How much back story for a low-level PC?

[TerraDave]

As the put upon DM who has experienced assorted back-storiage.

The Ideal:

A concise (1 para) that explains how the charecter became what he is and why he is adventuring. This gives some interesting specifics and maybe some ideas for the DM, but is open enough that it accomadates/facilitates a range of future actions and is easy to intergrate. "Cliche" is perfectly acceptable and may be prefered to the alternatives.

The OK:

A variable length bit of fiction that touches on the charecter (as presented in game mechanics) and points to some avenues for adventure, but has some "original" stuff which may inspire the DM but which will mostly be ignored. Hand is waved/DM guides/DM badgers to integrate into world/adventure/group.

The Ugh:

Long, perhaps quite creative, piece of fiction that doesn't really have anything to do with the charecter as presented in game terms, gives several reasons for not adventuring, and creates a "pocket universe" that could be fine if it stays in the far background, but its brilliance is such that the player expects various bits of it to feed right into the game.



To be fair, if a player really likes this sort of thing, he or she should probably do it. And part of the DMs job is to work with that player to move to something more relevant and usefull. It can be done.

If the process leaves you annoyed, you can use those creative sparks to set fire to the charecter in ways they would never expect.

 

[Nagol]

"Hall is the sixth son of a modest farming family. With no inheritance to speak of and the prospects of working for his older brothers his entire life, Hall left his home to seek his own fortune."

That is as much background as I've ever written for any campaign as a player, and is more than I generally give or would expect as a DM. If a player wants to offer more, they're more than welcome to knock themselves out. If a DM expects more from me... <shrug> I'll find a random name generator somewhere and come up with the names of my brothers.

I generally don't mind the players "intruding" on my DM "space" by including nuggets in their pcs' backstory.

"Grot is a dwarf from the icy Northern Wastes." Well, now there are icy northern wastes in my campaign and dwarves live there. No big deal.

I do have a pet peeve about pc backstories, though. I've always thought of these pcs as "princesses," even though I don't think I've ever used the term out loud. Anyway, "princesses" are pcs with a ridiculously convoluted back story, usually involving royalty, kidnapping, and some sort of mistaken identity, just like a Disney Princess.

How about "Grot is a dwarf from the icy Northern Wastes. He is the second (black sheep) son of Hagglefierce, a prosperous platinum mining magnate who runs the largest business of the city Dinklemeyer of the Dwarven Kingdom. They keep the ciy warm through a combination of captured remorhaz and red dragons. His mother Rufflia is the daughter of a the second Duke of the Kingdom Lord Harrleflax who coinciendally is the major trading partner with the human emperor Gurgleflux of Sneezdonia."

 

[Nagol]

What exactly would be "off-putting?" If the amount any of my players wants to contribute to world-building is zero, then they don't have to. I welcome it, not demand it. Many of my players don't want to run a full campaign, but still enjoy being involved in the creative process to a lesser extent. One player started with small contributions as a player in my campaign and it eventually encouraged him to run his own campaign, so I got a chance to play.

Player A asks if the human civilisation know how to / goes as far as / employs X. You say probably not as you dodn't want to go in that direction at teh time.

Player B creates a backstory that adds element X . If I were Player A I would be put off.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

"Hall is the sixth son of a modest farming family. With no inheritance to speak of and the prospects of working for his older brothers his entire life, Hall left his home to seek his own fortune."

That is as much background as I've ever written for any campaign as a player, and is more than I generally give or would expect as a DM. If a player wants to offer more, they're more than welcome to knock themselves out. If a DM expects more from me... <shrug> I'll find a random name generator somewhere and come up with the names of my brothers.

My question is: if the DM set up an "encounter" in town where you ran into one of your brothers, and they talked about how your father was ill and would like to see you again, and perhaps also dropped some possible adventure hooks, would you take issue with the DM coming up with your family member names, and where you were from? If your party took the hook, would you be OK with the DM adding some other little details, once you hit town?

I've had players who gave me a bare-bones backstory, but then got upset if I filled in any details for them.

 

[Barastrondo]

How about "Grot is a dwarf from the icy Northern Wastes. He is the second (black sheep) son of Hagglefierce, a prosperous platinum mining magnate who runs the largest business of the city Dinklemeyer of the Dwarven Kingdom. They keep the ciy warm through a combination of captured remorhaz and red dragons. His mother Rufflia is the daughter of a the second Duke of the Kingdom Lord Harrleflax who coinciendally is the major trading partner with the human emperor Gurgleflux of Sneezdonia."

I don't normally get pitches to that extent. But if the players were interested in that level of brand-new setting? I can totally see running a game where my part in the negotiations would start with: "Okay, interesting start. Nobody else is really going for a comedy campaign, so we'll have to change some of those names (though I'm kind of fond of Hagglefierce). Captured red dragons are a bit excessive; firedrakes might work. Aaron's got an idea for an Imperial bounty hunter, so he gets first dibs at the human empire, but I doubt a dwarven trade parner will cause conflicts. You already know that being a noble's son will come with more complications than advantages, right? Cool. So, tell me why this guy is out adventuring..."

Bid, counter-proposal, counter-counter-proposal, meet arrangement that leaves both parties happy without treading on other PCs, preferably over food and drink. Sure, the player has filled in a lot, but worlds are big. That still leaves immense amounts of room for other players to build, and for me to fill the place with surprises.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

How about "Grot is a dwarf from the icy Northern Wastes. He is the second (black sheep) son of Hagglefierce, a prosperous platinum mining magnate who runs the largest business of the city Dinklemeyer of the Dwarven Kingdom. They keep the ciy warm through a combination of captured remorhaz and red dragons. His mother Rufflia is the daughter of a the second Duke of the Kingdom Lord Harrleflax who coinciendally is the major trading partner with the human emperor Gurgleflux of Sneezdonia."

Player A asks if the human civilisation know how to / goes as far as / employs X. You say probably not as you dodn't want to go in that direction at teh time.

Player B creates a backstory that adds element X . If I were Player A I would be put off.

Like I said originally, I have final say as DM.

Your example doesn't seem like it would fit the tone of most campaigns I've run to date. I would work with you to help you understand the boundaries of the tone I'm shooting for. If you continued to develop your character background in a direction that didn't fit the tone I would veto it.

Your scenario is only off-putting because the hypothetical DM "said no" to one player while apparently "said yes" to another, it's not an issue of being off-putting because of players being allowed to add creatively with DM approval. Player B can't just add "element X" without my approval. I would be hard-pressed to think of a case where the same background element presented by two different players would get a different answer from me, especially once the game is off and running.

I don't normally get pitches to that extent. But if the players were interested in that level of brand-new setting? I can totally see running a game where my part in the negotiations would start with: "Okay, interesting start. Nobody else is really going for a comedy campaign, so we'll have to change some of those names (though I'm kind of fond of Hagglefierce). Captured red dragons are a bit excessive; firedrakes might work. Aaron's got an idea for an Imperial bounty hunter, so he gets first dibs at the human empire, but I doubt a dwarven trade parner will cause conflicts. You already know that being a noble's son will come with more complications than advantages, right? Cool. So, tell me why this guy is out adventuring..."

Bid, counter-proposal, counter-counter-proposal, meet arrangement that leaves both parties happy without treading on other PCs, preferably over food and drink. Sure, the player has filled in a lot, but worlds are big. That still leaves immense amounts of room for other players to build, and for me to fill the place with surprises.

This.

 

[Nagol]

My question is: if the DM set up an "encounter" in town where you ran into one of your brothers, and they talked about how your father was ill and would like to see you again, and perhaps also dropped some possible adventure hooks, would you take issue with the DM coming up with your family member names, and where you were from? If your party took the hook, would you be OK with the DM adding some other little details, once you hit town?

I've had players who gave me a bare-bones backstory, but then got upset if I filled in any details for them.

If I don't want interaction, I'll often leave the backstory very empty.

I tend to get annoyed when the DM fills it in because that's not an area I want to focus as a player.

How annoyed depends on the expected level of DM dickery as evidenced elsewhere in the campaign. If I thought it was a one-off where I could comfortably expect to treat the event as 'colour' for the session without any long-term ramifications (i.e. family acting as dependents, setting up areas of campaign where I'll run into them again, familial expectations and/or attempts at obligation, resource drain, or attention grabbing) then I wouldn't mind much -- I'd just never refer to the event again.

 

[Nagol]

I don't normally get pitches to that extent. But if the players were interested in that level of brand-new setting? I can totally see running a game where my part in the negotiations would start with: "Okay, interesting start. Nobody else is really going for a comedy campaign, so we'll have to change some of those names (though I'm kind of fond of Hagglefierce). Captured red dragons are a bit excessive; firedrakes might work. Aaron's got an idea for an Imperial bounty hunter, so he gets first dibs at the human empire, but I doubt a dwarven trade parner will cause conflicts. You already know that being a noble's son will come with more complications than advantages, right? Cool. So, tell me why this guy is out adventuring..."

Bid, counter-proposal, counter-counter-proposal, meet arrangement that leaves both parties happy without treading on other PCs, preferably over food and drink. Sure, the player has filled in a lot, but worlds are big. That still leaves immense amounts of room for other players to build, and for me to fill the place with surprises.

Ah, but we're potentially talking page-fuls of this stuff from each player as backstory. I stuck with a single paragraph (at least in style).

The more detail every player adds the more likely it is of conflict between visions, forgetfulness, and constraint applied to the campaign setting.

Additionally, there is the whole "but my character should" line of argument. "I escaped from this city last year. I should know..."

 

[Desdichado]

I don't normally get pitches to that extent.

Me neither. I kinda said it earlier, but I'll reiterate; it seems as if we're defending a caricaturish strawman rather than reality. Of course if someone goes overboard, well, then they've gone overboard and that's an issue. This discussion seems to be continually trying to frame any player involvement in setting as already overboard to begin with.

Frankly, as a GM I'd find an entire group of such passive, uninterested players somewhat off-putting. I can deal with the occasional someone who's a little excessive who needs to be reined in slightly. Not that I have to; what is usually meant by this is that players come up with some family names and maybe a local crime boss or minor lord. I very rarely have any conflicts with that level of detail, and if I did, neither one of us would be upset with some minor tweaking to get my vision of the setting and the player's vision of his character's backstory aligned.

To use one example from a recentish D&D campaign I ran, I had one player who wanted to play a hobgoblin character, since I had specifically made a point of allowing them and postulated an expansionist hobgoblin empire to the southeast of the main campaign area. His vision was that he was from an independent hobgoblin culture or city-state that had recently been swallowed up by this expanionist empire. Rather than submit to foreign domination, he left town under bad conditions, and had a grudge against the empire itself. He picked the name of one of the nearer fringe cities within the empire's borders and had that be his homeland.

It was completely consistent with what I had already laid out, although of course he added a bit more detail than I had done. Most of the detail was specific to his character, though, not to the setting as a whole. If he'd gone on about how his city was famous for its dragonrider attack squadrons, well, then I'd have to have sat down with him and worked on it. But he didn't. And if we had done that, we'd have worked it out together.

No big deal.

Another character decided that his background was that he was essentially on the run from the mafia of another city on the northern rim of this inner sea region (we started the campaign as the ship on which all of the PCs were passengers was pulling into port at a city on the southern rim.) I hadn't even decided that that city had a mafia, much less that said mafia lord had a young wife that could be seduced and had not only her virtue but her bedchambers pilfered by a thief who's ego was bigger than his talent. Was it off-putting that by implication such a backdrop to the northern city was essentially implied wholly by the player? I never thought so. Again; that's the kind of stuff that I encourage. Another character decided that she was the cleric of a god she made up. She also decided that she was essentially a con-artist; she didn't really believe that this god was even real, but as a very minor deity, she took it upon herself to soclicit donations in his behalf. Again: going too far? I never thought so. Heck, I think that kind of stuff is great. I never require it, but I sure as heck encourage it.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

How annoyed depends on the expected level of DM dickery as evidenced elsewhere in the campaign. If I thought it was a one-off where I could comfortably expect to treat the event as 'colour' for the session without any long-term ramifications (i.e. family acting as dependents, setting up areas of campaign where I'll run into them again, familial expectations and/or attempts at obligation, resource drain, or attention grabbing) then I wouldn't mind much -- I'd just never refer to the event again.

Ah, I've got a player like you. He used to write all of his backgrounds as an orphaned loner so he couldn't be stradled with obligations. Every character. This seemed like player dickery to me and since we were both well entrenched in the Player vs. DM attitude of our 1E days I was often responding with high levels of dickery. "You only thought your parents were dead, mwa ha ha!"

But we've all moved past that attitude in my group and characters have families in the background that often live out as peaceful a life as any other commoner. The occasional appearance of family and friends from a character's background happen when they feel right by the plot. Familial interactions that aren't key to the plot take place "off-screen" and don't sap attention away from the epic adventure that the heroes are embarking upon.