Background questions for PCs

[Dirt]

I'm needing some advice from my fellow enworlders. I'm putting together a list of questions to ask a beginning player to help them flesh out their character.

For example:

What are the PCs ambitions?
What are the PCs personal likes/dislikes?


So, does anyone have a convenient list of questions that they use and would like to share? For that matter, if there are Dragon articles that you could recommend, I'd be happy to look at those as well and add them to my list.

 

[MojoGM]

This is a great idea. Asking players to fill out a brief questionaire on their character can really help to flesh them out, both in the Player and DM's minds.

I'll be watching this one and will probably put something together for my two campaigns to get a better idea of the characters.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

A must for all of my games:

"How do you know the other characters?"

I prefer to let the players come up with the reasons why they adventure together rather than have me force one on them.

 

[Gothmog]

Some other good questions to ask:

1) Where is the PCs family, who are they, what to they do?

2) What is the PC afraid of? (Everybody is afraid of something, so if they say "nothing" they are either sociopathic or lying).

3) What does the PC think of the current political/cultural structure, and how do they fit in?

4) What are the PCs attitudes towards other races?

5) Who are the major figures in the PCs life that shaped his desire to aadventure?

6) Is the PC religious? If so, what deity does he revere?

7) What are the PCs beliefs about magic and the supernatural?

8) Have each PC give at least 3 personality quirks. Something like: loves seafood, never sleeps in a room with a north window, and obsessively cleans under his fingernails with a dagger.

Thats all I can think of now, but hopefully this will jog your imagination.

 

[Dirt]

My more experienced players know that character personality is an important aspect...as such, they often have that ready at the beginning of the game. But, for the others that are still getting accustomed to my game, I'd like to provide a good list of questions that will help them to define their characters from the beginning of play. That is what prompted me to start compiling a list, and I thought that enworld would be a great place to start.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'm needing some advice from my fellow enworlders. I'm putting together a list of questions to ask a beginning player to help them flesh out their character.

For example:

What are the PCs ambitions?
What are the PCs personal likes/dislikes?


So, does anyone have a convenient list of questions that they use and would like to share? For that matter, if there are Dragon articles that you could recommend, I'd be happy to look at those as well and add them to my list.

Here is the list I use:

1. Who are the character’s parents? Are they alive or dead? Are they married, divorced, separated, never married? Where do they live? What do they do?

2. Does the character have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Are they alive or dead? Where are they? What do they do? Are they married? Do they have children?

3. What is the character’s favorite food? Least favorite food? What is the character’s favorite color? Least favorite color? What is the capital of Assyria?

4. How does the character wear his or her hair? If male, how does the character wear his beard?

5. Does the character have a distinctive style of dress?

6. Does the character have any distinguishing marks? Tattoos? Scars? Where and how did the character get them?

7. Who is the character? What does the character want? Why is the character here? Does the character have anything worth living for?

8. Did the character go to school? Where? What did the character study?

9. What has the character done in the last five years?

10. Was the character born in a rural or urban environment? Where did the character grow up?

11. What was the most important event in the character’s life? Why?

12. Who is the most important person in the character’s life? Why?

13. What is the character’s greatest fear? Is there a reason for this fear?

14. Does the character have any pets? How does the character feel about dogs? Cats? Horses? Other kinds of domesticated animals?

 

[Dirt]

Storm Raven, those are great! I'll add most of those to my list.

Gothmog, I'll make use of yours as well. Although the question regarding their political opinions - I've found this to be too difficult of a question. My campaign is fairly political, and inundating them with the information just tends to overwhelm them. If I could, I'd provide a 40 page intro to my campaign world for them to read...but I know that probably wouldn't be read...

Keep the posts coming!

When this thread seems to lose momentum, I'll take all of the suggestions, create a list, and post it for everyone.

Additionally, I'll be searching through my old Dragon magazines tonight and pulling anything associated with creating a PC personality/background. I'll post which issues contain relevant articles.

 

[Dirt]

BiggusGeekus,

I seldom ask my players how their characters know each other. Instead, I try to find a plot that would provide reason as to why they'd meet. In that scenario, I often have a few of the characters already know each other. In that case, I provide the reason why, and they provide how they interact together.

Either way, you're right - the characters NEED a reason to adventure together, and WHY they stay together. Your method may be a better approach, because mine sometimes falls apart in the end. Once the defining plot is gone (that usually takes 2 years), they don't always have sufficient reason to stay together as a group, and often only stay together out of habit at that point (which doesn't always work well).

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Does the character have a familiar? What sort of creature is it? Why did they choose that creature? What's it's name? Where did it come from?

Does the PC have a horse? What's the horses name? How does the PC treat the horse?

Is the PC with the party more for the betterment of his/her self or because they are working for some larger cause?

What is something the PC has always wanted to do/ won't rest until they achieve it?

If the PC is a spellcaster, do they individualize (sp?) their spells in any way?
(ie. my character loves bats and when she casts magic missile (sp?) instead of just two streaks of light, the missiles look like purple bats cause that's just her thing)

What was the PC's life like before meeting up with the party?

Does the PC have any known enemies or competitors in their field? What is their field?

 

[Dirt]

Off topic here....but Djeta, my players would have eaten you alive for your fondness of bats.

Example - I have an underdark campaign. There is a slave port, named Jeruport which exists in a null magic zone. All manner of underdark denizens come here to barter for goods that, on the surface world, would be illegal. The fact that magic does not exist in the city, makes skills, combat prowess, and thieving VERY dangerous. In any case, there were a couple characters engaged in combat in the most impoverished corner of the city (and they were losing badly). An NPC (and member of an obscure ranger group) jumped into the combat at the last minute to save them. From that point on, my players referred to that NPC as "Batman". I had to kill the NPC later, because his nickname just ruined the mood for me.

Anyway...I digress.

Your ideas on providing background for your horse is a GREAT idea. And, that leads me to think that there should be some description for an item or two that the character carries, which would help define their personality.

Maybe the fighter's cloak (with blood stains on it) is a hand-me-down from his deceased father. Even if the history is mundane, it can be interesting....like "as a child, my character was given a colorful strip of cloth from a travelling gypsy during the festival for the Season of the Winter Usher, which she now wears in her hair"...perhaps the stories of the world that the gypsy woman told were part of the reason why this character adventures...