for questioning/final words. You could even *eye-roll* kidnap the sister for the PC to save.

Under these specific circumstances, I'd be hesitant to do even that much, at least not unilaterally. The player only produced this background when the DM pushed for one, which implies she didn't have any great desire for it and wasn't looking for it to become a plot point.

In the general case, however, those are good examples of backstory legitimately used by the DM.

 

[The Shaman]

I'm kind of curious as to what qualifies as "fanfic". Is it the lack of "authorization" by the setting's primary author (be it the GM, Greg Stafford, or H.P. Lovecraft)?

I think of it as a form of mythos-building outside of the role of the players in many (though by no means all) roleplaying games or play-styles.

I place a high value on the exploration aspect of roleplaying games, so my strong preference, as a both a player and a referee, is to let the setting unfold and change in play, with little to no player-editing before the game starts. Flashing Blades, frex, allows characters to take advantages like Contact, Secret Loyalty, and so forth, which gives the player an opportunity to create a resource in the game-world. I'm fine with that, particularly as the nature of the created resource is carefully bounded by the game-rules, which is part of expectations-setting, and the Advantages in the game are genre-appropriate and available to all players evenly.

So, "authorization?" Hmmm. To the extent that it's appropriate to the genre (no ninjas in 17th century France, thanks) and available in more-or-less equal-measure to all the players (rules-bounded), then . . . maybe?

Most of what we do could easily be called some level of fanfic by outside parties, only codified by special fanfic rules and subject to a grand fanfic editor. A writeup of a Star Wars RPG session would be scarcely distinct from Star Wars fan fiction to someone not really familiar with RPGs.

Maybe from the twenty-thousand-foot level, but not everyone places a strong emphasis on story in play, only as an artifact resulting from play, so the process and methods bear little resemblance to one another.

I'm curious because I don't think of players as writing fanfiction by default; it would really only qualify if it's determined that it will have no impact on the game.

As I said, I'm thinking of fanfic in terms of mythos-building (and i stayed away from fanwank this time, as it's just too pejorative as a term of art), so it's fanfic with a specific purpose of expanding the game-world.

I see the process more as contracting freelance work, in a way; it's subject to editing and may be sent back for multiple drafts, but if someone is playing in a game I'm running they're the equivalent of an author in a shared-world anthology, not a fan. And with that comes (through our table social contract, mind, not by virtue of RPGs as a whole) a variable level of permissions to add to the setting.

Our difference is that I prefer to confine that level of editing to the more active collaboration environment of actually playing the game.

I want the players to fold, spindle, and mutilate the setting, to make origami animals or paper dolls of it; my preference, however, is that it happens as a group, in actual play, not on one player's character sheet before the game starts.

Not that I'm trying to disprove your preferences or anything, as usual . . .

No worries.

We often disagree, but I always enjoy reading your line of reasoning, and I'm more than happy to explain mine, as best I can.

. . . I'm just interested in how you're using the term and why it wouldn't apply to all of us.

Well, I hope I've cleared that up a bit.

 

[Desdichado]

Okay, I'll put it more precisely. The player never said anything about her mom having the Intelligence score, native talent, or inclination to become a powerful wizard. And she never said anything about her mom having the mental instability to become a homicidal lunatic. And she certainly never said anything about her mother having the slightest desire to become undead.

So what? The player character never saw that in her mother. That doesn't change her backstory. Her backstory is still intact, word for word.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I agree with both. I have problems with the DM invading player territory, and I have problems with the player invading DM territory. Character background is part of the concept that defines a PC in the game world, and therefore I consider it firmly in player territory*. The DM can certainly use the NPCs introduced in the background, but if s/he does so, I expect those NPCs to be used as presented, not totally rewritten.

If you need a villain and none of the NPCs in my backstory is suitable, make your own. If you need a villain with a past connection to a PC, ask me to come up with one.

I'm talking specifically about the examples posted earlier in this thread. If you agree with both, then it looks like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. That's not "DM dickery" that's wandering into prima donna player territory. PlayerZilla, or something. "I want everything I want, and I want it my way. Everything I don't want, yeah, you can have that."

For that matter, the entire concept of staking out "territory" is already indicative of that, IMO. Isn't gaming supposed to be a collaborative effort, after all?

Then why are you asking players to create it? Why didn't you just inform the player that her mom was a murderous lich?

That question sounds rather disingenious. Setting design is a collaborative effort at the personal level like this. The player can tell me what her character knows about her mom. Anything that she wouldn't know is fair game for the GM to elaborate on. In this case, her mom turning into a lich is a natural (if extreme) evolution of the player's own concept of the mom as bitter and disillusioned about her family.

Kidnapping or killing family is OK (if annoying) - that doesn't take reevaluating the PC's entire history. If the mother was an extremely powerful undead spellcaster, that means that every single interaction someone had with his (or her) own mother needs to be mentally re-written. And given the influence a mother has, and the influence of a lich, almost every other interaction the PC had before he (or she) left home needs to be reevaluated or rewritten.

Actually, no. It doesn't mean that at all. I have no idea where you even got that idea. Mom was bitter and disillusioned last time the PC saw her, she's a power-tripping undead a few years later. Absolutely nothing needs to be rewritten to accomodate that. Clearly the PC just underestimated the depth of mom's anger. As my out of context quoting of Ironwolf, who already said it, so I won't repeat it:

The campaign world is a changing place, so when I create backgrounds I am fully aware that if my travels take me away from people I have listed in my background that the world very well might impact them. People pass, villages or cities come under attack due to the dynamics in that part of the world, etc. Or maybe family or NPCs from the past rise in power and good things happen to them. So I am fine with the DM having the advancing timeline of the world affect things in my backstory in current campaign day.

That's the dickery. It goes outside the parameters defined by the player and introduces elements that probably don't coincide with the player conception: namely high level spellcaster, unalterably evil, morally capable of becoming a lich, tremendous power (even more than a high-level spellcaster), and vengeful hate for her successful offspring.

Who cares? It doesn't change anything that player envisioned for the character which is where your statement is flat-out wrong, nor does it change what the character would have thought about these NPCs before coming back and seeing the dramatic evolution that happened to them in her absence.

You can even tell the group considered it dickery because of the other player comments:

Which is why I asked the question. I admit, I find it astounding that so many players are so against what is clearly a great, unexpected and yet potentially very rich and deep use of a background element. If that's not the whole point of backgrounds in the first place, then I also admit I find the idea of creating them kinda pointless.

Which, granted, several of you who have a problem with this scenario have also said that you're not big fans of player backgrounds anyway, so at least you're consistent there.

The other side of the insulting refrain of "DM dickery" though is the player dickery of refusing to involve himself except shallowly in the campaign, of taking the GM's efforts at making the villains a bit more interesting than just generic statblocks who are conveniently placed in the players path so at least some semblance of a game can actually happen. Of players who claim to be from a town, but then balk at being asked to commit to actually knowing any NPCs at all in the town where they freakin' supposedly grew up. Those players are unengaged and unengageable ingrates, for whom I wouldn't waste my time trying to run a game for very long.

Now. I don't really hold that opinion nearly that strongly, but if you're going to continue to toss around terms like "DM dickery", that's the true flipside of that. Pure player dickery.

Same here.

For me, a background is guideline for role-playing MY character; NOT a plot hook for the DM to exploit.

Then keep your background to yourself. It's just a tool for you as the player. I'm not as a GM even interested in seeing backgrounds that players want to "protect".

 

[Desdichado]

Grrrr... Forgot to add one of the main thrusts of my "argument" here.

Let's take an example. Player comes up with a player concept. He's this guy named "Luke" who's a young farmer kid, apparently orphaned, and raised by his aunt and uncle. He's not satisfied with the boring agrarian life, though, so when he finds out from this old man who lives nearby that his father wasn't just a traveling merchant, but was in fact a mystical warrior charged with protecting the realm from evil, who was murdered by a traitor in their organization, he decides to take up the adventuring life and follow in his father's footsteps.

Fair enough backstory, right?

Well, let's say that the GM later makes this traitor from the backstory a recurring character in the campaign, and that this recurring character claims to the PC that he never murdered his father; in fact he is his father, and that the old man lied to him all along. Big surprise. The player and his group manage to escape the clutches of this villain NPC, and the player decides to confront the old man about the claim. The old man kinda shrugs and says something to the effect of "Well, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

If I'm reading y'all right, this is the point where Luke's player is perfectly justified in complaining about the GM "rewriting" his backstory for him, meddling in territory that should be the player's turf, and is engaging in outright DM dickery, right?

If that's your claim, then we are so fundamentally on different pages about this issue that our conversation has basically run it's course. We're just way too different about what we think makes a great game vs. a frustrating one to have much more to add to each other.

:shrug:

 

[The Shaman]

Because I'm reading that you hold yourself in higher regard as DM than your players. You're the "star" and they're your "fans?"

Well, that would be about the most uncharitable and stilted read one could give it, and completely wrong to boot.

I don't really advocate setting-wide changes. But I haven't created ever little organization in the campaign world, so the addition of a guild, family, monastery, etc. won't break the setting.

What I like to see as a referee, and what I prefer to do as a player, is not create stuff whole-cloth and stick it into the game, but rather to make this a character goal to work toward in play.

Looking for a monastery for your character? Found one. Don't like the Thieves' Guild options? Form your own. No Adventurers' Guild in the setting? I think you know what my answer is, so I won't belabor this point further.

As I said, I encourage the players to change the setting, but that's an in-play activity, not an out-of-play activity.

How do you accomplish all of that in-game though? Unless you start your game at birth, something has to have happened to lead up to the point where the character starts. Characters without some background leave me feeling like they were born yesterday and is very off-putting to me (unless the character is a Warforged as was literally "born" yesterday).

You're ignoring what I wrote. I said, Write as much background as you want, if it helps you to roleplay your character. It's a tool for you to use at the table, so make it as elaborate or as spare as you need it to be.

What I don't want is your background projecting itself into the game-space that we're creating together at the table. Make an enemy or an ally in play, not on your character sheet. Join an organization, or found one, in actual play, not before the game. If you want something for your character, awesome, make it a goal and let's roleplay it together, as a group, by playing the game.

 

[Dausuul]

Grrrr... Forgot to add one of the main thrusts of my "argument" here.

Let's take an example. Player comes up with a player concept. He's this guy named "Luke" who's a young farmer kid, apparently orphaned, and raised by his aunt and uncle. He's not satisfied with the boring agrarian life, though, so when he finds out from this old man who lives nearby that his father wasn't just a traveling merchant, but was in fact a mystical warrior charged with protecting the realm from evil, who was murdered by a traitor in their organization, he decides to take up the adventuring life and follow in his father's footsteps.

Fair enough backstory, right?

Well, let's say that the GM later makes this traitor from the backstory a recurring character in the campaign, and that this recurring character claims to the PC that he never murdered his father; in fact he is his father, and that the old man lied to him all along. Big surprise. The player and his group manage to escape the clutches of this villain NPC, and the player decides to confront the old man about the claim. The old man kinda shrugs and says something to the effect of "Well, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

If I'm reading y'all right, this is the point where Luke's player is perfectly justified in complaining about the GM "rewriting" his backstory for him, meddling in territory that should be the player's turf, and is engaging in outright DM dickery, right?

Yes, that's about the size of it. RPGs are not novels. Neither are they movies. (And that "certain point of view" business was a pretty lame excuse even in the movie.)

Now, if you check with the player first and the player likes the idea, you're all good. It could make for a very cool storyline. But if the player's not okay with it, the DM should keep his/her mitts off.

 

[The Shaman]

For me, a background is guideline for role-playing MY character; NOT a plot hook for the DM to exploit.

You'd be a good fit for the games I like to run.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

The other side of the insulting refrain of "DM dickery" though is the player dickery of refusing to involve himself except shallowly in the campaign, of taking the GM's efforts at making the villains a bit more interesting than just generic statblocks who are conveniently placed in the players path so at least some semblance of a game can actually happen. Of players who claim to be from a town, but then balk at being asked to commit to actually knowing any NPCs at all in the town where they freakin' supposedly grew up. Those players are unengaged and unengageable ingrates, for whom I wouldn't waste my time trying to run a game for very long.

Now. I don't really hold that opinion nearly that strongly, but if you're going to continue to toss around terms like "DM dickery", that's the true flipside of that. Pure player dickery.

Of course there is. There are large boatloads of possible player dickery incuding disengagement, spotlight-hogging, refusal to engage (which is different from disengagement), attempted campaign sabotage, player-to-player conflict, et al.

The basic dickery regarding backstory from players is an attempt to build in resources, social standing, or other advantages into a character outside of the game mechanism (if one even exists). The other annoyance as a DM is the backstory that should have earned one or more levels for the brand new first level character that shouldn't have even fought an orc yet.

Then keep your background to yourself. It's just a tool for you as the player. I'm not as a GM even interested in seeing backgrounds that players want to "protect".

In other words, have little or no backstory, check.